Traveling the World

Each time I stop to reflect, it hits me just how much I’m still learning and growing every day. A year ago, I was home sick and counting down the days until I got back to the US for my first visit since I left in 2008. Eleven months ago, I was happy to be home with my friends and family, who I missed dearly. Ten months ago I left home for my first visit to the west coast of the US before I returned to China. Nine months ago I was back in China and wondering if I had made the right choice to go back. Eight months ago I began preparing for my trip to Vietnam.

Six months ago I started selling my things and packing up. Five months ago I went to Shenzhen for the second time and had to go to Hong Kong to fix my phone. Four months ago I was in Vietnam having the time of my life. Three months ago I went back to China for “one last trip,” and moving back to the US. Two months ago I was still struggling to fit in and found most of my old friends to be nonexistent in my life, and thus Meetup.com became my way to find people who would be good friends to me.

One month ago I really began enjoying being home despite the obvious issue of living at home. This month, I am really beginning to figure out how to run a dental practice and am putting things into place. I went to Orlando for a dental convention, where I learned more than I could have ever imagined. I also applied for a position with the Department of State, which if I’m selected, would have meant I beat out 300 people. I would be training in December or January, and it requires I improve my Chinese skills far above what they are now.

Far be it from me to say what the future will hold. All I know is that I’m living the way I want and doing what I want to make sure I’m happy, and that my happiness is always the most important thing (so long as it doesn’t affect other people’s happiness). The biggest thing I learned living out in the Middle Kingdom is that people in the West get so bogged down in details, planning, and trying to become rich that they forget to stop, relax, and just enjoy life. Family, friends, and a loved one is all that you need to be happy. So with that, I’ll leave you to reflect on my reflection, and I hope it goes even a little way towards helping you break the chains of your dependence and fear of change for the better.

• July 1: Fly from Wuhan to Shanghai, Shanghai to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Miami
• August 6-9: Fly from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago to see my friend Ish
• August 14: Fly from Fort Lauderdale to Seattle to see the Twins and Maddy
• August 15: Skydive in Seattle
• August 17: Fly to San Francisco
• August 21: Rent a car and hit the road south to Monterrey
• August 22: Drive to LA
• August 26: Fly from Los Angeles to Shanghai
• August 26: Fly from Shanghai to Wuhan

As I mentioned above, I’ll be coming home with $7000, $2200 of which will be going to pay back my credit card bills (flights and pre-existing charges), thus leaving me with about $4800. My roundtrip tickets (WH-SH,SH-LAX,LAX-FLL,LAX-SH,SH-WH) cost $1800, which I know is a lot, but considering I used only one website to book them all in a row without any hassles, it’s a good deal.

My intent is to spend no more than $2000, and I should be able to stick to that budget since my friend Ish generously offered to cover my expenses (need to look for a cheapppppp flight, anyone?). During the times not specified, I’m free to do whatever I want, and will be seeing as many people in Florida (Miami, Pines, Weston, Davie, Coral Springs, Orlando, Gainesville) as I can. It’s already proving to be a crazy trip.

It’s been 2 very long, trying years that have also been very fruitful and educational. 1 more year to go!

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!

This is my very first on-air interview with a fellow traveler! Ningxi Xu is a Chinese girl who was born in the city I currently live called Wuhan. Two years ago she moved to the US to begin her university career studying International Relations at George Washington University, a very expensive and prestigious college located in Washington, D.C. Listen to our conversation by clicking below!