China 2010
We went to China in 2010 to see how it had changed since our last visit in 1998, and before that in 1988, when our son David lived in Shanghai for a year studying Mandarin. We flew to Shanghai, spent five days, then flew 500 miles south to Xiamen in Fujian Province. Several days later we took a fast train (150 mph) north to Hangzhou and, after celebrating my 70th birthday in Hangzhou, we flew north again to Qingdao, in Shandong Province, famous for its Tsingtao beer. From Tsingtao we flew to Beijing (means north capital in Chinese), then on to Xian and finally back to Shanghai for a day at World Expo. Lots of moving around but train and air travel in China is both excellent and inexpensive and, even with language issues, easy to navigate.
Thinking back to our first trip to China in 1988, I can remember our first day, which we spent in Shanghai. I was inabsolute awe at the sights, sounds and smells. It was the most foreign place I had ever experienced and for days was amazed with everything I saw. Then, Shanghai had few tall buildings, not many cars and the streets were alive with masses of people walking and on bicycles. My ears rang from the constant din of bicycle bells.
The Shanghai of 2010, which was hosting the 2010 World Expo with seventy million visitors, was very different. Shanghai is amazing; the number of high rise buildings is incredible and I didn’t think there was that much concrete and steel in the world. At night they all came alive with brilliant colored lights, Las Vegas style, but with more class. We were in Dubai in 2008 and saw their over-the-top building spree. But China had a fifteen to twenty year lead on Dubai, and seemingly endless amounts of money and manpower. While thousands of new buildings had been constructed, the building continues and you could see huge cranes atop buildings everywhere.
The non-stop building wasn’t just in Shanghai, but was throughout China; you had to see the buildings to believe what they’ve done. They hired the best talent from around the world to build tens of thousands of office and residential high rises, and from what we saw they were well-designed and built. The lighting was amazing, and one wonders where they get all the electric power, perhaps from the many nuclear power plants throughout the country with thirty or more under constuction.
Shanghai is incredibly clean — you can walk through malls with tens of thousands of shoppers and not see a single cigarette butt. Huge airports and train stations were spotless and we never saw any litter.
The Shanghai World Expo started on May 1, 2010 and the city had been preparing it for nine years. As with the 2008 Beijing summer Olympic games, China wanted to make a good impression to the world so went all out to make sure everything was right. They built new highways, subway lines, a new airport, and many luxury hotels. The government bought thousands of high-end taxis with navigation systems and even held courtesy classes telling residents not to hang their laundry out the window (a Chinese tradition) or wear pajamas in the street. Amazing what you can accomplish when you are a totalitarian government.
We took two day trips, hiring a car, driver, and English speaker, to tour small towns in the countryside. Both guides were in their thirties: a young man in Xiamen and a woman in Hangzhou. Both were intelligent, well-educated and their English was excellent. We welcomed the opportunity to question them about China’s progress in recent years, its future and how they perceive China’s relationship with the United States.
Before leaving home, people asked us if China was now “open”— if you could travel anywhere without government restrictions. We found there were no restrictions whatsoever and, in fact, with the many new airlines and train systems, it’s easier to travel within China than in many other countries. There were brand new airports and train stations with signage in English as well as Chinese characters. We traveled through many and we felt they were among the finest we’ve seen anywhere in the world.
One key to getting around in Chinese cities is the taxi system. There are millions of taxis and they’re very inexpensive; ten to twenty minute rides were between one and two dollars. Hotels had cards with main tourist attractions printed in English and Chinese: you just check where you want to go and show it to the cab driver. If the destination wasn’t printed on the card, you asked the hotel clerk to write it in Chinese characters. This system worked very well and enabled us to see lots of sights and eat in great restaurants. All the taxis are government owned and metered, so no ripoffs. The taxis were late model cars and were used extensively to get around the cities.
Because of the huge population, and a concern for noise and pollution, China had embraced electric scooters and bicycles, and in many cities separate lanes were reserved to separate them from cars and buses. They dart about everywhere and, because they are electric, you can never hear them coming, but we didn’t see any accidents.
There were few English speakers, usually just in the large hotels and airports, but one always seemed to materialize when we needed translation. My Mandarin phrase book was a lifesaver. I had mastered just a few Mandarin words and phrases and picked up more as we traveled. My best phrase in Mandarin was “wo yao pijo hen bing”- which means “I’d like a cold beer.”
It was strange to come from the U.S., which seems to be in an economic tailspin, to China, which appears to have unlimited funds and not many years ago was considered to be a third world country. Signs of prosperity and wealth were everywhere. At home, our city and county don’t seem to have sufficient funds to fix potholes. In China the government has been building new highways, fast trains and many public and private buildings. Employment is high and the people seem content. Homelessness doesn’t exist, there was no graffiti and the crime rate is low. Good and healthy food is plentiful and cheap. We’re sure the Chinese have lots of problems, but they weren’t evident to this foreign visitor, and I envy their many accomplishments in improving their citizen’s quality of life.
I’m certainly not an advocate of big government, and abhor the idea of a totalitarian state, but it seems to work for the Chinese with its population of 1.3 billion or four times the US. China would be in total chaos if it had a dysfunctional government such as ours, with constant infighting and bickering between the two political parties. I believe the US is, and has been, the greatest nation in the world, with a quality of life envied and copied by others, but we need to find better solutions for our ongoing problems.
It will be interesting to watch how both China and the US progress and how they interact with each other. China leans toward the west in so many ways: their fashion, business dealings, architecture, and much more, and it has a history and culture that go back thousands of years. One wonders if, and how, China’s past will impact its future western leanings.
Art Faibisch, 2010
