Finally back to Berkeley. Sigh... how cool the weather here, around 20 degrees, always sunny, blue sky, big trees, squirrels and deers are alive, jumping here and there carrying no fear of being eaten or made to Chinese traditional medecine and hand bags...
After almost a month's adventure in China, riding bike again in the streets of Berkeley seems so cherishing, at least, we are back in two whole pieces.
Called Amanda's home since her cell already being switched off for the trip to Canada, Mrs. Bradshaw picked up, she literally laughed to the ground while listening to my description of our summer trip.
"Ya, we lost our passports on the first day first hour after arriving in China. Raj gave me his passport, so both of our passports were in my small handbag, I left the handbag on the back seat of the taxi, we didn't remember the name of the taxi driver, didn't even get a receipt. You know, I was too exhausted and too nervous about everything in my own country, and of course, carrying too many luggages."
"bhahahhaha, you guys are crazy."
"Ya, we were stuck there in China and it was so hot, around 100 degrees. We stayed in Guangzhou for getting a new passport and exit visa to Raj, I showed Raj some cities while waiting for Raj's new visa, it was so tiring all the time, we keep sweating the whole trip, now we are both very black and thin."
"bhahahahha, you guys are miserable !!"
"Oh, I also brought Raj to my hometown to show to my parents... my dad said, Raj is indeed a well educated, good mannered, promising young guy, the only thing is, his skin color is a bit too dark..."
"bhahahahah, Mo, this is a good one !!"
"Ohya, since we were not able to take flight (no identities) , I took Raj into some Chinese crowded trains, they were soo crowded, the government sold us this type of tickets (called standing tickets) with no seat, so we had no seat !! We spent 15, 16 hours each journey standing or sitting on the ground with other Chinese sitting, eating, sleeping, spitting and throwing garbage on the ground..."
"bhahahahha, Mo, you guys were really miserable !!"
......
We also met Debu Da, from Raj, the China trip looks like this:
"China looks so so so rich, much richer than India. All western brand good/ luxury cars in the street, each every city has huge buildings, everywhere is under construction, a lot of cities have very advanced metro or BRT system, the public transportation is awesome.
Although it's weird that the government is so powerful to get rid of all the motor cycles in Guangzhou, the streets look exactly like US which filled with expensive cars.
I have been to a lot of places this time in China, even villages, the roads are really wide and have good quality. The highways are also new and in good shape, but I heard it's quite expensive and there are not so many cars in some of the routes.
There is no train in China has no AC, but they sell tickets with no seats (with the same price as tickets with seats), for long distance, they also sell tickets for seats (besides sleepers) which you can't lie down and sleep. Since we only bought the tickets two or three days ago, tickets with seats (and above) already sold out, for 15, 16 hours' night journey, we had to stand or sit on the ground, the best scenarios was that we were capable to sit and sleep for the whole night, obviously there were many more miserable people compared to us.
All the things government made or sponsored, are grand, golden, shiny and awesome, you don't see slums no where, very clean streets, no poor people are capable to be seen. Feels like China is not a place for poor people anymore, which confuses me because according to the statistics, China is still a developing country with huge poverty.
In China indeed women work everywhere, means, in all kinds of professions and positions. In public, almost everywhere from cities to villages, you can see half women half men working or traveling. Although it's always crowded, people won't take your advantages and keep well manners, normal people are generally quite helpful and humble, sometimes more helpful and nice than some officiers.
Indeed, it could be because that there are police forces, cameras everywhere in public places. Police cars are at least Honda accord !
There is no small bribe in need for the lowest level of execution, official works were easily and efficiently done for us. The police arrived in 3, 4 minutes, let us get into their car and drove us around searching for hotel or street cameras to identify the taxi we took that day while we lost our passports; after whole afternoon's search we still couldn't find anything, the police also gave us a police report without asking us for any bribe. Momo got her new passport within 3 days, then her dad delivered the new passport which would be expired in 2020 to Guangzhou within 1 day so that she can apply for her US visa together with me in Guangzhou while I was waiting for my exit visa.
I have lived in Singapore for two months, I thought the girls there wear the shortest, after seeing China, I think Chinese women are the ones who wear the shortest compare to the other parts of the world... Of course you would see young girls wear short skirts or pants in the west, but you could only see women at the age of 30 to 50 who have kids with them, wearing very very short dresses while shopping or walking in the street. This is weird and made me uncomfortable.
Chinese society is insensitive to women, most of women are not treated as what they deserve, according to me, women's social role is really special since each woman is a potential mother who would give birth to babies and raise them up with her own blood and sweat, the whole society should respect each every woman just because of this. However in China, I didn't see this point, for example, they played dirty joke videos in public while no passengers complained, they shouted at anybody who looks poor, no matter man or woman, some of them shouted at Momo and insulted her with weird questions which made me very uncomfortable even I didn't understand fully, as for me, I would say this shows non respect towards women.
Definitely, China is not a place for poor, although I am from India where Chinese people generally know nothing about it except the poverty, people dare not to treat me bad since I study in the US. I saw officiers shouted at poor looking elders like shouting at dogs.
......"
Ok, got to go now, actually I opened this Chinese Sina blog (
http://blog.sina.com.cn/feimoyu21) to write about all that happened, this afternoon I was trying to transfer all the articles into this blog since Sina has the power to delete any of my article or my whole account for no reason.
Sorry that not all the content I wrote and am going to write is in English (since I realized that Chinese written articles were more urgently needed to change some people's mind)...
Cheers
:)
