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
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