People, People Everywhere

(Bob:) We’re back in the blog world after eight very busy days in China, including five nights in Xi'an (pronounced she-on) and Beijing. Including time spent in Shanghai and Hong Kong, we visited four Chinese cities with a combined population of 52 million, but that’s only 4 percent of the Chinese population of 1.3 billion. It's hard to draw conclusions from such a limited perspective, but we’ll do it anyway, because that’s the way Americans are.

The tourism sites were definitely fantastic and should be seen by everyone: Terra Cotta Warriors, Great Wall, Forbidden City. But it’s definitely a land of contrasts. There are so many people. We were in a crush of people that went on for blocks in Shanghai on a New Year’s holiday. Fortunately I was tall enough to see over it, but for Luana it was a bit scary. Imagine what it would be like if the one-child policy hadn’t been enacted in 1979 and China had 400 million more people. The policy is still strictly enforced in big cities, but in the countryside it is now more permissible to have two kids if the first one is a girl, and minority groups (around 8 percent of the population, including Tibetans) can have more than two. If you violate the one-child policy, you face possible big fines and a loss of your job.

If you’re flying over eastern China’s flat lands outside of the big cities (about 60 percent of the country is mountainous) and you mentally divide the land into one-mile squares, there are sizable villages at all four corners of each square, and that goes on for mile after mile. This is overpopulation on top of overpopulation. The biggest Chinese City, Chungking, has 31 million people.

Shanghai has amazing modern architecture with many, many new buildings. We were told 4,500 buildings taller than 20 stories had been built in that city in the last 25 years! A number are 80-story to 100-story skyscrapers or even taller. One 2,000-plus-foot building is under construction. Just tear down the old and build the new as fast as you can. Beijing also has many buildings under construction, but many are completely empty in both cities. We’re told the government is propping up the real estate market, which is good, because if it goes, the Chinese economy might go down, and our economy probably goes with it, since China owns much of our debt. The average middle class family probably lives in a 1,000-square-foot apartment and shares it with the grandparents.

As a city, Beijing is rather ugly, and the air pollution is bad. Architecture is much more pedestrian than in Shanghai. Beijing has 18 million people (Shanghai has 19 million), 4 million cars, 12 million bicycles, and traffic is bad. But it has a good network of wide streets and freeways, plus a subway system.

Hong Kong is one big shopping mall and bank, but it’s a very beautiful city. Saw two Ferraris in our first 30 minutes in the city. Mao would not be pleased. But Hong Kong residents don’t care, one of our guides told us; they don’t like the mainland or its money (only Hong Kong dollars are accepted even though China rules the city now). Hong Kong residents consider the quality of goods made on the mainland as shoddy.

Education is another big push in the PRC, with new colleges, many of them technical schools, springing up everywhere. Our children had better learn Chinese, because their boss could be speaking that language in a couple of decades. The Chinese seem much more entrepreneurial than the Japanese, and they are definitely hard-working. The question remains whether the government can manage such a complex economy.

On a visit to Tiananmen Square, you don’t see any military presence, but experts told us there are plainclothes police/military everywhere ready to spring on any protester. But most Chinese seem more intent on shopping, buying a car and getting a piece of the good life. One student onboard went to visit a temple and found that all the monks were next door at the local Starbucks. We were told there are 124 McDonald’s in Beijing. We know there were 3 KFCs within a couple blocks of our hotel, and the Pizza Hut nearby had a line out the door. Pizza Hut is a sitdown restaurant in Beijing. We didn’t try it, but I was tempted. My hand was becoming permanently crooked in a weird shape from using chopsticks so much. Instruments of the devil, I call them.

Now, on to more touristy entries, because we really enjoyed that aspect of our visit, and luckily hit perfect weather.