Select Page


China! Home of nearly a fifth of the planet’s population (and certainly a higher percentage of its bicycles and its smog)!

Unfortunately, we don’t have as much time in each speaking location as we did in Australia, so we rushed through Hong Kong, Shenzen, and Shanghai, and just got to Beijing today and will be going next to Taipei on the way home.

It is quite a juxtaposition to go from the wide, scarce, clear and green expanses of Australia to the tight, crowded, scurrying, choked and gray cities of China. Commerce is king here, and we are witness to countless millions of people climbing away from rural, peasant lifestyles to the imagined superiority of urban middle class. But whatever you might pity these people for, you must admire their determination and their quick, plucky zest for the new.

Best Jogs in the world: I love to get up early and go for a jog as life is waking up and getting going all around me. There is something uniquely exciting about running through a new atmosphere or backdrop, observing and marveling at what you pass and letting your endorphins embed the sensations into your soul.

I keep finding places that seem to me to be the ultimate experience in jogging. There have been at least four on this trip that ought to be nominated:

  1. Around the circular quay in Sydney, along the waterfront of the harbor, out around the Opera House on the jutting walkway above the sea, and on up through the botanical park rising above the harbor.
  2. Along the endless, curving, sugar-fine sand of the bays beside the rolling surf along the Gold Coast in Queensland near Brisbane.
  3. Down the river path by the Yarra River from Richmond to Melbourne beneath towering eucalyptus trees, paralleling the rowing crew boats with a soundtrack of new and unique bird calls.
  4. Atop the Great Wall that has divided Mongolia from China for 3,400 years, snaking around the bends in the wall, marveling at what might be the greatest structure ever built by man.

Here are some random observations about China and about the Chinese:

    • It’s hard to even imagine the scope of the population or of the economy. I mentioned to someone that 40 million people watch a particular show in the States, and he commented that that would be less than one half of one percent of the population of China.
    • The country has been transformed in the past quarter century. I was in Beijing in 1982 and stayed in what was really the only major hotel in the city, the Beijing Hotel, (a red-carpeted museum type of a structure) and the city was 99% bicycles. (by the way, listen to the song “9 Million Bicycles in Beijing” if you are hungry for a new favorite song, and if you want to discover Katie Melua, my new favorite singer). Today Beijing is an impressive city, becoming another Shanghai (which has become another Hong Kong), and with hotels as good as those in New York City.
    • Preparation for the Olympics later this year is amazing. The “bird’s nest” where they will have the opening ceremonies and the “ice cube” where the swimming events will occur are the iconic structures, but the whole thing, and the scope of it, are dazzling. And they have put it all up with amazing speed (and unlike Atlanta, there is no last-minute scrambling to get it ready in time. It is basically all done. In a one party, communist system with an unlimited labor force, you can do every thing according to plan.

The Olympics here will be absolutely overwhelming. We saw a pageant, just a little one, in Shenzhen, with 500 acrobats and wild participants of all kinds, and just started to imagine it times 100 in terms of what the Olympic opening ceremony will be.

  • The Chinese are great copiers. They can take an invention or a product and copy it perfectly and produce it faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world. And I don’t just mean gadgets or electronics. In Shenzhen, we stayed by a theme park called Windows of the World, which has an Eiffel tower, a German village complete with cathedrals, pubs, and cobblestone streets, and they are perfect to the last detail.
  • They are also quite the planners. Everything happens on something similar to the “Five Year Plan” model from early communist days, and the Urban Planning Museum in Shanghai is truly amazing. The world expo will be held there in 2010, and there is a plan to “fix” every blighted part of the city before people start flooding in.
  • With a one-party, completely centralized government, freedoms are lost, but efficiencies are gained. Beijing, in preparation for the Olympics, recently cut auto pollution by fifty percent in one day, by simply declaring that cars with license plates ending with an even number could drive only on even numbered days, and those with odd numbers could drive only on odd numbered days. Lots of inconvenience, and a further reduction of freedom, but it also cut congestion and traffic by half.


Although the Chinese are losing many things as they urbanize and globalize, this part of the world still has amazing family traditions. The grandparents are the most respected and listened-to people in families, and ancestors are revered and remembered. This is true particularly in rural areas. Those in the autumn of their lives really count here.

One thing we are grateful for as we travel is technology. My cell phone works here. Internet is easy to find. Emails shrink the distance between kids and grandkids that we miss, and there is less and less excuse for anyone not to actively make family the first priority no matter where he is or what he is doing.

China! Home of nearly a fifth of the planet’s population (and certainly a higher percentage of its bicycles and its smog)!

Unfortunately, we don’t have as much time in each speaking location as we did in Australia, so we rushed through Hong Kong, Shenzen, and Shanghai, and just got to Beijing today and will be going next to Taipei on the way home.

It is quite a juxtaposition to go from the wide, scarce, clear and green expanses of Australia to the tight, crowded, scurrying, choked and gray cities of China. Commerce is king here, and we are witness to countless millions of people climbing away from rural, peasant lifestyles to the imagined superiority of urban middle class. But whatever you might pity these people for, you must admire their determination and their quick, plucky zest for the new.

Best Jogs in the world: I mentioned a couple of columns ago that when I am traveling, particularly in new places, I love to get up early and go for a jog as life is waking up and getting going all around me. There is something uniquely exciting about running through a new atmosphere or backdrop, observing and marveling at what you pass and letting your endorphins embed the sensations into your soul.

I keep finding places that seem to me to be the ultimate experience in jogging. There have been at least four on this trip that ought to be nominated:

  1. Around the circular quay in Sydney, along the waterfront of the harbor, out around the Opera House on the jutting walkway above the sea, and on up through the botanical park rising above the harbor.
  2. Along the endless, curving, sugar-fine sand of the bays beside the rolling surf along the Gold Coast in Queensland near Brisbane.
  3. Down the river path by the Yarra River from Richmond to Melbourne beneath towering eucalyptus trees, paralleling the rowing crew boats with a soundtrack of new and unique bird calls.
  4. Atop the Great Wall that has divided Mongolia from China for 3,400 years, snaking around the bends in the wall, marveling at what might be the greatest structure ever built by man.

Any other morning runners out there? Send me an email of a place where you like to run — your favorite jog. It doesn’t need to be some known or exotic place, just somewhere where the nature around you has touched you while you ran — where you have felt an aesthetic charge of joy as you have exercised early in the morning. Send me a description . Maybe we can all motivate each other to run or walk or exercise more.

Here are some random observations about China and about the Chinese:

    • It’s hard to even imagine the scope of the population or of the economy. I mentioned to someone that 40 million people watch a particular show in the States, and he commented that that would be less than one half of one percent of the population of China.
    • The country has been transformed in the past quarter century. I was in Beijing in 1982 and stayed in what was really the only major hotel in the city, the Beijing Hotel, (a red-carpeted museum type of a structure) and the city was 99% bicycles. (by the way, listen to the song “9 Million Bicycles in Beijing” if you are hungry for a new favorite song, and if you want to discover Katie Melua, my new favorite singer). Today Beijing is an impressive city, becoming another Shanghai (which has become another Hong Kong), and with hotels as good as those in New York City.
    • Preparation for the Olympics later this year is amazing. The “bird’s nest” where they will have the opening ceremonies and the “ice cube” where the swimming events will occur are the iconic structures, but the whole thing, and the scope of it, are dazzling. And they have put it all up with amazing speed (and unlike Atlanta, there is no last-minute scrambling to get it ready in time. It is basically all done. In a one party, communist system with an unlimited labor force, you can do every thing according to plan.

The Olympics here will be absolutely overwhelming. We saw a pageant, just a little one, in Shenzhen, with 500 acrobats and wild participants of all kinds, and just started to imagine it times 100 in terms of what the Olympic opening ceremony will be.

  • The Chinese are great copiers. They can take an invention or a product and copy it perfectly and produce it faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world. And I don’t just mean gadgets or electronics. In Shenzhen, we stayed by a theme park called Windows of the World, which has an Eiffel tower, a German village complete with cathedrals, pubs, and cobblestone streets, and they are perfect to the last detail.
  • They are also quite the planners. Everything happens on something similar to the “Five Year Plan” model from early communist days, and the urban planning museum in Shanghai is truly amazing. The world expo will be held there in 2010, and there is a plan to “fix” every blighted part of the city before people start flooding in.
  • With a one-party, completely centralized government, freedoms are lost, but efficiencies are gained. Beijing, in preparation for the Olympics, recently cut auto pollution by fifty percent in one day, by simply declaring that cars with license plates ending with an even number could drive only on even numbered days, and those with odd numbers could drive only on odd numbered days. Lots of inconvenience, and a further reduction of freedom, but it also cut congestion and traffic by half.
  • The Church, though limited, thrives here. We had one member at one of our speeches who goes to a ward in Shanghai that has to meet in a house, but it is bulging with people. It is a country (though I felt this even more when I was here 25 years ago) that could see truly mass conversions.

Although the Chinese are losing many things as they urbanize and globalize, this part of the world still has amazing family traditions. The grandparents are the most respected and listened-to people in families, and ancestors are revered and remembered. This is true particularly in rural areas. Those in the autumn of their lives really count here.

One thing we are grateful for as we travel is technology. My cell phone works here. Internet is easy to find. Emails shrink the distance between kids and grandkids that we miss, and there is less and less excuse for anyone not to actively make family the first priority no matter where he is or what he is doing.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This