Danita and I returned from a 19 day trip to China 2 weeks ago. I was very sick the first 10 days returning and am just now getting back to normal. One of our group put together a collage of much of what we saw distilled into a 15 minute video. You can see it at: https://youtube/watch?v=0DeCpoDyP-I . China has come far from the days of Mao. As I was a child growing up, my parents would say eat whats on your plate....kids are starving in China. When Mao collectivized farms, it didnt take farmers long to see that no matter how hard you worked, you got the same. Productivity plummeted but collective leadership padded their productivity so they wouldnt look bad. The result was massive famine in China. The casual greeting wasnt hi but have you eaten today. After Maos death, the farms were de-collectivized and now every farmer has an equal sized property to farm for himself. The government, however, owns all property. iPhones are very popular in China, so much so that some people give up one meal a day to afford one. For the most part, Chinese people are very friendly to American tourists - they will not forget our help during WWII. Chinese people dont watch much TV but are out in the streets at night, walking, socializing, shopping, and dancing. Media is highly censored. One cannot see public displays of civil disobedience in the media. When news of the Hong Kong protests came on, the TV screen would go black. Google, Youtube, and Facebook are unavailable to the public. The government has worked to be more open and to eliminate corruption which was rampant. The current ruling group funnels much into public projects but little into social benefits. Family is the important backup for social support for the aging and ill. The government provides little in the way of health care. Construction projects abound. Their major cities are in the 30 million person range - something we dont see in the West. Pollution is rampant - our time in Beijing was marked by pollution so bad you could barely see across the street. It is amazing that in this environment so many people smoke. Lung disease is a major killer. People generally are much better off than they have been historically. The government projects that the Chinese economy will overtake the US in 15-20 years. There was much to see an learn. We took over 1200 photos. Rather than post them here, watch the video and you will get a good sense of the trip. -Greg
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:45:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015