I’m not exactly sure how many people live in City X, but I would dare to say quite a few. We found out through our teacher friends that it is actually a rather wealthy area. This was very hard to judge as everything was under construction and also the fact that wealth is displayed differently in other cultures added to my inability to tell. The only real sign of wealth I saw was the insane amount of construction, somebody has to be paying for it, and the numerous new cars.
According to our source 90% of the population is a minority Chinese group that is Muslim. Since they are a minority, not Han*, they are allowed many more freedoms such as freedom of religion and freedom to procreate more than once. Actually we learned the Han Chinese can have more than one child if their first born is a girl. If this happens they can wait 5 years and then try again for one more shot at a boy.
Generally the people in City X are very nice and helpful. Hardly anybody spoke English with the exception of the English teachers and the missionaries that we ran into. There was one exception when the owner of a resteraount tried to charge us 130 RMB (Chinese currency which is 1/6 of a U.S. dollar) for soup that traditionally only costs 20-30 RMB.
During the early parts of our stay we frequently would be gawked at and notice people taking pictures of us on their cell phones. Apparently we were only the 2nd group of Americans they’d ever seen.
The people there seemed very family oriented and it was not unusual to see a father affectionately holding his child or an entire family walking the streets together.
*I have no idea if I spelled this right, and am only going off of conversations in broken English. So if you are “Han” or know someone that is please don’t be offended by my ignorance
