On All My Motions

 
So. China trip complete.

As can be seen if one is so self-punishing as to read the entire account found at the links below, we didn’t go a lot of different places: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, a couple of other locations. Mostly we just visited with our son and his girlfriend’s family.

Overall thoughts:

There was a lot of police presence wherever we went. I found it didn’t bother me. Maybe I’m too accustomed to the American standard, but I saw them as maintainers of order, and was reassured rather than disturbed. And the police we dealt with were polite and helpful.

Everything was clean, modern. Shenzhen is a relatively new city — maybe thirty years, according to our son — and specifically built to mirror and capitalize on the economic success of Hong Kong. And, no doubt, we stuck to the nicer areas. Still, I found Shenzhen to be more pleasant than many American cities I’ve visited. Particularly the larger ones.

More of the women wore boots than shoes, but of multiple designs and fashions, and always stylish. A lot of the younger men wore their hair in exaggerated styles that I found a little ridiculous … but then, everyone knows I’m die-hard conservative, and why should I like Chinese punk styles any better than American ones?

The food (as I said many times in my growing narrative) was heavenly.

If it didn’t cost so much to fly that far, I’d be happy to repeat the visit. Many times.

( Links for actual posts under the cut )

 
Susan and I start our visit to China tomorrow, to spend time with our son and meet his girlfriend and her family. We’ll land in Hong Kong and then cross over to mainland China, and from there on our schedule will develop according to conditions on the ground.

I don’t think LiveJournal is available in China, so I won’t be following anybody on my friends-list. I may be able to make occasional posts by e-mail remote, but more likely I’ll make any travelogue observations after the fact, perhaps in backdated posts once I return.

Hope everyone has a good next-two-weeks.