Monday, March 5, 2007

A strange brand of communism

We arrived in Beijing, China, last night after two flights totaling 16 hours, including a two-hour layover in Shanghai. I arrived at our hotel after 1 a.m. and wasn't able to get to sleep until about 2 a.m. That means I was up for 33 hours with only a few minutes of fitful napping. And we had to be up just three hours later! My body was totally confused about whether it was morning or night. This all gives new meaning to the word "fatigue." (Why am I staying up now to write this blog when I should be sleeping?)
Today was a very full day of looking, listening and talking with our guides. The weather is very cold and windy—in the 30s throughout the day with 15 to 20 mph winds. Despite Beijing's reputation for some of the worst air pollution in the world, the air quality and visibility was good, probably helped by the strong winds and snows earlier in the week.
My first impressions: In contrast to China being a communist country, I've never seen more exuberant, over-the-top capitalism, with many of the attendant benefits and most of the inevitable excesses. Flashy, Western-style advertising is everywhere—billboards, benches, TV and posters. Street vendors sell lots of low-quality goods really cheap, including bootleg copies of Microsoft Vista for less than $5. There are fast food places all over, including McDonald’s, Starbucks and KFC. In many ways Beijing has the look of a slightly Asian Los Angeles with some Las Vegas touches: sprawl, cars, traffic jams, freeways, large neon signs and boundless optimism everywhere.
Everyone seems to want to be upwardly mobile and show their new wealth with a brand new car of their own. There still are lots of bicycles and people on public transit, but there are also endless slow-moving rows of single-occupant vehicles. Not just cheapies either, but many Chinese-built versions of BMWs, Mercedes and Hondas. These China-built versions are about 25 percent more expensive than what we pay, and imported cars are double what we pay. Both blue and white-collar job salaries are still low by our standards, but are rising fast. Housing in Beijing is expensive—about $200 a square foot for a small 900-square-foot purchased apartment; that's close to what it is in SLO. And, also just like SLO, the housing prices are being pushed up some by outside investors; in this case they're looking for a good investment and a place to stay during the 2008 Olympics.
The guides seem to be able to talk freely about anything they want, including government and politics—even negatively about the tragic Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976.
What a strange brand of communism this is. Could it be that the most wide-open capitalism in the world is in a communist country?
Next time.
-- Dave Garth

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