Sightseeing and Teaching

Rural area north of Nanchung

On Tuesday, we started the day with our usual breakfast.  It is my understanding that fried eggs and bacon are not a normal item for them to eat and they prepared these just for us.  I will say it is difficult to pick up a fried egg with chop sticks as they are a little slippery.  To properly eat one you hold the whole thing in your sticks and bite off pieces at a time.  My new Chinese friends are very kind to not laugh at me while I am using the sticks.  I am sure to them I am quite hilarious.  After breakfast Kristy and Bubba went off to teach class and I was escorted on a tour of a pavilion that was built over 1300 years ago.  The one that I saw had been rebuilt a few times, but it still looked very old. 

What made it famous was that a poet wrote a poem about it.  In China if a poem is written about something, it makes it very special.  All school children in China are required to read the poem about this pavilion.  Because of that, young and old from all over China come here to see this.  It has eight floors and has beautiful tile paintings throughout.  It also has a place where the emperor sat.  While there, I saw a group from New Jersey and one from Pennsylvania.  They both commented on how hot it is here.  Even for south Georgia standards it is hot and sticky.  I wish all of this rain could be sent to Georgia.  There would be no problem with forest fires.

On the way to the pavilion traffic was again very heavy.  The main roads here, like Golden Isles Parkway, have traffic lights.  All other roads do not have traffic lights or stop signs.  It is drive at will.  When cars, motorcycles and people go through an intersection it is every man for themselves.  It does not matter what side of the street you are on you just find a path and go for it.  One has to be quick on the brake pedal here.  I saw one lady get hit by a motorcycle.  The driver of the motorcycle and the lady had a stare down for a few minutes then the motorcycle guy started laughing and went his way.  It did not appear that the woman was hurt.  People walking on the street are right next to the cars.  I am talking inches.  In fact, when I walked to the bank yesterday when we crossed the street cars whisked right by us when we were in the crosswalk.  Again inches.  The cars was so close I could have handed the driver a diet coke if I had one :(   I felt like I was playing dodge ball with the cars.

There are hundreds of speed bumps here and rumble strips.  Based on what we just went through with speed bumps in Glynn County, I think this is interesting.  Although I am not sure that they really have an effect on people driving.  With all of the traffic and playing dodge ball a car cannot go fast.  I am absolutely amazed at the number of stores here.  People are spending RNB right and left.  I have never seen so many electronic stores in my life.  Numerous shops all with the doors wide open.  There are also numerous cigarette stores.  Most everyone here smokes.  At dinner they have an ash tray at everyone's place and a pack of ciggs on the Lazy Susan.  People light up at will.  It is especially bad walking in the elevator.  When you are tall like I am you tend to get all of the smoke in the elevator.  I also noticed that they have a vibrant fruit market here.  They come from the country each day with their farm products. In reality, China may have a bigger capital market that the US.  Lots and Lots of things for sale with thousands of people buying and from what I understand everyone wants to gain more wealth.  Most cars are small and the average cost of a car in US dollars is 10k.  A basic cellphone plan costs $10 per month. 

At lunch we had a conversation about the Communist party.  Apparently one has to make application to be a member and there is a year waiting period while they check your background.  Most Chinese think Americans have the wrong impression of them.  I did see a lot of poverty when we drove to the lake on Saturday, but I will have to say that while this City (capitol of the province) is a very busy place, people work, shop and spend time with their family just like we do.  Family is very important to the Chinese.  They want to spend a lot of time with their family and they cherish their children.  They all want to work hard and have a better life.  They put others above self, which I think is good.  That is truly what County government is all about, serving others. 

The Chinese are concerned with the success of the group rather than the individual.  I do agree that for an organization to be successful the team (in our case) has to be strong.  For Glynn County to be successful we have to work together to provide our services.  If one department tried to do things on their own without consideration of how their actions affect other departments then we most likely will have problems.  However, if time is taken to consider the affects of our actions on others then I believe we can be more effective in accomplishing our goals.  Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to find time to think through all of the ramifications of an action or decision.  When an organization has to downsize because of less revenue it places more pressure on those who remain to take on more responsibility, which uses up more time and leaves less time to carefully think through issues or planning.  The Chinese think the American news media puts a twist on what their life is truly like and would like for America to leave them alone to live their lives and they would leave America alone to live their lives.

The people here are very friendly.  Our hosts have been wonderful and have gone out of their way to meet our every need.  The Chinese believe very strongly in service.  Certainly that is the purpose of county government, to serve others.  The culture here promotes service.  Individuals are not pressured to serve rather it is a part of society.  It makes me curious of how many county employees ( not just in Glynn, but in other counties as well) are truly committed to service or are just there for a paycheck.  How is commitment achieved?

They have assigned a young student to be our guide.  Her name is Kitzu.  She is 21 years old and speaks good English.  She has come here just for the next three weeks of the institute to be one of the hosts and guide for the groups from Carl Vinson.  She is an English major at the university, she is petite in size and very bright.  The women here dress very fashionably.  I have been impressed with how well dressed the women are.  Men on the other hand dress very simply and with the heat are wearing a pair of khakis and a knit pull over shirt.  Not a polo shirt from a brand standpoint, but that type of shirt. The people here use a tremendous amount of expression when they communicate and with over 2000 letters in their language they say a lot.  I think American women would like their husbands to show a little more expression when they communicate like they do here :)

I hope I am starting to make progress in my class.  On Tuesday I spent more time on state and local government.  I left off on Monday with the concept of Home Rule, which is a difficult concept for them.  I revisited that topic when I started class on Tuesday to make sure they understood.  Here home rule does not exist.  The Central Government hands down policy to the city governments.  My class is very attentive and their questions are very perceptive.  One question was if those running for office received campaign contributions from individuals and if so, once they were elected were they heavily influenced by those who contributed financially.  I provided some examples of where this has happened.  They wanted to know if a person had to have any qualifications to run for office.  They wanted to know if an elected official had a business if the business did better because of them being in office.  I told them it usually had the opposite effect.

Here the head of the City is called Party Secretary who is appointed by the Central Party.  They wanted to know who was in charge of negotiations between a city and county.  They were very interested in our web site.  They wanted to know if when a person runs for office if the county posted their bio and platform on our website.  They were very interested in what information our website provided and the overall purpose for it.  It sounds like we share a mutual purpose in having a website.  Although I gathered that the web sites in China are more advanced than those in the US.  I would like to learn more about the web sites here and how they use technology in their City.

The leaders of the class took us to dinner last night.  The food was not as exotic as the other meals, with the exception of goose liver and snails still in the shell.  I passed on the goose liver, but I did try a snail.  They provided a tiny fork to take the meat out of the snail.  Again most of the meat was surrounded by bone.  Although my wife would slap me if I spit bone out of my mouth onto the table, I am getting pretty good at it!

As I write this Wednesday has started.  It is 9:30 pm in Glynn County and when this is posted I will have finished my class for today, which by the way is focused on the the government of Glynn County, and I will have had dinner.  I wonder what will be on the menu for tonight?