BigWorldAndSmallWorld Blog

Celebrate the year of Tiger, beginning February 14
Walking along the Great Wall in Beijing; riding man-peddled wooden boat on the Grand Canal in a water village; and taking martial art training at the famous Shaolin Monastery Institute, China is a cultural and experiential destination for families and individuals.
YANGTZE RIVER CRUISE
The Yangtze River, along with the Yellow River, is the origin of Chinese civilization. From melting glacial waters in Tibet to the East China Sea at Shanghai, the world’s third longest river runs almost 4000 miles and divides the country into northern China and southern China. On the cruise, you will see the spectacular Three Gorges, many archaeological and cultural sites, and the largest hydroelectric power station in the world: the Three Gorges Dam.
GREAT WALL OF CHINA
Built in 210 BC by the first emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Great Wall stretches for more than 5500 miles. While walking on the Great Wall is very popular at Badaling, you can also take a day or two to trek the less popular but rather impressive Mutianyu, Jinshanling, and Simatai.
GOBI DESERT
The world’s fifth largest desert is along the Silk Road, a route through which China opened its door to the West in the Han Dynasty. Today’s Xinjiang province has several legendary sites such as Mogao Cave in Dunhuang, the Heavenly Lake in Urumqi and Flaming Mountain, a well-known 16th century Chinese classic and scenic Journey to the West spot in Turpan.

Kudos to 14 professional Chinese photographers who traveled more than 10000 miles and took one year of time to take these beautiful high resolution pictures of each of the 56 Chinese ethnic groups. In the book they published “Harmonious China — China’s 56 ethnic groups silhouette” (<<和谐中华——中国56个民族剪影>>), each picture was documented with the photographer’s name, when and where the picture was taken with the exact longitude and latitude, and the names of the actors and actresses in the picture.

Among the 56 ethnic groups, Han(汉族) is the largest also called the majority while the rest is called the minorities. Han people accounts for 91.6% of the Chinese population. While the 55 minority ethnic groups distributed extensively throughout different regions of China, Yunnan Province has the greatest minority groups – 25 groups. Government policies allow ethnic groups to deal with their own affairs to ensure unity and equality, especially in five autonomous regions; Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia and Tibet. Each of the minority ethnic groups has a distinctive and different character, its own language and belief. Among the 55 minority ethnic groups, Guangxi province’s Zhuang Zu, Tibet’s Zang Zu, and Inner mongolia’s Mongol are the top three largest groups

Names of the 55 minority ethnic groups(少数民族) are: Achang, Bai, Blang, Bonan, Bouyei, Chaoxian, Dai, Daur, Deang, Dong, Dongxiang, Dulong, Ewenki, Gaoshan, Gelao, Gin, Hani, Hezhen, Hui, Jingpo, Jinuo, Kazak, Kirgiz, Lahu, Li, Lisu, Luoba, Man, Maonan, Miao, Monba, Mongol, Mulam, Naxi, Nu, Oroqen, Primi, Qiang, Russian, Salar, She, Shui, Tagik, Tatar, Tu, Tujia, Uygur, Uzbek, Wa, Xibe, Yao, Yi, Yugur, Zang, Zhuang.

See all 56 photos at http://hi.baidu.com/pdsdhh008/blog/item/adb6cc50c19e436885352491.html

Chinese like to give tea as a gift to friend and family. If you are one of the lucky Americans who get this gift, what will you do? Tea lovers will drink it and enjoy it while others although appreciate the gift may re-gift it to give it away. Many people don’t know how to deal with loose tea leaf. I am not a serious tea drinker so I understand that. No matter which level you are at with tea drinking, it doesn’t hurt to have some tea knowledge.
Tea is native to China. Chinese has a long history and tradition of using tea for
medical and drinking purposes. There are four major tea categories: white, green, oolong and black. Among them, green tea is the most popular. Chinese flower tea (花茶), while popular, is not a true tea. In fact, flower tea is one of my favorite. It is so refreshing and fragrant.
Famous Chinese teas are: Jiansu province’s Bi Luo Chun (碧螺春), Zhejiang province’s Gunpowder (珠), Hangzhou’s Long Jing (龙井, Dragon Well), Anhui province’s Huang Shan Mao Feng (黄山毛峰), Hunan province’s Jun Shan Yin Zhen (君山銀針), Anhui province’s Keemun black teas (祁门), Anhui province’s Liu An Gua Pian (六安瓜片, Melon seed), Sichuan province’s Meng Ding Gan Lu (蒙頂), Hunan province’s Silver Needle, Fujian province’s Wu Yi Yan Cha (Rock Oolong), Henan province’s Xin Yang Mao Jian (信阳毛尖, Green tip), and Yunnan province’s Puer teas (普洱茶). Among them, some are yellow tea and some grow on the mountains.
Some people believe the first year tea is the best. I bought a 7-year old compacted Puer tea on a trip to southern China. I was told if I drink it after a meal, it has a diet effect because this tea absorbs fat.
Chinese tea culture also includes exquisite tea-set used to serve tea and nice tea houses for people to get together. Almost on any China trip, you have the opportunity to taste tea. What a great way to find out on your own what Chinese tea is like! For serious tea drinkers, there are also special tea trips to cater your love of Chinese tea. So cheers with Chinese tea, for good health or simply for pleasure.

Have you ever wondered which book to buy when you prepare for a trip to China?
The best tip I have ever seen so far is to buy the book “Point It”- a traveler’s language kit (ISBN: 978-3-9803130-2-5), a book with pictures only for you to point at. This book is very helpful when you travel to China or any other non-Latin countries.
I also recommend DK’s eyewitness travel guides “China”. You can find the book at any book store.
How about online resources? There are many. The one I like is this user-friendly tool www.tripadvisor.com where you can find hotel information, free travel guides, restaurants and things to do for a particular city.
Maps are always handy to have. If you are the person like me or most of us, you will be disappointed to know that recent China map or city map in English are hard to find, almost non-exist. China National Tourism Office publishes high quality maps and travel guides in English, but you can’t buy them in stores. You can either order them from info@cnto.org or you can buy them from me: map is $2 and travel guide is $8 each. It is too cheap not to have them. While those resources are very popular among my customers, my stock is running low.
As always, I tell my customers that the more they read and study on China, the more they will get out of their trips. It is true that learn a few Chinese words and sentences will take you a long way. I bought a few books “Chinese for Tourists with CD” while I was in China. Those turned out to be wonderful gifts to friends and customers.
Last but not the least, think about people resources. Do you have Chinese co-works or friends who you can ask for their opinion? I am happened to be Chinese, a travel agent and your friend, why not ask me?

As the airplane left Las Vegas, I was overlooking the city in the middle of nowhere and could not help thinking why Las Vegas is such a big attraction to Chinese, Japanese, Indian, European and even American. Gamble, shopping, show and food are the top reasons why.
The human desire to win money and the addiction to keep winning more make this gamble city truly a sinful city. I heard people told me that Chinese officials visiting Las Vegas their tour packages include thousands of dollars of gambling money. The government pays for it, so why not? For me, every time I go to a casino, I set a limit for myself normally is less than $20. If I lose it, then I quit. If I win any money, I quit also. I am not a lucky person so I know better.
Adult show, theatre show, talent show, comedy show, celebrity show and concert are really fun to see in Las Vegas. No wonder if you have been to Las Vegas and you haven’t seen any of them, you miss a lot of the fun. Make sure you check out lasvegasshows.com before you go.
Food used to be my favorite thing. It was cheap. However it has changed over the years. This time, I stayed at Planet Hollywood. It claimed to have Las Vegas’ #1 buffet and the dinner costs $28.99. Who can eat that much of food? It is overrated and expensive. I do like the hotel though. It was a nice remake of Aladdin. My room was a suite themed with Tom Cruise’s movie “The Firm”. It has several pictures from the movie and even displays a jacket that Tom wore in the movie. Movie fans and Hollywood dreamers, even though it is not the real Hollywood in LA, you can definitely feel the atmosphere of Hollywood excitement.
The Miracle Mile Shops is the shopping complex connecting to Planet Hollywood. Here you can find high-end shops with name brand merchants. Why go all over the world to find what you want, you can shop everything at Miracle Mile Shops. I know Japanese and Chinese have deep pockets and they love name brands. Their society is so emphasizing on “face”, it is a status symbol to own name brand.
My client told me that Las Vegas used to be $100 vacation destination for Americans, but I told him that it is no long true. For a 3-night vacation to Las Vegas from Minneapolis, the best package will cost about $300 per person. Good luck to you and have fun in Las Vegas!

A former 3M executive Erwin Brown wrote a new book called “Hunting the world” which will be published in October. The book will be hard-cover 300+ pages covering adventures on five continents over the last 70 years and 130 pictures. The story of connecting with Mr. Brown is a story on its own. The day Mr. Brown came to speak at my business networking group was the day I spoke at a local Rotary club about China. Therefore I did not meet him. However I was very interested to find out what he talked about and I e-mailed him to introduce myself. We made connections right away on common interest of travel and particularly my interest in Asia. Mr. Brown is kind enough to send me an entire chapter of the book on “Transcapspian Urial Sheep in Turkmenistan”. Here is a snippet of the beginning of the chapter:
I am often asked which one of my adventures has been the
most interesting and exciting. It is difficult to answer, as every
journey has suspenseful moments and interesting twists. Life-
threatening experiences aren’t much fun when they’re happening, but
make fascinating stories in retrospect. Sheep hunting is plain hard
work, and there isn’t much smiling and laughing during the process;
but the satisfaction of accomplishment when the sheep is down is hard
to beat.
I had collected the five different species of North
American wild sheep, the European Mouflon, the Barbary Sheep of
Spain, and the Gobi Argali in Mongolia, but had yet to experience a
hunt for one of the Urial sheep specie of Southern Asia. Of all the
species of Urials, the Transcaspian Urial is the most handsome. The
main range of the Transcaspian Urial is southern Turkmenistan and
northern Iran. A hunt in Iran is out of the question, so I arranged a
trip to Turkmenistan for February 1990. Bob Kern of The Hunting
Consortium made all the arrangements.
……
While I am waiting eagerly to see the chapter of “Gobi Argali Sheep in Mongolia”, I can’t wait to share the good news of the book with you.