Linda and Bill's trip to China

Summary: We are both glad we went. This visit to China was a trip of a lifetime. The trip was not all a bowl of roses. For
example, getting up at six thirty AM and getting back to the hotel at nine or ten PM. Even the young people on the tour
complained.

We learned a lot about a country that is as dark as the Continent visited by Dr. Livingstone and Stanley. Sounds over
stated? ha.

Vulnerable
I am sure you know the feeling. It leads to heavy anxiety. We were unable to get a SIM card at the International Airport.
To access WiFi you must register with a Cell Phone number where you as a user receive a verification code. It is day two
of our tour. Our plan was to meet our Canadian friend Lorin under the National flag in Tiananmen Square at 9 AM. Not
only could we not contact Lorin we couldn't allow ourselves to get separated. It's 8:30. We are outside the Square in a
pushing and shoving mass of people all pursuing the goal of getting inside. I estimate over 50,000 people. Each person
must show their National ID Card or Passport and be body scanned. It took 90 minutes to get into the square. No one
spoke English. The police were pushing and yelling at people trying to get them organized into lines. We were frantic.
Would Lorin still be there? If not how in hell would we get back to our hotel 30KM away? Once in the section of the
square where the flag flies two forlorn creatures caught the Lorin's big smile . Then we visit the Forbidden Palace. We
waste the balance of the day trying to locate a SIM Card in an Apple Store, China Telecom store, Huawei and more. We
came away empty handed and disillusioned.

That feeling of vulnerability faced us every day of our trip.

China, on Oct 1, 2019 celebrated its 70th anniversary of Communist Party Rule. Their proud motto, "One country (Han),
55 minorities". The Han represent 91% of the population (they, the Han, never let you forget it).

Chairman Xi Jinping must feel vulnerable when he contemplates China's near future. You see China's current generation
has made incredible, if not unbelievable progress:

 A rover on the moon,

 ICBM's and hydrogen bombs,
 a 430 km/hr Mag Lev Train,
 over 29,000 kilometers of high-speed railway
 Subway Systems in most major cities,
 1000's of apartment clusters that house 5000 to 10,000 families

A PR or propaganda engine sums up their progress and claims they are entering
"the dawn of a new civilization".

Photo: The Tienanmen Square Rose Bowl, in celebration of China's 70th year.
We are with our Canadian friend, Lorin. Lorin teaches ESL to powerful people in
the government and members of very rich families.

China's road ahead is not paved, for example:

The One Child Policy (1979 until 2015) was a bite in the ass from a centralized controlled
government:

 Produced a population of at least 35 million men who now can't find a Chinese Wife. They were aborted.
 It also created a generation of "over-indulged, lacking self-discipline and having no adaptive capabilities are
traits that are highly associated with Chinese singletons." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
child_policy#Quality_of_life_for_women
 We were told 40% of the population stopped their education at the end of grade nine. That's when you must
pay for schooling.

What makes Xi feel vulnerable; well there might not be a Next Generation, at least not anything like the last.

Our tour guides loved statistics!

One statistic was China's GDP will surpass the USA next year!!!!!! That is likely true, but China's GDP per person in $7755
(US) vs. the US per capita of $60,000. They never mentioned that.

Not discussed by our tour guides, risks. China is an export nation, foreigners thus are in control of the economy . This is
not a good position to be in. It will likely take ten to fifteen years (optimistic) to stop burning coal. This is more than a
health burden, but one that pushes the rich and smart people out of the country.

In China the Government owns all the land. This is the same as in the former Soviet Union. This land policy a big role in
the downfall of the USSR even though Ronald Reagan would like to take the credit. Soon you can't produce enough food
to feed your population. Currently, a Chinese farmer has a leasehold on 5 hectares of land. This happens to be about
5000 hectares less than a Canadian farmer. The poor Chinese farmer can't borrow money because he has no security to
offer lenders. Without money, the farmer can't buy machinery, can't expand his farm acreage. Without machinery and
scale the farmer can't increase his productivity. The Chinese government will solve this problem soon, I hope their
solution works better than their "One Child Policy". If not China will be fucked.

Our tour guides tell us China produces enough food to feed its citizens. How true is that? In 2018 China bought $514M
worth of pork from Canada, along with imports of $23B food products from 117 different nations. Reuters: "China’s
2017/18 soybean imports are expected to climb above 100 million tonnes, a senior industry analyst said on Monday, as
strong demand for animal feed boosts consumption in the world biggest hog market."
https://www.reuters.com/article/asia-grains-soybeans-idUSL3N1QU26D

* China bought 93.5 million tonnes of soybeans in 2016/17, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Our tour guides sounded like the American braggarts in the sixties and seventies. But then most of the real facts were
not hidden from us as they are in China closed society.

China, despite efforts from our tour guides, is not the Biggest and Most Powerful Country On Earth.

China faces many, almost insurmountable, problems. Yes that is only my opinion. But read on.
Pollution
Sunset in Beijing. The pollution is like this that all the way to
Shanghai,1200 km South. Often the mountains would
completely disappear.

Our tour guides would not discuss nuclear power generation,

even though China is a world leader in building nuclear
plants. I believe they have 2 new ones just came online many
more in the planning stages. Certain topics were verboten.

The country is overrun with huge electrical transmission

towers. Impressive!

They have rules on heating your apartment primarily to save

energy and reduce pollution. North of the Yangtze River, i.e.
Shanghai, one would not turn heat on until late fall, we were
told it is not unusual for an apartment to get close to zero
Celsius. South of the Yangtze no heat. Not sure I believe it.

Religion

Photos: Buddhist " Brahma Palace"" and Big 88 meter high Buddha Statue
Communist Countries, normally decry religions. China is learning as Russia did by adopting the Orthodox Church , that
sometimes opium is good for citizens. So they built a Buddhist
"Palace" for $500,000 and opened up the Big Buddha Statue
in a theme park.
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/jiangsu/wuxi/li
ngshan-buddha.htm

Superstition
Not sure if people really follow it. Talking to real estate sales
people in Canada suggests it is followed closely, numbers
especially, 8 = wealth, 6= long smooth life, 4 = sick

Visits of Interest
 Pearl production facility
 Chinese Medicine Factory
 Embroidery Training Centre
 Green Tea Plantation
 Silk Production Factory
 Tiananmen Square
 Forbidden Palace
 The 88 meter Buddha Statue and a Buddha Palace
 We took the Bullet Train Beijing to Shanghai
(roughly 1000km in 5 hours)
A country of contrasts
We were told by the tour company to bring toilet paper as public toilets do not have any. Most do not even have
hand hold Bars to assist you:

The toilet in the Bullet Train station is a joke. A ceramic hole in the floor, bring your own toilet paper, squat
and dump. Not just the bullet train, but everywhere except big hotels, Starbucks, McDonalds. Hello China, you
want tourists? Give me a break.

 Beer cans designs are from the fifties, rip off and toss.

Tonight we went to the lobby bar for a glass of wine. Bartender said "no wine just beer". Linda crossed the
lobby and returned to request two wine glasses for our room. Bartender took Linda to a cabinet for the glasses,
upon opening Linda spies a dozen bottles of wine. So she said, "You told me you had no wine." He replied,
"that's just for show"!

Smoke and mirrors. Same as hosting the Olympic games, adds to the list of bragging rights, that they are the
most powerful nation on Earth.

Our bus and our driver ended up in a police station over night. He hit and ripped some overhanging wires feeding a
construction site. He was scared shitless.

Hotels, Restaurants, and Bars

They can train people to assemble iPhones, put satellites in orbit, land on the moon but they can't train hotel service
providers.

Open a new 5 star hotel but no training for staff. Excuse: growth is too fast. Nonsense. It is simply that training and
education is not fast. Why?
Where do people live?
Clusters of apartments, 5000 to 10000 people

Heat pumps in large/tall apartments. Older buildings have in-wall a/c units.. temp in winter -5, summer up to +40. Trip
around the lake.

 Apartment s are very expensive, manager of food and beverage showed us a pic of his new born son. I
suggested he get to work on a brother for him since the single policy has been updated to two for most
couples. He gave me a sad look and said, "I couldn't possibly afford a larger apartment"!
 No heat till Nov 15 reminds me of the UK north of the Yangtze, i.e. North of Shanghai. They claim to
not heat in Shanghai and south of Shanghai
 Farmers live in large "single" family homes on the farm. They are allowed two male children or three if
one is female. They do not own the land. In China the Government owns all the land.
  Our Tour guide and wife have one son. He borrowed the money from his father-in-law to buy an
apartment. For 6 months of the year his parents live with them and help raise the child, the following 6
month the wife's parents move in. Both parents work.
 The propaganda machine inside China is insidious. I met an old Chinese guy maybe 70 out walking with his wife
in the park. He thought we looked different from both other people and the plants so he took a chance and said,
"Hello", I responded, nee high . He beamed and started an enlightened conversation with me. In good English
which I was happy for since I had just executed the only Chinese expression I knew.

Looking across the lake at the huge clusters of apartments, I asked him, "Do you live in one of those buildings?" He
said, "everybody lives in one of those buildings" :) :).

I asked about heating and air conditioning. He said yes, we have a heat pump. According to him heat Pumps were
invented by the Chinese. https://www.renewableenergyhub.us/heat-pumps-information/the-history-of-heat-
pumps.html

Just like the Russians in the USSR, who invented everything. Now the Chinese, who are the biggest IP thief's in the
world, are out there staking claims. It gets tiresome; tedious.

Internet
Bing and Apple work well in China, anything Google is banned as well as all foreign media.

Security
I wouldn't live there or even stay long. The security is overwhelming. If you do not have a working telephone
number wifi is unavailable. Passports are kept by each hotel for the first night (info forwarded to police station,
according to our tour guide). All bags are x-rayed and your body scanned at every entrance and exit of the
Metro or places like Tiananmen square, as is Forbidden Palace, the Great Wall. Private (read gov't) security
personal are on every block and in front of each hotel.

40% of the population ended their education at the end of

grade nine. After grade nine you must pay. This has
resulted in really sad customer service everywhere.

Rather than learn any English they use apps like iTranslate.
Everyone pointed and laughed at our feet: apparently
wearing sandals in winter is dumb. Day time temperatures
ran 20 though 27 degrees. I had to buy a lighter, short-
sleeve shirt in Shanghai.

The Old Town in Shanghai, the Bund and the French

Concession was simply wall to wall people. But the history
very interesting.

We stayed in five hotels. All were five star. Photo is the

Hotel Lobby in Beijing. Total trip cost $960 Cdn each with
breakfast included. All we paid for was lunch and dinner.
The food was good.

Wine was hard to find, but we had several bottles of 5

year-old Spanish Roja for $8 Cdn. Beer was dirt cheap, too
bad I am not a beer drinker.
There are no signs in English, with the exception of the Metro Ticker Tape displaying the next stop. Although
Shanghai was more English friendly. Even the one English TV Channel was owned and run by the government.
Reminded me of the sixties listening via Shortwave to Radio Moscow.
It was hard to grasp the size of the population. This
section of a map shows four of five cities we
visited:

Over one hundred million people live in that

area!!!!

I can't judge the people except through the

mouths of our 6 to 8 Tour Guides. They sounded like
the worst Americans for bragging. China will
overtake the world!!! Nixon was mentioned a
couple of times but more as a bookmark, when in fact
the credit of China's growth should go mostly to China's Vice Premier Deng, France's Giscard, Richard Nixon,
Jimmy Carter along with the huge US investment and stolen intellectual property.

I was not impressed by the inequality which is

everywhere. Photo Right: shack outside our hotel in
Shanghai.
Driving cars or scooters seemed to be a form of
population control. No baby seats in cars, Linda
spotted a guy on a scooter with a mom on the back
holding a baby in her arms. I spotted a flat deck
with eight 4" x 4" steel girders eight feet long
without any tie downs. Incredible.

I met Jen, thanks to Lorin, the author of "The

Noodle Road to Rome" she gave us both a personal
autographed copy.

Linda was incredible in navigating us through many

trips on the Metro. Had an exciting ride on the Mag Lev
train. 431 km/hr. It can go a lot faster but it needs a
longer track. 7 minute ride while the subway takes 30
minutes. Sweet.

In Beijing the streets were just about impassable

with all the traffic, then you realize to control
pollution 1/5 of the cars are not allowed on the road.
One day per week car must rest. :).

The tour was a bit on the heavy side up at 6:30 am and back in the hotel at nine or ten. The last three day we
opted out of all tours and Linda did her navigation stuff.

The visit to Tea Farm, Chinese Medicine Place, Jade Factory, Silk production facility were all very interesting. I
learned stuff.

Pedestrians Zebra Walks may offer lots of protection in the UK, some in Canada, but China has wasted money on
painting them in China. They are a great place to get mangled or killed.

We will never likely take a tour again, although it was imperative for this trip. For now I doubt we would visit
China again, but who knows maybe we will discover different feelings as time passes.
Relationships: Men and Women
 Marriage is a business proposition, woman looks for money, man for power (connections)
 live with grand parents
 Brides parents often pay as much as $100K to marry off their girl.

Halloween
Here is a quiet bar/restaurant we discovered you can see the
spider and webs. The food was awesome. Cotton's Bar, next
door to Concession Era Architecture

No one goes to China without a visit to The Great Wall.

Figure 1 At the Jade Factory
Figure 2 Dragon Well Tea Plantation. The most expensive tea in China $250 per 500 grams

https://www.lifeisbetterwithtea.com/dragon-well-tea/ Tea bushes are kept trimmed to about 1 meter and grow on the
slopes of the hills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCMSQS9T0tE
Figure 4 Old Town, Shanghai

Figure 3 Thousands of Apartments being built

Figure 5 Electrical Code On the Right

Our bus driver hit some electrical wires likes this

and spent the night in jail.

Below. Typical Wedding, 10 minutes of

fireworks set off sounding like a war broke out
at entrance of the hotel. Then the rented
Rolls drives up.
Figure 6 Forbidden Palace
Figure 7 Lorin & Bill Tiananmen Square
Figure 8 Buddhist Palace
Figure 9 Inside the Buddhist Palace

https://www.chinadiscovery.com/jiangsu/wuxi/lingshan-grand-buddha.html
Figure 10 Wuxi Silk Production area. The smog followed us from Beijing
Figure 11 Bill with chop sticks and Dumplings. Cafe along the Grand Canel
Figure 12 Walking St Market in Beijing with Lorin
Figure 13 Wuxi to Beijing The Grand Canal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)

1776 Km Initially built in 5 Century BC. Used to transport agriculture products from the South to Beijing in the North and
return with industrial materials.
Figure 14 The Bund in Shanghai
Figure 15 The Bund

Features architecture from 1800s in its role as a Free Port to 2019

The lighting feels like a video game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bund
Figure 16 No shortage of electrical power in Shanghai
We had a great 11 day trip. Glad to be home.

The End