Ni hao (nee-how) (hello), my name is Goashuang. I'm a ten year old girl living in Beijing, China. I speak Manderin and like most of the people in my country, I belong to the Han nationality. I live in a beautiful Asian country. Did you know that China has more people than any other country in the world? In fact, one fifth of the world's population lives in China. We have tall mountains, farmland, lowlands, plains, and dry deserts.
I just got back from playing a game of ping pong with my friends. Ping pong is my favorite game. Some other games my friends and I like to play are volleyball, basketball, and badminton.
Boy is it cold. It gets pretty cold in the winter, but in the summer it's warmer. Unfortunately it's not summer right now; it's cold winter, and I have school tomorrow and I can usually count on it being extra cold there. I have to wake up at seven o'clock, so I can be at school at eight. I have ten minutes between classes and a two hour lunch break. I am in fifth grade. I will start junior high in seventh grade. There are three years of junior high. After that I will start senior high. There are three years of that. I go to school six days a week and get Sunday off. At school I learn to write using the Chinese writing system. We use characters instead of an alphabet. Each character is a symbol that stands for a complete word. I usually ride my bike to school. A lot of people ride bikes in China.
On Sunday my family goes to the park. We do not go to any type of church since our government discourages religion. We watch people practice T'ai Chi Ch'uan in the early morning. It is a form of martial arts. Later my friends and I play basketball.
It's almost supper time. For supper, each member of my family starts with a bowl of rice. Then we can help ourselves to the nearest dish which might include soup, pork, and fish. For breakfast we have noodles and leftover rice. The only utensils we use are chopsticks and soup spoons. Tea is the favorite Chinese drink.
We eat different food on holidays. My favorite holiday is National's Day, because of the fireworks and parades.
If you come to visit China, be sure to see the Great Wall of China. Did you know the Great Wall is the longest structure ever built? It's about 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) long. It was built entirely by hand. The wall crosses northern China between the east coast and north-central China.
My sister is getting married. We had a fortune teller come to our house. She decided on the wedding date for my sister based on her birth date and by consulting the Chinese almanac.
I'd like to tell some interesting things about my country. Did you know there are over one billion people living in China? The cities are very crowded. The two largest cities in China are Shanghai and Beijing (also spelled Peking), which is also China's capital city. Even though we have many big cities, most of the people in my country live in rural villages and small towns. Many of them herd sheep and goats or grow crops.
Chinese people are very creative. Did you know that the Chinese were the first people to invent the compass, paper, porcelain, and silk cloth?
