One country, two systems. One that works and one that doesn't. So it seems to me at least.
Hong Kong is the ultimate contrast and complement to Shanghai. It's what Shanghai would be like had they got it right, and it's what it could yet become if they can get their act together.
And it's got to be said that Hong Kong's history is written in blood. It's not something that is yet on the British national curriculum - the role that the territory played in the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century.
Nowadays it's Afghanistan and Columbia that take all the stick, but back in the bad old days Britain was the original nation state drug dealer. Unable to balance the trade deficit with China, they turned to underhanded methods, deliberately engineering mass drug addiction among the Chinese in order to have something to swap for luxury goods like silk and tea.
But on the other hand, it's pretty clear to the observer that despite its inglorious history, the Brits got something right here. The subway is an immaculate conception of hi-tech passenger service. Cars stop at traffic lights, and people - though numerous - don't spit, push, shove and selfishly ignore anything that might get in their way, for example other people. All kinds of goods are readily available (at a price, of course). Everything is neatly and accurately signposted. Business is booming, or at least so it seems on the surface.
The biggest difference is in, I emphasise, the people. They're - how can I put it - same same, but different. Generally far politer, friendlier, and much more helpful than the everyday Shanghainese I'm afraid.
If Shanghai and Beijing really want to become international cities of commerce and tourism, I suggest the entire directorates of the cities camp down here for a week or two and then simply copy what Hong Kong has done. And don't tell me they haven't got the money, because with all the sound and fury surrounding the 2008 Olympics they clearly do.
Before I start putting together my own travelogue from recent days, I really feel obliged to tell you to get off this site and read Dan Washburn's instead.
He's doing what I couldn't - taking a real trip around the real China. Something I haven't had the contacts, guts or endurance to do, plumping instead for a tacky English company tour with my Mum around the 'China Highlights' - interesting in itself but not like this.
In my defence, I was planning to take a trip down to lesser known Guangxi to visit a former student but for various reasons it all fell through and I was stuck in Shanghai for the best part of July.
Dan's writing is remarkable, especially considering he's still on the road, and it's my vote for site of the year.
Learning a language can be a tedious process. All that grammar and vocabulary can be awfully wearing. Well, I've found a new way...
Since Romanian girlfriend Simona returned from her motherland I've been introduced to this utterly inane song that's apparently been storming the charts across Europe.
Worst thing being, execrable as it is, I've played it about 20 times a day and am actually beginning to get a grip of Romanian (a language not unlike speaking Italian in a camp-creepy Dracula voice).
The song is 'Dragostea din Tei' by this moronic trio of pretty boys, O-Zone. And for the benefit of curious readers, here's the words...
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haha
Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc,
Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.
Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum,
Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea.
Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.
In English...
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haha
[These are just sounds, no translation required or available.]
Hello [on a cellphone], greetings, it's me, an outlaw,
I ask you, my love, to accept happiness.
Hello, hello, it's me, Picasso,
I sent you a beep [cellphone signal], and I'm brave,
But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.
You want to leave but you don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want don't want to take me.
Your face and the love from the linden trees,
And I remember your eyes.
I call you [over the phone], to tell you what I feel right now,
Hello, my love, it's me, your happiness.
Hello, hello, it's me again, Picasso,
I sent you a beep [cellphone signal] and I'm brave [or strong],
But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.
Repeat ad nauseam. Especially the third bit.
Fine. Now to learn Putonghua via J4 Sino-Synth. It can be done...
Well, not much time to say anything of interest at the moment since I've just spent the best part of half an hour deleting spam. Amounts of comments leading to bizarre potions, porn and gambling sites are rising exponentially. Argh.
With a stinking cold and two hundred spam comments to delete on this blog.
More later when I get the chance, but I've just had a very different kind of China experience, that has actually changed my view on some things. China is not actually a place of surly ticket booth attendents, poor restaurant service, sneaky taxi drivers and rampant over-charging if you have the money to go on an organised tour.
Though this isn't much use to me in my everyday existence, it has renewed my confidence a little in China's potential for tourism. If you've got the dough, it's the place to go.
Seriously, before they take it down!
Go to the China Daily website's China pages. On the right hand side, to the left of the advertising bar you'll see a light blue menu, at the bottom of which is 'news talk'. You'll also find 'news talk' if you click on any story headline, for example this one about Deng and Kissinger. A new window will appear, with the blue menu again.
Click on ' when will china have direct elections ' and see what turns up.
Cost of maintaining the CCP's censorship policy? Billions. Cost of one copy of China Daily? One kuai. Clicking on the above invalid topic? Priceless.
Of China's many mysteries, perhaps the train system is one of the most unfathomable to me.
Every ticket office I've seen has been computerised - no mean task for a system as huge as China's. Yet what I fail to understand is the methodology for booking tickets.
Back in the UK, for example during the busiest period at Christmas, all you have to do is go to a station a few weeks in advance, tell them where you are going and when you want to come back and hand over the money. But this doesn't work in China.
For a start, you can't get return tickets. You have to buy singles, so you can only buy a ticket to return to your original point once you have reached your destination. Second, you can't book tickets more than ten days in advance. And with the legendarily high ticket demand of the railways this often means that if you arrive somewhere you are not guaranteed to be able to get back.
The only explanations I've heard for this is that the demand is so high that the system can't cope, and that the railway doesn't want to sell return tickets to people who might not be able to take them up. This doesn't make much sense to me, especially considering the system is now computerised, so if there are any explanations I'd love to hear them.
So it was that the 12-hour return from Kaifeng had to be on hard seat - which is effectively 'third class'. No sleepers, just rows of upright chairs. Bearing in mind a 20-hour hard seat journey from Qingdao I took back in October it wasn't a prospect I relished at all.
On the good side, despite the crowding in the carriage once I laid claim to my seat no-one took advantage of me and tried to grab it while I used the toilet at any point. It's pretty noble considering that some of the seatless may already have been standing up in the aisles for several hours.
On the bad side, before even getting on the train there was the typical bunfight at the door which inevitably slows things down for everyone. I wish people would just grasp the concept that if you wait your turn instead of trying to get through with physical force then it would work out better for all.
And once on it, despite the general decency of most of the other passengers I had to restrain myself from twatting the teenage boy who insisted on spitting on the floor at regular intervals. (I got into a conversation about the spitting issue back in Shanghai later that day but have still yet to hear an explanation.) The general mess and littering is also diabolical.
But all this being said, and despite the lack of sleep and chronic buttache, it got me from A to B in one piece, so I should be grateful for that...
China's had a few capital cities in its time, and about 1,000 years ago the title went to a place in modern-day Henan province.
Today Kaifeng is a refreshingly quiet city, compared to the urban mayhem of Shanghai at least.
In the north east corner can be found its main attraction, Tie Ta, the 'Iron Pagoda'. It's not in fact made of iron at all but glazed tiles, each of which is decorated with Buddhist carvings. Surrounding the pagoda is a park, complete with a boating lake and lily-covered ponds around which dragonflies go about their business.
Kaifeng is one of the few places with a surviving city wall, though it's not maintained as a tourist attraction. Scrambling through the undergrowth in Tie Ta park I was able to climb the earth mound that backs up the wall, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get to the other side.
Elsewhere in Kaifeng are a couble of notable temples - for example Da Xiangguo Si, the highlight of which is an octagonal building lined with picaresque statues in storytelling mode. At the centre is a gold-covered sculpture of Guanyin, the thousand arms arrayed around the four-sided figure like angel's wings.
Just outside the city wall near the train station is Fan Ta, a much older stone building again covered with Buddha images within and without.
However, but for another temple and a dreary museum dedicated to Liu Shaoqing, one of the also-rans of Chinese politics, there's not a lot to do. Due to the frustrations of the train system I was stuck there for two days, only one of which could be filled by sightseeing.
On Friday afternoon I happened on a very tastefully decorated cafe which served milkshakes, steak sandwiches and other Western type items. While I was there I spotted one other foreigner in Kaifeng, who I presume was the owner or manager of the cafe.
I often wonder how these people end up in lesser known places like Kaifeng. It's like the American couple I came across in Qingdao who were running a small TexMex restaurant. What possesses them to set up shop in places like this - do they really do good business there? Of course, not everyone wants to hang out in Shanghai and Beijing and I don't blame them at all. But it seems bizarre where foreigners sometimes settle, especially given the lack of foreign tourists outside the main attractions.
How dare I actually go up to the counter at a shop and expect to be served first? Who the hell do I think I am? Some kind of imperialist depot, oppressing the poor Chinese, burning down their palaces and enforcing the opium trade?
Honestly, I am such a bastard sometimes. To think that I actually expressed dissatisfaction that the man who arrived a couple of minutes after me was able to buy his stuff before I did. It's his country, it's his right. I should know better too, it's the third time in a week.
Perhaps it was my mistake to actually stand at the counter in the shop: after all, the best place to exchange your money is leaning over the boiling pot of eggs. My mistake.
And while on the subject, how incredibly uncouth of me to push past other people standing directly in my way in a busy train station. Even if I did do my best to walk sideways and cause the minimum of fuss, clearly it is something I have no call to do. How dare I, especially given the gentle courtesy of everyone else you encounter in a train station.
Please, please someone help me. I see the error of my ways and want to find a way to behave more politely to people in future. Or is there something wrong with me - do I smell or something?