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Part9 Part10 Quotes of the week
Joy.
No one really had any true idea of what to expect from China when we stepped off the plane in Shanghai. After our early start and ten hour flight, some of us were in no fit state to form opinions, though the efficiency and professionalism of the airport staff were already noted.
Driving through Shanghai, we saw a hive of activity, new road ways and old (by which I mean over fifteen years) making way for new. Much of this effort was in preparation for Shanghai hosting the 2010 Expo ‘Better City, Better Life’. Liverpool, coincidently, was the only UK city outside of London invited to the Expo, but Shanghai being one of our twin cities we have always had a close relationship.
When we had a chance to see Shanghai, the wealth and the recent economic growth were plainly evident. But so was the fact that those at the bottom of the economic chain had not yet benefitted in any great way, at one point we drove past a Bentley showroom and outside it I saw a man struggling to push a wooden handcart piled high with goods.
The contrasts in Shanghai were clearly visible and though it was different from home the similarities were enough that we were deeply shocked on our arrival in Xi’an. Driving from the airport we saw rural lands, something not seen in Shanghai though the blue skies we’d enjoyed had been replaced by a dreary drizzle. When we pulled up and got off the coach, we could see how uneven the road surfaces were. Our guide Tom, led us to the hotel through what appeared at first to be an alleyway. Small shops and groups of people declared it to be a street. What we saw walking though, reduced some girls to tears. Less that a minute’s walk from our hotel though were Starbucks and Chanel; we bridge the gap between extreme poverty and luxury.
When we visited Xi’an Jiatong affiliated High School, the same level of contrast appeared. They had computers for every student in the classrooms and labs such as our scientists dream of, outside though where construction was taking place, shanty huts had been erected on the sites and no fencing or warnings marked the boundaries.
Life in China could go either way, so far it seems it is one extreme or the other, no middle ground exists. Real China it seems is a place full of real contrast.
Joy.