hi meena, Hongkong is a territory of china that was ceded to Britain on a 99 yr lease. the lease was over in 1997, then britain gave HK back to china and china accepted HK as a "special administrative zone". we have a 1 country 2 systems policy which enables HK people to enjoy most of the rights and privileges that they did when HK was a british colony...now Hongkong is one of the powerful business and finance centres of asia..it has a cosmopolitan population with good infrastructure..
hi........ if we talk about the food habit of people in china..list is endless for non-vegetarian people..in guangdong province people eat almost all the animals including rat, snakes whatever they try everything but it is not common for everyone. One can get meat of different animals only thing is money to afford.. We can get lot of vegetables too but i dont find them good... its a fact in india too we get hybrid but here i dont understand how all the vegetables looks so fresh but next day it will be rotten if you dont use it same day, this applies specially for carrot and cucumbers which i need everyday but now we stopped using carrots..when we bring all the vegetables i will wash carrots separately dry and then put in the fridge but next day it will be sticky and when i peel it my God i hardly find it useful...i threw few carrots then i decided may be these are good and i am mad throwing all the carrots...i decided to taste Witsendit was so bad.....they polish most of the vegetables...even fruits they apply some chemical so that fruits will look from outside and fresh but once you cut it real story comes out.. I wonder packing in the malls ....they cleverly hide the rotten part we can't see and they sell it ...when the pack is opened real state of the vegetable is shown.. here we don't get coconut, sometimes it is available in walmart...so i got some coconut it was beautifuly packed..i wonder does coconut needs to packed so nicely...yeah when i removed the packing surprise..it was already broken and rotten...one have to be very careful while selecting packed fruits and vegetables....
hi mullai, please refer to the "managing food while in china" in this same subforum...it should be of help to you!
Hi IL'ites, I am really interested to know more about China, Hongkong and the places nearby. Especially the culture, environment, schools, food, way of life in general etc. Since the person who started this thread has not given any information, other IL'ites like Vidhya Parani and Padma can please shed light on this. :hiya Really looking forward to see interesting & informative replies from all of you.:wave Cheers Krithika
hi friends... drop some questions what about china you would like to know...i am not getting what to write here....but i will tell you one thing its very difficult to find anyone who can really help you.. in government offices people help you to some extent but outside they really dont care about anyone...one best answer people say "i dont know" if they dont want to help and other"i dont understand what you are saying" if they speak engllish but they understand everything....no feeling no emotions and no humanity... But one thing i appreciate is here eveything is so organised and people too care for everything. I really appreciate flyovers and four lane roads. Flowers everywhere they maintain it really beautifully i see everytime dry pld flowers being replaced, i love to walk just to watch these lovely flowers.
hi krithika and all other friends, thanks for your interest... like padma says, some questions would be good to start the discussion...
Hi Padma & Vidya, Thanks for your quick replies ! So, here are the questions.. (1) What are the interesting & famous places in China for a tourist? (of course apart from the Great Wall of China, by the way, have you guys been to this man made wonder? If so..then you can describe this and any other places ) (2) How is the environment, in terms of road, traffic, pollution? Are the roads, houses, buildings well laid out? (3) Education- How are the schools/colleges? Is Mandarin mandatory @ the schools? Do they have English medium schools? Do people come from India to pursue college studies in China? If so..what are famous/reputed colleges here? (4) How is the culture? will it be a culture shock for people from India? What is their national dress? (5) Food- What is the staple food here? Do you get vegetarian food? What type of food do the Chinese eat mostly? Do you get Indian groceries in China? (6) Entertainment- What are the sources of entertainment here? Please elaborate about the type of movies, music, fun places for family & kids etc. Do English & Indian movies get released in theatres? Do you get Dvd's of our Indian movies? (7) Are there big shops/Malls/plazas? Are there shops to purchase Indian jewellery & apparels? Hope I have not bombarded you guys with so many questions!! It's just that I wanted to visit China for a long time ...and of course, it will be easy to google and find out. But it will be great and more interesting to hear from people who actually lived there! Since you have first hand experience, you can relate to all the above much better! Thanks in advance ! Cheers Krithika
Hi Krithika, well good questions and you have not bombarded at all...i will answer each question in different posts....i think Vidhya will be able to answer much better- (1) What are the interesting & famous places in China for a tourist? (of course apart from the Great Wall of China, by the way, have you guys been to this man made wonder? If so..then you can describe this and any other places ) We start from Beijing the capital city. As you have already mentioned great wall of China, i have been there but i couldn't walk to the top but it is really something to see if you are in good health. But one thing strongly i would like to suggest if you are planning to visit great wall bring your own stuff for eating if you are pure veg who dont eat egg. For non vegetarian its good. One thing which i didn't like there are few movable lavatories which are not at all hygienic, so before leaving be prepared. You can enjoy cable car ride to reach the wall few people prefer to walk but i wanted cable car ride. In beijing another good place is Forbidden City, you can understand by the name itself its a forbidden city. Forbidden city is a must to visit if you are in beijing. This city has originally 9,999 rooms but due to fire and accidents it became smaller and smaller in circumference and i guess there are 450 rooms now....i am confused a bit for the numbers. This city was only for the imperial family, common citizens were not allowed to enter. If they enter by mistake they have to face death penality or they will be turned to eunuch and will become imperial servant. Its really too big you can see throne of the king vessels, bed. There is a movies Curse of the golden flower shooted in forbidden city. If you watch that movie you will get much better idea, originally chinese movie but available with english subtitles. Then there is Temple of heaven, i have not visited but heard its very peaceful place. If somebody prefers to buy latest fashion accessories or dressed, you are at the correct place "Silk street", here you can all imitation of the leading brands really look good and quality also good. One must be good at bargainig, best thing in silk street everyone speaks good english. You can get pearl, crystal, topaz, zade ornaments...i purchased pearl because it will be much cheaper even if its not genuine no worries it will be far cheaper. Here silk bed cover is really good a must to purchase. This is only i know about beijing. There are many places to visit Chengdu- you can see pandas, then Kunming is beautiful place whole year is spring season. Another beautiful city is Xian something like Goa. Wuhan - a city of lakes. I am not remembering much now, as i remember i will post some more.. Vidhya will be able to add more points...
hi Krithika.. coming to your second question- 2) How is the environment, in terms of road, traffic, pollution? Are the roads, houses, buildings well laid out? City where we are living is really good less polluted, its industrial development area. If we talk about the infrastructure and city lay out i really appreciate it is really well built. Roads are really broader generally you will find three lanes, there are four lanes too. Only flyovers are two lanes. Traffic is not so jammed as we have in india. But morning office hours and evening time you can face traffic jam. But there are many flyovers so we don't have to spend much time at one place except the high ways. Pollution is really there we can't avoid this fact. Small black dust particles always in the air. I have heard from chinese people that these dust particles come from inner mongolia, in our city sometimes we can see in the city a black type layer seems to be cloud nut that is not cloud. Houses and buildings are well plannerd but the new appartments if we are looking for the medium budget appartment they are not suitable for the indian cooking less space. But we can get bigger for the very high price. Old appartments are also good well planned. You can get sunlight in the house whole day if sun is there. Most of the colonies have park. I really wonder how they manage to maintain greenery everywhere parks you will never see with dry grass, even flowers on the road side are always fresh ones as they keep on changing when it starts to dry. I observe except for the few major cities other cities are much spacious. I appreicate their city plan. Schools are really very big. Transport is not a big problem if you can tell the place name in mandarin, because here place name is not same what we call in english....like i will tell you...to get the light railway train we need to go citizen plaza but none of the taxi drivers understand citizen plaza we have to the mandarin word for that "shimin gongzong". If we have everything written in chinese it will be of much help. Taxi is the for traveling. You can see many women taxi drivers. If light railways is available that is best to chose rather than taxi. Railways are much cheaper and so convenient no fear of getting cheated by taxi drivers. If you want something more tell me....... Dear Vidhya... i have mentioned all about north china i think you can mention about Shenzen and hong kong..
wow krithika, looks like you want to go really deep in to all things chinese... well, as for most of the ques padma will be able to answer better, becoz i've never lived in mainland china...i'll try to give info on HK and little bit on mainland based on my experiences during my 2 week trip as a tourist... 1.first and foremost thing about china i would like to talk about is the great wall...yes, we went to the great wall on last christmas day, it was a freezing day up there and my god, breathtaking.....i would recommend all our friends who have interest in travel and sightseeing to go to the great wall...it is really a man made marvel in the sense that, even standing upright on such rough mountain terrain is precarious, i wonder how they built such a massive structure there in those days when there was no crane or modern construction tools...from the badaling part where the highest point of the great wall lies, one can see the wall extending to as long as one can strain the eyes and see..and really i felt that these chinese people are not ordinary humans to even think of such an enormous task...so many 1000s of people died while trying to construct the great wall...but it is a myth that the mortar used is made of bone paste from those died people...next is the forbidden city in the heart of beijing...it was the residing palace and administrative centre for the ruling chinese imperial families..again the scale of the vast palace is amazing...there is a summer palace in the ouskirts of beijing which is also beautiful..it is famous because the empress dowager made it her official residence...there is a beautiful lake and garden surrounding it..ofcourse when we went, the lake was fully frozen...any trip to beijing would be incomplete without seeing the peking opera...it is a classic chinese opera performance really enjoyable...for non vegetarians ofcourse the peking duck, a delicacy i dont know anything else about it..tiananmen square where the famous public address by mao happened is a popular spot for taking pictures...temple of heaven is also great place to see.. ming tombs is also a place worth seeing next we went to this historical city called Xian...to see the terracota warriors museum...it is wonderful to see so many terracota statues having been made and buried along with the emperors body, they have excavated the burial sites and have kept the warriors in the same formation as they were buried..there is a wild goose pagoda which was built by the buddhist monk huen tsang..we read about this pilgrim in school history books...he came back from india with some religious scrolls and built this pagoda to store them in safe place..there is a nice garden around this pagoda. there is a fortress wall around old city with a bell tower and drum tower in the centre.. next we headed to shanghai...dont miss to see yu gardens in shanghai..it is a old beautiful walled garden. there are nice street shops around yu garden for good souvenirs..the river cruise and pearl tv tower are must see...nanjing road shopping is all hyped up but it is just another street full of western style shopping malls..one word of caution, if you plan on buying china silk, it is better to go to state run silk shops (like co-optex back home) outside no guarantee for pure stuff...
