Life and Travel in China

Recently I fell for Polish chocolates. The Hildebrand company from Poland offers its products in China, chocolates in three flavors. Packaging and distribution is done via Hong Kong. I bought such a package for about PLN 6, it looked like there were about 20-25 chocolates inside. As it turned out, it was just fraudulent packaging from Hong Kong. Chocolates made up about 40% of the package, the rest was just a cleverly folded cardboard box surrounding 9 chocolates! There is a rhombus cut out in the middle so that the chocolates can be seen. The problem is that the treats are just this rhombus. Not very fair dealing. Good sweets are generally expensive in China, but do they have to be sold together with a carton to make it seem cheaper and more expensive? Rice was once mixed with sand to make it more efficient!

I have a huge backlog in adding photos. I'll explain why... sometimes I don't have interesting topics, other times there's a lot going on or I'm traveling somewhere. In such situations, I usually bring 200-500 photos. Of course, you have to select them, and I don't want to add one topic in a dozen or so shots, because it would bore visitors to this website. Nevertheless, I will try to add new photos, different topics and places today. Some of them are a bit outdated, but they will certainly be interesting for people interested in the Middle Kingdom. So I invite you to the gallery!

On Thursday (August 26), the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone was celebrated. There was supposed to be a fireworks show, so we waited in the city center with a camera and a tripod for 40 minutes. After this time, a police car drove by and my wife heard that the show had been canceled. Of course, the Chinese government does not have to explain itself or give us reasons. As it turned out, a few days later the show was canceled because Hu JinTao (president of the People's Republic of China) stayed in Beijing and did not come to Shenzhen. Why did he stay in Beijing? To help with the crisis in Manila where several Hong Kong citizens were kidnapped on a bus. And now I wonder - how could this Hu JinTao, being in Beijing (mainland China), help the citizens of Hong Kong who were kidnapped in Manila in the Philippines? Where's the logic here? I understand if he was in Manila, or at least Hong Kong. Even Shenzhen is closer to Hong Kong and the Philippines! Nevertheless, this is some explanation, at least it is known that the show was for him, and not for ordinary citizens and residents of Shenzhen. As usual, the party has shown that it doesn't give a damn about ordinary Chinese people.

Recently, my wife watched some sad news on Chinese television. A driver was reversing and hit a 3-year-old child. He was aware of what he had done and decided... to kill this child. He ran over it 3 more times!!! Why? The point is that if someone is disabled after an accident, the driver pays for his treatment, surgery and rehabilitation throughout his life (no insurance system). Many drivers make victims. It's unimaginable to us, but here people are like beasts. The whole news was presented in a funny way, with music and colorful animation, along the lines of "look - a rich man thinks he can do anything." Nobody was worried about the child's life at all, it was more about the fact that a rich guy might even kill under the slogan "go for it." Of course, the police arrested him, but it is difficult to say what will happen to him. It depends on how much money he has and what kind of arrangements he has, because if the case goes quiet, he can get away with punishment. The law and the death penalty are for poor people, the rich are above the law. One girl once told me that while she was driving with her brother, they hit someone in the mountains, in the rain, and ran away. Her brother was the head of the hospital, a doctor! Theoretically, he could easily help the injured person, but in practice it looks different - it is better to finish him off or run away if there are no witnesses or cameras on the street. Many Chinese are simply beasts, and human life has never had value here, not even a child's life!

Recently, my wife and I went to her hometown, Hunan province. We spent some time in the countryside with her parents, visited her uncles and grandfather. It was interesting. Despite many cultural and linguistic differences (a completely different dialect) and even food differences, we are able to communicate perfectly and behave like a family. During these few days, we could observe some changes taking place in the countryside, we learned some secrets, and we listened to various gossips and interesting facts. Unfortunately, there was no internet there, but I wrote down the diary entries earlier and will publish some of them now.