mojitz

Well there's also the whole "brought to earth by aliens" thing...

Hey, I actually worked for Chinese State TV (see: propaganda) in Beijing for a bit. They typically address issues like these as dryly as possible, but with extreme bias. They won't typically drum up anti-Japanese or anti-American sentiment in the way you'd expect from one of the 24 hour news channels in The US, but by calmly stating "facts" which may or may not be true, heavily cherrypicked or in one way or another bizarre. That being said, America actually doesn't get quite the level of negative coverage you'd might expect. It's there, but not as aggressive as it could be. Also, every Chinese person knows their government constantly feeds them outright lies and other bullshit.

Most Chinese people are either indifferent or look upon America surprisingly favorably. Remember, US culture has pervaded the entire world through our media. The Chinese watch American movies and TV shows, listen to American music, and buy lots of American products. They (let me stress again that this is a generalization) view us as a wealthy nation with strong freedoms (viewed very favorably by most) and a wealth of creativity that many Chinese people admire. That being said, those with a little more political knowlege are also weary of of American aggression in international affairs. Many Chinese view their country (correctly in many cases) as a nation that is much weaker than it should be as a result of being fucked over by western colonial powers throughout the centuries. On a day-to-day basis, though, this doesn't tend to translate to resentment of American individuals.

That being said, China is an enormous and diverse country. Attitudes, behaviors and culture differs vastly between regions and socio-economic strata much as it does in The USA - only amplified in many cases. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are essentially first-world (though with extremely economically depressed slums here and there), but the country also still has regions whose infrastructure and development is still essentially third-world. Coastal cities tend to have much more globally-oriented attitudes, wheres lower levels of tourism and export in the interior and north have much less of this. If you walk down the street of smaller cities and towns without a great deal of international contact, you can expect constant stares, calls of "hello!" and excited requests to have a picture taken with you. You're quite literally a celebrity if you spend any significant amount of time in smaller municipalities.

What's your goal in all this? No offense, but it seems like hitting up as many countries as you can isn't a particularly interesting or admirable goal. How can you feel any connection to a place you've only flitted through in a night or 2? Don't you wish you had more time to explore?

To expand on other people's responses re: dehydrated food here, a typical backpackers diet will consist of things like instant oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, trail mix throughout the day, peanut butter and tortillas for lunch, and ramen with tuna (in packets not cans) or some other portable source of protein for dinner. Basically anything that is dry, light, and calorie/protein dense will do. Some people go so far as to dehydrate their own meals, but for a long hike, this is impractical. In any case, a typical hiker's diet is a hell of a lot cheaper than most people's at-home diet - particular when factoring in caloric-intake.

Are you trying to sell me breast implants you sneaky bastard?

I agree that psychological and social needs are an important - if not massively overlooked - part of a healthy life, but I have trouble believing that any but a vanishingly small fraction of those 20,000 women you gave implants to will actually go on to lead better, happier lives as a result.

In other words, it seems more likely you chose the career you did because it made you buckets of money and that the idea that you're helping people in need is more of an afterthought you use to justify your choices - since plastic surgery is generally not a very well regarded field.

Do you not worry that you're giving these people a temporary shortcut that won't make them better off in the long run? Do you not worry that you may very well be helping to create body-image issues in thousands of young girls?