China? Really?

These children were dancing to Thalia's song Mujer Latina on TV. The reason why I recognized this is because Thalia's a popular singer and I have this song. One of many instances which has bewildered me since being in China.

I have been in China for a week now and have found traces of other cultures here which is really surprising. I thought China was just starting to become westernized, so the fact that there are other cultures infiltrating here other than the west is just plain crazy.

I suppose the first encounter was at the Beijing airport. I sat next to an Indian family and heard Hindi which must have infiltrated my Chinese. Since then, I have been accidentally throwing in a Hindi word or two in my Chinese.

Yesterday, I met a Ukranian teacher, Irina, who was speaking Russian to a Chinese person. They were having a perfectly fluent conversation. They have many foreign teachers here, but I didn't realize there were many students taking Russian here. It makes the US look terrible.

I was watching TV and encountered a show where the children were singing, "Wo ai ni," which means "I love you," and they were signing it! This excited me more than anything but I was so confused. Why were they signing American Sign Language rather than Chinese Sign Language? Was this sign the same in both languages? I'd be surprised if they were because in ASL, its just a combo of I, L, and Y. I would think in Chinese it would be a combination of W, A, I or something more logical like that.

I was in a store with Richard and I was watching Linkin Park and Jay-Z on TV while he bought a WWF hat with a panda on it.

It reminds me of Des Moines. I've been told by numerous people that they're so surprised by how often they would see multiracial families or groups of friends of different races. In bigger cities, I guess it's more the norm for people to stick to their own ethnic groups rather than mix it up.