Observations in China

[Tpoints]

Cultural learnings of China for make benefit shitty country of US and A.

[jclay2]

Thank you ChristianAnarchist. I really appreciate your perspective. Interesting and informative. plus rep.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Today we are packing for our trip from Wuhan back to Beijing. We will be riding the "overnight" train. They now have "bullet" trains running all over the country but I've never ridden one. They can make the 12 hour trip in about 5 hours. The reason I like the overnight train better is you get on late in the evening and get into your bed to sleep. When you wake up, you are almost at your destination so you really don't waste much time traveling this way.

I have ridden the Mag-Lev in Shanghai 5 times. It's only a 20 mile track but this sucker goes 440 kph!! First time I rode it I had no idea how fast it was going to go. As it silently started to speed up, I noted the traffic in the highway next to us and when we started going faster than them, I thought, "hey, this thing is pretty fast". I had no idea we were only going about 1/3 the top speed at that point. The train kept going faster and I kept wondering when it would reach top speed. The digital speed indicator kept going up and after 300 kph I was stunned at how much faster than the highway traffic we were going. After about 3 minutes, we reached 440 kph and I was actually a bit apprehensive about how fast I was going. At this speed you could not see the highway traffic clearly as we were flying past them at airplane speeds (about 280 mph) but we were on an elevated track about 40 feet off the ground so you really get a sense of speed. This train can only maintain top speed for about 30 seconds because it's then time to start slowing down or it will run out of track. After about 3 minutes slowing down, you are pulling into the station. 20 miles in about 8 minutes!! I had to go back and ride it two more times that trip and then on another trip to Shanghai, I rode it two more times. It's a must see in Shanghai. The only other place you can ride one is in Germany where the train was designed. The Germans could not build the first commercial one in Germany because of government regulation, but they came to Shanghai and the Chinese built this one in a few short years so it was the first commercial Mag-Lev in existence.

http://www.smtdc.com/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMyffFFedrM

[2young2vote]

I have a couple of questions.

Would you say that they have a free market on the micro level. That means if you want to start a small business like a hot dog stand or sell something out of a building you can do it with very little government regulation.

If you had to walk across the city (no specific city, just in general) would you feel unsafe because of criminals and gangs? Is it like the US where there are good parts and bad parts?

[ChristianAnarchist]

I have a couple of questions.

Would you say that they have a free market on the micro level. That means if you want to start a small business like a hot dog stand or sell something out of a building you can do it with very little government regulation.

If you had to walk across the city (no specific city, just in general) would you feel unsafe because of criminals and gangs? Is it like the US where there are good parts and bad parts?

Running a small stand on the street can be done with or without a permit. I'm not sure how much the permit is, but I'm reasonably sure it's not terrible. Even so, many of the street vendors work without the permit and sometimes the goons hassle them, but mostly not. Until a year ago you would see many small vendors with their wares spread out on a blanket on the sidewalk. There are still a few of these, but the will roll up their stuff and move if they see the police coming. The police never chase them that I have seen, they are just happy to see them pack up and go. Small business with a store front will usually need some kind of permit, but again, enforcement is spotty and some go without until they get fined. It's pretty easy to start some small shop here but when you start to get big, they come around and expect you to pay "fees" for whatever they can dream up (fire protection, etc).

There are definitely good and bad neighborhoods as far as monetary value, but I've walked through some very poor areas and never felt I was in danger (perhaps I was just ignorant). The largest type of crime I know of here is petty theft and pick-pocketing. I did hear today about a guy who was shot. There were 3 businessmen who developed the area I'm currently staying in (my wife's parents Beijing apartment) and one of these guys got strung out on drugs and deep in debt. He kept hitting up his partners for money and one day one of them had enough and cut him off. The guy went out to his car, got his gun and came back and shot him dead. Of course they caught him and put him on trial. The friend who told us about this story did not know if they had executed the guy, but they pretty much execute everyone for serious crime.

[georgiaboy]

Great, informative thread! +rep

From your perspective, are there more 'foreigners' like yourself in China now? Also, what are the current thoughts about the 'one child only' law (if it still exists), and are there orphanages/orphans prevalent?

[lx43]

Great read thank you. Plus Rep+

[ChristianAnarchist]

Great, informative thread! +rep

From your perspective, are there more 'foreigners' like yourself in China now? Also, what are the current thoughts about the 'one child only' law (if it still exists), and are there orphanages/orphans prevalent?

Many foreigners are in China now because this is the fastest growing economy (although it's slowing some). Yesterday we met with some people from the Beijing-Shanghai classic car rally (we might be in it next October) and the girl we had been talking to on the phone spoke pretty good English and her Chinese was so good that my wife thought she WAS Chinese. When we met her we found out that she is actually an Italian woman who has been in China working for about 4 years as a translator. She speaks 4 languages.

As far as the one-child policy it's always been fairly lax. In my wife's family she has two uncles who have 4 kids each. They are all 20+ now but back when they were having them, they could only "fine" them for their violations. Since they were peasant farmers they didn't have much and at one point they just took their couch as their "fine". Anyone who works for the government though, would lose their job if they had more than one child. Right now the policy has changed so that if both the mother and father were from one-child homes, they can have two children without penalty. Many of the poorer members of society will abandon their children especially if they have some form of deformity and most of those kids wind up in orphanages. In China life is not held in as high regard by the masses, yet families are still the strongest bond. Modern life is causing changes though and the young do not have as great a regard for the elderly as in the past.

[pacelli]

Sounds like the Chinese citizens need to get their asses together and have a revolution.

Lead by example.

Its a damned shame they let their weapons get confiscated, huh?

[ChristianAnarchist]

Went auto shopping today with our friend and her husband who are looking to buy their second car. Here in Beijing the only way you can get a license plate for your car is to put your name in for their "lottery". If you are lucky and your name comes up, you have "permission" to get a plate for one car. Her name came up about 3 months ago and her "permit" expires in 3 months, so they are shopping for a car. Today we visited the Mercedes and BMW dealerships. They are similar to dealerships here but smaller. They have more than enough buyers as cars are in great demand and everyone seems to want one. We took a BMW 521i (I think) for a test drive. I was in the back with the wife and the husband drove while the saleswoman rode shotgun. The car is every bit as nice as any other new car I've ridden in. I think the quality of Chinese built cars has risen to the point it's probably only a notch below the home-built cars. The price, however, is not so great. These cars are selling for about the same as a German version in the US. Seems like someone is making a hell of a profit off the Chinese consumer in most all consumer items. Electronics are very overpriced compared to what we are used to. A DVD player can be had at your local Wally World for about $30 (made in China) but here you will pay close to $100 for the bargain player. Most items are similarly overpriced and yet the average Chinese who has to work twice as hard as we do for about one quarter of the pay somehow manage to buy some of these items. Cars, as I mentioned already, have no problem selling in fact most of the time they can't keep up with demand...