Life and Travel in China

An unusual event took place at the large company FOXCONN (near Shenzhen), which produces original iPhones and famous game consoles. It turned out that the innovative sample, a new iPhone model, went missing after being shipped from the factory to the USA. The company conducted an investigation, as a result of which one person (25-year-old employee) committed suicide. This is the official version. Rumor has it that maybe he was beaten by security during some interrogation, maybe he was suspected of theft, industrial espionage... In a sense, Apple has its hands covered with this blood. Damn iShit. What surprises me the most are people who are willing to pay PLN 2,000 for crap made in China. Maybe the components are decent, but the cost of production? Is anyone thinking about this? We have an iPod (we won the lottery), it often hangs, not to mention the poor way of copying files. It amazes me how much people trust this brand, buy a Chinese MP4, the functions are the same and the price is 10x lower. Well, yes, but you can't mess around with no-name mp4. Must be the iShit logo.

More and more often I encounter situations in which Chinese families live in a sense broken. This applies to wealthier husbands and fathers. The Chinese try to have children immediately after marriage, it is a tradition. If there is no child, everyone immediately asks questions, jokes, interferes and rushes the young couple. So a child appears quickly, sometimes another one, usually one (one-child policy and financial penalties for subsequent ones, for example in Shenzhen about PLN 90,000). The problem is that men treat this child as if it belonged only to the mother and mother-in-law. It's the women who have to take care of him. During this time, the Chinese work in their companies, often in another city. Recently in a furniture factory - the owner told me that he has an apartment in Guangzhou (and his factory is 2 hours away from Guangzhou), he said that he visits his wife and child from time to time. Another person, even in the same city, has a company and a house, but due to business meetings and karaoke parties, he spends 3-4 nights a week at home. My friend's husband, who has an 8-month-old daughter, spends 60 days a year with them. He works outside the home practically all year round and is an electrical engineer. Maybe the problem with Chinese women is that they are very faithful and devoted to their husbands? They know perfectly well that they are in no danger, wives and concubines are used to waiting for their men even for years. Husbands, on the other hand, go out to dinner, to bars, to massage parlors - and there are many temptations to cheat. As you can see, it looks very chauvinistic and unfair to women! We're getting married, I'm having a baby for you - the baby is your problem, we don't have to sleep together too often, I have my job and other entertainment now. Of course, it is similar in Poland, but people still live together and try to be together. Here, the man always distances his wife.

Poland is a very interesting country. We are inviting a Chinese delegation to support PKP Cargo, and at the same time the Delei Lama is also visiting Poland. And I ask, where is the diplomacy here? All countries that host the Tibetan leader are later disadvantaged by the Chinese, just like France recently. Maybe the average Pole doesn't even think about it and is happy that we support Tibet. But what will Tibet give us? Will he invest in PKP Cargo? Interesting... Chinese diplomacy will definitely take note of this visit and it will drop a few more places in their ranking, if we are not already at the bottom. Well, who is Poland to China? Apart from a few industries, there are no major imports from Poland, and we are not a power that buys Chinese products on a large scale. We are nothing to them. Of course, we are talking about the authorities of the Middle Kingdom, because average Chinese are quite kind and friendly to us. Of course, unless they know about the Dalai Lama's visits. My Chinese friend said outright that she hates him and how can I discuss that?

You may remember the scene from the movie "Wanted, Wanted", when the engineer was planning the city's spatial development on a model and was interrupted by the lake, he said: "Oh, that's not good, let the building stand and we'll put the lake here." Corny and funny, but not in China. Just imagine that the lakes here are actually being filled up! And when necessary, they are dug out in another place. Two years ago there was a wild park, a lake, small fishermen were catching something with their nets. It was a link between two districts of the city. Now this lake no longer exists (or at least part of it), the greenery has been cleared and a large housing estate is being built there. The apartments will definitely be expensive, because they guarantee a view of the sea and Hong Kong (a crappy sea, where there is no beach and no one swims, but what counts is the view). Exceptional idiocy! Cut down about 5 kilometers of forest, fill in the lake and build, build, build. A similar situation is in the very center of the city, there is a large park divided into three parts, and of course there are traffic jams between these parts. A small part of this park was a forest of lychee trees, a charming pond, several pavilions, benches... Now - the pond is half filled, there are no benches, the pavilions have been demolished. There is some construction going on, either a road, or more office buildings or apartments. Chinese cities in a few dozen years will look like in the animation WALL-E. Mess, polluted air, mountains of garbage, skyscrapers, apartments, no greenery. What kind of greenery is it when the forest is cut down, the lake is filled in, the mountains are leveled, a housing estate with a hundred thousand inhabitants is built and a few clumps of grass, five trees and pots of flowers are put in? You stupid people, oh stupid! In a hundred years you will regret all this and you will pay the highest price for it - your health and life!

Average Chinese people don't have many pleasures in life. People who live in large metropolises have almost no entertainment. I remember how once my wife's friend, her husband and children were amazed after walking through the city center (the promenade next to the city hall, the bookstore and the youth center). It was great weekend entertainment for them. Just like that - a walk around the city?! In China it is not like in Poland, where you can go to the forest, have a picnic, go fishing, go for a walk, ride a bike in peace and quiet, go kayaking, etc. There are no such entertainments, in general, to go outside the city you need 1-2 hours and you won't find anything interesting there. Fields, factories, dirty rivers and lakes, no forests, no greenery. Even if there is a fragment of natural landscape, it is usually cut off from the world (maybe that is better). Usually, every highway and railway line is limited by barriers and fences. People can't just stop the car or get off the train and go to the forest or the mountains. If anything, the Chinese go to such famous and well-trodden places where you have to wait in line. I have already written about waiting in line on a mountain trail to walk between the rocks. There is no peace, no privacy, no silence anywhere, literally nowhere. I have been to 10 provinces of China and nowhere did I feel that I was in contact with nature, that I was alone, listening to the breeze and birds singing. Here, you even go to the mountains by bus with a tour, as far as possible, as high as possible, so as not to get tired sometimes. Besides, what fun is it to go to the mountains with 200 people? There are no bicycle trips (crazy traffic, constant honking), the water, as I have already written, is dirty, there are no clean lakes or rivers anymore, I have never seen anyone bathe there (maybe only in some distant villages). Pools - crowded, hundreds of people. Cinemas - prices slightly higher than in Poland. Philharmonics, opera - the prices are outrageous, but with this population there will always be people interested, even when tickets cost PLN 500. Most families just spend the weekend at home, in front of the TV, sometimes in crowded parks, sometimes they go shopping and admire their own car (while standing in kilometers of traffic jams), and here the traffic jams are not like in Poland. When there are cars parked - they are on 4-5 lanes, thousands of cars, can you imagine the smell of exhaust fumes and the temperature when it is 30-35 degrees outside? The Chinese really don't have many opportunities to have a nice time. The worst thing is that they don't even know how people can relax in Europe, these siestas in Spain, Greece, in Poland, some people finish work at 3-4 p.m., weekends off, sitting in the garden, on the allotment, cycling... It's practically impossible here. I just feel sorry for them! Such a life has no taste.