Welcome to the Future: China

For the past few days, I have been in Yingkou, which is this harbor/port city that's in Northeast China and a Tier 3 city. Basically, it's in the middle of nowhere and took a train and then a long bus ride to even get to. However, despite it's questionable locale, it's a city that is in the stages of development and wants to become a Tier 1 city on par with Beijing and others in China. Getting there was half the fun (ha) because we had to take a train that probably hadn't had Americans on it since, well, never. The stares we got as the 26 of us hung out in the train station with our large bags and me with my awesome hand-painted rice paddy hat and angry bird hanging from my backpack were priceless. You'd think they'd never see a group of white people before...oh wait, they hadn't! The town we were going to is actually the sister-city of Jacksonville and is where one of our professors had studied and taught, so they "rolled out the red carpet" for us. They welcomed us with a very formal visit and then we went to a banquet dinner with all of them where they proceeded to make toasts to us and inform us that we needed to "get drunk". Nothing like a good communist drunk fest. After the dinner was over and we were all warm with their welcome, we headed back to our hotel (which we found out was also kind of a brothel) and celebrated one of the guy's birthdays. I was so exhausted that I passed out before 9pm, but apparently the party was just getting started. These government officials actually showed up at the hotel, got the guy a massive cake, and bought everyone tons of drinks. One thing really popular here in China is KTV, a karaoke/club set-up. On the 4th floor of our hotel is this KTV thing and the group decided to rent it out with their new friends from the Communist Party! Unfortunately, I missed the whole thing. Fortunately, I did not have to wear my sunglasses inside and guzzle water in the morning. I do have to admit, I like a government you can drink with.

In the morning, we headed on a trip to this huge pre-planned city area for Yingkou. It was scary, intimidating, awe-inspiring, and creepy all at the same time. The night before we had dinner at this beautiful hotel and it had many detailed models in the lobby. These models were of the pre-planned city that Yingkou was basically building from the ground-up. It was like the models you see of new resorts and timeshares when they're trying to do a sales pitch, except much much better. The models had every detail and were absolutely beautiful. I did not realize at that point how many models I would end up seeing. This morning, we traveled to the actual site of this pre-planned city and drove into a ghost town. Towering apartment buildings and condos being built scattered the skyline and there were parks, buildings, and homes that stood there, perfect in their planning, empty. It was like someone came in, built a huge, modern city and forgot to invite the people. We visited the building that was really the sales center and saw the model for the entire city. It was planned right down to the kind of pipes they would use, their sanitation, water sources, electricity, everything. Every single aspect of this city was planned. Perfectly streamlined. Ultra-modern. And big enough to encompass at least 10-20 million people. Fun fact: the city of Yingkou currently only holds 2.38 million people. We then watched a video that probably was for potential investors. It was a full 3D movie that had epic music and showed almost Sims-like depictions of a bustling city with huge athletic events, a cultural center, plenty of shopping, tons of manufacturing, big businesses, huge residential areas, and perfectly landscaped parks. I felt like someone should have said, "Welcome to the Future." What I was looking at was a combination of Brave New World and Zenon: Girl from the 21st Century. The growth here was completely inorganic. Gone were the days of cities building up from new settlers and cultures and developing over time with historical roots. The Chinese government is the largest investor in this project (DUH! They own ALL the land in China, surprise surprise) and it seemed like one day decided, "Hey! Let's build a brand new city. What do you all think? Oh wait, we don't have to ask anyone! Cool." So, a city was built on a port in NE China that met every single modern expectation and need any city planner with an unlimited budget could imagine or want. The cool thing about a dictatorship/communist government, is that shit gets done. And fast. Now, if you want to do something that wasn't the government's idea, there may be some more red tape. However, the government doesn't have anyone to answer to. No Congress, no Senate, nothing that prevents them from just doing things. I.e. building a city from the ground up. The crazy part? What we saw was built only in 4 years and that land literally used to be rice paddies. And, they plan on having this mega city done, built, and filled within 5 years. Holy. Shit. The pure amount of progress China is taking is insane to me. Instead of baby steps to a developed nation, they are doing Olympic long-jumps, which I suppose is appropriate considering their recent hosting of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, so they had some good examples. If this had happened in America, we would've had tree-huggers chaining themselves to the bamboo and lobbyists and senators and interest groups and everyone in between petitioning against and perhaps for this testament to land development. It's enough work to get a Wal-Mart (ew), let alone a city built overnight in BFE.

So, what did I learn? China is big. Not only is it big, it has money to burn and it does not have anyone telling it what to do. China is kind of like someone who just won the lottery and discovered how much power they can wield and finds out they don't have to answer to anyone. I have a feeling that if this mega city model works, China will duplicate it all across the land. A huge majority of the people live in the East, so the government is trying to encourage people to move West and create new centers of commerce. I can see them building these crazy, pre-planned cities all over China. Here, if you build it, they will come. With 1.4 BILLION people. Hold on. Yes, 1.4 BILLION PEOPLE. I know, that's hard to take in. If you think about the amount of people we have in America who have an IQ over 130 (very superior intelligence), we're talking 2.5% of the population, or 7.75 million people. Now, look at China. They have 35 million people of superior intelligence. That is about 4.5 superior intelligence people to every single one of ours. The amount of potential is astounding and scary. So with their huge population and huge number of very very smart people, they can easily create and fill these cities. And their work ethic is unending. They are just getting started in their hey day and do not show any signs of slowing down. Their people value education and progress and are hungry for it. We, however, are sitting around with our bellies full and our minds empty. We have become complacent and feel entitled to what we have. There are those that work hard, understand the importance of education, and strive for progress in their jobs and communities, but that quality has been decreasing, and rapidly at that. To stay competitive in the global marketplace, we need to wake up and realize that to stay a world super power, we need to act like one. China is looking to move from manufacturing to services and will soon overtake the U.S. as not only the number one exporter in the world, but the number one importer as well. Meaning, they are not only making a ton of stuff, they are buying it too.

Americans are leaders and when we need to, we can create, build, innovate, and initiate things that lead and progress the world around us. Now, more than ever, we need to remember our strengths and encourage each other to not become stagnant in our growth. By taking advantage of new opportunities, and even creating them ourselves, we will continue to be a competitive force globally. Being forward thinking and planning for the future is vital to our success. So, I challenge you all. How can you contribute to our progress? How can you take your job or education into the future? China may be huge, but we're free. We have the freedom to say we want or do not want a pre-planned city popping up on our coastline, we have the freedom to pursue any career or educational tract we want, we have the freedom to make this country our own and pursue life, liberty, and happiness however we see fit. So, use that freedom, don't take it for granted, because there are approximately 1.4 billion people who have not heard that sweet freedom ring.