Back to Kurt Friehauf home page. On to Baiyunebo reseach project description. China, like many countries, is divided up into provinces or states. The sovereign nation of Mongolia is highlighted in red on the map. The province of Inner Mongolia is highlighted in yellow. The star indicates Beijing. The Mongolian people have a very rich history and are truly fascinating people although I imagine they'd probably tell you that they are just plain normal and we're the curiosities!
Signs in Inner Mongolia are written in both Chinese characters and the Mongolian alphabet. Chinese characters have the advantage that they represent meaning, regardless of how you pronounce the words, so people from southern China that speak Cantonese can communicate with the rest of Mandarin-speaking China. There are radicals built into the Chinese characters that can help you pronounce the words, but you need to memorize them.
The Mongolian language uses an alphabet on the left in this photo that allows you to pronounce the words, but does not tell you the meaning of the word, similar to alphabetic languages in the west. The streets in Baiyunebo are nice and wide and were in excellent condition.
I'd expected potholes like we have in Pennsylvania, but potholes were pretty limited. The people in Baiyunebo were incredible! These folks were in the central plaza when Zach and I went to look around on the first day.
Westerners are a pretty rare sight, so many people were curious about us and everyone was extraordinarily friendly. One of the two seed and nut sellers near the central plaza, this woman always had a smile. We would alternate buying sunflower seeds between the two seed and nut sellers. Both used a simple balancing scale to measure their product. The Chinese and their levers - they move the world just like Archimedes said years ago! The central plaza had a great fountain with lights and a water show.
