Interesting article on China

Speak of the devil, this is what I was talking about right here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pollution-kills-more-than-1-7-million-children-a-year-who-reports/

There were good things about China too. The food was fantastic and the people were very friendly. They love Americans.

Other than the smog, the cities were very clean for the most part. You don't see trash thrown alongside the roads like we have here in America.

The Chinese love basketball. I watched a few CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) games and they were pretty-good. Like Japanese baseball, the Chinese basketball teams are each allowed to have one American player on them. Stephon Marbury is a superstar in the CBA. If you watch the games on TV they have Chinese beer commercials with Shaquille O'Neil in them speaking Chinese. Pretty-funny really.

If you go the upscale parts of the cities you will be amazed at how wealthy some Chinese people are. There were Ferrari, Maserati, Rolls-Royce car dealerships and some very upscale shops selling Armani suits and Rolex watches. I made the comment to some of the Chinese guys that work in our plant there that "There must be a lot of rich people in China" and they told me that they sell more luxury cars like Bentleys and the ones I mentioned above in China than anywhere else in the world. I was surprised by that. When you think of China one tends to think about rural poor people.

The majority of the Chinese people are poor by our standards but not all. Most of the Chinese from my company are highly-educated from the likes of MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, and other elite American universities. They have all spent a lot of time in America. They tell me that China is a lot like the United States in that about 98% of the wealth is concentrated in the upper 1% of the population. The difference between them and us though is China has 1.3 billion people which means that there are four times as many super-rich Chinese.

The US dollar goes a long way in China. For less than $100 per night you can stay at a 4 or 5-star hotel that would cost many times that anywhere else.

We first landed in Hong Kong and took a cab to Shanghai a few days later. One thing that was really weird was that in Hong Kong they drive on the left side of the road. Something they inherited from the British during their 99 year lease that lasted from 1898 to 1997. As we drove to the mainland we approached a huge security gate which looked like a turnpike toll with about 150 lanes (no exaggeration), and it was packed wall to wall with cars. After we passed through the security to mainland China we switched to driving on the right-hand side of the road like we do in the United States.

Here's a picture from my window at the Hilton in Shanghai. Talk about a BIG city. It makes most look small.



After we left Shanghai we went to Shenzhen which is an industrial city and is one of China's wealthiest cities.

Here are some pictures from an awesome resort I stayed at with a beachfront room for less than $100 per night. Less than half what a ho-hum room at a Holiday Inn Express would be here in America.















Another thing that was really awesome were the Chinese airlines. They reminded me of the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Even though the average Chinese person is smaller is size than Americans, their planes have tons of legroom. The airports are all brand-new and pristine. Another nice thing is that all of the stewardesses were hot young super-attractive babes! Just we used to have back in the good old days here. lol

There are some American fast-food restaurants in China but the overwhelming favorite of the Chinese is Kentucky Fried Chicken. It's considered a luxury. On a flight from Shanghai to Beijing I sat next to a young attractive Chinese school teacher who was returning from a teacher's conference. She spoke perfect English. We saw a guy eating some KFC on the plane that he got at the airport and she told me they call it (some Chinese name that I can't remember). When I asked her what the name meant she told me "heaven".

It was a good time and I wouldn't hesitate to go back again. I just found out that I may be doing just that in a few months. It's about a 12 hour flight from Atlanta to Hong Kong. Not too bad if you fly on a 747 in Business Class though.

The jet lag hits me worse on the trip back than it does going to China. It took me about two weeks to fully recover and sleep normal again. It also took a while to recover from the air pollution. It's hard on the nostrils. After you visit China you'll have a much greater appreciation of the EPA and the environmental laws we have here in America.