Comments on: Being a Foreigner in a Small Chinese Town

By: Tim P.

Tim P. — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

You’re right, Shelley did do a neat map. Are you going to have a similar one?

How did he get into Xizang province? Government tour?

We’ll be watching for “John Pox” to strike China. What’s “John Pox”? Taht’s those red dots all over the face of the map.

By: Jing

Jing — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Tibet has been open to foreign travelers for quite some time. There are tons of backpackers and mountaineers in Tibet now. Just a few weeks ago, I heard that a pair of Koreans dissappeared on one expedition gone awry. You may need some sort of permit from your friendly neighborhood PSB to enter Tibet though.

p.s. Did you know spammers were hitting your comment archive John? Theres a bunch of ads for online casinos, pornography, and other things in comments from June.

By: John B

John B — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Reminds me of my time spent in Baishan, a little town (only 500K people!) in southern Jilin province. I was, until about five days before I left, the only foreigner in the town, and everywhere I went I was the coolest damn thing around. The restaurant I went to frequently even made a menu that, while containing no English, had photos of all of the foods so you could find something that looked tasty and point. It was great.

Though you can certainly improve your Chinese quickly in a place like that, it’s hard to start learning in such a place. My Chinese at the time was almost non-existant, and it was really really hard to learn anything because there was nobody around that could explain words or concepts that you don’t understand.

Still, I shocked and amazed with my knowledge of such esoteric words as “potato” and “beef.”