I went to a traditional Szechwan restaurant, it was a nice experience, they had on stage a performance called “Changing Faces” in which one of the performers changes a face mask, but with a trick, you can’t tell how he changes the mask, you only see the result. At the restaurant they have someone who walks around the table offering what he calls an ear massage, although I had him massaging my ear but it was more of an ear cleaning operation, I still can’t figure out why they offer such a thing at a restaurant, even some of the locals who were sitting at the table next to us were snapping some pictures with a little grin on their faces.
I read the local English newspaper and I’ve been learning a lot about the current affairs in China. Inflation and high prices seem to be a common topic, real estate prices are very high and in many instances it’s mostly the speculators than actual home buyers who are making the prices of real estate unaffordable for many young couples. Prices of everything are rising and sometimes I wonder how you can buy a mini iPod for the same price of a coffee and a muffin and a going to the movie theater will cost the equivalent of $22. The Chinese government is trying to curb the problem, I think they’ve seen the collapse of the housing market in the US and they’re trying to prevent something similar of happening here. There was a mention of sub-prime crisis in Wenzhou (in southeast China) after some local business owners fled the country and others were arrested, leaving thousands of employees in a state of shock and enormous unpaid loans in hundreds of millions.
Another common topic in Chinese newspapers is the tainted food. They caught some restaurants that use what they call “Gutter oil” – a recycled oil that was collected from restaurants gutters or sewage- that was sold for good profit to other food establishments.
Another story I read is about the selling of human organs; a graduate student had a job offer to work for a medical company and they had him go to a medical examination when he woke up, he found that they took one of his kidneys, he later discovered all of his colleagues at the company had the same thing happening to them. He was threatened by the head of the company but he still decided to go to the authority.
The law is very harsh here, and with all the prosperity that China’s economy and its people have experienced over the past few years, there are some persons who wants to get rich quickly regardless at what cost. Many times these stories make us to paint a general picture about a country, but don’t forget China has 1.3 billion people and most of them are very hard working and honest people, but these odd things can happen in any society.
I posted some pictures I took in Shanghai and didn’t post them before so I added them here. Some of these pictures show my visit to Yuyuan Gardens in the old city, there were some claims during the colonial times that it was written at the entrance of the garden “No dogs or Chinese”. The existence of such a sign was disputed however; it’s true that no Chinese was allowed to enter the garden unless accompanied by a foreigner.
