Things I wish I knew before visiting China

Touring

Over the years, many of China's historical sites and artifacts have either been looted by Western colonial powers, or destroyed by invading armies (both foreign and Chinese themselves). As recently as the mid-1970's at the end of China's Cultural Revolution, China was actively destroying cultural and religious structures and artifacts to reinforce Mao's social orthodoxy.

The Chinese have only recently begun to appreciate the value of their long and rich history and culture. They've rebuilt many damaged or destroyed sites, and worked hard to reopen many tourist destinations of historical, cultural or religious interest. However, even when China has attempted to perform an excavation of historical value (that of the Ming emperor Dingling's tomb), they totally botched it and many important artifacts, including the emperor's and empresses' corpses, were either lost or destroyed.

So when you are touring China, it's important to realize that there are relatively few intact ancient archeological sites comparable to the Roman Forum, Colisseum, or the Greek Acropolis, nor well-preserved "recent" (i.e. within the last 500 years) sites. A lot of what you see has often been rebuilt within the last several years. For original content, fortunately there is still the Great Wall (which was too vast for even the Chinese to destroy) and the Terracotta Warriors (buried and lost over the centuries, and only recently rediscovered). Note even emperor Qin Shi Huang's Terrcotta Warriors and Horses were severely damaged by a rebel Chinese general of the time, so they have had to be painstakingly reassembled and restored!

Site maintenance, tourist facilities, English-language offerings and transportation options are all inferior to most Western tourist sites. The good news is that the admission fees are all reasonable.

And finally, touring China during the hot summer months is worse than touring Europe during the same period. First, China is hotter and more humid. Second, there are fewer places to cool off. At the very least when touring the Mediterranean, there are hotels with pools and beaches nearby or you can buy a cold drink with ice, if you desire a respite from the long, hot days of touring. However in China, few hotels have pools, there are no beach options near most tourist sites, and ice is a relatively rare commodity. In addition, Chinese ice cream is vastly inferior to Italian gelatti or ice creams.

Restaurants and Eating

Unlike Chinese restaurants in the U.S., restaurants in China:

1. Do not have non-smoking tables or sections. If smoking is really bothersome and you have a decent-size group, ask for the private room. Most larger restaurants have them.
2. Most servers do not speak any English.
3. Do not provide napkins or often do so for 1-2 Yuan. Don't use the provided packaged napkins or wet towels if you don't want to pay for them later!
4. Do not have or provide serving utensils. So unless you are completely comfortable eating foods communal style, you will have to ask for extra chopsticks or soup spoons to use.
5. Tea is often not included and can sometimes be the most expensive item you order. So don't assume the tea is complimentary.
6. Chinese beer is so cheap that it's not much more than other non-alcoholic beverages. 
7. Do not provide drinking water or glasses.
8. Serve drinks hot or room temperature--no matter how hot it is outside! So if you want a cold drink, please sure to specifically request it!
9. Serve beverages and food in a different order. In the U.S., you typically get drinks first, then appetizers (such as dumplings and soups), and then other dishes we consider to be the main courses. And rice is usually served along with these main courses. In China however, soups or rice are generally served very late in the meal. And beverages often come after some of the food is already served.
10. Generally do not accept credit cards. And if they do accept them, you usually have to leave the room to pay because, like in Europe, the restaurant staff are usually not permitted to take your credit card out of your possession. And unlike Europe, the use of portable credit card scanner/machines is far less common.
11. Do not have wait staff that expect a tip.

In summary, napkins, water, tea and rice must usually ordered and paid for a la carte.

Hotels

1. Hotel beds will range from plywood hard to U.S.-style soft. The more international the clientele, the more likely you will get a softer bed.
2. Most American and European hotels make their beds using a flat sheet, blanket, comforter and/or a bedspread. In China there is usually only a single, covered comforter or duvet.
3. There are very few connecting hotel rooms in China. Most hotels don't have any.
4. Hotels always provide potable bottled water for drinking and tooth brushing. If you need more water, just ask housekeeping and they will usually keep you well-stocked for no extra charge.
5. Hotel breakfasts are a common amenity in China so ask whether and how many are included with your hotel fare. 
6. Hotel breakfast buffets typically offer a mix of Western (eggs, bacon/sausages, breads, fresh fruit, yogurt, coffee, juices, etc.) and Chinese (noodles, dumplings, steamed buns, green vegetables, soup) food.
7. Most hotel rooms in China require the room key card to be inserted into a slot in the entryway in order to power the lights and the heating/cooling. So I recommend you request one extra key card so you have the option of leaving a card in the slot upon leaving the room.
8. Upon check-out, many Chinese hotels will immediately have housekeeping make sure the room is vacated and that none of their property was taken. So don't check-out until you have physically left the room with your belongings!
9. Wifi and internet access is available in most hotels. From my experience, roughly half the hotels provided complimentary wifi and the other half charged for it. In-room wifi access is rarer still as most only have wifi access points in the lobby, restaurant and meeting areas. In-room wired Ethernet access seemed common but I did not have my computer to try this. In any case, the internet access speeds are relatively slow as compared to other countries.
10. Every hotel has power outlets that support all the major international standard plugs so you will not likely need any adapters. Just make sure your AC-powered devices and/or chargers are dual-voltage (i.e. 110-120V/220V)--most electronics these days are!
11. There aren't many English-speaking TV channels (and in a couple of our hotels, there were none!), so you'd better learn Chinese!

Bathrooms

1. Assuming you're not using your own, remember to grab toilet paper prior to entering the stall to use the toilet (i.e. on the way in). There is often only one communal toilet paper dispenser at the entry. When they do provide toilet paper, most non-hotel bathrooms do not do so in each stall.
2. While Western-style toilets are becoming more common, most bathrooms will still have many more squat than sit-down toilets. If you must use a sit-down toilet, look for the marked stalls or look for a non-raised toilet platform as the raised platforms are usually the squat toilets.
3. Some public bathrooms do not have sinks or running water, and many don't have soap.
4. For the above reasons, always carry spare toilet paper and some anti-bacterial wipes. 

Miscellaneous

1. If your party will be using two or more cameras, be sure to synchronize the time zone, date and time.
2. When going through Chinese immigration, be aware that they review the passport and visa, and will take a picture, of each member of your party. So have each person ready to step forward when the system prompts you.
3. If you want to use the internet while traveling in China, know what you will want to access and how you will do it before you leave. To access censored sites or content (e.g. Facebook, Twitter are all inaccessible), you will need to have any VPNs and proxies ready to go before you leave the U.S. It will be very difficult to do after you arrive in China.
4. There is no sales tax.
5. You will often get an "invoice". This is not an invoice as most Westerners know it but rather it is a document that provides proof that tax was paid to the relevant taxation authority for the product or service rendered.
6. The air pollution in Beijing, Shanghai and many major cities is very bad. Follow the U.S. Embassy/consulate hourly air quality updates, and wear a good air mask whenever possible (I used Totobobos). A bad, "Code Red" air quality day in the U.S. would be a very good day in China!
7. Be very assertive whenever you are queuing or lining up for something, because most Chinese and many Europeans will cut or push right in front of you. 
8. When using your credit card, after signing the receipt, write a small note or comment as to what you just purchased. Later, when you are reconciling your bills and receipts, you will know what you just bought or ate (remember, the entire receipt is in Chinese!).
9. Prior to your trip, make a list of all the things you plan to buy. Given that most of what we buy and use in the US is now made in China, you can only imagine how much cheaper many of the things you need or want will be over there!
10. Queuing in line, driving an automobile, or crossing the streets in China requires an aggressive attitude. As there seems to be no accepted concept of "yielding the right of way", you must push to avoid people cutting in front of you in line when queuing, and must sometimes step in front of moving vehicles to successfully make it across the street. By being aggressive, you will fit right in and others will be forced to yield to you. If you don't, you will find yourself frustrated by line cutters, or waiting forever to cross busy streets.
11. At the gate and boarding our international flight home, Chinese airport security in Shanghai Pudong airport rescreened our carry-on bags. They forbade us from boarding with liquids, including the bottles of water that we had just purchased in what we thought was the "secured area" of the terminal.

Is China spending its trade surplus at the Olympics and other events?

Americans are currently addicted to cheap Chinese goods and the resulting trade imbalance flows hundreds of billions of dollars to China each year. Some people believe that, with intelligent investing in infrastructure, technology and research, that China will use this huge positive cash flow to their long-term strategic advantage.

Well, it's not much, but after watching the Olympics, there were many examples of China spending money on image-building, and not infrastructure. At least some of the $40 billion China is spending on the Olympics is going toward extravagant, one-time expenses such as the elaborate opening and closing ceremonies, good-will expenses, decorations, landscaping, etc. etc.

And, according to the Wall Street Journal, Shanghai will spend $40 billion for the 2010 World Expo and Guangzhou is estimating $27 billion for the 2010 Asian Games.

On top of all that, U.S. companies are finally getting in on the action for all the infrastructure spending. Maybe there's some hope to balance our trade someday after all...

Olympics and Diversity

I've been watching a lot of Olympic coverage these past four days! There were a few interesting examples of our nation's diversity, and the rest of the world's lack thereof. During the medal ceremony for the men's gymnastics team competition, did you happen to notice just how homogeneous the Japanese and Chinese teams were, while the U.S. team included men of Russian, Indian and Chinese descent?

Meanwhile, in women's gymnastics, Nastia Liukin's parents were both former Russian gymnastics champions who decided they could have a better life here in America. They opened a successful gymnastics club in Texas. And Shawn Johnson's coach is a former co-captain of the Chinese men's gymnastics team who immigrated to the U. S. to pursue the American dream in Iowa.

Aren't these examples of what makes our country special? We nurture the best and the brightest, and because we embrace diversity and provide opportunity to all, we also attract the best and the brightest from around the world.

Rising China, India and Russia?

A friend of mine and I frequently debate as to whether the U.S. is in decline or not. He routinely points out that China, India and Russia are rising powers. Our addiction to, and consumption of, foreign goods, and overall lack of energy resources is creating a huge transfer of wealth overseas. Americans have become complacent and our education system is faltering. The resulting brain drain will inevitably make us a second-tier nation. The U.S. already can't manufacture anything competitively, and we will face our eventual demise.

I argue that the U.S. possesses inherent advantages that still uniquely make us “one of a kind”. Much focus has been made on America’s success due to our industrial past or because of our unique implementation of capitalism. Thus countries like Japan, China, India or even Russia focused on and copied these attributes to “emulate” the U.S. And their national economic and societal trajectories each shaped up much like our country at the dawn of the 20th century. Many think that these rising economies or countries will inevitably overtake the U.S. What I think they miss is that none of these countries possesses the unique and special attributes of diversity, adaptability, ethics, entrepreneurship and innovation that only Americans possess. Our education system may not be the best by many objective criteria, but we still have the best universities for a reason. The U.S. may not have the best test scores or the most Ph.D students, but we still have the most creative people. And by that I mean, we still have the people most likely to invent, innovate and create great new things, and not just copy or improve someone else’s idea. This is what a leader is and does, and there is no way China, India, Japan or Russia can do this because they each lack one or more key requirement in the recipe for greatness: democracy, capitalism, innovation, ethics, and religious and cultural diversity and tolerance.

He responded to this by saying that I am overly optimistic. Was my assessment based on wishful thinking or are there any statistics to back it up? Where's the beef?

Well, I responded by saying that my assessment is based on recent and real-world innovations. Think of the major transformative products or ideas in recent years—and most are American. Everything from the iPod and Hollywood movies to GPS, communications, biomedical research and alternative energy. Or looking at it another way, what revolutionary or transformative idea has Japan, China, India or Russia contributed recently? The “outflow of brains” theory is rooted in the statistics of how many degrees are being obtained by various ethnic groups—not by a real-world manifestation of what those people do with their brains. I will take one good American engineer over 10 Chinese Ph.D’s any day of the week. Likewise, I'll take one good American software developer over 10 good Indian programmers. The reason again is the intangible of creativity. The Chinese engineer or Indian programmer, for example, can do but he/she can’t innovate or invent. Just one quick at the Apple iPod/iPhone, and you see why Americans do most of the great things. The rest of the world just complains about our arrogance or undo influence without offering anything themselves, but they follow our lead nevertheless.

I don’t think I’m an optimistic at all—merely being pragmatic and realistic. I’m not a U.S. cheerleader, and have in fact, been deeply critical of many government policies and of our general strategic direction. That criticism however doesn't mean that the rest of the world will pass us any time soon. I think one of America’s unique qualities is its boundless energy, and the unique ability to reengineer or reinvent itself as needed. Historically, many dominant empires or cultures were based mostly on sheer military innovation and might. I think America is different because it possesses a unique mix of dynamic, ethical, intellectual and innovative qualities that don't exist elsewhere. Our diversity is the engine that propels us, and thus I don’t think America will become complacent or overconfident.

Take the current energy and global warming crises, for example. While the U.S. led the world down the road toward oil-dependency and environmental catastrophe, I am confident that, within the next few decades, it will be the U.S. innovating and adapting its way out of this energy crisis—all while doing our part to improve the environment. This is because we are wealthy, innovative, ethical AND adaptable. In the meantime, China and India are just entering (too late as you can imagine), the oil-driven world. Can you believe that China and India still have sales and other incentives for having their people buy automobiles? China now has one of the fastest growing markets for large cars and SUVs, including Hummers! They face an economic and environmental catastrophe, and it is a good example of why Americans need not worry about China or India passing us in our lifetime. If they have so many smart people, how come they haven’t invented non-polluting plants, new alternative energy sources or perhaps an electric car, by now? Do you really think that someone in China will come up with a solution to our world's most vexing problems before an American? I wouldn’t bet on that.

America is easy to pick on or to criticize because we are highly visible and successful leader of the world, and people generally don’t like the big boy on the block. I think the U.S. is still out ahead of the pack, and while it’s convenient and easy to speculate about its imminent demise, we forget that the U.S.’s inherent advantages remain unchanged simply because they are attributes that other countries cannot easily manage, engineer, teach or copy.

Let’s take a look at China and Russia for a moment. Both countries have a long history of failed monarchies and a deep inferiority complex. While both now enjoy strong and growing economies based on manufacturing or bountiful natural resources, respectively, what would they do even if they should overtake the U.S. economically? Neither has any real sense of purpose. Neither country or people have a sense of global responsibility or the ethics or principles required to become a true leader. You are not a leader because you can produce more oil or children’s toys than anyone else. You are a leader because you can inspire, invent, produce and/or help lead the rest of the world forward.

So you can say “I told you so” when we see the next great transformative idea comes from outside this country. In the meantime, in the real-world, the U.S. remains unchallenged.

So I'm not a U.S cheerleader...

Go U.S! GO U.S! GO GO GO!