Chinese Character Fun

So it turns out that all of that time i spent studying Chinese 
characters as part of my Korean fluency endeavour was a complete waste 
of time, and actually hurts more than helps me, aside from the numbers 
side of things.  there are apparently two types of characters, 
simplified and traditional.  simplified is what the chinese use, and the 
characters change in meaning sometimes, or they're drawn completely 
differently, so, it's more than a little confusing.  in korean, the 
character for gold also means friday, and sometimes dragon....in china, 
it means gold, and value, and things related to gold.  it makes a whole 
lot more sense, however, it also means that the 80 or so characters that 
i do know have to be relearned and drawn properly, as well as the 
meaning relearned to reflect reality.  i thought that studying chinese 
would help korean, i talked to a korean today though, who said that 
learning chinese characters was a lot like having a lobotomy, and that 
it was beyond frustrating, i had wondered why there weren't more koreans 
studying chinese here, it's because they have to relearn everything that 
they were taught and educated about at an early age.  i think it would 
be like trying to learn newfie in canada.

i was watching the news and reading online today about how the middle 
class of china is really starting to travel.  what they don't define is 
what is considered middle class in China.  In China, to be considered 
wealthy, you need a net worth of over 100 million Yuan. That comes out 
to be about $16 million USD.  the middle class starts at around 12,000 
Yuan, or about $2k USD.  so, when they talk about the rise of the middle 
class in china, you really can't be sure what they're talking about.

Wandering around in the daytime, i kept thinking that there really 
weren't many people about.  You look around here and there are high rise 
apartment buildings as far as the eye can see in every single direction, 
and at every conceivable distance.  Walking around, however, there seem 
to be the same amount of people also wandering around as would be in the 
USA.  As i have some time to kill tonight, before attempting to call my 
bank manager in Canada, i thought i'd go for a brief walk tonight.  The 
crowds are beyond belief.  there's a serious line up for elevators, 
there's large groups of people everywhere you see, the streets are 
packed with cars, the crosswalks packed with pedestrians, it's pure 
insanity.

The housekeeping staff at this hotel are a little demanding.  they get 
upset if you're in the room when they are supposed to be cleaning it.  
you'd think it would be easy to be out for whatever time they do that, 
but it's actually not easy to predict.  they clean in an order that i 
have yet to determine.  i have had a few messages on my answering 
machine for when they determined that 10 pm should be the turndown 
service, or that 7 am is a great time to clean my room....  tonight, i 
was waiting for them to ring the doorbell (how do they do that, i can't 
locate the thing on my door???), so i went upstairs to the lobby to read 
a book while they straightened up.  i was reading a book on my kindle 
when a seemingly nice woman sat next to me and started talking to me.  
her english was not very good, but it's still a lot better than my 
mandarin, which now consists of:  hi, bye, thank you, it was delicious, 
and one other phrase that i learned from a chinese mechanic that seems 
to not be willing to leave my vocabulary.  so, i turned off my kindle, 
and answered a few of her questions.  she asked me where i was from, if 
i had friends, then she asked me to just "talky talky" to her in 
english, whatever that means.  i asked her what she was doing at the 
hotel, she said massage, and that for 170 RMB she would give me a great 
massage.... i suspect that there was a lot more on the table there, but 
i was still surprised that she cost less than my dinner did, which is a 
bit depressing...it was good though!  i think that means that i need to 
get out of this area, it's too expensive.  i'm still a little surprised 
that she was up on the lobby floor (33rd floor in this hotel), looking 
for clientele.  i suppose i shouldn't be, she was dressed more 
conservatively than about half the chinese guests here.

every book that i read on china, and almost every newsgroup or blog 
complained about the noise factor.  truth is, i didn't find it a whole 
lot noisier than most big american cities i've been in.  the hotel is 
certainly a lot quieter than any of the hotels in cranbrook, which were 
all inexplicably built next to the train tracks.  I also quite enjoy all 
the lights that you can see.  i'll post some pictures at some point, i'm 
pretty sure.  i've tried to take a few from my room, due to the view, 
but the flash keeps reflecting off of the window, which is a bit 
irritating.  perhaps i should turn it off?  the only noise that is 
driving me crazy right now, is the yappy little dog that i hear, i kind 
of want to find it, and then find some koreans for a bit of Po Shin Tong.

i actually thought that China would be a lot like Korea, but the two 
have very few things in common, outside of the obvious (the sea of short 
people with black hair).  I've actually found that on average, the 
Chinese tend to be far more polite than Koreans are...or at least were 
the last time i was there, i can't see that changing though.  i haven't 
had any kids call me "monkey man", or make fun of me, and nobody has run 
up saying "F**k you", which seems to be the first english phrase that 
most korean kids learn.... that phrase and "happy birthday", which led 
to some disturbing conversations.  most just smile and nod at you, and 
say "ni hao" or "good day", which i find quite pleasant.