Our Thoughts on China
We had our perception of China being a mixture of old and new which is quite true. In yester year the USA claimed to have the biggest and the best but now China has certainly overtaken them, for example:
More bullet train tracks than the whole world put together
Have created the largest lake in the world with the largest dam in the world
Have put a spaceship on the moon and it won't be long before they have man there and also living there
Communism seems to be thriving and they get things done while the rest of the world is stalled by so called bureaucrats.
The Metro in Shanghai and Beijing was amazing and so cheap - $0.20 - .40cents and if you did not leave the station you could change lines at no extra cost. Buses in the cities were also the same price and as long as you knew which number to catch were pretty frequent with very little time waiting around.
Sleeper trains were great and were a good way to cover the long distances and in 10,000 plus kms only saw one level crossing and it had a chain lock on it with a permanent keeper.
Motorway systems in the cities are amazing and generally speaking in the newer parts of the cities the roads are very wide and pedestrians pass underneath.
Traffic in the cities, except in Beijing is chaotic with vehicles driving on all sides of the road, along with cyclists and motor cyclists who can also cross over on pedestrian crossings. Right turning traffic has the right of way over pedestrians and anything else. There are millions of electric motor bikes and bikes and they are so quiet you cannot hear them coming and they don't use their lights or horns as they need to save the batteries.
The roads are pretty noisy with all the cars beeping their horns - one beep is a warning, two beeps means get out of the way and one big long one is "I'm coming through anyway!!!"
Military policeman are everywhere and they can quell a disturbance in minutes.
There is a form of social security in that all government workers get a pension and for those who cannot work hard anymore clamber for jobs as street cleaners or pedestrian monitors in order to gain a pension. They do 12 hour shifts at these jobs.
The People
We found china relatively clean as millions of people are employed sweeping the pavements and streets with handmade brooms and tip shovels as the Chinese are very untidy and just throw their rubbish on the ground. Of all the cities we think Beijing was the cleanest.
The people are well dressed and the young girls are really into miniskirts and high heels and they have the legs to go with it (says Dave!). Some of the older people still dress in Mao style clothes.
We could generally find some young girl who could speak reasonable English after asking around.
Generally found the Chinese very courteous and always willing to help even if they did not speak English. The exception to this is when you are queuing and then they barge and push their way in, in front of you - always in a rush to be first.
The hoiking and spitting revolted us and it is done by both men and women and not discreetly, although we saw less of it in Beijing as they tried to stamp it out during the Olympics
Smoking was another thing that was hard to cope with, especially in restaurants. They are trying to stop it in public places but they have a long way to go. Cigarettes are only $NZ1 a packet.
A common sight in the cities was people scavenging in the rubbish for recyclable rubbish, obviously to earn a little money.
Also saw people scavenging in the rubbish for food scraps.
The Chinese are a very noisy race and at times appear to be very argumentative. They yell at each other from one end of the room to the other.
Locals seem to love tour groups and follow behind a tour leader bearing a flag, speaking through a microphone and all tour leaders competing for airspace
Twice on a train journey we had a guard trying to sell a Colgate flexible head toothbrush. The splurge that went with it lasted for at least 20 minutes with a blow by blow description on how it worked (all in Chinese of course).
In the past year entry fees to tourist attractions have all doubled in price and we even had to pay to go into some towns as all tourist sites have had the rights sold to companies who have a right to charge what they like. You even have to pay to walk around a park. Most fees were in $NZ10-15 and whilst on their own it does not seem that much, but then more often than not to visit anything in that sight one has to pay again. There was many a time we felt it was a rip off. Tourism is poorly organised in general, i.e. Information centres with nothing written in English and staff who did not speak English and more often than not did not have the info. Generally it is the hostels and hotels who you glean most of the information from.
Dozens of trinket stalls are at all the tourist sites and even in temples and all selling the same stuff.
Two thirds of the population are farmers who are all elderly as all the young people head to the cities. There is going to be a food shortage within 10 years in China as there are very few young people to take over from the elderly. We saw very little mechanism on the farms and it has been reported that companies are buying land in countries like the US, Australia and NZ to keep their food supplies up. China does not want to be buying food from abroad as this will immediately increase the cost of food.
China is self sufficient in coal but they are still buying 70% of their coal from Australia and other countries, conserving their own resources, similar applies to other commodities but they are rich in resources.
Overall a great place to visit and the diversity of the country is amazing. We have probably seen more of China than most tourists but we only scratched the surface and there is more to see than what the guide books tell you, one example is the Stone forest which we found out about too late and were disappointed that we could not see or find any information on it.