Beijing and Shanghai are home to so many people its unbelievable........the construction was actually amazing, tearing down all the old buildings and now getting a plan on corporating areas instead of a factory and right next door an apartment dwelling then another factory. A lot of people are losing their homes to property that has become valuable, building so many things with no tenants but figuring the labor rate right now is best to build instead of 10 to 20 years from now, a lot of entertainment complexes with clubs, restaurants on the water. Some of the shipyards have plans to move out of the city that have been there since the 1800's........there is no environmental testing done on these sites, just building buildings for the sake of building. One interesting thing was the amount of smog in Beijing, but they can shut down the factories for two weeks by the government and the air clears out. This is the plan for the 2008 Olympics.
Literally on pins and needles the whole time while in traffic; bicycles, motorcycles and ungodly amount of cars all share the same road. The bicycles carry babies on the back and we just zoom by them beeping the horn. By the grace of God, no one gets hurt......racing in a taxi through a narrow street doing 50 to 60 MPH with children playing, its a nightmare.........
The youth are spending the money and they are worried about the culture changing, old style versus new style, work ethic will definitely be changed over the years. There is such poverty in the countryside while the cities are just busting at the seams. You can feel the excitement in the air with money flowing, infrastruture appearing everywhere, so many more opportunities. They're excited about the prospect of their country becoming a "superpower."
The people were very gracious to me and just want to absorb so much information from the outside world due to them being closed off for so long. The older people say China is now a Capitalist nation, not a Communist nation. Interesting theory!!
Kirby, you ought to visit now and then in 15 years just to see the difference.
![[rofl]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_rofl.gif "ROFL [rofl]"){kind=icon}
![[hihi]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_hihi.gif "Hi Hi [hihi]"){kind=icon}
