Beijing Hutong

This is in an area of Beijing that has unspoiled older buildings.

Too Many People- Too Few Resources in China

Photo Near Guomao Last Year

I took this photo last year. It is facing north towards Guomao.

Beijing Snow

Chinese Subway Pic

Typical Chinese Street Scene

Beijing Pic

Clear Chinese History, Fuzzy Chinese History

When you come to China, and you should, one of the first things you will see is how the Chinese have an incredible amount of knowledge about history. They have vivid recall about all things that happened thousands of years in the past and who was in charge, what they did, who they did it. The problem is that they are sketchy on modern history. For instance, the ruling communist party has no record on the amount of deaths that occurred during the Great Leap Forward less than 60 years before. In a China-only book, one Chinese writer investigated the incident and stated that 40 million people perished during this period. How does a country hide the death of as many people as that that reside in the country of Argentina? How powerful is the communist party to keep these records hidden? Aside from this, how about the fact that there are no official records of the misdeeds during the cultural revolution which ended in 1976. Thus, when I hear a lot of talk about the history of China, I tend to think of the gaping holes they have in their memories. I figure when they come clean on that, we can discuss the rest.

“China is a Poor Country”- The Chinese Excuse

China has many stock phrases that all Chinese, upon their birth are forced to remember and use ad nauseum. For instance, you will hear “we are china, the oldest civilization” or “we discovered (insert anything over 1000years old that they supposedly invented) and so we don’t need to obey intellectual property laws”. One of the most used Chinese ‘catch all’ phrases is ‘China is a poor country’. As if the utterance of this phrase absolves them of any culpability. For instance, “damn chinese are barbarians and act like animals when they enter the subway—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country Chinese don’t like to pay their employees on time —the response will inevitably be China is a poor country a lot of Chinese seem to talk to themselves on the subway, its kind of creepy—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country Chinese cheat plagiarize a lot don’t they —the response will inevitably be China is a poor country Chinese drive like shit—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country damn the subway smells like halitosis and ass—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country chinese morals is an oxymoron isn’t it—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country damn it looks like that guy needs some head and shoulders shampoo—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country damn the chicoms make a lot of cash under the table—the response will inevitably be China is a poor country Thus the Chinese wield this phrase bastion-like and wish to garner sympathy for their socio economic faux pas while telling the uninitiated that not all of Chinese are like that and making you think it is just the poor. But in reality all of the comments stated above are one’s that are geared to the monied in China, who imho are the least gentrified and most backwards of them all. Once a China-man gets money, he assumes he is different than the 1 300 000 000 others who inhabit this rock, as if his expectorating on the concrete is tolerable as he can afford bribes that his less affluent neighbors can. To me they are one in the same, actually I prefer the farmers, they seem more honest.

Peace and Harmony in China- Chinese Street

Intersections in China are abject chaos. In a country where ‘me first’ is ingrained in their DNA they obey neither laws of mankind nor physics as they collectively push to get to where they need to go. Possessing no sense of kinship they do as they please, after all, according to Confucius we are not within their inner circle of friends and thus they really owe us nothing.