Listmember China Observations

China was so cool!!! I shot over 1300 pictures which I still need to
load
to my PC. All the old historical sites were great! I had a cold the
whole
trip but didn't let that stop me from doing the Great Wall, The
Forbidden
City, Tien An Men Square, The Tera Cota Soldiers, and all the other
great
things to see. On our long 1 & 2 hour bus rides we also got to see a
lot
of the poor & rural areas as well. They say that if you want to know
what
China was like 500 years ago go to Beijing, if you want to know what
China
was like 2000 years ago go to Xian, if you want to know about China
today
and the future go to Shanghai, we did it all! Lots more to tell you
about!

Shanghai is great, very modern, very cosmopolitan, absolutely no signs
of
anything resembling Communism there or anywhere else. The people are
very
happy about their country, it's capitalism, working hard, and they are
very
polite and humble compared to most Americans. Observing their level of
service and their work ethic I kept thinking of that old rental car
slogan
"We try harder". All major U.S., European, Russian, and Asian companies
are invested everywhere in China! We just scratched the surface of
Shanghai in the time we had and are planning a future trip to spend a
week
there and maybe Hong Kong too.

I bought $1.100.00 worth of art, silk products, jewelry, statues, and
Jade
at 60 - 80 % off our U.S. prices - I think my family and friends will be
very happy with the gifts I have for them!

Lots of lies of omission from the American politicians and media! The
Chinese people love Americans, our culture, and our products, however
they
do not like our government or George Bush.

They have no problem with our form of government at all, they just don't
like our "politicians" trying to tell them how to run their country. We
told them not to feel bad - that a lot of Americans don't like what our
politicians are doing either! The bottom line (under the current communist
government) is that they are not allowed to publicly criticize their
government's policies but in almost all other ways they now have the
freedom to live their lives the way we do.

I understood this issue more clearly when our tour guides talked about
their long history of how they were once seven feudal tribes that were
eventually united under a single Emperor system. Over time the Emperors
became weak and outside influences such as English, French, Portuguese,
Americans, Japanese, and others came in forcefully through means such as
the Opium Wars and World War II to control or influence China and it's
policies. After World War II and the "Cultural Revolution-Communism" (for
better or worse) all outside influences were flushed out of the country and
it finally belonged to just the Chinese people.

After Mao died and Nixon's visit (something conservatives were totally
against, - which turned out to be one of Nixon's greatest achievements) the
door opened. The next guy in charge (Peng) determined that the old ways of
doing things were out of date and needed a lot of updates. As our guide
described it: "if a cat is black or white on the outside, it does not
matter as long as it can catch a mouse". The Chinese are working to be a
full blown capitalist system but without making the many mistakes that
Russia did by moving too quickly. All of this, especially the outside
influences issue is why their people and their Communist-Capitalist
government are very sensitive to the way U.S. politicians try to dictate
how they should do things internally! They do not ever want to have
Imperial interests trying to come in and dictate policy again with regard
to their acknowledged internal problems.

Our politicians are obsessed over the Taiwan issue yet Taiwanese are some
of the biggest investors in China, and more doors are opening between these
two governments and economies. We heard a lot about this over there but
somehow our politicians and media don't talk about it. They are also
developing some social-to-work programs for their peasant class and poor
farmers to subsidize their growth.and improvement (another issue that our
politicians are obsessed with) They make note that the U.S. has fallen
very short in successfully dealing with our own peasant class ie: Indians,
Appalachians, Blacks, and Hispanic poor. (and the programs we do have are
being drastically cut) So the Chinese don't have much patience for this
"do as we say not as we do mentality" and our efforts to once again be an
outside influence.

An interesting side note, we had 40 people an our tour, 2/3rds were women.
Of the men we had 3 very conservative gents on tour who repeatedly made two
remarks, "I never expected to see this, I am surprised" and "I never would
have thought this is what has been going on here". You will be amazed when
you see my pictures - China is much further along than we are hearing in
our country. Our politicians and press may feel that it will be too big
shock to Americans to see how much the middle and upper class Chinese are
gaining on us! My Chinese associates in the RO confirm this too, saying
that communism is just a word in China now - and the same is said by the
Vietnamese here as about Vietnam. It was all a huge wake up call for those
of us on the trip!

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