Photos, and I’m back!

Hey all,

A big thank you to Mom for posting blogs for me– China and WordPress did not agree on much. I’ll post the rest about my travels soon. I’m still getting over jetlag!

Here are some photos from my trip. I took over six hundred fifty!

Whew. I’ll highlight some of the photos in later posts.

It’s good to be back, but it seems pretty surreal here. I had to readjust to using a fork. The other day, a guy came up to me in the mall and offered me a trial size chicken teriyaki as a part of a promotion for the store he worked at. My boyfriend told him “Thanks man, I’m good.” I totally ignored him. Matt asked me why I’d been rude to the guy, and it hit me then that this is America, not China, and if I talk to someone offering me something, they’re not going to chase me down the street trying to get me to buy it. Oops. Sorry, guy at the mall.

Going to China

I’m headed to China for three weeks on July 22. I got the opportunity through my college and ASIANetwork, an organization that gives grants for Asian studies at liberal arts schools. I am going with four other students and one professor, Scott Henson.

The main idea of this trip is to study the effects of globalization on the Dong and Tibetan people. The Dong people are one of 56 minorities recognized by the People’s Republic of China. They are mostly centered around the borders of the Guizhou, Hunan, and Guangxi provinces. We will be visiting a village around the Liping area in the Guizhou province, called Zaidang.

In Tibet, we will be visiting a village called Tagong. If it is held, we will also go to the Litang Horse festival.

Within these villages, we’ll be interviewing villagers with the help of translators. We’ll split into groups of two, one guy and one girl, and go across the village. We each have different areas we’ll be asking questions about. My area is technology and communications, so I’ll be asking about how people communicate using phones, computers, and television. Tagong is more modern than Zaidang, so we expect to find a lot of interesting information about the differences.

I’m really excited about this trip! Its going to broaden my horizons when it comes to my cultural knowledge. I don’t know much about Asian cultures, so this will really be a great experience for me. I love international travel, so this opportunity is amazing.

Dr. Henson will have his computer on the trip, so hopefully I’ll be able to blog some when we’re in larger cities. Until then, I’ll be providing more information about the cultures we’ll be seeing.