Blog 4

So for this assignment I decided to interview my Chinese friend Bo that I met up here at the beginning of last semester. For this interview I mainly wanted to know how much different the Chinese culture is than our culture. I am very interested in this type of culture so it was cool to learn everything from my friend.

Interview:

Me: What are the differences between younger and older generations view on Chinese traditional festivals?
Bo: There is one festival in particular that is very cool and is a big thing every year, it is called the Dragon Boat Festival. In this festival, there is a team on 1 boat, they race as a team and in the front there is a drummer who hits his drums for every side to row. This festival is actually to remember a poet and the drummer makes noise to get the fish away and ghosts so they do not take away the famous poet. During this time they eat a traditional rice pudding, they would throw the rice where he died in the river and the fish would eat that instead of his body. The Chinese name is Zongzi. You can make these out of any ingredients you want. They are not just made of rice but sticky rice. This was a very important festival about 20 years ago but today there are so many different cultures there now that is making this festival not as important. Younger generations today do not really know about these traditions that was present back in the day. They also think Western culture is better than the Chinese culture.
Me: Wow, that is awesome, I have an Uncle that used to race dragon boats up in Montana, so this is cool to see where it originated from.
Bo: We have many festivals that are very important and are celebrated every year.

Me: Another thing I have always wondered, is the population in China actually overcrowded as people say it is?

Bo: Yes, China is very overcrowded and it is becoming a huge problem. There are a lot of megacities in China, and that means that there are over ten million people per city. And in the United States, we have less than twenty throughout the entire country. So you can say that China is very overcrowded in today’s world. But they are not the top spot, India has them beat which means they are even more crowded than China is. One fun fact in China is that, you do not need to bring your wallet whenever you go somewhere, all you need is to bring your phone and you can buy whatever you want without bringing your wallet. Even though these cities are very crowded, there are still a lot of motorcycles and bikes that roam the streets every single day.

Me: I did not know that India was that crowded as well. Well that is all I have for you, so thank you for your time!

Bo: Your welcome, if you ever want to know more just let me know and we can talk more about it!