Sichuan Lu in the eveningThis picture sums up the two wheelers range in the chinese cities streets : From right to left : A motorbike , a bicycle and an electric scooter . These electric scooters are amazing . They are everywhere , of course completely noiseless . At first I did'nt realize they were electricity powered . Just thought the person had cut off the engine to spare gas . But then, looking as they were gathering speed again , I understood . At a visit at a local branch of the Carrefour supermarket chain , I saw new electric scooters starting at about 1200 Yuan ( or 120 Euro) , and new bicycles at 129 Yuan ( 12 Euro ! ) . Crowds of bicycles are still the norm all over China ( including Shanghai ) but other two-wheelers take a bigger share everyday .
Waiting on the subway platformI think we westerners are liked very much in China , and I don't think only to these beautiful young women that came at my side while I was walking, to exercise their english . Several little things tell me that we are positively viewed .
One of these things was the countless occasions young chinese asked me to pose among them for a picture . Typically , I would pose near 1 or 2 girls , then 1 or 2 other so that each in the friends group could have her/his souvenir . Sometimes I even saw (I acted as if I did'nt see anything) them discreetly coming near me while the other took the picture. There was plenty of place everywhere to pose with the beautiful given background , but they chose me ... Maybe I have some resemblance with Da Shan ( Real name Mark Rowswell ), this canadian national who became a star here after a first appearance on the chinese TV in the early eighties .... But anyway , when I come back to France and don't find the same reception here , I just ask myself : Did I change so much ?!
This pic on the left shows a man working _all the place seems to be remodelled all the time_ with a billboard in the back . Most billboards are about brands , cell phones , and othe consumer goods . This one looks more like the ones they had 40 years ago . The transition between these two different billboard culture is interesting . One thing remains from the former : The huge size of the billboards and the brightness of the colors .
The sun is going down on the Huangpu river, the Bund , and Shanghai's Pu Xi....To visit places , I took the train , wich is efficient , comfortable and a nice experience . Hard sleepers , for example , are not hard at all , and you have a comfortable berth with sheets and everything you need to sleep comfortably . When you get to your place , shortly after departure , an employee exchanges your ticket with a small piece of coloured printed plastic ( red for upper berths , green for middle , blue for bottom) . You have to keep it until shortly before arrival , when you get your ticket back . Not sure of the meaning of it . Maybe to know wich berths are really used . You can eat in the restaurant car for not much more than a cheap street restaurant , and also carts come and go all the time with meals , fruits , biscuits ....
Young acrobats in ShanghaiWhat is striking is how much the country is polluted . It seems a thin layer of dust is covering all the country and towns . Coal is the main energy not only for power plants but also for individual industries and plants . You often see near plants mountains of coal needed for their power needs . They urgently need dozens of new ( french of course ) nuclear-powered plants to begin to solve the problem . I am sure they will address this problem soon , as their economic progress will allow this investment . In Beijing already , you don't feel the pollution as I was said you could 20 years ago . They moved all the polluting activities elsewhere . The electric scooters' very existence show they have already moved to cleaner vehicules (even if for now the electricity comes from coal). I also noticed in many places solar energy systems on roofs . The day they launch volontary campaigns and investments in this direction , we could be surprised .
Amelie Poulain on the chinese TVWhile in Guilin (it was not in Qingdao ) I saw Amelie Poulain on CCTV6 . Quite funny to see the movie , dubbed in chinese . I don't speak chinese but the dubbing seemed to be well done . A scene is more powerfull in the original french version , though : The one when Amelie leads the old blind man around in the neighbourhood . In the french version , the beautiful music of this scene is better heard , and combines with the images in a powerful whirling sequence , probably the most beautiful of this movie...
