(Untitled)

[plasticpogostik]

Yibin is the first place in which I've understood and really related to the old saying that "everything changes and everything stays the same." I went walking last night down nearly every street in the city, the same as I used to do when I first arrived here. I was amazed at how most of the shops I didn't recognize: they were different than they

Comments

[rosst]

Well, if 75% of China lives in towns like Yibin, haven't you learned more about China than you would if you had spent a year or so in Shanghai or Beijing? I don't know if comparing it to Billings is entirely fair - According to this 80% of the US lives in metro areas, so Montana isn't really an accurate respresentation of the standard lifestyle of Americans

[plasticpogostik]

I've gotta ship my guzheng slowboat, maybs I could dump in a bunch of ramen. man this is gonna be expensive...
metro shirts = MEIYOU.

The thing that's up for debate is what do you call a metro area? Yibin is definitely metro, but still the rural smalltown head-up-its-own-ass metro area that you find in the country side. So to put these people in the same living class as Beijing/Shanghai would be FALLACIOUS! Perhaps the same is true with [small city X in rural Ohio that's still metro] and New York.

Yes, my point was that maybe i've learned more about China on average, but how much of that will be useful as i'll never live in this type of situation again? The main question to me is how much of it is cultural and how much of it is rural:urban?

[cowboy_pirate]

F the Chinese. Hardcore.