Observations in China

[ChristianAnarchist]

I'm currently in China (my wife is Chinese and we come here a couple of times per year to visit) and I've been traveling to China for about 18 years. Some observations this trip in no particular order.

We arrived about a week ago in Beijing and traveled by train to Wuhan where my wife's father is in the hospital to have bladder stones removed and prostate TERP. We have been visiting him in the hospital every day. Since my wife is an internal medicine doctor in the US, we have been making comparisons to the differences in health care. The same procedure in the US would require the patient to show up the night before surgery having not eaten for 12 hours. Here, the patient is kept in the hospital for about 6 days before the surgery and on IV fluids for several days. My wife's father is borderline diabetic so his sugar levels must be monitored, yet here, they consider fructose to be "safe" for diabetics so they gave him IV fructose most every day. They then express concern about his diet because his sugar levels were shooting up to levels we had never observed at home. My wife mentioned this, but did not want to make too many waves so she did not press the issue. As far as procedures, they seem to have at least as good a result here as in the US and the doctors are very skilled in their area of expertise. A major difference is in nursing. Here the family is responsible for the greater patient care including food, turning, bed pans, etc. The nurses take care of hanging the IV's, connecting to patient monitors, and blood testing. The family is responsible for WATCHING the patient monitor and calling the nurse if any levels are out of range. We spent one night there right after the operation and after that, we hired a sitter to take on those responsibilities. Post-op they usually have the patient in for about 7 days vs our 3 days. He is post-op 4 days today and doing fine.

More later...

[TER]

Very interesting! Please post more!

[ChristianAnarchist]

It's interesting talking to the locals (through my wife as interpreter). Most Chinese are guilty of "America worship". They are completely convinced that in the USA we are walking on streets of gold and everyone is happy. They really have low regard for their own "government" and freely express it. One taxi driver was heaping praise on the USA and bad-mouthing the Beijing masters. When I asked him whether he believes any of the "news" in China, he was instant in his response "All Bullshit!!" He does not believe any of it. I told him that I only believe about 10-20% of our media. I'm sure he considers our media as accurate, and I wanted to let him know otherwise. I've yet to find a Chinese taxi driver who actually likes the government. They are stuck in a system where the only people who "own" taxi companies are wealthy individuals with strong family ties to the biggest government officials. There is a lot of cronyism here.

The number of people in China is unimaginable to most Americans. We think that any building over 10 stories is pretty tall. In every city here most apartment buildings are in the 20-30 story range and they are almost side-by-side. The drive from my wife's apartment (which they own) on the east of Wuhan to the hospital on the west side is 11 miles and takes between 30-45 minutes depending on traffic and the entire route is flanked by buildings in the 20-45 story range. This hospital complex has 3 buildings of 16-20 stories.

Wuhan just opened their first subway line a week ago and we tried to ride it on the 3rd day but gave up after seeing the long lines of people buying tickets. The next day we had another chance during a "slow" traffic period. We only had a short line to buy tickets and after fighting the crowds to the platform managed to squeeze onto the first train. Sardine city!. The number of people riding the subway even overloaded their exit gates. You are supposed to put your plastic coin into the slot to open the gate to let you out, but this process proved to slow for the number of people so they had girls with baskets at the exit gates (which were locked open) just collecting the coins in the baskets as the mob files by.

We usually travel by train within the country which is pretty efficient (those commies sure can make the trains run on time). I like to travel on the overnight sleeper train as you only lose a couple of hours since you are sleeping for most of the trip. Many people now prefer the Bullet Trains as they make the 10 hour Beijing to Wuhan trip in only 5 hours. I see this as a waste of 3 hours though and have never ridden the bullets. Even though they have only had bullet trains for a couple of years and the Wuhan route has only been open for maybe 10 months, they are adding trains like crazy. We were at the train ticket agency yesterday and asked about whether we should buy tickets several days in advance if we want to ride the bullet train and the guy said "Of course, there are only 11 trains per day so you need to buy ahead of time". Eleven trains on a route that has only been open for 10 months and it's still not enough. I'm wondering how the train manufacturers are even keeping up with demand...

[TER]

Wow! I'm trying to picture what your seeing. I hope you are taking plenty of pictures!

Have you seen any Christian churches? Buddhist temples? Places of worship?

[John F Kennedy III]

Please post pictures! I really hope your wife's dad gets out of there ok.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the people packed into those cities like that because I'm guessing something like 80% of the population lives by the coast? Leaving a huge amount of land almost unused.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Christianity is growing here in China. I've been to a couple of churches and since I really can't understand Chinese very well, I have to rely on my wife who tells me the messages are pretty much the same as from a church in the USA (but then most of our churches seem to be in bed with the government so that's not saying much).

One thing I've learned from traveling is that it seems that all people have the same basic goals. They want to care for and advance their position and the position of their families. Families care for and nurture their children and try to make their lives better. There will always be dis-functional families of course, but those are the minority.

Most of the people live in the cities because that's where the opportunities are and where they can "get ahead". There are vast areas in the west of China that are almost uninhabited. Major cities in China have 10 million or more people. On million is considered a small city. I always take lots of pictures but I don't usually post them online as it's a bit of an effort and I'm usually pressed for time. Maybe you can recommend an online photo sharing site that will not make me sign away all rights to my photos (like google tried) and where I don't have to be concerned about being profiled even more than I already am. I recently tried newsgroups after being away from them for a couple of years and I've found that they've even managed to "tame" those. No more bootleg copies of anything that I could find in the binary groups. Guess the "wild" internet is truly changing (sad to say).

[loveableteddybear]

How are drugs and crime?

I may have to go to Cambodia one day with my wife and feel that it is much more dangerous there.

[american.swan]

I chuckle a bit after reading your comments on China. I've lived in South Korea for ten years. There are people here who worship the US too. Seoul reminds me a lot of what you said about crowds and tall buildings.

Quite a few people in South Korea don't trust their government either. Korea is very socialist. It reminds me of the Europe you hear about in the news.

If you have any questions about South Korea feel free to ask me. I live in Gangnam (Gangnam Style).

[pacelli]

Have you had an opportunity to notice the spies following you around yet?

[ChristianAnarchist]

China is pretty safe. I know there are drugs and crime here but the most I've ever witnessed is shoplifting and minor theft. I've never seen anyone with a gun other than sometimes a military guard at a military post (and not many of those). The cops don't have guns so you're chance of being shot is pretty small here (I sound like an anti-gun nut...). If you are caught doing something the government thugs don't like (such as bad mouthing them) you could find yourself at the end of one of their guns when they execute you, but you really have to throw it in their faces to get something that extreme. They execute a lot of people here (no one has the exact number) but there are several billion people, so it's a small percentage.

I know of many examples of people associated with my wife's family and friends who have been in jail for minor offenses and they really are more lenient in most punishment than we are. Recently the small storefront where we buy lots of bootleg DVD's was busted because the cops said the woman had "too many" DVD's on display. They took her away to an education center for 14 days where she was taught the evils of bootleg videos and then released. The cops told her she is not to have any more than 500 bootleg DVD's on display at any time. She now has a display in front of 500 DVD's and she has many more in the back so she says she can get you whatever you want, but she can only display the 500. She talks about how stupid the cops were and the 14 days she was forced to "go away" and not earn a living. She was also fined an amount that was not enough to put her out of business. An interesting part of her story was that when the cops came and told her she had to go with them she said that she needed to make a phone call to someone to come and watch her shop because there is no lock on her stall and she needs to empty it every day. They told her no, she could only make a phone call from the police station, but she persisted complaining that her stock would be stolen if left unattended. They finally relented and let her call her sister to take care of the store. You KNOW that our cops would never be so flexible... I've seen many instances of people here in loud arguments with the cops and they don't get tasered or shot (since they don't have either).

Disclaimer: Whenever I point out the "advantages" of living in China vs living in USA, I'm NOT saying that it's better to live in China, but I will say that the "advantages" of living in the USA are shrinking...