Observations in China

[Barrex]

Did you see Jackie Chan?

 

[presence]

+rep op thanks for the read. Be mindful of what you post and don't get accused of being some sort of anti-communist spy.

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

+rep op thanks for the read. Be mindful of what you post and don't get accused of being some sort of anti-communist spy.

Actually, years ago Alex Jones accused me of being a "communist sympathizer" just because I tried to correct him on his "Chinese fetus eating" dis-information. (No, they don't eat fetus in China...)

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

Another taxi driver (who also has nothing but bad things to say about the PRC) was telling us about his 20 year old son who has spent the last 10 years at the Shaolin monastery learning Kung-Fu. We will be meeting him on Thursday when we go to the train station for our trip back to Beijing. This kid has got to be good after 10 years there. The father wants to see if we can get his son immigrated to the US in some way. I don't know if we can help, but we are going to try to contact some universities to see if they want to sponsor a Kung-Fu master for their sports program. I don't know if they have any kind of martial-arts programs in the US colleges, but we will try at least.

This guy is so typical of most Chinese we know. They think that EVERYTHING in the USA is great and EVERYTHING here is bad. They don't know the kind of taxation and regulation we live under. In China there is way less of both (but it helps to have connections to get ahead). Even though this idea prevails, we know of several Chinese who have immigrated to USA only to decide after 10 years that maybe China has more opportunity and they have returned.

He also told us the reason that so many cars have appeared in the last 5 years. It seems that they have embraced "financing" for automobiles and he says that pretty much anyone can get approved for a loan for a car. Of course we know from experience that stimulating the market with loans that some will not be able to pay back is a real bad idea, but I guess they haven't learned this yet...

 

[texasbelle]

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...

Very interesting. My daughter is from China. (Qinghai Province) We adopted her at age 6. She has a complex heart defect. Anyway I got to look at her medical files from China and she was in the hospital for several periods in her early life. She had an open heart surgery in Beijing at age 2 and was in hospital for almost a month from what I could understand. Several pneumonia hospital stays over a month long as well. She since had an open heart surgery here in US and it was considered a long stay at 13 days. She wants to travel back to China (she is 9 now) but I am too leary if something were to come up as she is on blood thinners. I cannot imagine how she would fare in a Chinese hospital because she has a very rare condition.... Hope your Father in law does ok!

 

[texasbelle]

Ok I am going to have to come back and read all your thoughts on China. I loved it while I was there. Xining and Guangzhou were the cities I visited. It was not at all what I expected.

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

Very interesting. My daughter is from China. (Qinghai Province) We adopted her at age 6. She has a complex heart defect. Anyway I got to look at her medical files from China and she was in the hospital for several periods in her early life. She had an open heart surgery in Beijing at age 2 and was in hospital for almost a month from what I could understand. Several pneumonia hospital stays over a month long as well. She since had an open heart surgery here in US and it was considered a long stay at 13 days. She wants to travel back to China (she is 9 now) but I am too leary if something were to come up as she is on blood thinners. I cannot imagine how she would fare in a Chinese hospital because she has a very rare condition.... Hope your Father in law does ok!

My wife finished her BS degree in China and then immigrated to the USA where she (after we were married) completed medical school and practices in Internal Medicine. She frequently does rounds in the hospital where we live. She made several comparisons to her father's stay in the hospital here and how we do it in the US (her father is doing great). When all is said and done, she says she would much rather be in the hospitals in USA. With her father, they put him in the hospital for what we would regard as an unusual pre-op stay of 6 days before the operation. We would do all tests and prep as out-patient care. Here they kept him in the hospital for about 7 days post-op even though he was in fine condition after 3 days and in the US, he would have been discharged after being able to walk. Here they kept him on IV drip with some fructose for every day except for discharge day and in the US we do not give IV nutrition to anyone who can eat and drink (for the most part). As he is borderline diabetic, the fructose was driving his sugar WAY up beyond anything he would have experienced at home. The hospital tried to blame the readings on the bread he was eating as they don't believe fructose drives up blood sugar (hint: it does).

Anyway, the bottom line is her father feels better than he says he can express in words and the bill came to about $10,000. Not cheap by any means, but still less than in the US. His government insurance will cover most of the bill. If we have a choice, we will have all health care done in USA...

 

[GreenBulldog]

I'm also an American living in China due to my wife. I'd like to add my comments:

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.

Funny you say that because the way my wife and I see it, the Chinese government are trying to be more like the US government, but only in the bad ways. By that, I mean adding street cameras, monopolizing production of pork to a small numbers of farmers who provide most of the meat, policy of aggression in foreign countries, etc.

They really have low regard for their own "government" and freely express it.

Just not where public officials can hear 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.

Chinese citizens are smarter than American citizens in that sense.

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.

Yep, everything is owned by the government.

(but then most of our churches seem to be in bed with the government so that's not saying much).

Those connected to the government do the best here, just like the US, but more.

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.

Unlike the welfare state in this country. People believe in taking care of themselves rather than believe in the god of government.

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.

That's what they say, but those people also live crammed in shitty apartments. It boggles the mind.

I was saying to my wife that kids who come to the big cities to "get ahead" should stay in the countryside and learn farming. She agrees with me, but farmers are looked down on in the Chinese community so much that they can't take the shame.

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.

One thing I like about here is that cops don't bother you. I get nervous around cops in the US because they'll bust you for small infraction. I never felt safe around a cop, but felt like someone I want to avoid because I'll get harassed.

In a way, China is more free that the US, but like Anarchist said, as long as you lay off certain taboos like bad mouthing the government, government leaves you alone.

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...

My thoughts exactly.

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

I would add that my "viewpoint" is skewed by my age. I'm 60 and when I was in 8th grade I would ride the city bus (St. Paul, MN) once a week with my rifle which I brought to school for rifle club. In high school, we would sometimes put a couple of guns in the back seat and stop to shoot in a field not far from home. My how things have changed...

Really, we had a pretty large amount of freedom in the 60's. My first driver's license had no photo and was just printed card stock. Auto insurance was optional and the cops would pretty much leave you alone (kind of like the cops in China do now). We would work in the fields picking produce and get paid in cash at the end of the day. I could open a "passbook savings account" without ID and without a SSN...

 

[ChristianAnarchist]

I just posted this on The Daily Paul under the topic "What Does The Rest of the World Think About These Good Old U.S. of A?"

From some old Chinese...
Submitted by ChristianAnarchist on Wed, 01/09/2013 - 02:12.

Just posed the question regarding guns to my wife's parents here in Wuhan. First I asked if they see coverage of the gun issue on Chinese news and they said there's quite a lot of coverage here. I then asked what the news says should be done about it and her father said it's "controversial" (and he actually knew about the NRA). (My wife's parents have spent about 7 of the last 16 years living with us in the USA so they are familiar with guns). I then asked them what their opinion was and her father said "some gun control" and her mother said "no guns". I then asked them if they thought the "Rape of Nanking" would have happened if the peasants had firearms. Silence...

 

[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...