He was born and raised in Shanghai. He spent 4 years at university studying Business English and worked at a State Owned Corporation (public service). He felt like he was a "cog in the system" and "not allowed to think, just do". He took a risk and left a safe job that would be for life, to mentally challenge himself. Leon is married with a 5 month old child. Interestingly he is allowed to have 2 children because his wife and himself were only children. This amendment was introduced in 2013. Chinese women are attracted to foreigners for marriage, as there are no restrictions placed on number of children if they are not registered as Chinese citizens. This further erodes the percentage of females to males.
Conversation was easy. We discussed capitalism, communism, free trade, the revolution, Budhism, Zen, his sadness about the population explosion caused by people moving from rural areas to his city, his opinion on how the new development of Shanghai has demolished the old architecture and history, trees went for development and now they are planting new ones. An amazing insight.
Today the Metro was not crowded, you can see room for many more passengers.
Stop 1 - The Bund (the place of the stampede on New Year's Eve).
This is a working river, a constant procession of barges and tugs. The photo does not show the magnitude of watercraft on the river. The smog level and haze today made for bad photos.
The old buildings overlooking the river, were mainly head offices of banks and corporations before they were evicted at one point in history (apologies to Leon I did not retain all the details)
Then off to the Guardian Temple (Zen).
Then the old, a retained walled wealthy family residence with many buildings, water features and garden.
Leon's first choice had a 40 min wait, so we tried a few more places but being a holiday it was hard to find a place. We walked a few blocks, and sucess.
I ordered green tea but apparently red tea Is good for the stomach and a better choice?
Crab and tofu, steamed chicken, dumplings, fresh ginger, rice with chives, all to die for with flavour.
Tape fixes everything
Is this safe?
Starbucks and crowds
Imported fruit
everything can be transported by bicycle
Build on old tidal river swamp land, the new houses major western corporations, banks, insurance companies. The western world is keen to have a presence in China and China is making them very welcome.
The building in the middle is actually taller than the other towers, and not yet complete.
A long post, but I could do a blog entry on every aspect.
Today was an awesome experience.
THANKYOU LEON!
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