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Published: November 7th 2017
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Shanghai
Looking up the Huangpu River from the Bund Well, it has been a week since we flew 11921 km home from Shanghai and it has taken us that long to get our feet on the ground and feel "normal" again. That flight is a killer and we do not envy anyone who has to make long haul flights on a regular basis. From talking to others who have to do it occasionally, the secret is drugs!
As the title infers, we would not call this trip a holiday- it was an expedition to discover China. Of course we only saw a glimpse of this fourth largest country in size and largest in population but what we did see certainly opened our eyes to a country we knew very little about and had misconceptions of.
With a population of 1.4 BILLION people, and the cities we visited had millions of people living in them, probably the biggest attack on our senses was seeing and being in the midst of so many people! Very different from where we live where the biggest crowds we are in are at Costco on a Sunday! (which we try to avoid) Although we saw signs of great wealth in the luxury cars on
Great Wall
Starting up the Great Wall. It was a foggy, wet day!! the street, the magnificent buildings, roads, bridges, and transportation modes, we also saw the opposite where a bicycle would be loaded down with stuff that you would wonder how the rider ever kept the bike and load upright. The average person in China makes $400.00 US per month. A person working for Apple in China makes $800.00US.
No one in China owns any land. The land is all owned by the government and a farmer leases acreage from the government. With only 15% of the total available land cultivatable, we are not sure how much they would rent, perhaps only a small amount- enough to feed themselves and perhaps sell produce at the local market. Although we saw some terrace farming and rice paddies, we never saw any factory farms which we are sure must exist in some areas, as China is a huge producer of pork. Over half the world's pigs live in China and the people eat almost every part of the pig.
Living in China is expensive and we really didn't see anything that was a bargain. The lowest price for a bottle of mediocre wine was about 12.00 CDN at a grocery store but
National Bird of China
This is an example of the cranes we saw everywhere we went in China. This was in Beijing. a glass of wine in a hotel (on ship) was at least 12.00 CDN. A can of coke at the airport was almost 6.00 CDN. The government is trying to get rid of the poor housing in the cities. They come into an area and compensate the people and expect them to move into a new building which cost much more than they were compensated for. When a young couple gets married the husband's family has to give a dowry to the woman's family and it usually is cash, car or condo. Very often both families help the young couple with the down payment on a condo and very often the parents live with the young couple. When the young couple have their child, the grandparents care for the child so the young couple can work.
We found it very interesting to learn about the one child policy. It was created in 1979 to temporarily limit the population. Before that the families could be quite large because the more children you had, especially boys, the better off you would be. The One Child Policy mostly applied to Han Chinese (90% of the population) living in urban areas of the
Wine Store
We saw this shop in the hutong in Beijing. country. China's sex ratio at present is many more males than females because there is evidence of sex-selective abortion, neglect, abandonment and even infanticide of infant females. This excess of males is called "the leftovers" because now many young men have a difficult time finding a wife and are now looking to the west for a mate. The policy was eased after 2014 and now couples are allowed to have two children but many stick to having only one as it is very expensive to raise a child and parents want the very best for their child. A Chinese child has a very stressful childhood, in my opinion. On average, they spend 8.5 hours a day at school, have homework and have very little time to play during Monday to Friday. On the weekend, they probably are enrolled in some extracurricular activity such as music lessons, learning another language, or martial arts classes. They are under increasing pressure to study hard due to the country's high competitive market for university places and jobs.
As for censorship, we really did not see evidence of that. We had purchased a VPN before we left and we were able to access the
Lotus flower seed pod
We saw many lotus flowers growing in the water at the Summer Palace in Beijing. We see these in dried flower arrangements here. Internet with no restrictions. We did see soldiers in busy areas but in todays world you would probably see that in most large cities in the US. As for pollution, Beijing is the worst area because it is in a bowl surrounded by mountains so at certain times of the year pollution can be quite bad. Each day they issue a pollution index and I am sure if it was high you would see lots of people wearing masks but we saw very few when we were there. We saw evidence that clean air was a priority with every spare piece of land along freeways and cities, very thickly planed with trees. Construction sites that were idle were covered with green mesh to keep the soil from blowing around and the streets were washed each night to keep the dust down.
The food we were offered on the trip was plentiful but after a few days of the same kind of food it became monotonous and Barb, not being a great fruit and vegetable eater, craved a good old fashioned meat and potato meal. Bonnie enjoyed trying the different foods. The only place you could buy a "western" meal
would have been MacDonalds or KFC. On the ship there was a specialty restaurant where they served a western style meal for 60.00 CDN. The breakfasts were always buffet style and had lots of western type food- cereal, fried or scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage,waffles, pastries, and fruits so you could get a good start to your day.
All in all it was a fabulous experience to visit a country very different from ours. We found the people, for the most part, friendly, but also very loud and pushy- but I guess that comes from always being in a crowd. We were surprised that so few of the people who worked in the hotels, which were all US chains, spoke English. The language and writing is definitely a problem. The Smart Phone was very often used as an interpreter.
What did we enjoy most? ....well we would probably say we enjoyed our guide Leo who made everything run like clockwork, with only a few blips,
....the people on our bus who were a congenial group from as far away as Belgium but mostly from Ontario
....the ambience of the Yangtze Gold 3- and a slower pace
Locks at Three Gorge Dam
Notice the ship carrying a load of new cars ....the luxurious hotels - where we never spent long enough in
....seeing Beijing and Shanghai- amazing architecture, and advanced infrastructure
Sinorama is a Canadian company that was founded in Montreal and has offices now across Canada and specializes in trips to Asia. It takes 50,000 people to China every year. The trip is a well oiled machine and allows very little down time or chance to do "your own thing". China would be a very difficult place to visit on your own if you can't speak or read the language. The only way to go is on a conducted tour. If you want to see a lot in a short time for a reasonable price, Sinorama is a good choice!
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