| well
it is friday am here. i had a good night of sleep and headed off to
the internet cafe to see if i could email before todays activities
begin. it seems that every day is non stop really. yesterday we left
at 2pm for the tongi teaching hospital. it was enormous and very
beautiful and fully westernized. the difference however, is that they
also will treat with eastern medicene if the patient either insists or
if the doctor feels that the treatment would be more appropriate, e.g.
a young man had incontenance and the doctor thought that first
acupuncture would be the best treatment. so we saw the rehabilitation
center that the WHO sends their people to train in as it is that
famous.
Of
course I know we were seeing the best of the best here, like Houston
medical center and not the rural hospitals. I have never seen a
country so determined to catch up so quickly and putting every
available resource in motion to get there. They are building 5
building on the hospital campus currently and all will be completed in
5 years. Bed space at the hospital is currently 2200, the are of
course increasing that and providing intern housing at the hospital
campus.
Within
city limits of Wuhan is an enormous lake. You can not see the whole
lake. We drove across a land bridge just to get across the lake and
then crossed the yangtzee river. it is enormous the river. i did not
realize how big this river was this far inland.
Wuhan is miles and miles and miles of highrises. This is very much the industrial center of China.
They are trying to deal with modernization as quickly as possible, but
they are also trying to do it internally I think. I keep asking if
outside construction firms are involved and either the engineering,
architecture or project management. They are however keeping those
jobs internal.
As for
the migration to the cities, the gov't put in a policy of not taxing
the farmers on their crops which were historically taxed up to 90%.
This has halted the migration to the cities for now as their quality of
life is improving by having more disposable income. So that is a very
recent change, but very strategic as of course China can not deal with the population influx as are many modernizing cities (Mexico City, Delphi, Buenos Aires...etceteras).
As
much as you criticize their central government, if they did not have
control, things here probably would be in chaos. It take a huge
amount of effort in keeping 1.3 billion on this modernization track.
China
knows it is terribly polluted and must be more environmentally
conscious. They are trying to balance both as best they can. Our host
said last night that China does not have anything like the FDA or USDA to control food quality and product content. We told him about the dog food problem and tracing back to China. He said he is more concerned about his son and the food than the dogs. But clearly that is not only an export issue.
In spite of all that needs to still be accomplished much has been done. I asked the Tau if China
was proud of its accomplishments. He said they need to be working
harder to "catch up" to achieving standards of adequate nutrition,
clean water, etceteras throughout China.
So they clearly are not stepping back and clapping but cracking the
whip harder to get there. Watch out, the China dragon is on the move
and can mobilize immense resources to get there. I am not talking in
military capacity just in can do of whatever.
In Wuhan, the weather is much like houston.
warm, hazy (humidity and smog) and very humid. the magnolia trees are
in bloom and there also is that always wet smell of things. each
morning you can here the most interesting bird calls outside our
hotel/dorm style room. The accomodation here are not first rate, but
certainly habitable. If only the hot water would come out at more than
a trickle. But I just think of it as a modified camping trip. I have
been washing one or two pieces of clothing each day so really do not
have any dirty clothes other than a pair of cotton pant I brought
along. Those need to be washed. I'll have the hotel laundry those
today.
After
the hospital we went to dinner at a very nice resturant with our
university host. At dinner he told us that the business students
manage the resturant. Do all the accounting, ordering, etceteras. The
service, food and price were all outstanding. We did not get back to
our hotel/dorm till nearly 9pm. It seems each day is that action
packed. Anyway, I hope we can find our way back to the resturant.
You really can not imagine the size of this campus. It is probably
about four to five miles long and two to three miles wide. Think of
about two million people that make up the university complex.
Today
we have an economics lecture and are to travel to some firm this
afternoon. I am not sure of the companies name of what kind of
business they do.
I
check into my email at work and all is either quite (which I doubt) or
they are handling it just fine, which is more likely the case.
I
apologize to any reader of this about my spelling and grammer. But I
just want to capture ideas as I go and not really worry about
editting. | 
Uploading ....