Rambling....

Here's where my Western eyes really discuss what I think I see...

Capitalism has won. You walk down the streets of Beijing, and, other than the lack of Roman letters, its the same as any other large city. They are pioneering new (to me) methods of advertising. Imagine sitting in the subway, and having a series of TVs placed at such a distance from each other that your eye views them as one image. (There's some physics thing with the train velocity and eye imaging that I'll leave for someone else to comment on.) I saw Nestle advertising milk, and other things I personally didn't understand.

It's loud. Everywhere, it's loud.

The trains: Wow. It was like an out-of-China experience. The train to Xi'an left PROMPTLY. No one spit. No one could smoke (The Surgeon General apparently issues no warnings here.). The bathrooms were clean. They had toilet paper. They were quiet, at least more so than the ones in India. The speakers played classical Western music. At a reasonable volume.

I feel so lost in this country. The language thing. It's not like in Europe, where I would at least feel more at home with the Roman alphabet. It's frustrating that I can't even ask why there's such a long line. Or make small talk waiting in said line. The phrasebook has been indispensible.

I think that's all for now. Probably more will occur five minutes after I log off...