Before I came to China I had the stereotype that the Chinese people were very quite and reserved. Anyone who has ever walked down a popular tourist site in Bejing knows better. Over-eager "merchants" shout "Hello", "You buy, You buy" amd "Is very good" along with other very simple yet pushy sentences. Very quickly we all learned to say "BU YAO", which means "Do not want." On one occassion a merchant grabbed a girl by the arm and Ira, a sergeant in the military, had to come to her aid.

However, those are a small minority of Chinese people. Usually driven to such a life by extreme poverty in the countryside. Perhaps a more typical example of Chinese liveliness is the manner in which they toast and drink. When at a party any little thing is an excuse to toast and drink. And the Chinese insist constantly that you drink more. A way to say that you have had enough is to put your hand over your cup. A fellow foriegner we befriended on our journey described how her hosts would sometimes pour beer or rice wine over her hand when she had too much to drink already.

Groups of girls of about 13 to 16 years old, on the streets of Chengdu, seem especially fond of sending one girl and saying "Hello." Promptly, she retreats back to her collective clique. Shortly after this sortie, the lasses, with indecipherable feminity giggle as though they had just pulled the greatest prank ever.

However, despite what I have written above the Chinese are reserved in ways westerners aren't. Particularly, when it comes to strangers. When you bump into someone on the street (which is a common occurrence) you do not have to say, "excuse me" or the Chinese equivalent. You just move on. Likewise, after buying something, you don't have to say Xie Xie (Thankyou). You just sort of nod and walk away. It still feels odd for me to buy something and not say some kind of thank you. In conclusion, Chinese reservedness and Chinese gregariousness are more complicated than I originally knew.