Life and Travel in China

I now understand what communism is. Well, it consisted of a policeman on a motorcycle stopping me on the main street. I was riding a bike, quite fast, but in accordance with the regulations. Of course, the main road is only for cars, because they pay for taxes, customs duties, fuel, roads, etc. A bicycle is garbage. The policeman told me in broken English to get off the road. I say ok and go to the right, and he looks at me with a face saying "You, come here! You stop here, come to me! You come here!". I drove up to him, he stopped me in the middle of the road. He tells me to give him 50 RMB, a 'fine'. I told him I didn't have any money on me. He says I pay or he takes the bike (my bike is his two wages). He went to talk to a friend, I think it's better not to run away, because stupid riding a bike will turn into shooting at a fugitive. He's talking on the radio to his superiors, I hear him say "but he's a foreigner". He was ordered to let me go. He tells me to go back to my country and I can travel there as much as I want.

I'm leaving tomorrow for the "Venice of China", near Shanghai. It is such a charming village surrounded by canals and lakes. Apparently there are many old buildings, ancient bridges, and even hotels are located in ancient tenement houses. Of course I will bring lots of photos! Let's just hope the weather is good, because it's not very nice at the moment.

This weekend I visited Shanghai and, by the way, the 'Chinese Venice', i.e. ZhouZhuang. We were a bit disappointed with this supposed Venice. We were supposed to spend the night there, but the guest room was not clean. I don't expect much, it doesn't have to be a 4-star hotel, but it has to be at least clean. We escaped on the last bus to civilization, to Shanghai, to a hotel near Cheng Huang Miao. The next day, ZhuJiaJiao is also a historic village connected by a network of water canals. Moreover, in Shanghai I visited two famous temples and an interesting museum, as well as the traditional promenade and Nanjing Road. Of course, I brought hundreds of new photos!

I accidentally came across an English-language website devoted to friendship. Photos, profiles, common interests. There are a lot of girls from China there. Their photos have captions like: "Hi, sometimes I come to Shenzhen", "Hey, I'm also in Shanghai, maybe...". There would be nothing strange about it, but these are often grandparents from the USA, Turkey or Egypt. They come here sometimes or have been living here for some time and are looking for free sex. In general, I see that more and more young girls in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hong Kong 'fall in love' with the wallets of older men, whether Chinese or foreigners. Actually, I feel sorry for ordinary Chinese guys who don't have much capital, so they don't have a girlfriend. And yet there are many more men here. This means that wealthy people who have, for example, a wife and two mistresses take away more potential partners from the average man. China will one day have a serious problem with gender balance, fidelity, venereal diseases and an army of former prostitutes.

Last night I received information from my wife that the tallest skyscraper in Shanghai and therefore in China is practically ready. We took photos there a week ago and it was still under construction. Now they discovered scaffolding and netting, and suddenly the Shanghai World Financial Center appeared. It is to be ready in 2008, according to the Internet, but the construction is already finished. The furnishings and finishing inside will probably remain.