Walk into China again

Since 2004, this is the 5th time to fly to China. Especially after reading the book "Long River, Wide Sea" written by Ms. YinTai Lon, I have some special feeling.

When I was a student, I was educated that people in Mainland China were suffered and waiting for our salvation. It seemed that we have wring impression of this country. It's getting more and more free in China. Yes, we still cannot log on Youtube, Facebook, PC Home, and many websites since China government blocked all those "inadequate" information and may damage their regime.

But I do see more and more people are getting rich. Many people are still struggling for the life and death, but even in modern country, such as Taiwan or USA, we can also find poverty everywhere.

But I also find one thing which is very interesting. Many cities look like almost the same. When we step out of the train station, no matter which one I am, except the sign board of the name of this place is different, the architecture of the station is almost the same; the design of the downtown is almost the same; the queue waiting for taxi is almost the same. It can be Wu Lu Mu Chi, Nan Jing, or Tien Jing. Yes, ShenZhen, Shanghai and Beijing are quite different because of the level of the city are different from others.

Without getting on a taxi, we cannot go anywhere. But to take taxi is a king of battle. I can always find there are people waiting in front of me. Then I walk to the front, maybe even I walk 30 mins already, there are still people there waving their hands to taxi driver. After 30 mins waiting, if luckily, there is a taxi which is empty and driving close to me, I need to open the door quickly otherwise, there will be someone I don't know sneaks out and catches on the taxi and shuts the door and leaves. Gosh!

The price of the food in Mc Donald and KFC is almost the same in Taipei and in USA. But in Taipei, the wage is 3 times of the people work in Shanghai as a white collar worker. Then I guess people cannot afford to eat in McDonald or KFC frequently. But it's always crowed and full there! Then I wonder how come people can eat there. Then I notice, there are 18M people in Shanghai which is almost equivalent with the population in Netherlands. But the Shanghai is only 1/7 of Netherlands for the land. So even people is seldom having food in McDonald or KFC, ugh, we can always see the over crowded restaurants.

China is also the only country in the world building many subways in many cities. Because of the population, it is not allowed to let people have freedom to apply for the license plate of a car. People need to take a bid! If we say a 4 persons family owned a car, then how can you image 4M cars moving in a city? Air pollution, nosie pollution, etc. will come at the same time terribly. So to make people live in the metropolitan happily and easily, mass transportation must be very convenience. No wonder we will see subways in more than 40 cities in China.