Do you want to go to China?

One day.

agree

especially one day in summer of 2008

Of course I would want to go to China one day. But ehh flora, are you offering a trip?

haaaa,of course not, ET almost knows that now China is developing so fast, so there are more and more people want to come to China to do business, but first you should learn some Chinese which is required and necessary, so we can help people who want to come to China to learn Chinese.~~

flora, I have been to China twice, and the only Chinese word I know is sheshe. I know a few others, only because one of my best friend was a Chinese, and I've known him for 44 years. He passed away two years ago. Yes, China is developing fast - to which I can attest, because I visited in 1992 and in 2000, and saw the big change 1) many tall buildings in Beijing, 2) more cars and less bicycles, 3) much cleaner, 4) new Beijing International Airport, and 5) more shops and restaurants catering to the middle class. We had tour guides some of the time, but we were able to walk all over Beijing by ourselves, take taxis to different places (by having our hotel write the destination and the name of our hotel in Chinese), and eating at restaurants by pointing. Does Beijing still have the silk market? I have also visited Xian, Shanghai-2xs, Gauilin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong-2xs.

O really, it seems you know a lot of China, yes, the silk market is still there, and many other shopping mall are opened, I garantee you that you can not imagine the great changes during the 4 years, it's amazing, I hope you could come to China again when you have a holiday~~

flora, I hope to visit China again some day. I travel extensively, but feel especially "at home" in China for some unexplainable reason. I have traveled to over 80 countries, and will be traveling to Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary in August, then to Antarctica in January 2005. On my first visit to Beijing in 1992, we stayed at the Jing Guang Center Hotel which was the tallest building in Beijing. In 2000, we stayed at the Gloria Plaza Hotel. I took our younger son with me on the second trip to China. We really enjoyed our visit to the Hutong and the large park, Beihai Park, behind the Forbidden City.

Perhaps you should go back to Beijing in 2008, for the Olympics, wouldn't it be fitting 1992, 2000, 2008?

shibo, A very good idea; if I'm still in good health. I'm now 68 years old, and I'm not sure how well my health will hold up!

welcome all to my country

lemonegg, Welcome to A2K. Where do you live in China?

i am live in Kunming,Yunnan province, ,Maybe Lijiang and Dali you will be familiar with

I went there a month ago. Very fascinating experience - it's like visiting another planet.

And one can manage without speaking Mandarin at all, in large cities, at least (I've been to Beijing). Chinese take it for granted that the foreigners are 'mute' (it's really tricky to get these tonal vowels right...).

I only learnt Cantonese, in Hong Kong, and so it's useless for travelling in the north - but lemonegg, how about Kunming - would anyone understand me?

I am afaird not. Only HK and few province like Guangdong or Fujian speak Cantonese

but you can speak English right? lol ,many educated people can understand you

I even saw lots of street vendors in Dali& Lijiang can bargain foreigner by english -_-b

Great!! I write textbooks for children to learn English in China, so it's nice to know they are used all over the place! Even in the Uighur regions in the far west, where Uighur children are not allowed to study English at school, they did indeed speak some.

Is that ture? Only I know that the children in the far west is too poor to go to school , so they don't have a chance to study english, but I not sure they are forbidden to learn english by the local government

If they are at school, they learn Chinese, but only the Chinese (Han) children are taught English. I suppose if there was an English teacher in their neighbourhood, they would be 'allowed' to study - but effectively they are ruled out of the better career-prospects because of a 'different' education.