Member John Marienthal Writes From Shanghai

John Marienthal writes from Shanghai:

Hello from the second biggest city in world--now 24 million people—where I am doing some volunteer lecturing.  The weather has just broken 70 degrees here. 

I recently went to Zhejiang, to visit a family I know in Wuyi county.  It is something I’ve done almost every year for the past ten years, and is a real joy. I have watched their children grow up. I sit down with them at a meal and become "invisible" no fretting or fawning over the wai guo ren (foreigner).  I am treated as just part of the family.  

Wuyi Xian (county) is located halfway between Hangzhou and Wenzhou (the shoe capital of China).  The town's claim to fame is a 700-year-old wooden bridge that crosses a river in the middle of the town.  The landscape is like Guilin only prettier because they get rain year round.  There are karst-like hills, volcanic lava flows, mountains to 2000 to 3000 feet.  In some ways many of the things that you can see in Wuyi mirror positive things for China's future. 

When I first went to Wuyi County in 2002 it had about 35000 people and six taxis.  Now it has 50,000 people and they are even building  a Walmart. They still have the KFC there from ten years ago,  but still no McDonald's or Starbucks. In 2002 it was a farming center. Now, like many other small Chinese cities, it is a specialized industrial center. The town is the hub for the steel door, safety door and security door capital of China.  High growth has forced up housing prices. In 2002 prices were about 1000 rmb per square meter. Now they are reaching 12000 rmb per sq. meter. 

I sat in on a ninth-grade English class. As part of their lesson they read a passage about credit cards, ATM's, and a cashless future via virtual money online.  In 2002 all those things would have seemed like science fiction. Yet today ALL three are now available in Wuyi. 

It used to take seven hours on the slow train to reach this town. Now it takes 1 1/2 hours to get to nearby Jinhua by fast train. The high speed train to Jinhua can travel at 175 miles per hour, but because of the 2011 accident on this same track it is restricted to 130 mph.

There are high speed rail connections to most of the highly-populated cities in eastern China . There is even a new connection that runs between Hong Kong/Canton  to Beijing. Here in Shanghai the trains are formidable competition to airplane travel to Beijing. You can get on the fastest train and go from the subway in  Shanghai  to downtown Beijing in five hours. No long airport security lines, waiting for baggage, trying to find transport at the other end.

I hope to do more traveling while I am here.   
Good health to you all,

John