DragonCon starts next week!

Once again, I've been invited to speak in both the Space and Science tracks (which are over in the Hilton, across the street from the truly crazy stuff). I have three presentations:

What the Heck Happened to Our Space Program?
Friday, 11:30 am
Weren't we supposed to be orbiting Jupiter by 2010? Some history of NASA's highlights and lowlights, and why the proposed cancellation of the Constellation Project is good for sci-fi geeks who actually want to see exploration of space.

Hydrogen Cars, Ethanol, Wind Farms, and other Silly Ideas
Friday, 4:00 pm
A discussion of alternative energy sources, their uses (or misuses), their limitations, and what to do about America's addiction to fossil fuels.

Rise of the New Space Startups (with Michael Mealling)
Saturday, 11:30 am
President Obama's new space policy effectively removes NASA from near Earth manned space flights & expects commercial space groups to fill the void. Can they do it?

Tear yourself away from the comic books and lightsabers, and come hang out with the real geeks of DragonCon!

PDFs of all three presentations will eventually be available here.

Click on any image to embiggen.

Lantau Island

Flowers on Lantau Island

Rice Paddies

FengHuang

River Scene

Yellow Dragon Cave

Bailong Elevator

Zhang Jiajie Park

From He Long's Tomb

Three Sisters Rocks

Purple Flowers

Mountain Stream

View: The China Posts

1. China is Different
2. A Few Cautions
3. Hong Kong
4. Natural Beauty
5. The People
6. Relationships
7. Social Darwinism
8. Tourist Technology
9. Random Miscellany
10. Conclusion
11. Photo Gallery

To summarize: It was an extraordinary trip to a beautiful country. I was continually surprised, amazed, and impressed by all that I saw. It's a colorful, vibrant, and energetic culture. And if China occasionally makes different choices than the USA -- such as not wearing helmets on motorscooters -- well, I'm flexible enough to admit that we're not always right, and they're not always wrong.

The Chinese people I came into contact with were universally delightful. Whether through a formal interaction or just through sitting next to each other on a bus, they seemed genuinely pleased that this bulky sweaty Westerner had chosen to visit their country... and, even with my pathetic inability to speak more than the basic phrases, they jumped through hoops to make sure my visit was memorable.

If any of my readers have a chance to go -- whether to China in general, or Hunan province specifically -- I strongly recommend a visit. But, if you go in August, pack spare shirts!

"Chinglish" is fun. Here's a sample from the Web site of the hotel we stayed at in FengHuang:

"You can taste that they are the mysterious terrorist Xiangxi up the corpse, compelling music on the Hmong's delicious sliced, under fire, also will be able to play free love ball field, in Hmong's delicious wedding, the bride and other special activities guess, dear friends!"

I have no idea what that means, but I feel cheated by not getting to play "free love ball field"!

The tourist buses in Zhang Jiajie fly down narrow roads like an amusement park ride. I clearly remember zooming past one vertical drop and thinking "I'm glad this is a one-way road" when another bus rounded the corner in the opposite direction. It wasn't a one-way road. Nobody slowed down.

One of these rides between parts of the park was the first time I've ever gotten to see -- and hear, and smell -- an airsick bag being used on a bus.

With all the thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of tourists I saw over a week in Hunan province, I saw precisely two who were non-Asian. It was a retired-looking couple, both wearing binoculars, in Zhang Jiajie National Park... I suspect they were birdwatchers. Could have been American, could have been Western European. Everyone else was from China, or Korea, or Malaysia, or somewhere else close by.

One of the ways you know you're not at home: at dawn, the street-cleaning trucks came by, playing an electronic version of "Happy Birthday to You"... over and over and over.

View: The China Posts

I don't care if they call it capitalist or Communist, China is building a Darwinist society. The attitude appears in all sorts of places.

Fleets of scooters all over the place -- rural, urban, everywhere. There are plenty of cars and trucks, and still a non-insignificant number of bicycles, but the gasoline-powered scooter seems to be the most common mode of transportation.

And not a helmet in sight. You wreck your scooter, and you die. Survival of the fittest.

And the scooters are used for all sort of tasks. I saw one with a refrigerator strapped to the back (and the rear suspension almost scraping the ground). Another one so covered in flowers for delivery that you couldn't see the driver. Another with a pipe rack holding 15-foot lengths of PVC pipe; I still can't figure out how he turned.

They frequently have two or three people on board. I saw one where a young man was driving and an older woman sat in back suspending two five gallon bottles of water by the necks. I can't believe the wrist strength she must have. Imagine going around a curve!

Interestingly, when it was a woman in back, a significant fraction rode sidesaddle. That's just amazingly unsafe. Darwinism again, or modesty carried to dangerous levels?

Handrails

China seems schizophrenic on handrails. We went to some very mountainous tourist areas, but I noticed the same effect in FengHuang and Chengsha (urban areas). Sometimes, a staircase or dropoff would have substantial handrails on one or both sides. But sometimes, nothing at all. NOTHING. There might be an eight-foot vertical drop, people jostling each other back and forth on the top, sedan chairs stampeding by, and no handrail. Not even a stripe of yellow paint.

The attitude seems to be "We built you a nice stone walkway. If you can't keep your feet on it, it's your own damned problem."

Again, as mentioned earlier, a young society doesn't have time for things like handrails. They're an obsession only in the decadent and decaying West.

Same with the random steps mentioned earlier. I took a photograph of one that knocked me down.... walking on a straight, level, stone walkway, there was suddenly a single 8-inch step down. No handrail, no ramp, no stripe... just "Hey, let's add a step here to keep people on their toes!"

I wound up on my knees. Oops. My own fault for not paying attention.

Same for guardrails on the highway. Zooming along these little two-lane mountain roads, you see rain gutters that are really like miniature flumes. Concrete-lined, probably two feet across by 18 inches deep. And they are just carved into the side of the road... no guardrail, no "Botts dots," not even a stripe for night driving. Just a sudden, vertical, 18 inch drop... ready to break an axle or pop your wheel right off your car.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Some of my readers will be old enough to remember when it was socially acceptable to drive your child around in the USA without a Federally-approved car seat. In China, you plop him in front of you on the motorscooter and take off. In this sense and many others, China reminds of the self-reliant America I grew up in. I miss it.

Disorderly Conduct

Driving 120 kph in the emergency lane while leaning on the horn... the high-speed weaving in and out of a moving tapestry of cars, trucks, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians... the accelerating into the oncoming lane to pass a bus around a blind corner... those are just normal in China. But it's a microcosm of the Chinese approach to interpersonal interaction.

On foot, there's no concept of "keep right" (or left)... it's "push ahead through the weakest point of opposition." And, unless enforced by railings and an authority figure, queues devolve into rugby scrums (there's that Darwinism again).

And, of course, it's a cliche to point out that the Chinese concept of personal space is pretty much that space occupied by their physical body. For standoffish Americans, this is deeply unnerving. I'd hold back to give someone a bit of room, and two more people would bull their way into the gap I created. Eventually, you have to give up an just stay in physical contact with the people in front of you, or you'll never get anywhere.

View: The China Posts

And so it was this time. It was an extraordinary trip to a beautiful country. I was continually surprised, amazed, and impressed by all that I saw. And if China occasionally makes different choices than the USA — such as not wearing helmets on motorscooters — well, I'm flexible enough to admit that we're not always right, and they're not always wrong.

The Chinese people I came into contact with were universally delightful. Whether through a formal interaction or just through sitting next to each other on a bus, they seemed genuinely pleased that this bulky sweaty Westerner had chosen to visit their country... and, even with my pathetic inability to speak more than the basic phrases, they jumped through hoops to make sure my visit was memorable.

I've thanked some of the individuals responsible by email, but I'd like to add my public thanks here. And if any of my readers have a chance to go — whether to China in general, or Hunan province specifically — I strongly recommend a visit. But, if you go in August, pack spare shirts!

View: The China Posts

An interesting mix of public displays of affection.

Lots of teenage and twenty-something girls holding hands. I suspect most of them were just demonstrating friendship, but who knows? For what it's worth, there were zero guys holding hands with each other.

Male-female couples seemed to hold hands until mid-twenties, then no further contact. Older couples seemed to move like planets in parallel orbits... except, of course, when they were yelling at each other. Some of the "discussions" between apparently-married couples would probably get the police called in the USA.

Children

I know China has a "One Child" policy... but, honestly, I didn't see any evidence of it. Plenty of families with two or three children. I did manage a stilted conversation with my translator on this topic... he said the rule was less enforced in the countryside than in the cities.

I've read of the "little emperor" problem, but the children seemed no more than normally indulged with ice cream, toys, etc. No noisier than children anywhere else. (Except with a particularly annoying slidewhistle that was sold at all tourist stops, but that's not the kids' fault!)

No baby strollers. If they can walk, they're expected to walk. If they can't, Mom carries them.

A personal experience with a child: I was in line for a tourist attraction behind a babe in arms. I'm no expert, but I'm guessing one year old. Quietly, without any fuss, he leaned over mama's shoulder and vomited onto my shoes.

No one made any move to clean up the puddle of vomit (or my shoes). No one made eye contact with me, either to challenge or to apologize. Another mother brought over a tissue and wiped the baby's mouth, making soothing noises. And the line moved on...

A more positive experience: On a nature trail, there was a family of four, with the younger son (maybe 2 years old) sitting piggyback on the dad's shoulders. The mother came up to me with a camera, and made it clear they wanted me to pose for a photograph. Huh? Okay... I stood between the father/son and the daughter (probably 5 years old). She snapped a picture. I then realized that I was eye to eye with the son, so I was as tall as the two of them together. I must have seemed like a freakish monster, and they wanted a picture of the moment. (My beard probably helped, too. Except for teenaged boys trying to look like thugs with some peach fuzz on their cheeks, I didn't see any facial hair on this trip.)

I gestured as if to take the son and put him piggyback on *my* shoulders for an even better photo, but they just giggled and walked off.

Finally, when pushing through the throngs, I'd frequently hear a shy "Hello." Invariably, it was a five- or six-year-old kid. Old enough to have learned a few words of English in school, and young enough not to be shy about approaching the crazy foreigner?

View: The China Posts

One of the first things I noticed in mainland China was the diversity of the people. Not "diversity" in the sense we use it in the United States -- I saw precisely two black people on my entire trip, both in Hong Kong, and zero who we'd categorize as "Latino" -- but in the range of body types, faces, and colorations that all were distinctly "Chinese." This is unlike Japan or Korea, where the physical appearance, to Western eyes, is far more homogeneous.

So you had tall Chinese and short Chinese, fat Chinese and skinny Chinese, wide faces and long faces, you name it. Now, the bell curves were centered differently. A "tall" Chinese man might be 5'10", although I saw a few who appeared to be six-footers. (Interestingly, all of the tall people -- male and female -- were teenagers or in their twenties. There were no tall old people. Demographic changes in diet?)

And "short" has a whole different meaning there... that end of the bell curve is occupied by 4-foot-tall men and women, mostly from the older generation. Not misshapen, not bent with age, just tiny.

No one looked like they were starving. We were raised to feel guilty about "starving children in China." In a billion people, everything happens on a big scale... but I didn't see any large-scale poverty in Hunan Province.

And although a lot of the Chinese people had a few convex curves, there's nothing like the awesome poundage you'd see in any mall in the United States. Although I wonder how much of the weight gain is due to the ubiquity of motor scooters (and, now, automobiles) compared to the bicycles of twenty years ago.

It's commonplace to note that Hollywood has conquered the world with movies, TV, and pop music -- even if a country has its own entertainment industry (as China does), its an imitation of Hollywood. That's true, but there's an even more fundamental way in which the West has conquered the world... so ubiquitous that no one even notices.

Clothing

Everyone dresses like an American. Everyone. Polo shirts and slacks for adults. T-shirts and shorts for teenagers. Knockoff running shoes on everybody. The only "traditional" Chinese clothing I saw, even in the most rural areas, was in tourist districts where pretty girls were dressed up in historical costumes in the hope that you'd take a picture with them for 10 yuan ($1.50).

And, as I said earlier, Chinese are smarter than Charlestonians or Savannahians, so they dress more appropriately for the heat and humidity... no long-sleeve shirts, no coats, no ties.

Parasols

Maybe it's to block the heat, maybe it's to prevent suntan/sunburn, maybe it's both, but many Chinese women carried umbrellas in the heat. Surreal, to see a whole crowd of umbrellas walking down the street (if the Chinese do anything well, it's crowds!) without a cloud in the sky.

I didn't see any males carrying parasols/umbrellas. Although they had really nifty ones mounted on their motorscooters that I think you could sell here in the United States.

Cleavage

Chinese women must have cleavage. I mean, they must, right? But you certainly don't see it in Hunan province. (Hong Kong was different, and I suspect Shanghai is different as well.) A polo shirt with a single button buttoned was the height of provocative dress. T-shirts had high round collars. And, speaking of T-shirts:

T-shirts

T-shirts are cheap and ubiquitous. And, like in Japan, people apparently really like wearing T-shirts with English words on them, even if they don't precisely know what those words mean.

For a while, I kept a list of phrases on T-shirts (almost always on females) until I got overwhelmed and gave up. But this will give you a flavor -- all typos on originals:

Their is my good friend
Hokey Fashion 95
Erotic of Midsummer
Dawn Sing Dream
Oalvin Klein (yes, spelled that way)
Laekrs (ditto)
Close to Me
Snoopy Chocolate League
Rough Trade
Mystic Holy Area
Black Chocolate College
SHIT
My Paddling Experience
Soul of Love Myself

And a very attractive pink T-shirt that just said "Helvetica"... in the Helvetica typeface! Nicely done. (This may have been from the movie.)

There were hundreds -- thousands -- more. Probably a doctoral dissertation in there somewhere.

View: The China Posts

For what it's worth: the August weather is just as hot and humid, Hong Kong is less handicapped-hostile than Changsha, and the air is infinitely cleaner.

For what it's worth, I loved Hong Kong. I could actually see myself living there — although I might have to Botox my sweat glands!

How's this for globalization? Sitting in Atlanta, I posted a note on Twitter about going to Hong Kong. A friend in Bangkok read it, and introduced me to his friend Mary-Jane who's a German-Montenegran expat, born in India, working for Oxford University Press out of London but stationed in Hong Kong!

She and her husband adopted me for the weekend and took me to a housewarming party at their friends' house... where I counted people from England, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, India, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, the U.S., and one native Hong Konger.

Poor little monolingual me felt quite outclassed.

But the attitude everywhere in Hong Kong was upbeat, cheerful, and apparently completely unaffected by the Chinese takeover from the British in 1997.

I do have to tell one anecdote... we were walking through "Times Square" (really, that's its name!) late on a Friday night, and it was thronged with happy people spending money and having fun. I mentioned that I felt safer in this Times Square than I would in the New York version. Mary-Jane just laughed and said "Hong Kong is one of the safest cities in the world. We don't have any disorganized crime." Turns out that the Chinese triads control all the organized crime, and they don't like competition... so petty crimes like burglaries and street muggings don't exist. She claims they don't lock their house on the southern part of the island, and she feels safe walking anywhere in the middle of the night.

Probably an exaggeration, but I did feel safe. It reminds me a bit of the Thieves' Guild in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.

View: The China Posts

Don't go in August. Look, I live in Atlanta. I understand heat and humidity, okay? But South China is a whole different world. Imagine Savannah in August. Now, imagine Savannah in August without the ocean breeze.

I went through three shirts a day. Thank goodness, the local business community is made up of smart people (they're Chinese, after all!) and they've adopted the polo shirt as the universal work uniform. I was literally the only person other than hotel/restaurant staff who I saw wearing a coat and tie... and I got rid of both as quickly as I decently could. But pack extra shirts, schedule time for extra showers, and consider having the hotel do your laundry once or twice. That's how I managed.

And schoolchildren are on holiday during August... so tourist destinations are jammed.

Mobility

Think twice—and do some homework—if you have mobility restrictions. Seriously. The whole country is handicapped-hostile, and Xiang Jiajie National Park is worse. Simple arithmetic implies there must be tens of millions of Chinese using wheelchairs, but they're apparently not encouraged to get out of the house and play tourist.

Even in the urban areas, they still haven't firmly established the need for curb cuts and smooth ramps and such. And a common architectural theme is dividing a room or outdoor area into raised and sunken sections by raising or lowering part of the room a bit, apparently just for the hell of it.

The country may be run by a gerontocracy, and they may have restaurants twice the age of the United States, but the overwhelming impression is of a young country... young people, young buildings, young cities. Curb cuts are for old folks. Don't expect them.

Air Pollution

Ditto—think twice and do your homework—if you have serious respiratory problems. I had read about China's pollution issues, but nothing — nothing — prepared me for stepping off the plane in Changsha. I started getting a metallic tickle in the back of my throat before even leaving the airport, and it got much worse as soon as we stepped outside.

Remember "Savannah in August" above? Now imagine Savannah in August, but you're breathing through an ashtray. I've been to Mexico City. I've been to Sao Paulo. I've even been to Los Angeles back in the bad old 1970s during the leaded-gasoline era. But China... the air is just apocalyptic. The sky is orange with petrochemical nastiness. We got one afternoon of rain, which was welcome for washing some of the filth out of the air (although what it did to the humidity had to be felt to be believed.)

All of which makes you wonder... the Chinese are really smart people. Okay, as a centralized economic growth policy, they've decided to buy a bunch of cars and build a bunch of coal-fired powerplants. Those decisions have consequences through poisoning the air they breathe. As a result, they're investing heavily in solar energy and cleantech, and I'm certain they'll get on top of the problem.

But in the meantime, on top of that, why do so many Chinese smoke???

Young, old, male, female, urban, rural, you'll see them puffing away.

Is it fatalism? "I'm going to get lung cancer anyway, so I might as well enjoy a cigarette or six before breakfast?"

I just don't understand. As I said, China is different.

Now, Go!

The preceding three sections sound overly negative, and that's not my intention. You can manage the weather with smart scheduling. Most people won't have mobility issues. And the pollution... well, I wouldn't want to raise a child in that air, but I don't think you should let it keep you from visiting as a tourist.

Go! More on what you'll see in the next posts.

View: The China Posts