December 25, 2007 by Rick.

It was a pretty subdued affair for us. Santa had to make two trips since our presents were misdirected to the Canada Bag, so he returned to China after delivering to the Great White North. While there were decorations and carols playing in the public spaces, it was still a regular workday for the proletarian masses. This naturally involved an early awakening for Claudette and I due to the 7:00 AM pounding and sawing construction noises outside our window.

I’d forgotten to mention in the previous China post how it seems MOSTLY like a regular capitalist pig society here, and there are not strong undertones of the oppressive communist rule that we expected. The shopping malls are packed with people spending lots of money, traffic is very abundant with lotsa new vehicles and fashion clothing is on everyone. I’m sure that if there was a gathering of more than twenty people in any public area the police would come out of the woodwork to quash it, but on the surface things seem very “normal” and semi-democratic. Another odd thing I’d forgotten to specifically point out previously was the almost absolute lack of motor scooters & motorbikes around. There’s even less here than in Edmonton in the Summer! Very different considering that they seemed to make up 90% of all vehicles on the road in the rest of Southeast Asia.

Posted in 2007-12 to 2008-01, Hong Kong & China | 1 Comment »

December 25, 2007 by Rick.

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Posted in 2007-12 to 2008-01, Hong Kong & China | No Comments »