Sunday, August 15, 2010

I'm Out

Waiting for my plane home from Shanghai at the airport. Takeoff in one hour. 15 hours from now I'll finally be home.

Though there were certainly ups and downs this summer, overall it ended up being pretty great. It was so tough leaving all the CET students and HIT roommates.

Anyway, more detailed post later. Gotta go.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Healthcare, More Basketball, and Analyzing China on a Bus

First, sorry again for the delay in blogging. Our final exams (we all have 4) begin next week. In addition to beginning to prepare, I've spent this entire week researching and writing a paper for my one on one class on the problems America and China will encounter reforming their healthcare systems. While Chinese is difficult enough as it is, trying to write about a topic that could take up many books and is far beyond my comprehension makes it all the more challenging. Nevertheless, I submitted a rough draft this afternoon (2800 characters - by far the longest Chinese essay I've ever written), so I have some breathing room to write some English for a change.

Second, one more basketball-related story (I honestly believe basketball provides interesting glimpses into a country's culture). Last Sunday, I played in my usual pickup basketball game. By now, I recognize almost all of the regular players on the first court (best competition). They're a really nice group, and I'm not really looking forward to not being able to keep playing with them. Anyway, that day there was a group of black people at the basketball court as well (that sounds wrong, but is there a better way to phrase it? they were not African-Americans - some were from Africa, others from the Caribbean). To be blunt, while whites are rare in Harbin, it is even rarer to see a black person. A few were just watching, but one was playing, and he was incredibly good. He clearly drew people's attention, as people gradually came over to our court to watch. As the crowd grew, more people became curious and joined in watching. An hour or so into playing, there were - no joke - more than 200 people watching our 4 on 4 pickup basketball game. When I play in New York, it's exciting if one or two guys stop and watch for a few minutes. But here all 4 sides of the court were absolutely packed with people, curious to see the game. Towards the end, I actually ended up on the guy's team and spoke with him a bit afterwards. Turns out he is from the Ivory Coast, has been in Harbin and Beijing for 4 years, is fluent in Chinese, and is engaged to a Chinese woman. We exchanged phone numbers and ended up playing the next two days as well. Each time he came, the crowds followed. Pretty hysterical.

Anyway, on to more serious things. In my business Chinese class, one of the topics we covered was the Chinese real estate market. While I had heard that there was a serious real estate bubble in China, I was otherwise not very informed on the issue.

In short, towards the end of last century, China switched over from a welfare housing system to a system in which local governments are in control of selling land to private buyers. This has put local governments in a pretty easy position to be bribed on land deals. This, in combination with the rise of a super wealthy class in China that often has the money to purchase multiple luxury homes (and other factors - like the influx of money into China's economy due to recent stimulus bills and excessive provision of bank loans), has sent the price of luxury homes skyrocketing upwards. Purchasing a home in many of China's major cities is nearly impossible for most of China's lower and middle class.

While some argue that the demand for these luxury homes just isn't there (it's just a bubble waiting to collapse), this is only part of the story. The other part is the demand for cheap, affordable homes is not only as strong as ever but is expected to grow going forward. Millions of villagers from China's poorer western region have immigrated to cities, and millions more are expected to come. For example, the southwestern city of Chongqing (initially part of Sichuan province but turned into its own municipality) is expected to receive 1.5 million immigrants in the next 3 years. Imagine New York City adding that many people in that short a time span! To meet the demand, Chongqing's government is planning to build 323 million square feet of housing over the next 3 years.

The point is this: luxury real estate bubble or not, China's market for housing is growing rapidly and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

While I was in Shanghai, I marveled at how China managed to turn what was essentially farmland into a sea of towering skyscrapers all in less than 20 years. Even having been to several cities in China, it's still difficult to comprehend the scale and speed at which this country's infrastructure is growing.

No, pictures are not enough, but maybe they can help a little. Two weekend ago, we took a weekend trip to Changchun (a few hours from Harbin), by Chinese standards a relatively small and undeveloped city. Bored while driving around the city on our bus, I decided to start taking as many pictures as possible. Though the quality of the pictures isn't always great, it was an easy way to capture a lot of the city in very little time. Last weekend, I did the same in Harbin on our way to the Harbin Tiger Park (pictures and videos of that adventure included as well - warning: some are kind of gruesome and disturbing). Again, pictures don't do enough justice to what's going on, but hopefully they give some sense of the massive scale of development taking place here.

First, Changchun:

Next, Harbin:

Taken from a moving bus, my pictures clearly aren't that great. Nor do they completely illustrate the point I'm trying to make. If you're curious, check out this photo exhibit in the New York Times (thanks to my Dad for showing it to me):

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/chinas-instant-cities/?emc=eta1

Taken by a professional photographer not in a moving vehicle, I think he outdoes me by a bit. Nevertheless, the point is the same. Being here, I've gotten the impression that wherever you go, there are always massive construction projects. Everywhere. And not just one building. Many large buildings all being built together. It's staggering.

And finally, I have to admit that I have a weird fascination with city skylines. I'm not sure why. I think a skyline says a lot about a city. How developed it is. Its character. So here is Harbin (again, from our bus):


No, not outstandingly impressive. But this is China's 10th biggest city. Moreover, despite being fairly large, it is considered fairly undeveloped. With the pace at which this country is growing, I am extremely curious to see this same view in 10, 20, 30 years. My guess is one won't even be able to recognize that it is the same city.

Here are the rest of my pictures from the past two weeks. Week 5, including our trip to Changchun:

http://picasaweb.google.com/LouisGilbert15/CETWeek5#

Week 6, including our visit to the tiger park:

http://picasaweb.google.com/LouisGilbert15/CETWeek6#

Again, some of the tiger pictures/videos are kind of disturbing. The park offers visitors the opportunity to pay some money to feed live animals to the tigers and watch them eat. I didn't want to, but some of my classmates did, so we bought a few ducks. Lovely.