Bits of a recent email to Marion

I'm trying to take a lot of pictures of Kunming, the city. The difference between the commercial and the residential areas is shocking. I've learned a lot of interesting things about China in my business and economics class, like how the PLA (People's Liberation Army - China's military) is completely independent of the communist party and is a bit like the mafia. They run most of the worlds heroine from Myanmar through China to Europe and they are one of China's biggest production enterprises. They pretty much run the show behind closed doors. A little bit scary. And the businesses - oh wow is that fun. So the state owned enterprises (and there are many) are financed not by the state treasury, but by the people's bank. And since the enterprises are so huge and give jobs to so many people, it isn't in the government's interest to let one go bankrupt. So even if it looses money, the banks have to keep funding it. It is in the enterprises favor to loose money instead of make money, because if it makes money, it has to give it to the bank, where as if it looses, the bank gives it money. So basically there are tons of state owned enterprises all over the country that are loosing money rapidly, which means the banks are loosing money rapidly, which means that all of the money that the Chinese people put into the banks doesn't exist any more. Scary, right?? And the Chinese put a lot of money into the banks - the average Chinese person saves 40% of his/her income.

Oh and by the way, China is about as communist as we are.

Did you know that there is a walmart in Kunming? Walmart. The anti-communist. And they sell live turtles and live frogs and other live animals in their food section. It's WACKO.

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Sar came up with the definition of 2nd world country - it's where you have toilets, but you can't flush the toilet paper. That's right, Chinese plumbing can't deal with toilet paper, so the toilet paper goes in a little waste basket next to the toilet. And by toilet, in a lot of cases I mean squatter. I was a bit disgusted (and by that I mean REALLY disgusted) at first, but you get used to it.