China, for being renowned as experts in science, you are remarkably obtuse to it.

Don't even get me started on traditional Chinese medicine. Aside from some herbal remedies any that modern medicine could do better on, it's bullshit beyond the placebo effect. But then you have these crazy ass ideas like "warm water can't contain any pathogens".

The hell it can't!

I'm getting really tired of warm water being served at restaurants. It's my understanding that it comes from that back in the day, the Chinese purified their drinking water by boiling it to make it into tea, so they prefer hot. In fact, they believe cold drinks are not good for digestion. I think my body doesn't care one way or the other as long as it's clean. If you're really going for healthiest possible, it'd be best to boil, then to nearly freeze. I know my tongue would prefer some ice.

Also it's impossible to get any decent windows, much less insulation. It's more of a problem now than it will be in a month, but the Chinese do not insulate their windows or homes. In fact, they prefer them a touch drafty. Another BS belief of how non-moving air breeds disease. Thanks for ignoring germ theory and the last 130 years of science, China. Now, can you get some decent doors and windows? It has to be costing your country millions of dollars in lost energy. And cab drivers, roll up your window for fraks sake. If you have to pick between "non-moving air" and "freezing my ass off" as to the thing more likely to get you sick, I'd choose the latter.


Today is the last day of Spring Festival, which starts on Chinese New Year and ends on the Lantern Festival. I'd never heard of the Lantern Festival, but it's pretty cool. You tie wishes to these lanterns, light a fire, and they go off to who knows where hot air balloon style. Although really when you boil down to it it's kind of an excuse to mass litter red paper things across the country.

One thing I can say about it though is that it's awfully pretty. These are just two of the several lantern displays that are around the city. Unfortunately because it was raining last night, no such festivities took place, or at least I didn't see any. Paper and fire usually don't mix with that sort of thing.

And of course because it's China, there are tons of fireworks constantly going off. And because it's China, some poor SOB has to clean it up.

Sorry about that.

I suppose I should finish what I started.

China reminds me of a kid who has just been given an expensive toy and is unsure what to do with it. Everyone has nice, shiny cars here because driving is such a new phenomenon. In short, there's no late-90s Corolla's cruising around, because in the 90s nobody knew anyone with a car. Like any kid would do, they love playing with the horn, cruising up on sidewalks, oncoming lanes of traffic, you name it. I wish foreigners could drive here, because I feel that after surviving the streets of China you are ready for ANYTHING the western world could throw at you. Speaking of kids, the one child policy.

Perhaps not so well know is that the one child policy actually has a lot of exceptions. Anywhere considered rural, or ethnic minorities are exempt from it. With most of China living near the east coast, you'd probably be okay with having more than one child in the majority of China. Hong Kong and Macau are also not subject to it. Unfortunately the Hangzhou area is.

To get more personal, the suburb I live in, Xiaoshan is to Hangzhou as Indian Hill is to Cincy. It's where all the well-to-do folks live and they commute into town. So, with each family being comparatively wealthy, and having only one kid, most of them are pretty spoiled. With kids being so important here for financial security in older age, the world does kind of revolve around them. Sure kids will be kids, but there are some things they pull that would just NOT fly back home. Like today, for example, I had to take two toy guns. One shot little plastic pellets that would probably sting a decent amount. In the US that'd be a pretty serious punishment, here it's little more than "You can have it back at the end of class."

Something a lot of people don't realize is that the one child policy isn't new. It's over 30 years old now, so the first batch of those born under it are now in the workforce. I'm interested in what China is going to look like 10, 20 years from now when the pre one-child families start exiting the workforce. I'm hoping it doesn't create a financial difficult to support their disproportionally large elderly population.

<fingers crossed> Grandpa can't go back to being a cab driver at 70. He won't see that car driving up the sidewalk.