I agree with Melissa

I would definately have to agree with Melissa's post on "Knowing A Little Chinese can go a Long Way". Learning Chinese was one of the favorite times of the trip for me, between learning it in class and everyone was so afraid to try, to then learning it on the bus where we were so into it, and finally trying it out wherever we went. However, the thing that I found to be most peculiar would be, even though they would smile or even clap for us as Melissa said, that the majority of the time they never responded in Chinese but in English instead. So not only were we enjoying our new cultural immersion, but the local people were excited that they could use that chance to use their English as well. I can not even count how many times we were on one of our tours and people saw our huge group and yelled "Hello" to us and laughed and kept trying to talk to us in English, it was really fun for us, almost as if we were celebrities...they especially enjoyed taking pictures of us...or at least Hannah...whenever they could.