A few things you probably didn't know about China

Since nothing too exciting has happened to me lately I decided it'd be cool to mention a few interesting facts about China and add my own commentary to them.

1) China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world. Supposedly there are around 6,000 executions a year but the exact number is a state secret. Most executions are done on 24-seater buses called death vans. China believes the death vans are a civilized alternative to a firing squad. However, this has supposedly helped facilitate an illegal trade in prisoners' organs. Sixty-eight different crimes — more than half non-violent offenses such as tax evasion and drug smuggling — are punishable by death in China.


A death van:

2) There are already more Christians in China than in Italy and it is on track to becoming the largest center of Christianity in the world. Of course, with so many people it is on track to becoming the largest anything. My language partner told me that her grandma was a very poor peasant who was illiterate and one day received a bible and taught herself to read Chinese by reading the bible. Can you imagine how difficult that would be? She also asked me how anyone could believe that a god exists. I would imagine that if no one you knew was religious it would be hard to believe that there is someone up above so I could understand why she did not believe there's a "god".

3) Over 4,000 babies were named "Olympic Games" when the country was getting ready for the games. The name for Olympic Games is Aoyyun (haven't learned the characters for that word which is pretty surprising since they are still talking about how amazing the olympics were)

4) China uses an average of 45 billion chopsticks per year. This equals to about 25 million fully grown tree's a year. I've gotten very good at using chopsticks to say the least. In fact, I think I am going to start using chopsticks when I get back because it helps you eat slow. It is funny though cause at some restaurants they will bring you forks because your white.

5) Over 700 million people drink polluted water. When I first came here I wouldn't even brush my teeth with sink water but I quickly learned that as long as you don't swallow any you are ok. This statistic doesn't surprise me at all because not even Chinese people can drink the sink water because it is so dirty. Therefore, they all carry around huge canteens of hot water. The school I'm at lays out hundreds of huge canteens every day and you must come and pick one up if you want to have water. The only problem is the water remains boiling hot. Definitely not helpful if you are dehydrated from drinking! Fortunately, the hotel gives us two free water bottles a day of room temperature water. But I have really started to like hot water!

The water canteens on campus:

6) By 2025 China will build 10 New York sized cities. I can not imagine there being any more cities than China already has. In fact, for a place to be considered a small town it has to have less than a million residents. Boulder must look tiny to them! In 20 years, China's cities will add more than 350 million people- more than the entire population of the US. By 2025 China will also have 219 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. Right now Europe only has 35!

Ok well I hope this gave you a better feel for some of the interesting aspects of China. Take care!