After two months in China, the country where I grew up until 12 years ago, I feel anti-culture shock. It has changed so much, the bullet trains, the highways, the constructions of new cities everywhere, high rises, etc., and the way people live and talk, you don't feel it unless you really stay there for extended periods of time. For this time, 10 cities across the country was good enough for me.
1. Tons of people
People everywhere, on the streets, in the department stores, restaurants, hospitals, subways, buses. Anywhere you go, you bump into people. The day we went to the World Expo in Shanghai, there were 700 thousands people visiting on that day. The day before our visit, which happened to be a Sunday, over 1 million people.
The waiting for the Saudi Arabia theme park was more than 8 hours, for Germany, 4 hours. Not sure about the motivation behind all these people waiting in lines, but this is China, if anything gets popular, people will wait in lines to get it. Imagine if each person in line pays you $1 for your product or service, how much would it do to your business.
2. Standard of living matching western world
Most city dwellers have private cars, sometimes more than one per family. Ever since the traffic control by license plate number was enforced in Beijing, i.e. you cannot drive your car one day each week, families started to purchase the second car, and the total car ownership increased at a faster speed. The city of Changsha, capital city of Hunan province, with a population of 3 million, has above 1 millions motor vehicles registered.
Modern kitchens, hot waters, electronic appliances, and fancy toilets, used to be luxurious items, now appears in regular families. Take a visit to the shopping mall in Shanghai Pudong 正大广场, 10 times larger than the Valley Fair in the Silicon Valley, where you will find all of the top U.S. brands in apparels and even Best Buy, only that the prices are higher when converted into dollars. Talking about purchasing power.
