Things you didn't know about China (part 1)

1. There is no sky around here, only thick, gray, stinky layer of smog.
2. There are no traffic rules. One should drive as he pleases. The more people drive as they please, the less accidents will occure. There are no real diffrences between a red light and a green light - after all, they're only lights.
3. Equality between men and women is important - women too drive buses, trains, taxi cabs, do labour work, lay brciks, sweep the streets, spit, smoke and litter - exactly as men do.
4. The kids have the most efficient dress code - they wear pants without a rear part, which means that they go around town with their asses bear. they just shit all over the place (and we mean ALL OVER THE PLACE, even inside the train station) whenever they like, without any trouble.
5. The chinese people truly believe in the devision of labour - everyone has his tiny, distinguished, job. there's the man that drives the bus and there's the woman who sells the tickets on the bus. there's the man that moves block X from A to B and there's the man that moves it Back to A... One guy is in charge of cleaning the trian's floor and then another guy wipes it with a mop and finally the third guy rolls back the carpet.
6. Anything you didn't ask SPESIFICALLY, no one will bother telling you. For example: in the ticket office for the Terracotta Warriors near Xian there are 10 cashiers. when you ask the first one for student's tickets she will tell you to go to the left. you don't really understand what that means and wonder your way to the leftmost cashier. over there you find out that the student's ticket is founf in cashier no. 6. When you get there you find out that there are no student's tickets at all. You go back yo the woman that sent you there, and then she sais that it's at the cashier next to her. The cashier next to her sits a woman. she amiles but doesn't do anything about it. A chinese kid steps in line in front of you and gets a student's ticket from her. You step right after him, claim the same one, but the answer is negative. WHY???, you demand to know. And the answer is simple - there are student's tickets, of course there are. and they're right there, but they are only for chinese students, not for you. So why couldn't you say so in the first place??? Because you didn't ask...
7. Chiarman Mao Ze-Dong's portrait appears on all kinds of bank notes (cash).

Leaving xian tomorrow on the way to Chengdu. We'll stay there for a week and a half, or so. Promise to upload pictures from the holy mountains as soon as we'll get on their peaks!