Gibson’s World

Asian shopping and American shopping are really different. So far, we have been to markets in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Cambodia. This is how they are different.

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Asian markets are made up of lots of different little tiny stores that are really close together. Each “store” is usually small, and owned and run by one person. People also don’t have refrigerators, so they need to come to the market every day. In this picture, a man is selling live ducks on the street.

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You can buy all sorts of things in an Asian market. They sell pig noses, pig tongues, pig hearts, chicken heads, live ducks, live chickens, live eels in a bucket, and much more. They definitely don’t like to waste any parts from an animal. In some places, certain streets can be for different items. There are shoe streets with people only selling shoes, dress streets, lantern streets, metal streets, toy streets, flower streets, and even fish streets.

Since there are so many stores and everybody wants you to buy from their store, you can bargain with almost all of the stores. One time, my dad was in a store when a lady tried to sell him something. At first, it was 350 yuan, then it was 250 yuan, and then they asked him to write down what he would pay for it. In some places, though, they would increase the price if you seemed interested. This picture (above) is of a lantern street in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The stores need to be so close together because local people walk to the market every day and the more room it takes up, the longer people would have to walk. The market is also easy to walk to because it is downtown. Most of the people don’t have a car to drive to a Super Stop and Shop or Walmart with every 1 or 2 weeks to fill up their car with food. If Walmart took over, fewer people would have jobs and there would probably be more homeless people. There are Walmarts in some of the big cities, though. This picture (above) is of the flower market we went to in Bangkok.

Asian markets and American markets are different for many reasons. I think it was really interesting to get to see the differences between Asian and American markets.

Gibson’s Shadow Puppet Play

Once upon a time there was a king named King Joe and a queen named Queen Thickbrick. King Joe and Queen Thickbrick had a son. His name was Prince Baaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. His nickname was Peanut Butter (P.B.).

One day, Peanut Butter decided to go into the forest in search of a flower for Queen Thickbrick. While he was searching, he came across a jewel. As he was reaching down for it, he heard a loud hiiiiiiiiisssssss and saw a huge three-headed King Cobra coming towards him. He immediately ran back and forgot about the jewel. While he was running, he saw a lotus and a daisy but he was too scared to pick them up. When he got back, he told his father the news. King Joe told Peanut Butter he would get their eagle to come with them in search of the two flowers and the jewel.

First, they got to the lotus now guarded by a pink demon. The King thought it was so beautiful though, so he told them that he thought that they should hunt the demon for the lotus. They fought the demon and finally got the lotus, but noticed that the eagle had been killed. Then, they found the daisy, but it was guarded by another demon. They killed that demon too and got the daisy.

Finally, they found the jewel now guarded by the same huge three-headed King Cobra. The King and Prince fought and fought. Finally, they killed the snake. But the Prince noticed that the King had also been killed. Peanut Butter was really sad as he picked up the jewel and walked home. When he got home, he gave the items to the Queen. She was also sad about the news, but after awhile, they both got over it and lived happily ever after.

Check out the video of this great shadow puppet play.

Bananas are really interesting plants. They are also one of my favorite fruits and are rich in Vitamin A, B6, C, and potassium.

Bananas are grown in 132 out of 192 countries and the world produced 72.5 million metric tons of bananas just in 2005! The top producer in 2005 was India which produced 16.8 million metric tons of bananas. Second was Brazil with only 6.7 million metric tons. Next were China, Ecuador, Philippines, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Thailand, Columbia, and Burundi.

One tree of bananas usually weighs from thirty to fifty kg’s and there can be from 60-400 bananas on a tree. Bananas are non-seasonal so the banana tree can produce bananas all year round. Not all bananas are green or yellow. Some can be red or purple!

Banana plants are usually from 2-8 meters long and their leaves can be up to 3.5 meters long. Since the leaves are so big, people sometimes use them to serve food on. Some people take dried bananas and grind them into banana powder. They can also be used for banana ketchup, banana pudding, banana splits, banana sauce, or even banana rum!

Bananas are one of my favorite foods and these were some facts about them.

Snakes are really interesting reptiles because all snakes can swim even though they are thought of as land reptiles. Snakes are also carnivores and don’t chew their food. Because of that, they can die from trying to eat something to big. Did you know that some anacondas and pythons can go for up to a year without eating after they’ve had only one big meal?!

You also probably didn’t know that snakes evolved from a type of lizard and that most pythons and boa constrictors have super short, stubby hind legs that act kind of like suction cups.

When a snake swims, it moves its tail side to side but they can only move forwards. Only sea snakes can move backwards. Snakes swim using surface tension. We did an experiment and found out that a metal needle can also float because of surface tension.

Lots of people have been bitten and/or killed by snakes in certain countries. Of the 22,000 Americans bitten by venomous snakes every year, less than 20 die but in Africa, 1,000,000 people get bitten a year and 20,000 people die. In Asia, 4,000,000 people get bitten by snakes and 100,000 people get killed by them a year.

Snakes are one of my favorite an animals and these were just a few facts about them. The only thing I don’t like them is they’re hard to find and that they bite. I have only seen the black tiger snake and the common tree snake, but I hope to see more in Asia, Africa and South America.

Fun Fact: When snakes are charmed in India, they don’t move because of the music. Snakes can’t hear. They move from the charmer moving the flute or their feet. Snake charming is banned in most places in India.

Once upon a time, there was an animal called a mammoth-horned doggie. They looked like a dog, except they had a horn sticking out of their head and its back. The two horns connected and another horn came out of the two in the middle. They looked like this. The tip of their tail also had a sharp bit of horn, so that they could cut people with it if they were attacked. The mammoth-horned doggies were unusual because they could burrow, stay under water for up to two hours, climb trees, inject venom when they bite, poke at you with their horn, and run up to 45 miles per hour.

Once, there lived a mammoth-horned doggie named Scallop. Scallop lived in Beijing with her three other brothers and sisters named Murphy (her brother), Magazine (her first sister), and Duchess (her second sister). They all liked Beijing. It had lots of skyscrapers, it was flat, the sky was usually cloudy, and there were lots of bikes, but one day, a tragedy happened. The government said that mammoth-horned doggies were no longer allowed in Beijing because Boo, an evil mammoth-horned doggy, was eating too many people. All of the mammoth-horned doggies were really sad to leave Beijing.

Scallop, Murphy, Magazine, and Duchess all were forced to move, so they chose to go to Hong Kong. When they got there, they were amazed at how many shops there were and how clear the sky was. They also liked how there were lots of birds for them to eat. They were really glad that Hong Kong didn’t ban all mammoth-horned doggies. While Scallop and her three brothers and sisters were there, they started a baseball league. Scallop, Murphy, Duchess, and Magazine all played in the league and all turned out to be really good. Eventually, they were so glad that they had moved to Hong Kong and they lived happily ever after.

Before I went to Hong Kong, I thought that Hong Kong was just a city in China or Japan or somewhere, but after I went there, I realized it is its own country. It isn’t completely obvious that it is a separate country though.  Hong Kong is small – you could fit two Hong Kongs into Bullo River Station.  And Hong Kong is right next to China, which plans to take it over by 2047. 

These are some reasons why I think Hong Kong is a separate country.   Hong Kong has its own currency, its own language and its own legal system.  You also need a visa to go from Hong Kong to China or from China to Hong Kong.  However, you don’t need one to go from city to city within mainland China. 

People in Hong Kong believe that they are a separate country.  In the Special Olympics, there was a team from Hong Kong and a different from the China.  The Special Olympics was in Shanghai and, even there, they thought Hong Kong was a separate country.

The Three Gorges Project is really interesting.  It involves building a dam on the Yangtze River that will be longest dam ever in the world on the Yangtze River. It will cost 25 billion dollars and will be used for flood control, power generation, and navigation, but over 1 million people will have to be moved because the water level will have risen.

On December 14th, 1994, the Chinese announced that construction of the Three Gorges Dam had begun.  When we visited it, it was mostly done, and the government says it will be done in 2009.  It is a really, really big construction project, using more concrete than any other man-made project in the history of the world.

The dam is 2.3 kilometers long, which is about 18 times longer than it is from home plate to center field in Fenway Park, and is 181 meters tall.  The dam has a five step ship lock, which is 1,607 meters long.  A ship lock is like a bath tub that boats come into, with gates behind it and in front of it.   Once the doors are closed, they pump water in or out to move the ship up or down, before opening the front door and letting the ship move to the next lock.  It took our boat about three hours to get through five locks.

The dam will also have a ship elevator to lift smaller boats more quickly, but it isn’t ready yet.  The elevator can lift 3,000 ton ships in about 45 minutes and is the biggest ship elevator in the world.   While it is lifting a 3,000 ton ship, it is also lifting 7,000 tons of water so that the boat can float on water as it comes up or down.

The power generator is so strong that it could provide enough energy for 4 to 5 New York Cities.  The dam includes two power generators.  It provides energy by using turbines that water runs through to make electricity without pollution. 

The dam is really cool and it’s one of my favorite things in China.

It wouldn’t be very fun to be a Tibetan kid. I went to a Tibetan house and this is what I learned.

A Tibetan kid’s house is really interesting because they don?t have any air conditioning, heat, electricity, running water, flushing toilet, washing machine, or door bell. Instead, they use a dog as a doorbell who barks whenever somebody comes by the house. They also wash their cloths in rainwater outside their house, have a hole as a toilet, and need to use a lot of yak blankets to stay warm in the winter. There are about 8 people in the house. Their house was 2 stories tall, but one was only for animals and the second story had 3 rooms, a kitchen, a sleeping room, and a living room.

Some Tibetans don’t go to school and might die at a young age because there is no doctor or dentist in the area. Some also become blind from dust storms. I also learned that the police had come before and told the two kids to tell us that they were happy, that they went to school, and that they liked school. In Lhasa, if the kids do go to school, it might take them up to 3 hours to walk to school and the public schools even cost money.

We brought a beach ball to a group of about five young boys. Since they didn’t have very many things, they were really, really, really, happy. We also gave to two girls a stringy thing and a ping pong paddle with a bouncy ball attached to it. They were really good at jump roping with the stringy thing, but I don’t think they quite understood it, so they looked at it with a puzzled face.

I’m not sure how fun it would be to be a Tibetan kid. I wouldn’t want to have to work all day long in the fields and in the house, instead of going to school. I’m glad I’m not a Tibetan person, but they seemed happy.