Life and Travel in China

At the moment I'm not writing anything new about China, because I'm relaxing in Poland. Great air, delicious food, clean water. We come to life after a long stay in a messy, large Chinese metropolis.

June, July and August are the months of the pogrom against foreigners living temporarily in China. It's about safety and the problem of overcrowding during the Olympics. International companies with an office in the middle country must be closed during this period. People who received long-term visas will now receive visas for three months. Previously, you could cross the border as much as you wanted, but now you can only cross it twice, including, for example, my trips to Hong Kong to buy donuts. There were even rumors that during these three months you will not be able to leave China, because even with a valid visa you will not be able to return, and the visas will be canceled at the border. If I know this system, it is quite real. Interestingly, people from outside China who already have tickets for some events related to the Olympics do not necessarily have to get a Chinese visa. More than a dozen nationalities will not receive visas at all from June to the end of August. Madness! Like some kind of martial law. They probably take this Olympics too seriously, it's not for ordinary people.

A stadium was being built on the route out of Shenzhen, or so I thought. The Universiade is to be held here in a few years. From the outside, this structure looked exactly the same as the Olympic stadium in Pekno, of course smaller. Now, after a few months, it turned out that it was... a bus station?! Its size resembles the Centennial (People's) Hall in Wrocław. The project is similar to the mentioned stadium, where the Olympics will start on August 8. I was shocked yesterday when I saw buses arriving there and parking on several floors. After my last stay in Poland, the bus station never reminded me of any stadium, but in China it is different.

Yesterday, a friend told me that not only foreigners have problems with being in China during the Olympics. It turned out that her sister, who was studying in Japan, could not return to China for the next two months! She is, of course, Chinese, but because of the Olympics, the Chinese government is trying to limit the population throughout the country. It does not grant visas to foreigners, changes the validity of visas, and closes their representative offices. Now it turns out that it is blocking the return of its own citizens to the country. Can you imagine something like this? You can't return to your home country from Egypt because Euro 2012 is taking place.

Until now, I thought that around 10-12 million people live in Shenzhen, but it turns out that according to recent research, 18 million people live here. There are approximately 1-2 million native inhabitants, the rest are visitors from other provinces. It's amazing how this city is growing. Crowds of people in the subway, buses, in parks, not to mention department stores and supermarkets.