So we’ve been in China for almost two weeks now and I have to say, sometimes I need to remind myself we’re in the Third World. After two months in India, being here is …refreshing.
Let’s say nothing of the fact that everything runs on time, let’s not mention how there are clean streets and sidewalks to walk on, we don’t need to discuss how when you get in a cab, you don’t feel as though you are putting your life in the cabbies hands.
From what we’ve seen, and granted we’ve only been here a little while, and all of that time has been in the more prosperous South, China has it’s story straight. The buses here are better than any buses we’ve been on during our whole trip (and way better than Greyhound), the trains are better than any other trains we’ve been on, the roads are (when paved) awesome.
China is like the opposite of India in almost every way. At times I felt like everything in India was hard, except finding vegetarian food. In China, that’s the only hard thing, everything else is easy. And I don’t even speak the language here!
In short, if this place is still considered the “developing world”, the developed world had better watch out!
Now, some people have kind of dogged on us because we’ve come to China. Words like “Authoritarian”, “Repressive” and “Free Tibet” have been used. Some of these words we agree with ourselves. But we wanted to find out first hand what things were like, and so we’re here. Besides, if you have an iPod, own a laptop, or have bought an article of clothing in the past several years, it was probably made here.
