Two Things I Still Don't Understand about China

While I make it sound like there is only two things that I don't understand about China, in reality, I think there only maybe to things I truly understand about China (China's has a lot of people and Chinese food taste good, even though the latter is not something to understand).

The first thing I don't understand, I guess I will find out next year. The first thing is how is China going to reduce its pollution before the Olympics. I have only been back in China since August 19, 2007. But man, I have seen so pretty awfully polluted days since I have been here. And apparently I missed the worst of it. In the past three weeks, every Monday I have traveled for business to a new place. In this order I traveled to Dalian, Sanya, and Tianjin, also in that order the pollution I saw ranked from good to worse. Dalian was not that polluted when I went, although it seemed kind of dirty. Sanya, which is supposed to be the Hawaii of China was clean, but the sky was filled with smog. When you looked out to the sea, all you could see was smogged covered islands. It wasn't like being in Key West and looking out and the sea/ocean seems to go for forever and drop off the earth. And Tianjin, how do I explain going to Tianjin? I wish I need how to write then, I would use some power analogy or metaphor to convey what I saw. But it was like driving through the fog on the meadows of a scare movie. You could only see maybe 300 meters in front of you and the smog just surrounded you. It was like the movie The Fog. Seriously it was ridiculous. I am very eager to see, what transpires in 8/8/08.

The second thing I do not understand is why China, does not have more colleges and universities or at least more technical schools. One of social dilemma face the Chinese population, that relates to China having a lot of people, is the pressure that high school kids have in high school, preparing for their college entrance exams. The pressure that these students face is completely different than the pressure high school kids in US have on performing well on the SAT, especially since the SATs are not the only fact US colleges consider. But in China, the only thing that matters is doing well on the college entrance exam, high school for a Chinese high schooler is all about this one test. The only study for this on test. It seems the only information that matters is the information that is going to be on this test. So many skills that Americans value, many Chinese students don't have. Like creative writing skills. (An aside, having take Nyquil just now and not being able to control the heat in my apartment, which currently is set on HELL. I am finding it increasingly difficult to finish this blog). I realize that it is not simple just to create more universities, even though the Communist party has all the power and pretty much does as it please. I don't understand why they don't just start more schools. Will more schools have an adverse effect on the economy or the unemployment rate, shit, I don't know. But I wish I could figure out why this has not been considered or someone could tell why this is not a workable option.