Lucinda
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I highly recommend reading David Leonhardts In China, Cultivating the Urge to Splurge in the New York Times on the 24th, Its long, but spot-on, with great photos (the left sidebar, not so much the slide show) and goes beyond what youd think given the title.
My experiences align directly with the observations David Leonhardt makes, particularly one I havent highlighted: the odd juxtaposition of overcrowding and emptiness. For example, the hospital in Tianjin was full for outpatients but only one of the diagnostic machines were running and most of the rooms were empty. The Hilton in Beijing seemed to have very low occupancy, as measured by people in elevators and at breakfast and China Dailies in front of hotel rooms. Huge restaurants can be ghost towns too (though many are teaming with people). The highway from Beijing to the Great Wall had sparse traffic, and the one from downtown Tianjin to the economic development zone had almost none. My guess is that, like Third Ring Road, all of these will fill up faster than one could imagine but its also possible that misguided government investment is wasting a lot of money. The Tianjin hospital, according to The Wall Street Journal (Hospital Caters to Chinas Wealthy and Poor, 1/4/07), cost $91 million as wasnt turning a profit yet. It would be hard to imagine that it is now, although so much is so cheap here that it is possible. The NYT article added to my list of favorite China factoids:
* I was told this by a super-reputable person. The best citation I could find was 1990 data, when the number was 99. Im sure that its 160 now if it was 99 20 years ago. But this does point to one of the challenges blogging and in understanding China. Writing stuff like this I feel a semi-journalistic responsibility to get the facts right, but I dont have the resources to do so. I end up like most (all?) bloggers I generally take a sources word caveat lector (reader beware).
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May 2021
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I blog in spurts, about all sorts of things. |