2007， February 25th

Many people in Beijing travel for 2 hours to get to work. There are old men riding bicycles and carrying fridges, or a lot of wood on the back. For many people in China, life is not easy.

The media always talks about an economic boom happening in China.
China beat Germany to become the fastest growing economy in the world. What will this mean for China?

It is all very well for young western people to be anti-materialist. But for many Chinese, that is not an option.

Beijing still has housing in the inner city from hundreds of years ago. Beijing has been the capital for 600 years. The capital is always where the emperor lives. In the past the emporer lived in XiAn which is in Shaanxi province where the terracotta warriors were found. There are many old things to be seen on the back alley ways of Beijing. A worn down old door. Dusty artifacts. Many makeshift repair jobs on houses. Yet there are shopping areas which are shiny and new.

It is not only the economy that is on overdrive in China. It seems that Beijing changes on a daily basis. Constant contstruction. One expat said she woke up one morning and her entire street had been planted with new trees overnight ( a really long street). So many things are fueling this rapid change. There is the economic changes as well as the Olympics. Olympics cities usually have a massive facelift and also require an increase in infastruture to deal with the mass influx of people during the games. Beijing currently has 3 train lines. By the Olympics it plans to have 13. Now that is progress!

So many Beijingers these days seem to speak English. It seems most people speak English. In the past this was not the case. There is a mad rush for the Chinese to learn English. Many 2 year old learn English in preschool. It is important. It can double your salary.


There was a show on the English channel the other night discussing that - - - as the wealth of the Chinese has increased have they become more charitable? They had a guy from the World Wildlife Fund and a woman who runs the Autism Society and a professor of law from Beijing (Peking) University. Most of them were saying 'no' most of the charity comes from overseas. 75% of the Austism Society is from the Canadian Embassy. The chair said they approached her, she had never heard of charity.