Surprises amidst expectations

Hey,

You know, in many ways we had read things, so we were prepared for many things as we arrived, yet overall my impression of China is surprise.

Yesterday, Tuesday, as Jenna mentioned, we went to Suzchou, a watertown (canals, e.g. Venice) about 60 mi north west of Shanghai. There we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden, to lunch, to a silk factory, and for a boat ride on the Grand Canal. I'll load some pics and comment on my impressions overall.

A couple of things have really surprised me. One was the bullet trains. That is, there are bullet train tracks part of the way along the highway both to Hangzhou and Suzhou. You can't miss them. Before we arrived, I had wondered about how you would keep people, animals and vehicles off of the tracks at crosssings when the trains are moving so fast. I mean, people ignore every other traffic rule - why respect a crossing gate? The Chinese have a simple solution - just build a bridge for a dedicated pair of tracks - 50 to 100 ft in the air - for the entire distance. Amazing. (Actually, Carolyn had guessed this - she wondered aloud if there were dedicated tracks.)

Another is the frugality in places, especially with electricity. We did not choose an expensive hotel in Shanghai (to save %). You enter the room with the typical key card - but once inside, you drop the card in a slot to get the lights and air conditioner to activate. When you leave the room, you take the card, the lights and the air go off in about 20 seconds. The room is not cold when you arrive, but it doesn't take long to cool off (once you figure out the remote, which is only in Chinese - it's our third night - but we've got it down now). There are lots of places (e.g. corridors in restaurants) which are not air conditioned - but don't need to be as no one is there for long. It saves a lot of power. As the Chinese gain wealth, I hope they don't lose this sense of conservation. It's very impressive.

And anther is the casual approach. Our guide told us she's been to Japan - it is a more formal society - China's people are socially more casual. They are warm and friendly (especially if they can speak English). In China there is not all the formal bowing. I think I had improperly projected what may be Japanese or ancient Chinese customs to all of Asia.

Of course, this can be taken too far - not sure about all of this casualness. E.g. the bathroom in our hotel room has a glass door and a ceiling to floor window - but with etched or smoked glass for about the center 3 feet (top to bottom) for modesty - but why can you see in there at all? And the occasional car stopped along side the freeway for some guy to, well, find relief. Along an 8 lane freeway? I digress.

So most of the surprises are positive. I really like our guide, Lemon. I don't think Lotus (our travel agent) had put much effort into our Shanghai experience - I think their focus is getting the adoption to happen without a hitch, not the tourist experience. Our guide has (99 percent of the time) anticipated what we would like and modified our agenda to improve our experience. Once in a while she misses, but overall she has greatly improved the time here in Shanghai. She represents the Chinese people to us, and she has a lot of joy.

An interesting and enlightening time...

D