The first post I wrote on this blog as about China. Sort of.
I say this because we were staying in Hong Kong and took a day trip to Macau. Is this really China though? Technically yes, but I think they both deserve their own posts. If I manage to make it all the way to Zimbabwe, it feels natural that I should continue and cover countries that most people recognise as countries, but aren’t in the UN. Hong Kong and Taiwan are pretty high up on that list for me.
Anyway, enough semantics of what constitutes a country.
China has arguable changed more than any other country throughout my lifetime. I remember geography lessons at school where we were studying the one-child policy and China’s rapid rise as a centre of low-cost commodity goods manufacturing. I remember being shocked at the sheer scale of the three gorges dam construction project. I remember being skeptical at the claims that China would one day be the world’s largest economy. In fact this date is creeping ever closer - it’s now predicted that China will unseat the United States as the world’s largest economy in 2026.
The pace of change is staggering. Comparing the skyline of Shanghai from 1987 to 2013 is almost like something from a sci-fi movie. If you have time check out this BBC article documenting 40 years of change in China. It’s staggering.
China is another country I really want to visit. Okay I know I say that about almost every country I haven’t been to, but it’s impossible not to want to visit a country that is changing as dramatically and rapidly as China.
Obviously I’d also like to check-off a few bucket list items like taking a walk along the great wall, posing next to a few terracotta warriors and visiting the forbidden city. Also there’s the food. From Peking duck to mouth-numbing Sichuan dishes, the food looks incredible.
Anyway, I’d love to write more about China, but we have a friend coming over for a few drinks. Tomorrow we visit Colombia.