On Saturday, 22 October 2022 at 1:16:57 am UTC-4, Joe Kesselman wrote:
On 10/20/2022 5:12 AM, Gary McGath wrote:
I thought about doing a verse on that but couldn't make it fit.
A large part of the art of writing is knowing when you've said enough,
and/or editing out the things which are good but don't significantly
advance the story... "Kill your darlings". (Original meaning, not the
movie.)
Decent enough lyrics, nice enough jobs. And the sentiment is
fairly appropriate to the current leadership.
I have been to China many times, it has generally always kept a lot more
tabs on both highly visible citizens and vocal citizens certainly than the US; before technology it was through sort of 'civic responsibility' (tell on your neighbors and friends!!) started in
early communist movement times, then it became much more technological.
However, never once have I ever been bothered by anything or anyone
about such things any time I've been there. I've walked all over the cities I've been in, gone to shops, restaurants, tourist places, rural countryside, villages, etc. I've even driven on the highway with my US license. Taken cabs, etc., all with no problems. I've gone out by myself any hours of the day
or eve with no problem and no questions any time.
The first time I was in Beijing it was easier to find someone trying to
take me to a back room and offer to sell me 'gangster knives' at night in
the street booths than it was to find a policeman.
It is true, if you spoke out against the new leader, who really aspires
to be very much a total dictator, more so than his predecessors,
that could go badly very quickly. He clearly wants 'reunification' on his watch, to leave his mark in history, and IMO that is the biggest danger
that could be coming up soon. That could be a pretty scary escalation.
But if you go about your tourist trips, visits, etc., I don't think you will notice the effects of the state growing more tolitarian.
What you may notice, the wrong time of year, in Bejing airport and there-abouts,
is the air can be as thick as a coal burning iron factory and smell just as bad.
You may notice a drive from one of the outer rings into the center of the city now can take more than 3 hours.
You may also notice that prices are pretty high now in the big cities, you
can often no longer save a lot buying things there vs. ordering them online
and having them shipped to you.
You also may run into the Quarantine rules. For a while it was 22 days.
Then 7 days. I'm not sure what it is now, but that is a big concern to check before you go there.
We have not gone back due to the extended quarantine rules, they would eat
up too much of the vacation.
But there are a lot of good things. The museums are fantastic. The Aquariums are fantastic. They have great in-city water parks with all sorts of crazy pipe slides
and such. You can play tennis in the Olympic tennis stadium (if it's not being renovated
again...). You can visit lots of cool cultural and historical sites.
The traditional medicine hospitals are orders of magnitude better practitioners than
you are likely to find in your local neighborhood. There, the acupuncture and traditional
medicine is actually likely to work, not just cost you money for expensive placebo like
nearly all US trained practitioners.
The hotels and restaurants in the big cities are world class and not crazy expensive.
Some of the food is intentionally differently flavored, like pizza has sort of a
local twist on some of it, and there are still a lot of international franchise places if
you want to eat like you are home.
Generally the people are really friendly, though you may not find people casually
that happen to speak any English. Your cell phone and translation app these days
can help with that.
You will need a specific app to get a cab, find that before you go and put it on
your phone. They used to stop when you waved them down, I'm told not so much now, everyone used the phone.
Your OS may not seem to function right if it depends too much on the internet connecting to the 'mother ship' of the vendor. Except in the Shanghai business district, they block a fair number of sites.
But phone signal is pretty good in most places and you can get a local SIM
for about $30 that will last a month of use probably.
YMMV
Dave
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