Monday 10th

Hi everyone,

 

Attended a culture class at 8am this morning. A presentation and talk was given by a Professor Yan whose great, great, great, great grandfather was a decendent of Confuscious's number one student  a highly intelligent gentleman who they say was so clever that he never had to take books to classes as he remembered them of by heart. Unfortunately he died at the early age of 34yrs. The professor had very interesting stories on the culture of China.

 

The last Emperor of Shang Dynasty was Emperor Zhou who led a luxurious life and tortured both ministers and his people. This intensified conflicts across the kingdom and the Shang Dynasty was finally over thrown by Wu (Chief of Zhou tribe) ending the long reign of the Shang Dynasty in Chinese history.This gave rise to the Republic of China, ended the feudal monarchic rule which lasted for more than 2,000 years.

 

There is a collection of three hundred poems which contains love lyrics, didactic poems, religious hymns and folk songs which taught the people how to speak and to sing but it also taught them how to think. It contains many poems of high religious fervor and devotion, it also included a great many others which expressed grave doubts of the religious faith of old or openly critisized the social and political order of the time.

China is a multi-religious country.......

Daoism, Buddhism, Islamisim, Protestantisim,Catholicisim, normal religious activities are protected by the constitution.

 

We also learned of some rather odd words that the Chinese have for food;

 

Pork lungs in chili sauce = slices of husband and wifes lung

 

spring chicken= Chicken without sexual life

 

Griddle cooked chicken with pepper = this is rather rude so I couldent even put it on here lol.

 

I have many photos of these as actual signs in resturants and signs of direction which are hillarious.

 

We had another Chinese language lesson today and then had free time

 

yeeeee hhaaaaaaa!!!!

 

We all went into Shanghai again and shopped till we literally dropped my back is very sore and has been for over a week now so being on our feet for over 8 hours shopping was not a great idea at all. However I did get many nice gifts and enjoyed the bargaining which is part of the markets culture. At times it was very amusing how much the price would drop and at other times they would not budge on the price. Tonight we are chilling with some beers in one of the girls rooms then off out to a bar then club.

Tomorrow is another early start to a river cruise................So do not expect me to be  in one piece when I come home  because these young ones are hard to keep up with. However as my family know I'm always up for a challenge.

keep well see you soon L x