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Friday was our first day of touring. With all the rain on Thursday, we woke to a sky that was blue and pollution free. Such a difference from the previous two days. We got up and ran for an hour and then went down to the lobby to be pleasantly surprised with our own personal tour guide and driver for the day. Finally, someone who could speak good English at our disposal for the entire day. So even though it was a tour to specific Chinese sites, we used the time to ask every question we could think of that we wanted to know about what we had seen so far. She was so gracious and friendly. We asked so many questions that it’s hard to remember them in any particular order.
We asked why all the bicycles on the street looked so used and second hand (we never had seen a new bicycle yet on the street). She laughed, and had to think about it for a minute (it must be so common that she had think of a reason). Her first answer was that Chinese people prefer to buy bicycles at second hand stores. When we mentioned that certainly if people bought new cars that some people would want to buy new bikes, she decided it was because new bikes would be stolen. We told her about my taxi ride where the taxi driver turned off the meter and way overcharged me. She agreed that he was caught doing this, he would be in really serious trouble and have to pay huge fine. Our driver said the charge should have been maybe 20 – 30 yuan. She said since he did not have a receipt that technically I could have just left without paying (which of course I wouldn’t do). We also asked her how the government was controlling traffic during the Olympics. She confirmed it was based on odd and even license plate numbers. Half of the cars could travel on one day and the other half on the other. Taxis and government cars were exempt. We asked her about participation in the Communist party. She said that less than 7% could belong to the Communist party. That it was a very high standard and that only the best and brightest could be accepted. The benefits included being able to be an official in the government with different privileges in housing, cars, insurance benefits, etc. We asked her about health care – she said that employers were required to provide health care benefits which usually translated to an 80/20 benefit – with the employee paying 20%. She said there were still problems with employers who would not provide coverage and often times they didn’t get in trouble because the employees were too afraid to report them on the fear they would get fired. She told us that most Chinese have a pretty positive view of Americans.
We asked why all the bicycles on the street looked so used and second hand (we never had seen a new bicycle yet on the street). She laughed, and had to think about it for a minute (it must be so common that she had think of a reason). Her first answer was that Chinese people prefer to buy bicycles at second hand stores. When we mentioned that certainly if people bought new cars that some people would want to buy new bikes, she decided it was because new bikes would be stolen. We told her about my taxi ride where the taxi driver turned off the meter and way overcharged me. She agreed that he was caught doing this, he would be in really serious trouble and have to pay huge fine. Our driver said the charge should have been maybe 20 – 30 yuan. She said since he did not have a receipt that technically I could have just left without paying (which of course I wouldn’t do). We also asked her how the government was controlling traffic during the Olympics. She confirmed it was based on odd and even license plate numbers. Half of the cars could travel on one day and the other half on the other. Taxis and government cars were exempt. We asked her about participation in the Communist party. She said that less than 7% could belong to the Communist party. That it was a very high standard and that only the best and brightest could be accepted. The benefits included being able to be an official in the government with different privileges in housing, cars, insurance benefits, etc. We asked her about health care – she said that employers were required to provide health care benefits which usually translated to an 80/20 benefit – with the employee paying 20%. She said there were still problems with employers who would not provide coverage and often times they didn’t get in trouble because the employees were too afraid to report them on the fear they would get fired. She told us that most Chinese have a pretty positive view of Americans.
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