Traveling the World

For whatever reason, be it a lack of understanding or just pure laziness, we find that very few signs are written correctly in our language. It is unfair to make fun of them for not doing it correctly, however with all the foreigners living in China, didn’t anyone think to just ask one of us?

Children

Some signs I’ve personally come across are “Be Careful and Slip Quietly,” “Tikts Here,” “Feed Pandas,” “No Service for No Clothes,” just to name a few.

As the Olympics approached in 2008, Beijing backed a massive campaign to fix the signs for tourists on the street, hotels, and restaurants, however when I was there in 2009, I still saw many problems. It was the same for me in Shanghai last April, yet as a result of the Expo coming this year, Shanghai followed a similar campaign.

Some people say it’s bad to correct the signs because it shows insight into how the Chinese think, while others say don’t change it because it provides laughter on the trail. My personal belief is that if China wants to be taken seriously as a country with English speakers ready to do business with you wherever you are, then they need to take even more drastic steps to correct these problems, including the way their education system is set up.

Railing

I think the country has done a piss poor job so far in educating their students how to speak English, and as a result have needed to hire millions of foreigners to come and teach the language correctly. If this was done the right way, those signs would never exist. Then why is it that even after foreigners have been teaching English here for almost 30 years, that these problems still occur?

All we can be glad for is that the government is trying it’s best to remedy some problems from the past by changing the signs so those who visit or move here will feel like it’s a serious place instead of a joke. Let’s hope in the future they continue to put forth as much if not more effort!

At 7:49AM local China time, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the Western province of Qinghai, a province which is nestled between Xinjiang (Muslim riots February 2009), Sichuan (massive earthquake June 2008), and Tibet (D.Lama). If we thought that China was doing better, we thought wrong. It seems that something must happen to China at least once a year, be it a natural or man-made disaster. I guess it’s fair to say that since the country is so large, covers so many timezones, and has so many people, that these things are bound to happen, but every time it does happen, it leaves us feeling worse than before.

It’s never fair for innocent people to die, and in this situation there’s no one to blame, which makes it harder. The current death toll is about 700, however in this small remote town of 100,000 people, no one will be sure until they begin to give up hope that survivors will be found. It raises the argument that the quality of life for people around the country is completely unequal, and that a standard code for buildings should be introduced so that those buildings unable to withstand natural disasters should be torn down and rebuilt, or at least be reinforced with steel.

I hate the feeling of being unable to do anything to help, and so it’s my intent to find out if I can go there during the May 1st holiday to assist the Red Cross, however I doubt they’d let a single person like myself go there as I might only add to the confusion. You might say that waiting 2 weeks will yield no result, however with Sichuan earthquake, they were out looking for a month and are still rebuilding two years on.

I beg you to donate money to the HK Red Cross so their efforts can be increased. They’ve already collected over 200,000 HKD (about $27,000) and need your donations badly, as the epicenter is located over a very remote town and it takes time to get people out there to help.

Since the late 1970s, America has been partners in crime with China. They slowly (or quickly, depending on who’s speaking) moved all factories overseas to the once sleeping giant. As our workers lost their jobs and China gained them, the owners of those companies became corporate fat-cats who remained in the US and ignored the problems on the eastern front. America was doing business with a country that had many issues we won’t discuss here, yet it overlooked these in exchange for the amazing profits.

Now that it’s happy with the amount of money it’s pocketed over these last three decades, America feels bad about keeping the Chinese people a bit in the dark, and as a result is trying to clear it’s conscience by pressuring Hu Jintao and the other current Party leaders to remove the peg which keeps the Yuan firmly fixed in place at 6.82-6.88 RMB per USD. Doing this has immense consequences, and these are what they are:

The article says the US Federal Reserve believes the true value of the RMB is 40% more, which would mean the new exchange rate should be 4.09 RMB per USD. Here’s an example: I am currently making about 10,000RMB a month, valued at $1500. If the new rate were to kick in, I’d now be earning $2440 without doing anything differently. I don’t have much money saved, but I’m a foreigner so my case is different. For different reasons, it’s understood that it’s quite difficult for Chinese people to leave China, so many people save every cent they earn so they can afford to leave later in life.

Let’s say person A has 200,000 RMB saved at an exchange rate of 6.85 thus giving them almost $30,000. However when the new rate kicks in, they’d now have almost $50,000. You can see how this would immediately change their position in life (in terms of being able to leave the country). Now everyone in China would be like person A, in that they suddenly have much more money to use towards the global economy, which might cause issues for the local economy.

As a result of this, the cost for manufacturing would drastically increase only in the sense that it used to cost $0.10 to make something, when now because of the new rate it would cost $0.75. This would force companies to either raise their prices, stop producing, or move to another developing country like India. To do this would mean millions of factory workers would lose their jobs thus increasing unemployment rates to high levels.

As China is very communal and family oriented, it would put immense pressure on family members and local and federal governments to take care of the newly unemployed on a permanent basis since the removal of factories means there’s no new source of work for these laborers. Since they can’t afford to continue living in the cities, they would be forced to return to their villages and push China in a backwards trend from before the time of the economic explosion, thus slowing their expansion to a crawl.

For those people not directly affected by the closing of factories, the new-found increase in wealth would make the citizens feel the government should make new concessions like added freedoms and maybe even wage increases. Even though the labor force would be drastically reduced by the factories closing, everyone else would be unable to see wage increases because the money needed to provide the increase in wages came from those companies that are no longer using the Chinese labor force to manufacture their goods. In the end, those not directly affected would become directly affected by the change in the cost and standard of living. Everything would cost more, from the small bowl of noodles to the 150sq.m house you just purchased.

It’s my strong opinion that the increase requested/demanded by the US government would wholly uproot the system in place within China, and strongly recommend no changes be made at this time. If the government does go ahead with it, I believe the only way to successfully do it is to gradually increase the currency’s value so that by two or three years from now when the global economy is in a much better position, it would actually help the world, rather than right now when it would hurt everyone.

What are your opinions? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

The Great Wall is the single most touristy thing someone could do when in China. I tried my hardest to make it more intrepid, and I feel I succeeded. My hostel was trying to get us to book with them, but their trip involved a huge bus, food, and worst of all going to Badaling. This is the the most boring and crowded section of the wall, not to mention it would have cost almost $100 USD per person.

My friend Ewa from the hostel told us about another way to get there. This involved first going to the Dongzhimen long-distance bus station (located right off the Dongzhimen metro station). When we got off the subway, there was a Chinese woman waiting for people who wanted to go to the Wall. She showed us to the public 980 bus, which costs 14rmb to go to from the city limits to Miyun. She gave me a card and said her friend would be waiting for us at the Miyun Tai Yang bus stop and he’d take us to Simatai for cheap. I didn’t ask how much because I knew I’d do better to bargain with him.

An hour and 20 minutes later, we were rudely woken up to the shrills of a man screaming we had arrived at Miyun. When we got off we were immediately bombarded by touts, yet thankfully we found our man. Like most people in China, he didn’t speak a word of English, so I had to test my skills. He immediately started off with 70rmb a person each way. I told him his friend said it’d be cheap and I knew 70 was a ripoff. He said fine, 65. Then I said I was Chinese, not a tourist. He said it was really far from where we were and gas was expensive. Since I live here, I know he was lying, so I told him I liked him and didn’t want to screw around, and I only wanted to pay 30 per person each way.

Thinking he was slick and I would fold (he didn’t know he was dealing with a Jewish person), he went to 60. I told him there were many other people standing there who would give it to me for less, and he said none of them had a van for all 5 of us, but went to 55. I finally said the hostel would have been easier, but I chose this method because I thought it’d be cheaper, so he agreed to 45 per person each way. Total negotiation time took 6 minutes, and I know this because Melba timed it.

Another hour and 20 minutes later, we were at Simatai. We exited the van and he presented us with the entrance tickets, valued at 40rmb each. This guy seemed really nice and was on the ball with these things, so we were happy with our choice.

Map

Climbing Higher

As we approached the end and the highest point possible, we all sat down and took a photo. The wind was picking up, and the clouds were moving so fast, it felt like a fairy tale. As a species, humans are so accustomed to the sounds of electronics in their ears at all times, so that being in a place like this with absolutely no sound in your ears besides that of the wind is quite freaky.

Top of the Wall

Path of Doom