Reflections of China

In the second installment of Samantha Brown's Passport to China, Samantha goes to the Sichuan Province.

She goes to visit Buddha--a giant one carved against the mountainside. She climbs to the top of the mountain and thirty-minutes later, she finds what looks like the line for Space Mountain in Disney Hong Kong. Actually, it's the line to go back down the mountain to the bottom of the Buddha statue. Samantha unknowingly went on a big Chinese holiday, explaining the long line. She gets the bottom and even through the camera lens, you can tell it is HUGE. Samantha continues to explore China's religions (odd comment for a Communist country) by visiting a daoist temple to practice some tao chi. We used to do tao chi in my Global I class in high school. Our teacher would make us stand up and do some moves to calm down as he had our classes all in the afternoon. He figured we were all worked up so we wouldn't be able to learn. It was actually quite refreshing and we'd remind him if he forgot to start the class off with it.

Samantha also takes a cooking lesson and tells us that Chinese cooking isn't what we're used to in America. Same goes true for Italian. I had a heck of a time trying to find chicken parm. I finally got when I returned home and went to my favorite Italian restaurant. I didn't even open the menu. If you want a taste of real Chinese food without going to China, go to Epcot. The restaurant there serves the type of food Sam was learning to cook.

Afterwards, she takes her translator Joel out for a shopping spree. The Chinese, she learns, love a good bargain and the vendors expect you to haggle. She goes to a block just full of stores, mostly antiques. She finds something and with Joel's help, finds a good price for the cups. It was interesting because she liked the original price--about 40 American dollars. And for two actual China cups, that IS a good price. Also, I don't know when these Passports were filmed--not within the last three months as Sichuan was the province rocked by that horrible earthquake back in May--but if it is relatively recent, looks like China's not a bad place to go to get bang for the American buck. Side bar over, Samantha eventually bargains her way down to around 30 American dollars.

But the big part of this episode: the PANDAS! My cousin absolutely loves Panda bears and it's easy to see why. They look so cuddly. Samantha visits a place whose main purpose to preserve the panda, stop them from becoming extinct. She's able to visit with these cute one-month old panda twins, who are sleeping in an incubator while Mom takes a break. They look adorable. Samantha was right--unless they moved, it was easy to mistake them for stuffed animals. Next, she put on a surgical gown to go into a pen with one-year old pandas affectionally known as "Kindergarteners." One of them nearly got a good swipe at our favorite traveler. She then visited the 4 years-old or "Teenagers" but wasn't able to go in. They were eating. Samantha was also able to feed the panda, throwing apples in for them to eat. To top this experience off, Samantha was able to hold a panda, who dwarfed her. Lucky.

The commericals in between pleaded for money for the panda refuge as it suffered damage during the earthquake.

And in one of the last parts I want to highlight, Samantha went to a mall that looked like it came out of The Jetsons and got her picture taken. That looks like it would be fun. She said it's a big trend in China for the women to go and get dolled up for a portrait sitting. Samantha wore a beautiful red and gold traditional Chinese outfit before getting her hair done. They added a weave, matching Samantha's hair (in a part where she admits she isn't a natural blonde). While she looked beautiful, stick with short hair, Sam!

Looking at that street of stores Samantha visited, it reminds me. I never found the part of Charing Cross road that's just lined with bookstores. If there are any Brits reading this on the world wide webs, please give me directions for the next time I'm in London (whenever that might be)!

So, tomorrow, Xian. (I've seen the episode. It's great, but I want to get in another viewing in case I missed something).