Archives January 2011

The State of the Union Address was January 25th, 2011, ATC reviews the plans behind President Obama’s speech.

Transportation:

One issue we’ve always been open about at ATC is transportation in America. While traveling around the world, we found America to be one of the most difficult places to travel due to poor infrastructure in terms of non-air modes of transportation. Plans to expand the rail network

Previous articles on ATC about transportation include: Amtrak- An Open Plea to the Government. USA Travel Options- Choices in Futility. The Empire Builder. 3 Things I Didn’t Miss about America. Transatlantic Options. Across America by Land.

Education:

Traveling around the world has taught us something else. Americans are not considered to be that intelligent.  This seems to be a nearly universal opinion. Obama’s speech indicated that he might agree with those internationally accepted opinions. Education in America has serious problems that need to be addressed.  I think teachers should be required to have a masters in their field as well as advanced training in teaching methodology and technology. Why not aim to be the best? We have high unemployment and a strong need for teachers, this is a great time to require more education for 1-12 teachers and to reward teachers who went out of their way to get their masters degrees, or who have learned to use technology in the classroom.

Students in Europe are way ahead of US students in many regards. They speak multiple languages and have a firm grip on science, math and geography– three of American student’s worst subjects.  In the chart they US is ranked well after Estonia, which is ironic because the average American probably couldn’t find Estonia on a map, proving my point. American students need to learn a second language fluently by the time they graduate from High School. 12 years is plenty of time. Students in Europe study for around 8-12 years learning English and as a result sound like native English speakers. In China, students go to classes all day and then spend their limited spending cash on English tutors because they know education is key. That is a lot to compete with. We need full immersion schools in the US, and teachers who are bilingual. As Obama noted, the baby boomers will be retiring soon, and its a good time to enact new laws to better the education system. Next time I travel through Europe I would love to see a young American speaking the local language and causing people abroad to reevaluate their opinion of Americans.

Finances:

Americans have a spending problem. Nobody is debating this anymore. Our debt is out of control, our spending seems to be endless and yet our infrastructure can’t compete with that of Western Europe. We have a culture of instant gratification that has resulted in an acceptance of poor-quality goods and a lack of appreciation for high quality goods you have to save up for. I don’t think Americans should have to deal with a ‘credit score’ system that rewards people who buy before they have the money to pay for the items they’ve purchased. Paying in cash by saving up in advance should be rewarded, not punished by harming your credit score. the score means that you can put yourself in debt to a larger entity, you enslave yourself into a cyclical system. I think this system needs to be re-imagined to reward people who can plan ahead, save ahead and can live without the companies that charge ridiculous filing fees, high interest and who hold the deed to your home like a mob boss until you pay up. This system needs to be re-imagined as well, so another housing bubble doesn’t result in more people losing the homes they can’t afford. I think this should have been better addressed in the 2011 State of the Union Address.

Articles ATC has posted on finances and money include: Poor Journalism & American Debt. Should you Look for Work in China- ATC Responds. China versus America: A Conversational Comparison. Why I Hate Wal-Mart.

From the most populated country in the world plans to build a mega city to house some 42 million doesn’t seem that surprising. China is already home to the largest port and biggest city (Shanghai) as well as home to the 1/5th of the world’s population. Costing 2 trillion yuan, the project to merge 9 smaller cities around the Pearl River Delta would cause water, communication and transportation networks to merge. Urban planners think the 150 projects in the planning stages to merge the cities will, ultimately, reduce pollution, drive down prices and increase resident happiness due to better transportation, lower prices and jobs.

The problem is, most infrastructure gigs are given to migrant workers. Case and point- the subway going in near my house. They quickly (and quietly) threw up a three story shack one day in an empty lot. A few days later they installed power, a day later a busload of folks from the countryside began to toss their tiny bags of belongings into tiny bunks before tightening worn out belts and starting up the construction equipment. The Beijing subway may expand the jobs market in Beijing eventually when it hires drivers, ticket sales and security, but right now the new line under construction is only bringing more workers into the city.

Mega cities may be an increasing thing in the future. Check out the work on green mega cities that was featured in Popular Science. This work was done by PopSci.com and features plans for the city as well as the good and bad news about population increases and mega centers of society. This cool city has alge farms, sidewalks that gather energy from footfalls, wind turbines powered by gusts from passing highway cars, and much more. Its really cool and the towered farms are something that could be constructed now. Take a few minutes to watch the demo slide-show that explains all the unique features of these preplanned cities using the link above.

Like the mega city plan (image right) the lillypad design by Vincent Callebaut,  tries to build on the green concept. They are floating cities that look like lilly pads, hence the name. It free floats around the gulf stream or can be anchored to near shore. Each city holds 50,000 people and is entirely self sufficient as well as eco-friendly. It was created to hold climate refuges, and its floating design makes it possible for humans to exist in what Callebaut seems to think will be a world where land is scarce. The designs are cool, and the imagery is amazing. Check it out using the link above.

I think it would be amazing if China were to use this opportunity to make a green mega city, or to start plans on a massive green city elsewhere in China. With such a massive population, these cities may be extremely useful in China, and open up more land for farming around the cities.

I live in China. I’m an American. You’d be surprised at the number one question people ask me from back home. Simply put, they ask why China owns America’s debt, when they will call it in, and why the Chinese are buying up property in the USA. They are fearful of what China will do, and frankly they are angry that a foreign entity owns US debt. I can empathize with these fears, but the reality of the situation is that the US is in a decent stance and the issue of who owns its debt is minor compared to answer the question of why we raked up such a debt in the first place.

Although we don’t usually get into politics at ATC, I feel inclined to answer the most common question we get in a public way.

Of the nearly $14 trillion the US has in debt, China owns roughly 7%. This is not a massive amount when held in light of the grand total, but it does exceed some $900 billion USD. China could, hypothetically, call in this debt and cause massive trauma to the US economy. Not so much because of what the amount would mean to the government coffers, but for the effect it would have on the stock market. The ultimate question is whether China will randomly call in this debt. The answer (in my opinion) is no.

They wont call it in because the Chinese economy is balanced precariously against the US economy. Should they call in the debt and the US economy start to collapse (or even suffer a recession of any severity) the Chinese economy would suffer because fewer Chinese goods would be purchased in the US (not out of principle, but because consumer spending would decrease amid depression fears). Looking at China’s trade partners  (source:chart below) in recent years shows how dependent China is on the USA for trade. A suffering US economy does not benefit the Chinese economy. It is in their best interest to help rather than hurt, at least at present.

The average Chinese perspective on this is contradictory to what many in the USA assume. While the Chinese are holding the debt, the US has already spent that money on tangible items. For example, the US (hypothetically) used that money to build new jets or expand defenses. Meanwhile, the Chinese have nothing to show for that money. They see the US as benefiting by taking the loan because they increased their worth in a tangible manner while the Chinese only increased their bargaining power by $900 billion USD. Since the two economies are dependent on each other this bargaining power is diminished because no real political threat has weight against the economy and the US tangible military is still formidable while the Chinese military continues to expand. Strategically, its unsure who comes out ahead in this deal. This is the opinion I hear time and again from Chinese locals in Shanghai and Beijing.

Finally, China would not have bought the debt if they thought it was a bad investment. Christina Larson, of the New America Foundation, told the associated press: “China needs a place to park its capital and there’s no place that’s as stable, easy to purchase and feel safe in as the United States.” That shows a certain confidence in the US economy. The US dollar is still used internationally and as such remains an important global asset. Buying the debt now means interest payments to the Chinese government from what they perceive to be an extremely wealthy country, despite the debt clock.

In short, the real problem with the debt isn’t who owns it but why it exists at all and how to get rid of it. Instead of the media raising fears about China’s intentions (as in image, left) they should start asking politicians what they plan to do about decreasing our debt. Running stories on the Chinese intent seems like poor journalism when you look at the actual numbers, and it is probably aimed at capitalizing on American fears to sell more papers or increase viewership and make more ad revenue. Its hard to answer the questions of how we are going to get out of debt and how to set up our system so as not to fall back into debt again. Then we won’t be selling $900 billion to any entity, foreign or domestic. This is what the journalist should focus on. Meanwhile, you can stop asking when the Chinese are going to call in the debt and what that will mean to the economy, it isn’t likely to happen.

Recently, CNN ran an article asking the question, “Should You Look for Work in China.” The article follows the story of two Texan-Americans, the Summer family, who decide to head to China for high tech jobs. It goes on to highlight that the number of Americans working and living abroad has increased significantly in recent years with a noticeable spike in 2010.

What I find interesting about this article from CNN is that they are missing the point. Americans are leaving the US because they have to. We left because we couldn’t find reasonable jobs. We could barely make ends meet working non-stop and living in the world’s smallest apartment. With insurance, medical bills, groceries, rent, internet and car payments, gas, phone, etc it was just too much to be met with two entry-level positions. And of course college loans had to be taken into consideration! Its like a massive trap designed from your childhood on so that you follow a certain outline and end up in college, and then of course in debt. Once in debt you have to work, you have no other choice! You have loans now. And then you trudge off to work to pay the loans but you have to have an apartment to live in, so now you have two payments. You have to have a means of transportation since there are no buses. Now you have three payments. If you are going to drive you need insurance. If you are going to work, they want you to have health insurance. You keep digging yourself into a ditch of debt that you can hardly pay off even working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day! And what time does that leave you for your own personal life?– a few hours at night spent exhausted while you sort bills and pull out your hair. No thank you! THATS why we left the US. There are not jobs that can support the basic needs of the American lifestyle. And it wasn’t even a life of luxury, as my friends and family can attest.

Abroad, you can live for cheaper. We get jobs that pay slightly less than in the US, but I’m not stuck paying car insurance, health insurance or any of the other things that slowly steal every pay check. I pay for a pay-as-you-go cell phone instead of a cut-throat Verizon contract that takes a Supreme court ruling to get out of. I avoid insurance payments because I’m less stressed and thus healthier and health care (barring major catastrophe) is more affordable. I use public transportation that cost less than 30 cents a ride. In short, I’m able to pay down my loans, save up some money and still build up a resume. Perhaps now you understand why I don’t like the expats who come over begrudgingly and complain about missing the benefits of America.

I love my country, and I’m a patriot, but I’m also a realist. Americans are leaving the country to find work elsewhere and this is a major sign that things have gotten out of control. It isn’t just me over here trying to make a better life for myself, its all of my expat friends who are doing likewise and thriving where they didn’t have the opportunity back home. They have time, like I do, for hobbies and self-cultivation. They have time, in short, to live life and not tread water just trying to get by. So, ‘Should you Look for Work in China?”– you should look for work wherever it is on the planet that will afford you the opportunity to pursue happiness instead of just survive. After all, that’s one of the three main staples of the American promise- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Today, I was walking down Nanluoguxiang when a women in a new model Audi decided to take a short cut out of one of the many side alleyways and turned south on Nanluoguxiang, which is a one-way road going north. She pushed her fist against the horn and honked without letting up as she forced her way through the thick, Saturday traffic of pedestrians. A group of youths of about 10-14 years old were blocking her path unintentionally. She didn’t slow down at all, but pushed the corner nose of her car into the group. They were trapped between the walls, a massive tree, several bicycles and her car with nowhere to go to get out of her way. Meanwhile, she kept honking. I managed to duck out of the way of the Audi and the smug woman inside it, thought the car grazed my hip. A boy in the pack of youths was not as lucky.

She pushed the boys like I’ve seen Mongolian herders do with their motorcycles to goats. She pushed them against the wall, some nearly falling over, with her car. One boy didn’t manage to get out of the way entirely and his foot was caught under her front right tire. He yelped, but since he was a young boy with his friends, he tried to hide his pain. I slapped the back of the Audi and yelled at the woman, who couldn’t hear me over the sound of her constant honking. An oncoming car started honking in repetition, drowning out the boy, my slapping her trunk, and the potato salesman around the corner who was being forced to pack up his stall and relocate it so she could squeeze her car the wrong way past oncoming traffic.

After a moment, she seemed to be aware that the boy’s foot was trapped. She starred at him and rolled the car slowly forward. When the boy doubled over and touched his foot she sped up, the back of the car nearly clocking the book in the head for good measure. He winced and tried to hide his pain from his buddies. He straightened up and limped away with them, not even yelling at the woman or jotting down her license plate. The boys pushed against the wall simply fanned back out and continued strolling down the street, the boy trying to keep up beside them.

Now, I was standing as close to all of this as a person could be without being one of the main players in the drama. I was shocked that the woman, about 50 with too much hair spray and a pimple-scarred complexion, hit the boys, ran over one’s foot and then drove off. She never once let off the horn. Now, is this a cultural difference that I simply don’t understand or is this woman a modern-day monster? I’m inclined to think that she ought to have been forced to take the boy to the hospital for an X-ray, or else to have apologized or received a fine for driving down a one-way the wrong direction. Instead, she probably felt happy to have made it home sooner using her nifty, illegal short cut. I’m inclined to think that I should have opened the driver’s door and pulled the women into the street to apologize to the poor boy, though that is also rude…

Sometimes I see stuff like this in China and I’m confused about how to react. Its true that I don’t and probably never will understand the culture and people entirely, and that holding a different people to my own moral and ethical standards isn’t exactly logical, but then I think there has to be a line where most human beings on the planet would agree that something was either good or bad. Running over a boy’s foot and hitting a whole group of them intentionally to save a few moments time seems to fall on the bad side.

All of this would bother me much less if someone else on the street had reacted at all. The potato salesman saw it all and did nothing but move his cart obediently away from the car’s honking. The other driver saw the whole thing, the pack of youths obviously saw it, and there was a middle-aged Chinese man in a business suit standing next to me with an amused look on his face watching me hit the trunk of the car. Had any one of them done anything I might have thought wow, this is horrible but at least the woman is an isolated case but since, yet again, no one reacted or came to the boy’s aid, I’m left thinking this was a small incident where everyone silently agreed that it wasn’t a big deal.

A few years ago in Shanghai I saw two women in a fist fight on the street over the price of one woman’s oranges and her not giving the appropriate change (so the other claimed) to the buyer. A group of over 50 quickly crowded around and watched them fight, not one person intervening.

Less than a month ago in Beijing I saw a woman on a scooter hit a woman on a bike. The woman on the bike hit the pavement and didn’t move. She was face down and we thought the worst. More importantly, a bus was coming and she was right in its path. We were down and across the street and couldn’t have reached her in time to stop the bus. A group of about seven people stopped to watch the disaster unfold, one of them was a police officer on his motorcycle. In the end, the bus saw her and swerved out of the way, the cop told the woman to get up and a passer by explained to us that in China, people act more injured then they are to try to get big money out of the people who injure them. In the end, she probably got nothing.

I once heard a rumor in China that if you were hit by a car you needed to roll out of the way because the driver is liable for medical costs but if you die, he isn’t liable at all. You often hear people talking about drivers hitting someone and then backing up to finish them off. And while these were all rumors, recently there was a media frenzy when a man in an expensive car backed over a small child (story here). He got out, saw the child, backed over him again (for a grand total of four full times hitting the child) and killed him and then drove off. The whole thing was caught on camera.

What does all this have in common?– basically I don’t understand the culture of hit-and-run, or hit-backup-hit again-and-run, and witnessing all of these examples personally makes me realize that it must happen non-stop around the city. So, is this a cultural difference I don’t understand or is this just rude and totally uncalled for?

Beijing has many amazing attractions. The Great Wall is a short ride away, the Forbidden City is at the epicenter, the entire city is flush with history and culture. One of the things that Beijing has that many other cities are lacking in China is a survival of the traditional hutong homes. The web of hutong homes are a maze of homes that take up square miles and weave around in all directions. Some of the alleyways serving the hutong homes are delightful cultural must-see locations. The main arteries contain shops to serve the hutong, public bathrooms and small restaurants. In fancier hutong communities, these alleys evolved into pleasant streets with spas, cafes and bars, and small boutique shops. Our favorite hutong community is served by Nanluoguxiang, or South Luogu Alley.

Nanluoguxiang is a beautiful street. There are dozens of great little bars and restaurants along the north-south road that attract tourists, locals and resident expats including ourselves. The Pass-by Bar and Cafe is one such place– it is a traditional hutong establishment with a courtyard that is windowed in and heated. The favorite– 15rmb french toast! Bingo!

Another adorable place we enjoy is Ned’s, referring to New Kelly. As you could guess the bar is owned by an Australian. Its a double-decker hutong that is famous for serving a giant mug of rum and coke for 50rmb. The company is great and the atmosphere low-key and fun.

You’ll also find photo galleries, full-out restaurants and cafes, and little shops. At night, the street lamps illuminate a classic hutong view that no trip to Beijing is complete without witnessing. Hou Hai Lake is nearby, and Jingshan Park, north of the Forbidden City, is within walking distance, as is Bei Hai Park. In short, located centrally in Beijing, it is a great little hutong to explore, photograph and enjoy.

Happy New Year! With the new year comes a barrage of newly affirmed goals and resolutions. Living in China isn’t always easy, there are sundry problems, including the fact that our landlord refuses to fix anything broken in our hutong apartment, which is basically everything.  I resolved to deal with the problems of living abroad in a new way in 2011. It can be frustrating and down right infuriating to deal with some people, and our landlord is definitely one of them.  Trying to understand what makes some people tick is like trying to figure out that annoying multi-colored cube puzzle. In short, in the new year I resolved to deal with these messes in a more mature way. This is a tall order since throwing internal mental tantrums was somewhat therapeutic.

Changing how you deal with something that bothers you isn’t an easy feat. Going about doing something like that doesn’t really have a how-to guide. In short, this might be a long year.

In mush happier news– 2011 brought an important new addition. We now have a Beijing stray cat living in our house. We went to the local vet and asked if they had any news about cats who needed a good home. In fact, they’d keep their eye out, they informed us. A few days later they called with news of a kitten. We went in to see her, she wasn’t exactly a kitten, but a 6-month old, fully grown cat. She stayed at the vet a week while her shots took effect and her de-worming and flea medication kicked in. We brought her home a few days ago and although nearly everything in the apartment is broken we hardly notice as frequently because we’re so happy to have the cat. We named her Tolkuchka.