Just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Record high temperatures while I was there so it was quite miserable walking around both cities. I am impressed by the progress each city has made every time I go there. I will talk about the experience I had in Hong Kong today.
While our infrastructure is crumbling, Hong Kong continues to improve everything. We never waited for more than couple of minutes for a subway train. The stations and the trains are clean with great air conditioning. They are very crowded but the riders all behave in good manner. All the buses are new and no foul smell smoke coming out of the exhausts. Internet connections are free everywhere. Museums are free for all Hong Kong citizens. We were waved thru despite being foreigners (I guess we still look like Chinese).
There are drawbacks living in Hong Kong, of course. It is under China control despite being a special administrated area. The people are not afraid to speak their mind, however. In the crowded Central District we came across a man standing there singing. We thought he was a street performer trying to get money. Turned out he was Ng Siu Hong of the Democratic party running for a legislative seat. He was not afraid to sing and give a speech about freedom in the middle of the busiest part of the city. Despite without any natural resources, despite not having total freedom under both Britain and China, Hong Kong people have prospered. Trump would have described Hong Kong as a shithole fifty years ago. But if I were to start a country, I would take the people of Hong Kong over the people who backed Trump any time!
Saturday, June 02, 2018
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Welcome back! Is there a reason why you didn't do your blog in China or HK? I think you should have tried just to see if you would be able to. Unless you did try and you were censored!
ReplyDeleteI am interested to see your take on your trip to the mainland and how different it was for you and the attitudes of the people.
-LBOAYM
I should have tried to do my blog during the trip. But I was quite busy during the day and by the time I got back to the hotel, I was tired and soaking in sweat from the humidity. After a shower, I just tried to enjoy the air conditioning and catch up with events from CNN and the local news channels. Also saw two Dodgers game which is the same number I saw on tv in LA this season due to the cable and satellite provider fight over the games here. I also didn't want to try to do the blog because when I was in Hawaii a few years ago and tried to write, Google gave me all kind of hassle because they were afraid I was not who I said I was, being thousands of miles away. So I figure, Google was probably going to censor me before China would!
ReplyDeleteJust to prove my point about our infrastructure being worse than HK and China. Our internet have been down all day. It had been slow since we came back. My wife talked to 5 different reps of Frontier, our provider, without getting anywhere. She then called our Congressman's office who referred us to the utility commission office and finally FCC. After all that Frontier finally responded and the service is restarted. A total of seven hours and about 8 phone calls! One day we had our internet service go down in our hotel in HK. After complaining, it was fixed in less than half hour. Remember, the internet service is free in HK and is much faster. Here we pay and get way inferior service. Also my wife is resourceful and we live in a relatively well off area. I wonder how poor people would be able to get reasonable service?
I will be writing about Guangzhou and the villages soon along with what the Chinese people we met think about Trump and the U.S. Providing my internet service is available tomorrow!