Can someone please tell the Chinese that it is rude to stare.

Hey all, sorry that it has taken me so long to update my blog but it has been a crazy few weeks. We have moved into our new home for the next two years and let me tell you it was not easy but that is a story for another day. Today I want to talk about the biggest issue I have over here - the staring!!! This is like nothing you have ever experienced before, trust me. Every where you go people go out of there way to stare at you, they will stop what they are doing, they will point you out to their friends and they even slow down in their car or scooter to get a better look. They are very obvious about it as well, I have tried to stare back, I smile, and I even say hello (in Chinese of course) and all I get is a blank stare. Occasionally the odd person will say hello back but its rare. We find that it is mostly the older generation who tend to be fascinated with us, most of the younger Chinese have grown up watching Western movies and have Western teachers but their parents don't often see foreigners. They are so curious about us and what we are doing that we often have people come over to us in the store and look in our cart to see what we are buying and sometimes they even follow us through the store. In the larger cities like Shanghai you don't get as many stares because they see Westerns more often but the smaller the city, the bigger the stares. We did have a good run in the other day while taking a stroll through our neighhood when we came across a group of young children around 5-8 years old who immediatley ran over to us - they were all yelling " Hello hello, how are you?" to us in English, they were so excited to get to practise their English, it was so cute!!