Live from China

It's Wednesday morning here in sunny Dalian, China. I'm finally feeling adjusted to the time zone. I woke up at 4:00am this morning as opposed to the 2:30 a.m. I've been waking up every night since my arrival on Sunday.

First things first. The flight over from US to Japan was interesting. I sat next to a man who I would later come to understand is involved in the defense contracting business. He had his laptop open through much of the flight and made no attempt to conceal his work which included words like "Raytheon" and "Kim Jung Il". He and I talked about business travel and it was interesting because he literally travels all over the world developing contracts with this or that small country who might need various and sundry hardware products for various and sundry needs ranging from crowd control to domestic defense to guerilla warfare.

He seemed like a nice man. We compared notes on travel from the hotel to the office in various parts of the war. Did I say war? I meant world. I described crazed taxi bus drivers and frantic pedestrians jaywalking into certain death in Brasil and Penang. He described commuting via armored columns in Islamabad, Pakistan and Dubai. We also had a good conversation about how the US has a responsibility to help build up 3rd world countries.

China is much different than I believed it would be. I thought there would be nothing but bicycles and motor scooters piloted by people in dark jumpsuits. I imagined they'd all either be either going to or returning from cumpulsory exercises and education sessions. It is not that way at all. Basically there's a bunch of Chinese people running around, living their lives - school, work, money… My understanding is that this city is relatively well-off compared to other areas of the country. There are plenty of BMW's, Mercedes, Lexus and other expensive vehicles, as well as plenty of smaller middle-class type cars. This isn't to say there isn't poverty, but on the whole, this is a fairly standard large city - at least from the outside looking in.

It's also a dirty city. But from what people tell me, it is clean relative to either Shanghai or Beijing. In anycase, the air is very polluted given the large number of coal plants and cars. China is basically going through it's industrial revolution. I guess I shouldn't expect it to be a clean place.

No birds… okay… some birds… 2 birds… Maybe they went south for the winter? (It is pretty damn cold here) Maybe they got killed off in a massive bird-kill related to avian flu? It's hard to say. All I'm saying is - there aren't a lot of birds around here. Come to think of it - there aren't a lot of animals running around. It's of no real surprise given what I've seen in the restaraunts here. Basically, if it was once alive, there's a decent chance you can find it for sale at a restaurant or food store. They don't really even have to have been alive. In some cases they are still alive while you select them. (I have only seen live seafood at this point, but I'm given to understand you can also pick out your dog or cat in some of the finer establishments…)

There is also plenty of access to crickets, spiders, beetles, worms and other forms of creepy crawlers to delight the pallete.

In an effort to jump the cultural divide, I have made the blanket declaration to all involved that I will eat whatever is put in front of me. Last night I was encouraged to order and eat "Fried Butt" but alas, they were not serving "Fried Butt" on the "all you can eat plan" we purchased. It turns out "Fried Butt" is nothing more than fried halibut or "flatfish" as it may be called by some.

Do I have anything else to report? OH… Television. Very interesting. I'm really not sure how the People's Republic is going to keep a lid on things. They allow hotels and foreign residents access to channels like CNN world, BBC World, Bloomberg and HBO. They are more restrictive of their own citizens, who only have access to official State-run television. One of these is in English. Very interesting stuff.

Strange to say that from my new perspective in China, Penang feels like familiar territory.