China Photos ready and up....

[miguynmkoi]

Finally!!  Got Time? 
After gleaning out the photos from my trip to China's Yunnan Province, they are ready for your enjoyment    I've been home for a month now, hassled with the weather and my yard, finished all the holiday festivities, like birthdays and a wonderful Christmas.  Preparing for the New Year now 

Click here to view: http://www.pbase.com/miguynmoi/china

Enjoy the photos of our Adventure!


Happy New Year!!

[Jerry]

Excellent Annette!

[Mikey]

Very nice trip Annette.  I've only gotten thru day 1.  I'll return tomorrow.  Thanks for sharing.  The food made me hungry.... 

[miguynmkoi]

HaHa    I miss the food too!  And the hotels, food, drivers, carefree vacation attitude, food, massages, prices for jewelry, and for a change, everyone taking care of me.  Did I mention missing the great food in China? 

[El Jefe]

Wow lots of great pictures!  reminds me of all of those times I was in Hong Kong, Loved the food, even thought I recognized a place or two 

[miguynmkoi]

Hey Andy, I had some special treats waiting for me in Macau and HK too.  But that's another post of it's own 

[Jonna]

Wow Annette!  I just looked at all of the pictures and they are stunning.  The Buddhist monastery, Tibet (it sure looked COLD!), the Stone Forest... I was enthralled.  What a great tour and great pictures. 

I know you said you are ABC, but I think your husband was born in China?  Do either or both of you speak one of the Chinese languages?  Did you get more insight if you did?  Were the people really curious about you and your life?  I know, too many questions. It was just a fascinating tour in pictures and it made me think of all these questions.   

What a dream to go on a tour like that.  Ahhhh.... a fantasy.   

[miguynmkoi]

Hi Jonna!  Our trip to China was fantastic!  Over the years it seems that everyone there have converted to speaking only the Mandarin dialect.  I know two dialects in Chinese, unfortunately Mandarin isn't one of them.  I haven't a clue to that dialect besides the usual thanks, no thanks, hi, bye routine.  My husband learned Mandarin from co-workers and TV, lucky butt. 

Our tour was in English (thank God), and Mandarin.  So I got the gist of everything we needed to know.  So if there is an advantage to knowing the language I wouldn't know.  It sucked when my DH spoke Mandarin with some fellow travelers who didn't speak much English.  I would sit there like a smiling fool, nodding and prodding my DH to translate.  He's not so good at that 

This is interesting: During the tour at the end of a day we would get a massage either in the hotel's spa or the local guide would arrange a service to come to our room.  Any how I had to remind my DH to explain to the masseuse that I couldn't handle the full killer rub down (hurts like heck, but DH loves it) and that I didn't speak Mandarin (OMG or maybe in their case OMB).  They almost always said, "She looks Chinese; why doesn't she speak the language; and didn't her parents teach Chinese her in America?").  Oh the shame!

BTW:  The massages were very very good, full body massages, lasting at least 60 to 90 minutes.  Oil is extra.     The price, a whopping 60 to 80 yuens = $8 to $10 US.  We rich Americans can afford to tip the masseuse the same amount as the price!  Even though our dollar is low.  So if you're ever in China the best deal is the massage.  I look forward to these massages when we tour China.  Nothing better than the feet massage at the end of a long day walking.     I'd be lucky to get a 15 minute back rub and a few of hot rocks (?) on my spine for $50 here in SoCal.

[Jonna]

ohhhhh.... my old bones are yearning for massages like that.  I actually could get one here for a lot less money than in Calif, but I'd have to go and look for it. 

That's really interesting that most people now speak Mandarin. The govt has really unified the country in an amazingly short time.  I worked with many ABC in San Francisco, most of them spoke one or another Chinese language but generally not Mandarin.  Lots of Cantonese and the language from Szechuan.  In fact, there was one guy who only spoke Mandarin and used to tell the others that his was the elite language, but they all just made fun of him.  I had one really funny guy who worked for me and spoke a dialect that he claimed was only spoken in one village and by only 8 people.  Truth was he didn't want to have to translate.  However, whenever it was a pretty Chinese girl who didn't speak English, he would laugh and say she was one of the 8 people.

I would love to tour China, I think it is a fascinating country.  Maybe one of these days, if I don't go broke on this house in Mexico first 

[miguynmkoi]

   I may be one of those 8 people too!  The dialect I grew up with is TaiSan,from southern China.  Many of its citizens immigrated to California especially to San Francisco and LA.  Others went to NY.  All the big city Chinatowns were begun from these immigrants.  I feel like hometime when visiting these places 

[Jonna]

Heh! May be.  His last name was Wong and I think he said his family had come from the south, I don't remember that well though.  It's the old CRS.  I always just thought he hated being asked to translate - unless it was a pretty girl. 

[marla]

Annette, your pictures are absolutley stunning and were a joy to look at .  My SIL travels to China at least twice a year.  She works with a nursing program she set up between Bejing and Univ. San Fransico Medical complex.  Now I have pictures to give me more of an idea of the area.  Thanks for sharing your link and the time put in on it.

[miguynmkoi]

Well Jonna except for Hong Kong and Macau pretty much all of Mainland China now speak Mandarin.  In the bigger cities schools only teach Mandarin and also English.  Darn and it took me so long to learn Cantonese after my parents dialect was considered country folk (uneducated-wise).  This ol' dog will never make it in China unless I move there full time.  Actually not too bad if you can find the right place to retire 

[miguynmkoi]

Thank you Marla. 

Two years ago I visited Beijing and I can tell you it's way more modern and commercialized than the southwest region of Yunnan Province.  Beijing has more history as in the rulers, the major players, and Yunnan has more of the natural beauties Mother Nature has to offer.  But all in all China has lots to see in the form of Nature.  I figure it's better to see these places now before China becomes too commercialized.  Anyone wanna go to the next adventure? 

[Mikey]

I know two dialects in Chinese, unfortunately Mandarin isn't one of them.  I haven't a clue to that dialect besides the usual thanks, no thanks, hi, bye routine.

I find that interesting.  I should think the dialects would be similar enough that you would be able to communicate.  Spanish speaking friends recently visited Italy and the languages were similar enough that they were able to communicate with Italians.

[miguynmkoi]

Dialects in neighboring counties or in some cases villages can be very similar but the "language of the people" basically started with the big shots from Beijing.  Beijing is very far from the southern China villages of my ancestors - big country. 

Accents on the same word makes pronunciation very important otherwise you could be saying a totally different thing.  Believe me you don't want to be mispronouncing words     Cantonese is totally different from Mandarin, to my ears anyhow.  Sadly I was never really exposed to Mandarin at home here and I know more Spanish (mui bad) than Mandarin. 

Gotta find me some Mandarin speaking friends.