Day 1 - The Great Wall

Day 1

We actually slept rather well last night!  Kyle slept about 5 hours, and I slept about 7 hours.  We were both up around 5:00 this morning.  Headed down to breakfast and sent Weyman a quick text to see if I could drink the coffee - whew, YES!  Had a really yummy breakfast.  Lots of coffee  :), a hard boiled egg, fried rice with all the toppings - multiple types of pickled something, crunchy somethings, soy sauce, scrambled egg, herbs, and vegetables.  Really good!  Also tried a sesame ball sort of thing.  Not terrible, but I won’t grab one again. 

Today - I’m going to try to be as present in the day as I possibly can.  Taking in each moment of being in this country.  

We headed off on our touring day to see The Great Wall.  Tom, our guide, gave us such a great bit of history of the country.  Tom (that’s not really his name) is a native of Beijing.  

Some history - 

From 1911-1949 China was actually a democracy.  And then Mao took power.  As I understand it, Mao was an incredibly cruel dictator.  He ruled until 1978.  1949 was when the Communist Party took over.  Although the Communist Party today is quite different from the time of Mao’s rule.  (As an aside - Tom uses some funny phrases that I would consider American - he talked about when Mao “kicked the bucket”.)  

There are 20 million people that live in Beijing.  12 million have what they call “local cards”.  There are 1.3 billion people in all of China - the largest population of any country in the world.  (So much of these facts, I’ve learned over the past 15 years since my firm has been investing in the emerging world.  But it’s so real now.)  70% of the population of China resides in 30% of the geography of China.  The vast majority of Chinese geography is very mountainous and unsuitable for living.  70% of people in Beijing live in apartment buildings.  High rise apartment buildings.  

CPC is The Communist Party of China.  There is a central committee which is the most powerful part of the CPC.  There are 25 members of the central committee, and theoretically they can decide by themselves to launch a war or make other big decisions without the input of the congress.  But they don’t. 

Voting for the president is different from our process.  The president is essentially determined and the voting is really just a formality.  It used to be primarily that the only way to get into the government was to take an exam.  The best students became the leaders of the country.  Wouldn’t it be nice if that were the case in the US?  Ironic that the Republican debate was this week - and Trump is leading the polls.  

Since 1949 to now - China’s economy is 100X better, and their per capita income is 60X better.  Primarily the wealth in China in the past ten years has been created by the internet.  Oddly - I see a lot of “corporate” wealth here.  Huge 100 story office buildings as far as I can see and almost as far as I can drive.  I think that is actually government wealth.  Because I see absolutely no personal wealth.  Not even smartly dressed people walking down the street.  One of many reasons this is an emerging country.  

The traffic is insane.  Truly insane.  Bikes, cars, more tour buses than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life.  All acting like they each own the road and with no regard for each other.  Because of the traffic the average commute to work is one hour each way.  And the government now has a quota on how many cars can be purchased each month - only 20,000 new cars can come on the road each month.  If you want to buy a car, you have to “take a number”.  Wouldn’t want to own a car business here!  The government also restricts the days you can drive your car.  Based on the last number of your license plate.  That helps a bit with the traffic and the pollution. 

And the pollution - the smog is unbelievable.  You can literally look straight at the sun because so much smog blocks the sun.  

Random facts and observations

The average apartment in Beijing is 1000 square feet and costs $650,000 to purchase.  Holy moly!!

Every.Chinese.Has.A.Smart.Phone.  

Tom, our guide, told us today that 50% of his pay is deducted and goes to the government.  

The Cloisonne Factory - This was an amazing place.  Such beautiful items  We did a little Christmas shopping.  And bought a few things for Claire for later in life.  (real pearls, etc.)

The Great Wall - This is the most famous attraction in all of China.  It is 4000 miles long and was built in the 15th century by the Ming dynasty for protection.  It took 100 years to build.  There were two sections you could climb - the more crowded, less steep section and the very uncrowded but very steep section.  Guess which one we chose.  It took us over an hour to hike one mile.  They weren’t so much steps as a ladder going straight up.  And amazing there was a gift shop at the top.  The people who work at that gift shop have the worst commute I can possibly imagine.  We came down and had some time to kill, so we found a coffee shop.  I tried mango ice cream (just OK - tasted pretty American), and Kyle had a snickers :).  

We were more rested today, so we had more energy to interact with the rest of our group.  What a cool group of people - all adopting.  So far a really good first day.