Life and Travel in China

Sometimes there is a reversal of cultures, such funny situations. Recently, while traveling by train, I ordered Chinese food, a typical tray with rice, green vegetables, a separate chicken leg, and an egg. The Chinese next to me were eating McDonald's! A few days ago, we bought ready-made food at the supermarket, as well as rice, vegetables, and tofu with meat. There was a woman standing behind me at the register, a middle-aged Chinese woman, holding a slice of pizza. I just made pizza for my Chinese friends and they ate it again. Even their little child, only 10 months old, also nibbled on the pizza and cried when his mother moved the plate away from him. It also happens that we are looking for some old buildings, a pagoda, a Chinese tower, to do some sightseeing and take nice photos, while at the same time the Chinese are drinking coffee at Starbucks or taking photos in front of McDonald's. I am looking for Chinese jackets, in the Chinese style (like Sun Yat-Sen), or a Chinese QiPao dress for my wife, and other Chinese people buy clothes from Italian and French brands. Another example is a pharmacy, sometimes we are looking for some traditional Chinese medicines, and the pharmacist offers us American or German medicines. The world has gone crazy and got terribly confused.

Coming back to the topic of my last trip... What surprised me the most in Hunan province were new factories. Previously, there were only farmlands, a lake and forests in this area. We drove to my wife's village along a beautiful road surrounded by trees. Suddenly the small road disappeared and a large and modern road was built. The road does not lead to the village itself, but... to new government buildings! Suddenly, a huge courthouse and some huge local government buildings appeared here. We heard from my uncle that a 5-star hotel is also to be built here. Why a hotel in the countryside? These are mainly government officials and heads of new factories that have been built here. The government boys need to go somewhere and spend their bribes in a decent hotel. There will definitely be a nice restaurant, decent rooms, a karaoke club (KTV) where they will look for lovers and girls for one night. When there was only a village here, there was no proper road, the central authorities from Beijing sent money to build another road, but local government officials stole the money, bought cars, built houses, and there were no plans for a road. Since government buildings appeared here, there is a great road, because communist piglets have to somehow get there in their Audis, BMWs and Mercs. The more I get to know China, the more I hate this system.

There were rumors in the media that Wa

In China, after all, there is some holiday spirit. Most Chinese people do not understand the meaning of this holiday and are also not Christians. Maybe it's more about the commercial and material aspect, because there are Christmas trees everywhere (of which many are produced in the Middle Kingdom), there are many Christmas decorations in shops, department stores and restaurants, and the staff wear Santa Claus hats. Now there are even offers of special Christmas dishes in restaurants, and some hotels even organize something like Christmas stays and Christmas Eve in a package. This is because more and more Europeans and Americans are coming to larger Chinese cities.

My words that one day China will have enough cars have already come true. Although I didn't expect it to happen so quickly. In Beijing, traffic, traffic jams and cars are already a drama. A topic that appears every day on TV, in the press and on the Internet. In Beijing, the population is about 22 million people, now there are about 5 million cars. In Hong Kong, there are approximately one million business and private cars for every nine million people. They have a better organized metro, buses, ferries... for Chinese people from Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen or Shanghai, having a car is a matter of honor! Of course, the industry has accelerated, advertising, government policy, an increasingly wealthy society, in 2010 in Beijing alone, 760,000 vehicles were added. The market is already saturated and the streets are clogged. They now jokingly call Beijing "ShouDu" - which means "capital of traffic jams". In other cities, such as Shanghai or Guangzhou, the situation is not any better. In Shenzhen, they are saved by modern ring roads and wide main roads, even with 4-5 lanes in one direction. Despite everything, it looks tragic and only now the Chinese notice the problem of too many cars.