<p>It's always a shock when I come back to America and everything seems so EXPENSIVE!</p>
<p>I lived in China between 1999-2000, and I've been to China the past two summers. Two summer's ago in Qingdao and this past summer in Shanghai and Nanjing. Word to the wise, Shanghai and Nanjing are as hot as hell in the summer time. I really hate that I can't speak fluent Chinese, so it's hard to get around alone. Watching the rapid development has been amazing. So many businesses and so much techology has been flooding into China. But there's such a ridiculous overflow of repeated items. There are so many vendors of practically the same thing. </p>
<p>I think it's ridiculous how cheap the food there is. If you eat at the small local stands or restaurants, food is soooo cheap, but it's still so good and authentic.</p>
<p>My dad made an interesting comment about China. He says that China is very technologically developed, but that the people of China in general aren't quite caught up with the overall development of China. For example, a lot people don't have a firm grasp of politeness or consdieration for others around them. By this, I'm referring to the rampant spitting and smoking in places when smoking is prohibited. Plus, the disparity between the really rich and really poor is growing quite a bit. </p>
<p>Also, China's infrastructure in the more developed east is under huge strain due to the high concentration of people there. Eventually, China needs to create some sort of westward migration of the population.</p>
<p>I dont' think it's a matter of people not catching up with development but that only PARTS of china are developed. It seems that China is growing very quickly but not really taking care of the lower classes. The economic gap is growing definitely.</p>
<p>An interesting thing about china is that during the day, traffic is maintained by traffic lights and policemen at the intersections. When the policemen retire for the evening, the traffic lights are turned off....</p>
<p>Welp, gotta save electricity. It's a very green country.</p>
<p>Kansas traffic is starting to get pretty bad, actually...</p>
<p>And about the fat kid thing: That's due to the fact that everyone has only one kid, so if they're not poor, they're spoiled. "Little Princes" they call them.</p>
<p>[ quote ]24. A 1000 sq ft house in China is considered large.[ quote ]
it's the city and Beijing of all cities so most people live in apartments and a 1000 sq ft apartment in NYC is considered pretty nice too. Although most of my relatives in China live in larger apartments and it really didn't seem like a big deal.</p>
<p>[ quote ]3. It is not unusual to see bicycles lined up in a row for 100 yards...and 3 deep.[ quote ]
Wow, where was this? When I went back in 2002 I thought most of the bikes had disappeared. Was this just like outside of a park or something because the bicycle traffic has gone down quite a bit in Beijing. I know people that still have bikes but no one actually use it as a main way of transportation anymore. If there's more bikes now that makes me really happy b/c CHina got mad air pollution problems right now.</p>
<p>[ quote ]27. No toilets in China. Instead, its just a depressed bowl and you have to squat. Oh, and don't forget to bring toilet paper, cause many places, they don't have them.[ quote ]
Yea, I remember the toilet paper issue, that was weird but most of the places I went to all changed to toilets now. Again, where were these places? because I got off with the impression that most of the people all used toilets now and they all want to make a good impression for the Olypics os they were reinvating all the toilets. </p>
<p>I totally saw the large disparity between the poor and rich too. What turned me off the most was the fact the the richer people almost always had this air of better than thou and sneered and looked down on the poorer people. They really weren't very subtle about their 'dislike' of people 'below' them either, total disregard for those who don't have much. It was very upsetting to watch.</p>
<p>Most of the places I went to still had those toilets depressed in the ground. The McDonalds's there also had those toilets. Most people's homes however have the regular ones.</p>
<p>The bicycles for sure were less than in 1999, the last time I went back. But at places like Xidan Mall, there were a ton of bicycles.</p>
<p>back to the traffic lights...it's not even to save electricity because the traffic lights aren't exactly turned off. They are just disabled so that the yellow light flashes. I doubt that saves much electricity...</p>
<p>Well, if they didn't have the yellow light flashing to tell people to slow down, there'd be a surge in accidents from cars trying to speed through the intersection!</p>
<p>Maybe its just so people dont have to wait at red lights for 5 minutes when nobody is there lol</p>