Studies in Contrasts

One of the striking things about China are the contrasts. The obvious ones are between the big cities (developing like crazy and essentially completely modern) and the rural areas where a lack of running water and/or electricity is relatively common. But I also found the contrasts at a personal level to be very interesting, and somewhat amusing. For example, a Tibetan woman wearing traditional Tibetan clothes (yet over a pair of jeans), carrying a traditional wicker basket on her back to buy vegetables from the outdoor market (while talking on a cell phone).