Life and Travel in China

Firstly, I were full sorry to hear that your president plane was crashed. I on behalf of Chinese people and myself join in sorrow of this victims of air disaster. May their soul rest in peace! We highly believe Poland will be power and power with people's unity.

I am disarmed by comments on certain news items on the Internet. They write that Adamek's sole came off during a boxing fight. Internet users, of course, blame China for this, ha ha! Here are the comments: "little Chinese hands, the 7-year-old who sewed these shoes didn't make an effort", and another "he probably bought a fake Chinese one and is surprised". First of all - I don't think professional boxing shoes are ordered by container from China! Secondly: Nike, Adidas, Reebok - they also produce in China and ensure quality. Thirdly, I have probably visited several hundred factories in China and I have never seen children working there. Usually these are people, young people aged 16-60. If there are young people there, it is only because they do not want to study or their family or financial situation does not allow them to do so. Such comments and the average Pole's idea of China are pathetic! If something is of poor quality, it is from China. Yes, that's right, just like iPhones, iPods, Nokias, Samsungs, LGs, IBM Lenovo laptops, Sony Playstation consoles... If something is of poor quality, it's only because someone didn't take care of it and bought cheap crap that is perfect for the Polish market. You can blame this on importers who want to make a lot of money and order the cheapest possible crap from China, Turkey, India, Pakistan... The truth is that if you pay more and check the goods before shipping, there are no quality problems in China. And this is the truth - if someone doesn't like the Chinese quality, let them go to the importer who introduced this product to the Polish market! The Chinese produce everything according to the order, and the quality matches the price. Simple and logical. In the 1980s, we could still criticize something here, because there were no advanced technologies, there were not many engineers, people with higher education in general, and not many Western specialists worked here. But now! People, you are picking on a country that sends spaceships, has trains running at 431 km/h, skyscrapers 500 meters high, the longest bridges and tunnels in the world, the railway route with the highest height above sea level - according to you, everything is of the same poor quality and will fall apart?! There are no words... there are simply two extremes in Poland: those who have never been here and know about labor camps, poverty, factories full of children, poor quality, the second group are people who have been to Shanghai or Hong Kong twice and found China to be super rich, modern and wonderful. Just two extremes, lack of knowledge and objectivity!

My Chinese friend is changing her view about China and the Chinese government. It started with the fact that she couldn't open blocked Facebook, so a friend gave her a program to bypass Chinese blocks (some kind of proxy, IP hiding). This is how my friend started reading about scams in China, about propaganda, lies, and embellishment of reality by the Chinese authorities. As an example, she said that photos and information about the alleged rescue of many miners were fabricated, but in fact they all died and the authorities made a show of a nativity scene. Personally, I don't know if this is true, but she found out this information. However, I think her change of heart is that her (Chinese) husband now works in Canada. A year ago, the same girl even defended the Chinese government and accused Western media of inciting hatred against the Chinese authorities! It was about clashes with Uighurs in Urumqi. She then said that what kind of media freedom is this if they incite the world against the whole of China and are not objective, because the Han are not guilty of anything and it all started with the aggression of the Uyghurs. This year, after the wedding, her views are evolving. It's like opening a window once every ten years and enjoying the fresh air. The problem is that the authorities order this window to be closed, but young people like such fresh air, a breath of freedom and truth!

It's been a long time since I wrote anything about the condition of bicycles in China, but I must admit that there is improvement! Recently, in the provincial town of Quanzhou (close to Xiamen), I saw nice bicycles for students - they had full wheels (no spokes), they were all in a similar style, quite well-kept, new. I see that in many towns, for example in Zhejiang Province, Giant mountain and city bikes, new and well-kept, are becoming more and more popular. Chains of company stores and services are emerging. Some people even ride bikes. Of course, there are not many such passionate cyclists, but the sport is slowly developing. Clogged streets, millions of cars - some people prefer a bicycle or a scooter. Of course, there are still many neglected, rusty bikes, off-center wheels, loose chains and flip-flop brakes. Recently, I even saw a foreigner riding a worn-out "Ukraine" type bike in Shanghai at night, and his pedal was probably clicking, or the chain guard was knocking, and the bike was crossing a quiet street, making a constant 'screw, sneeze, sneeze...'. In Shanghai or Beijing it's probably normal for white people to ride such crappy bikes, in Shenzhen or Guangzhou it's not so common. They either buy nice bikes and ride recreationally, or use electric scooters (combustion scooters are often banned in large cities). Due to the crazy traffic, they also choose buses, taxis or the metro.

Yesterday I was waiting for the green light and a black van was parked next to it. The driver planned to turn left, which meant he crossed the entire intersection, a quite busy place. Before the pedestrians crossed the zebra, before the cars started moving from the perpendicular street, he quickly moved - on a red light and drove as if nothing had happened! Of course it had state registration numbers. And these are such untouchable people. They can park wherever they want, if they hit someone it is not their concern, they fill up their tanks practically for free, they transport entire families in company cars. I'm talking about purely transport privileges - what about the rest?! Free apartments, great income from bribes and scams, in addition to working in the government, they open their own factories or companies, buy apartments for their lovers, go on trips abroad, their children can study outside China, massage parlors, karaoke clubs, restaurants, golf clubs - all this is available to them practically for free, day and night. And these people, this untouchable, privileged group will never allow this system to collapse. Their profit, their abundance, their prosperity is based on the exploitation of the masses. These are millions of poor, unaware people who are exploited by this system. Factories where they produce quite expensive devices and earn pennies themselves. Workers who live in barracks and build skyscrapers seven days a week. Do they know office prices, rental prices of these properties, hotel profits, shopping center profits? They certainly don't even know such numbers, such amounts, such sums, and they earn little themselves.