First Day Ruminations

Monday 6-7-10

Woke up around 7am, great night sleep (I wrote this and went back to sleep for 4 more hours). Jake is picking me up at noon so plenty of time (to sleep).

The hostel has wi-fi in the basement and an ethernet jack in the room. So some note on first impressions from yesterdays arrival.

As I said before people seem happy and relaxed. It feels very safe. We get a lot of friendly stares because we are way in the minority here and stick out like sore thumbs. Many times people will out of the blue just say “hello” which Jake says is very common. Most of the official signs (street signs, subway signs, etc) are in Chinese with English under them. From what I am seeing and what Jake says, some people could speak a little english, but with difficulty. It is odd to walk down the street having a conversation with Jake, knowing the people walking next to you have no idea what you are saying.

Transportation:

When the plane was landing I noticed there are cars, but for a city of 22 million there are not that many. The are mostly small cars and the trucks are small trucks like in Europe. The subway is very nice and well used. It was Sunday and Jake says there is a lot of activity on Sunday but nothing was overly packed. You get a card which you fill with money. They use wireless cards that you just hold up against a plastic box and it deducts the fare. The same card works for subway and bus. The fare from the airport to town was 25 RMB which is about $3.50, and is the most expensive fare I saw. All the other subway rides are 2 RMB. A bus ride is 0.4 RMB which is around 6 cents. So we got home last night for 12 cents each (2 buses). These are nice, modern subways and buses, nicer than most I have been on in the US.

There are lots of kinds of bikes. Anyone working hauling stuff around uses a 3 wheeled bike. People going back and forth to work use regular bikes, many look like old english bikes. About 3/4 of all these bikes are electric so you see people zooming around without pedaling. Last night we walked around a lot of small streets and the electric bikes are almost quieter than the pedal bikes so it is pretty neat to see bikes cruising around in the dark completely silent. Not many people have headlights on their bikes, and nobody wears helmets. There are lots of wives or friends or kids riding sidesaddle as passengers on bikes. You can tell they do it all the time because they will be talking on their cell phone at the same time.

Traffic lights:

As near as I can tell, they are recommendations, not rules. Pretty much everybody goes wherever they want whenever they want. Trucks, scooters, cars and bikes all mix and dance with the pedestrians and it all works somehow and looks safe. Jake says just do not step out in front of anything that can't stop very quickly. Buses would stop for you, but cannot. There is almost always an extra lane just for bikes, sometimes a divided lane for bikes and pedestrians. You have to stay on your toes when walking because bikes and pedestrians go both directions on these single lanes, so look both ways.

Prices:

Everything is very cheap, but there are tourist places that charge western prices (the lunch at the airport was $6 which is very high. Supper last night with a pint of beer (600ml = 20 oz) was $2 for each of us. There is no tax or tips so everything is very easy. Currency less than 1 RMB is unusual. We bought apples (we think they are apples) at a grocery store and they are sold by the pound so there was small coins returned there. Jake says they round off at 0.1 RMB so that must have been the coins.

Construction:

There is quite a bit and last night there were a few crews working under lights. We saw a bus load of construction guys getting off near their dorms I presume. Jake says they may be migrant workings coming in from the country to work.

Monday PM

Today we walked around and took in the street activity on a typical work day. We found a street that was shop after shop of wire, plumbing supplies, motors, pumps tools, etc. A real guys kind of street. All those Harbor Freight tools are here. There are lots of wire shops with every king of wire shrink wrapped in big rolls. These shops are small, more like stalls, and everybody is pretty relaxed and just sorta waiting for someone to come into their store. One stall had nothing but motors. Gear motors, stepper motors, AC motors, etc. Another stall has fans, fan blades, etc. It is not uncommon to see 2 stores on the same block selling exactly the same wire. The power here is all 240 VAC and a 2 prong American plug will plug in without the ground pin. Jake has a power strip that lets 3 prong devices plug in so I put my Swiss Army Knife away as I was about to hack off the ground lug.

As Jake says, they seem to be in that wild west mode here where there are rules and everybody sorta follows them, but the rely on the common sense of the average citizen to figure stuff out. There are loose bricks here and there that you could easily trip on, but people figure it out. Back home there would be barriers and signs but here they just leave them. People are not that aggressive here, so the drivers seem to watch out for bikes and pedestrians and vise versa. There seems to be a sense of “us” and not “me” here. The guys are not all trying to out macho each other with very few exceptions. I think this background message of “Happy” and “Love” pays off in a gentler headset. There is also a lot of integration of grandparents and children. People dote on the kids everywhere you see them. We walked past a hedged in area with loud music playing tonight. I expect a group of teens having a block party given the music, but when we cleared the hedge, we found 20 to 40 older folks dancing to the loud music in a synchronized aerobic sort-of dance. Jake says this is really common. The parks have standard kids playground stuff, slides, climbing structures, but they also have what look like guy equipment that the older folks use to exercise and stretch. Very nice stuff. The older generation seems to get a lot of respect here.