The Chief in China

I haven't been posting much recently, one of the reasons being because I spent 2 weeks in China. It was a rather interesting trip. One of the reasons I decided to study Russian politics and history in college was because I found it complex, but they have nothing on the Chinese. How do you hope to understand a country with 1.3 billion people and a 5,000 year old culture, which simulataneously has a thriving capitalist entrepeneurial class, and a Communist dictatorship?

Going to China has also turned me into a bit of an environmentalist. I have no idea how they intend to host the Olympics next year, unless they shut down Beijing for 2 months. The smog was horrible. How ironic that they were exempted from the Kyoto Accords, given their air pollution was far beyond the worst nightmare of the Sierra Club types, not to mention the lack of sewage systems.

Here are some photographs I took. Hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words:

Mass Transportation in Beijing

The Reds are still there, and this was on a clear sunny afternoon

My artistic photo, at a kindergarten we visited in Beijing.