Plunkey

[mrplunkey]

The other thing that jumped out at me was how quickly they want to develop their own middle class. Europe isn't perceived as a great customer like the US. But they know the US will crash soon. They place a huge emphasis on a "Moderately Prosperous Society" by 2020. But it translates into a double meaning. They use the word "Moderately Prosperous" for modesty purposes and to set expectations. But they also use that word to describe a broad swath of people that both produce and consume in their society -- a middle class. They see depending on the US as a market as a high risk strategy and want to get away from that dependency as soon as possible. They would respectfully tease us about "staying home and printing money". The same phrase was used on three seperate occasions, which makes me think it's a common Chinese phrase.

 

[nimbus]

awesome info in here

 

[mrplunkey]

In the "big cities" did night life carrying on throughout the night, or did everything shut down early?

Is TV 100% state controlled govmint propaganda, or do they have the equivalents of sitcoms (and Jerry)?

In the major cities, there's 24/7 nightlife. But huge parts of city shut down (entire buildings and/or blocks will be dark).

In the second and third tier cities, it's unbelievable. You'll go for 2-5 km blowing past buildings that are entirely black. Maybe one in five buildings (at most) will even have a single light on. They have to be cutting power in the evenings, because there's no way you'd have that many buildings entirely black otherwise.

And in the north, they sure don't like heat. People will wear full-blown ski-style jackets indoors. It's not unusual for a building to be at 56-62 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[PICK3]

But they know the US will crash soon.

Their growth is eventually going to lead to their demise too.


just sayin'

People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• In the past decade, China's cities expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. The country's urbanization rate increased from 17.4% to 46.8% between 1978 and 2009, a scale unprecedented in human history.
  
• Estimates of excess deaths in China from environmental pollution (apart from smoking) are placed at 760,000 people per annum from air and water pollution (including indoor air pollution).
  
• In 2007, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide.
  
• Some 90% of China's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution, and nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

 

[PICK3]

must have been an hellacious flight to China and connecting to TN

I'd have to take a bottle xannies and a bottle of Ambiens


just sayin'

 

[mrplunkey]

Cable television is 100% government controlled. They recently added a 24 hour news channel (state run). Their newscasts emphasize positive news about growth using highly specific figures (they are very numerically oriented). There are also a lot of stories about the government protecting people from outside evils. During my visit, there were stories on a scandal were pigs were given clenbuterol to make them leaner (and sell for a premium). The paper explained that people eating the tainted meat would become dizzy and have heart palpitations. They cover the Russians very favorably. For example, I saw several newscasts on the Russian space program. They also covered the Japanese reactor problem very dramatically, describing it as Japan's worst disaster since WWII.

They also have game shows and shows for children, that look a lot like our variety shows from the 70's and 80's. It reminded me of "The Price is Right" or "Let's Make a Deal". And a lot of their shows are just plain goofy. I'm certainly no television connoisseur (I love Jerry), but some of this stuff was just infantile.

You can get satellite TV as well, but it's expensive. Our guide didn't have it, so she didn't know much about it. She was convinced that it was partially blocked or controlled as well, but I just don't see how they'd do that with a satellite.

Their Internet service is definitely filtered. I couldn't get on Facebook anywhere in the country. Apparently they had a small facebook-organized uprising around a year ago (according to our guide) and they blocked the service for the country. But I could get on places like EF and Fox News with no problem. But there are at least some Shanghai-based IP's are banned (that's an EF thing, not a government thing).

 

[mrplunkey]

Their growth is eventually going to lead to their demise too.


just sayin'

People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• In the past decade, China's cities expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. The country's urbanization rate increased from 17.4% to 46.8% between 1978 and 2009, a scale unprecedented in human history.
  
• Estimates of excess deaths in China from environmental pollution (apart from smoking) are placed at 760,000 people per annum from air and water pollution (including indoor air pollution).
  
• In 2007, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide.
  
• Some 90% of China's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution, and nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water.

The urbanization is ridiculous. And yes, there's a lot of smog/pollution in the air. The funny thing is, a lot of Chinese (including our guide) believe it is "fog" -- not "smog". Well-educated people will present it as a fact. But is sure looked like pollution to me.

During one of our stops, they took us to an "organic" farm that produced all of their own food for lunch. They were every bit as passionate about their "all-natural" food as any US-based organic foods advocate would be. The lunch was great. Afterward they take you on a tour of the grounds, which were laid-out like an old Chinese village. There's a growing concern that the new generation has no ideas about the old traditions, so they build these organic farms on the edges of cities. They don't just grow food. They also had weaving, blacksmithing and wine-making.

And no, most of the water isn't safe to drink. And you're not going to find ice anywhere except an international hotel. Every hotel room (even the rattiest ones) have a hot water pot for boiling water. The nicer ones had complimentary bottles of water as well. The restaurants don't serve much water either. I asked for a water at one place and it completely confused them. They were offering rice wine and green tea, but I also asked for water. After a lot of confusion, I got a rice wine glass filled with boiling hot water. Not only could I not drink it, but I couldn't even touch the glass since the heat passed right through to the surface. I have no idea what they were thinking.

 

[-SD-]

 

[mrplunkey]

must have been an hellacious flight to China and connecting to TN

I'd have to take a bottle xannies and a bottle of Ambiens


just sayin'

Knoxville -> Detroit -> Shanghei

then several domestic Chinese flights

then

Beijing -> Chicago -> Knoxville

The worst legs were Knoxville -> Detroit and Chicago -> Knoxville.

Xiamen Airlines has larger planes and better service than any US domestic carrier. And you have to re-adjust to skinny, nice flight attendants too. One airline was pretty rough (Tianjin), but the flight attendants were still skinny and nice.

 

[mrplunkey]

A discussion of state-run media kicked-off a lively discussion during our visit.

Which would you rather have: Political freedom or economic freedom?

Their standard of living is lower than ours, but the progress they've made over the last 10 years is amazing. I spent a fair amount of time there in the mid 1990's and the advances they have made are incredible. If they leap like that over the next 10 years, they'll be right on top of us.