Day Nine – Travel To Yangtze River

We awoke early today, 5:45, to pack for the next leg of our journey across China. We caught a flight from Shanghai to Wuhan at 8:30 and were on our way to Central China. The rain was pouring down in Wuhan as we boarded our bus for the next leg of today's trip, a six hour ride across central China to Yichang where we would begin our 4-day cruise along the Yangtze River. The bus trip was long and tiring but since it rained the whole day we concluded that it was the best time for a travel day.

Since I only got to snap a few photos as we boarded our ship, the Yangtze Gold One, today I will share some observations I gathered during our visit to China so far.

Since 1949 China has been ruled by the people in what is the only remaining major communist country in the world and there is no sign of that changing. Curiously, out of 1.3 billion Chinese there are only 9 million registered communists. While 70% o the population still works in agriculture, there is a rapid shift towards the urban centers in search of a better life. The Chinese Government has the ambitious goal of building an additional 30 million apartments by 2015 to house the agricultural exodus. The average Chinese makes $16 USD a day but the cost of a gallon of gas is $5.31 USD making owning a car still out of reach for the masses. In the major cities, to manage traffic congestion through the rapid population growth, the municipal government makes getting a car very difficult. However, they do provide very effective mass transit in all of the areas we visited.

The infamous “one child law” still exists today but is enforced by incentive as opposed to punishment. If you live in the city and have only 1 child then you are eligible for a government monthly payment (I think it is 1,000 yuan) but if you have a second child then the payment stops entirely. Residents in the country are allowed a second child if the first one is a girl. Twins count as one. In reality, it was not uncommon to observe families with multiple children walking on the streets.

While there are certain “special economic zones” such as in Shanghai that allow foreign investment, the majority of businesses in China are either owned outright by the government or are traded publicly with the government holding the majority of shares. This means the government is basically buying and selling to itself virtually all of the products sold in China.

It appeared that women had the same rights as men, coming from Mao's teaching that “women hold up half of the sky.”

While the government realizes the impact China is making on the environment, the cities were always choked with smog, it seems that industrial growth is still king.

An apartment in the city costs on average 10,000 yuan per square meter ($1,700) and are only sold, not rented. Where only a few years back, living out of wedlock was illegal, today it is common for young people to live together before marriage. The divorce rate is climbing in China, mainly due to extra-marital affairs.

Organized Religion is moderately tolerated in China but the government is very wary of any organization of people that could threaten its hold on power. The majority of Chinese practice Buddhism (eternal life and trying to reach Nirvana), Daoism (an ordered universe, Yin and Yang) or Confucianism (centered on social relationships and the family structure).

We finally arrived at the dock and boarded the ship for our cruise. Tomorrow we will visit the Three Gorges Dam site.