Still Breathing

Well I'm in China.  Bundles to say, but hard to do it.  Blogger is blocked.  This is being posted by going in through my office portal; threading a needle through an Internet buttonhole... or something.  It's late, I'm 14 hours ahead, way late on my sleep, and back into a transformational world.

As a shortcut I'm going to lift from a couple of emails I sent earlier, thinking the blog would have to wait until my return.

China is as I remembered, same smells, same food - but more international, more English language signs and ads, a lot more commercial. Tons of malls with high-end shops.
The flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen was on China Southern, which used to be kind of scary. Now it carries the third-most passengers of any airline in the world, and it was a very respectable flight. The flight was packed, 97 percent Chinese, a decent meal even in coach. The people are well-dressed, polite, and seem comfortable with an American in their midst. They say "excuse me" and "thank you" in English, all of them. Only one other grey-hair on the flight - everyone else, black hair and pretty young. Funny what you notice. On the sidewalks in Shenzhen, lots of people walking dogs.  The dogs seem doggy, unafraid.  Downstairs at my apartment, a Corgi.
 
Shenzhen looks a lot like Hong Kong did in the '90's, only flatter and with no history.  It's huge, 14 million people, lots of very tall buildings, ill-designed roads, clutter.   Not garish, which is how I remember it from before.  A city of migrants - mostly speaking Mandarin, not Cantonese, in the middle of Cantonese-speaking Guangdong province.  About 25 years ago this was a village.

Graphic

Nope, not China.  Mexico, San Miguel de Allende, a couple of years ago.  But it looks kinda Chinese, yes?  What is that?

Shenzhen 3

So I guess the Times is on the hunt, or it's just that I'm noticing their China coverage (more, and especially here) because I'm about to go back.

What I think we need to get to is the ambiguity - the mix of massively good and massively bad.  Brand new and ancient.  International and intensely domestic.  Plural, and the Han people.

Over 90 percent of China, and one in five people on Planet Earth, is Han Chinese.  Not very ambiguous, and maybe not very important.  But it does catch the eye.

Shenzhen 2

There is more to the dark story of Shenzhen than the massive workplaces and the lives of their workers.  There is the fact, persuasively argued in a recent article in the Times, that the system responds at a level that America simply cannot match.

Margin Call Calling

All my stuff about the movie had moved over to my Facebook page, but this one - well, got to scream it out wherever I can.

JC Chandor, our wonderful son-in-law, was just nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

It's all him, and it couldn't happen to a better man.

Progress

I suppose the first thing you'd notice is the visa.  Back in my day - mid-'90's - a visa to China was a little hard to get, didn't last long, and when it came in it was a chop (a stamp, to you Yankees) and maybe a grid with some writing.

Now, my visa is slick, uncounterfeitable, high-tech.  It's for a year and multiple entries.  Came back in a week, using a travel agent less than a half-mile away.

The photo (from my Android) could be clearer, but I'm not sure I want it to be.  I suppose my entire life is in those numbers.  Oh, but wait... whatever data is there, it's known to the governments of the USA and the PRC.  Ay-ya.

Shenzhen

We used to laugh at this place, kind of a honky-tonk version of Hong Kong.  Now it's got 16 million people and its own dark signficance.  As complicated as the rest of the China story.  An example from This American Life:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=454

My first stop, after Shanghai, when I get over there.