Life and Travel in China

Chinese New Year has its charms, but there is also one significant drawback! The Chinese are already waiting in kilometer-long (literally kilometer-long!) lines for train tickets! Many people want to return to their hometowns for the holidays, they will leave cities such as Shanghai, Ningbo, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou... to return to their towns and villages. For them, all these queues, jostling, fighting for seats on trains, buses and even planes are normal. The average Pole would be devastated by this and lock himself in his apartment at random. I treat their New Year's trips as a great sacrifice, for them it is simply an opportunity to visit their family. The problem is that several hundred million people get this opportunity at the same time! In Beijing, for example, the migration will be 36 million people (arriving and leaving in total this holiday season). It's as if all of Poland left the country and Poles living abroad would return to our place (within 2-3 weeks). It's hard to even imagine, but that's how it works in the Middle Kingdom.

My wife (Chinese) has always loved manga drawings, she was exposed to Japanese culture and knows the Japanese language. Recently, she has devoted more time to her hobby and has taken her drawings seriously. We decided to include them in our FOTOCHINY.com gallery. Please visit the new category, comments and ratings will be welcomed. These are only her first drawings - inspired by manga pictures from a book about learning to draw and from the Internet. I hope you enjoy her manga! Although they are not closely related to China, such art is very common in the Middle Kingdom.

I observe that more and more people come to Shenzhen to spend the New Year with their families. Previously, it was the other way around: young people usually saved some money for travel and returned to their hometowns - of course, many still do this. Nowadays, young people in Shenzhen are doing better and better and they invite their parents or even grandparents. They want to show them their new apartment in Shenzhen, drive them around the city and organize a gala dinner - New Year's Eve and a gala dinner on New Year's Day. There will be dishes such as chicken - symbolizing new opportunities, pork shank - symbolizing family unity, green vegetables - good relationships in the family, and fish - symbolizing prosperity and abundance. Of course, there are different dishes and dishes in different parts of China, but the symbolism is similar. I have already spent seven New Year holidays in the Middle Kingdom and I know that the most important are two elements: family and good food!

In just a few hours, the Year of the Rabbit will begin in China. This year will be favorable for people of this sign, for example those born in 1975 and 1987. It means prosperity and happiness for them. Moreover, it will be a good year for the signs: dog, horse, monkey, rooster, pig. Overall, however, it won't be the best year. According to Chinese omens and prophecies, this will be a year of many natural disasters. According to Chinese beliefs, the rabbit likes to eat grass, so this means that a lot of grass and weeds will grow, which will result in a poorer harvest. There are five elements in the world: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. The Year of the Rabbit is associated with wood, but the world is now ruled by metal. This is a conflict in a sense, the universe will be unstable. This situation will also affect the economy and economy, nothing will be 100% certain. Although for businessmen it means new investments and the development of foreign trade, you need to be careful with fraudsters and thieves. You should also take care of your family, advice for spouses - it is better to avoid affairs, because they can destroy everything this year. Of course, this does not mean that it is worth cheating after the Year of the Rabbit! Nevertheless, I wish you a successful and happy Year of the Rabbit and I hope that the Chinese fortune tellers are wrong about the disasters, although a hurricane has already appeared in Australia.

Such "authorities" on China issues are appearing more and more often in Poland. These are young, ambitious people who became fascinated with China a few years ago and promoted themselves by presenting their opinions about the Middle Kingdom. Maybe I'm a little jealous, but I have the impression that such people have no right to present the image of China. What amazes me is that their statements are so confident, obvious and supported by evidence. Are people who have been to China five times in a few years an authority on China? Or people who worked there for several years visiting some factories - do they really know China? I have visited hundreds of factories, I have a Chinese family, I have been to ten different provinces, I even lived for a few days in a factory workers' hotel, I also lived in the countryside, and in total I have spent here almost eight years. And let me be honest - I don't know China well! I get to know them, I try to understand them, adapt them, find out more, teach them, but I would never push my opinion or point of view about China throughout Poland. China is a huge country and you have to approach it with humility and distance, you have to be mature about certain topics. At first I was delighted, but then I cooled down and started to understand this system better, and now I'm even starting to criticize it. I know Poles who have a similar approach, their reflections on the Middle Kingdom are very interesting, but they are not ambitious enough to take them to Wyborcza or Newsweek right away. Moreover, the media in Poland likes to stick to the established line of publications about China. A few years ago - a complete criticism of the vile communist China. Now there is some delight and admiration, but still distance and biting criticism. When we are ready to enter into a dialogue with China, show the facts and assess it all honestly, we will include several people with different views on China in the conversation. Now a few specialists have become prominent in Poland and I admit that these people irritate me. They want to be everywhere, either writing their own columns or giving interviews, they become China's alpha and omega. Just compare their columns with international publications that can be found on the Internet, such as National Geographic, Washington Post or the New York Times. Such publications really make you think and present an objective picture of the Middle Kingdom. However, the opinions of our specialists are like a preconceived concept that individual media must implement. And the presence of these people in the media is important for them - to conduct their own import and export business with China. Moreover, these are people who are related to someone or their families have contacts with publishers, publicists and journalists. These real China specialists tend to remain silent, because the terrible state of knowledge about China among the entire society means that their wise and valuable statements will not even be understandable to ordinary Poles. I do not blame our nation for this, but rather the journalists who have neglected the topic of China for years and only constantly criticized this country, presenting their opinions based on a two-week business stay in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Besides, someone was "inspired" by my column twice and wrote a similar one, and someone else used the subtitle of my website for his book. I also know someone else who, after a short stay in China, published an album of photos about the Middle Kingdom - it mainly covers one city! But what counts is contacts, arrangements and media pressure, ha ha! I don't care, I'm having fun creating this website and I appreciate all visitors, their opinions, ratings and comments. Thanks!