Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

That's just your opinion

There’s some naysayers out there who say spending thousands of dollars on plane tickets to Guangzhou, only to not explore anywhere else in China, is a waste of money and time. These people’s vision of traveling is to do as much as possible and visit as many places as possible. PTO is a precious commodity, is it not? You can lounge around and eat right at home. No need to spend so extravagantly.

Good news is, I live for me. Forcing myself to travel differently just because of the opinions of others would be peak inauthenticity. It’s like wanting a child soon as your friend group start popping out babies. Memetic tendencies that served us well ancestrally - you don’t want to be the caveman that sticks out - are no longer necessary. We can and should live how we want to, unheeding the conscious and subconscious influence of others.

I travel because I want to spend time living in places that I like. I could spend two weeks in Seoul and do nothing but hang out, walk around, and eat. The touristy stuff isn’t a must-do. The goal isn’t to check as many boxes on the landmarks list. If it were, I’d have gone to Europe many years ago, instead of visiting China every single year since 2014.

Waste of a plane ticket? Absolutely not. That’s like saying renting a place - versus buying a home - is throwing money away. It’s all transactions that we simply don’t agree on the value in return. You maximizers out there surely cringe at doing relatively nothing in a foreign city for two weeks. I on the other hand reckon that’s a lovely time. Besides, anything is better than working, right?

Well, maybe not

I absolutely wouldn’t mind living in Guangzhou. What would I do for a living? Well, what would anyone do in China who speaks perfect English? I’d end up in the sector of the service industry that’s frequented by foreigners. A front desk person at a western branded hotel, perhaps. I reckon earning money should not be a problem.

The main problem is obviously the lack of citizenship. I mean, I had citizenship - I was born in Guangzhou. However, the Chinese government does not recognize dual citizenship. My Chinese nationality was forfeited soon as I became an American citizen. It seems the only American citizen who can be a Chinese national at the same time is Olympic gold medal skier Eileen Gu. And that is why I dislike her. Not because she “betrayed” the U.S. to ski under the five stars. But only because she’s got the dual citizenship that nobody else can have. Perversely unfair.

Oh well. For all its benefits - great food, complete safety, living under the great Chinese firewall is frustratingly difficult for someone like me who is used to American Internet. I cannot imagine life without access to YouTube - entirely blocked in China. Sure there are VPN apps, but their functionality relies entirely on the benefaction of the ruling communist party. If they decide one day to block them all, they can and will.

Kpop is also effectively banned in China, thanks to troubled relations between China and South Korea. As a massive purveyor of Korean music, that’s not going to work for me. It’s not about access to songs; that’s not the problem. The issue is the lack of concerts on the mainland. South Korean acts are currently banned from holding performances in China. Have you noticed that BTS - arguably the most popular boy band on the planet - is going on this massive world tour, and there isn’t a single Chinese city on this list? I’d be pretty pissed if I were a Chinese Kpop-head. I have to leave the country every single time I want to see my favorites perform.

Living in China would clash too much with my preferred forms of entertainment. I want my Hollywood movies unmutilated by censors. Would Grand Theft Auto 6 - if it ever releases - even be available in China?

Under pressure

Mustn’t forget to check your tire pressures periodically! Even the most sealed up wheel and tire combination will lose air overtime. Especially those us driving around in internal combustion cars. In these troubled times of exorbitant gasoline prices, every bit of conservation helps. You are figuratively throwing money away if the car is running lower than optimal tire pressures. Friendly reminder the prescription is on the front driver door jam.

I wonder how many people who can otherwise install chargers at home are kicking themselves right now for not having an electric vehicle. Notorious PG&E shenanigans aside, the likelihood of electricity rates going up 25% over a span of weeks is practically impossible. Not so, as we are seeing with gas prices. Fully electric vehicle owners are sure to be pretty smug right about now.

If this war with Iran goes on for long enough, the paradigm of how the United States view EVs might permanently switch to the positive. The federal EV tax credit expiration was a setback for growth. Those that want an EV probably already bought one. However, consistently elevated gas prices can be incentive enough for those outside the fence to consider opening the gate. Especially those with considerable commutes.

Ride-share and delivery drivers, too. There’s no way the apps are benevolent enough to raise the prices - and therefore the commission for the drivers - to accommodate the sudden spike in gasoline. Nor would customers be cognizant enough to tip more. So the workers will just have to eat the additional, not unsubstantial, variable cost. When the margins are already purported to be minimum wage levels, who’s going to deliver DoorDash to make zero dollars?

Those food delivery drivers already on those zippy electric scooters must also be pretty smug right now. President Trump got rid of the EV tax credit, but his war with Iran just might re-reverse the tide of adoption. The longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the more of an accelerant it is for Americans switching to electric motivation.

Oil shock

Owners of electric vehicles must be feeling pretty smug right about now. With the Strait of Hormuz closed thanks to the American President irrationally ordering an attack on Iran, petrol prices have climbed significantly in the past month. And it’s only going to get worse until there’s truce.

I’m so glad I do not have a car commute. Though if I did, I would have purchased a fully electric vehicle a long time ago. EVs are the perfect commuting appliance. The lack of combustion engine means a super quiet cabin. The torque innate to electric motors makes zipping in between traffic gaps a cinch. There’s far less maintenance items for an EV compared to an internal combustion car. The only negative is that, for those who can’t charge at home, you’ve got to wait a bit long to “refuel”.

But you’d rather have that, wouldn’t you, than paying for stratospheric gas prices. If your livelihood is car-dependent - ride share and delivery drivers - and your car uses petrol, it is currently not a very good time. Fix cost per mile has shot straight up. Another smug feather to the cap of Waymo. Their fleet of self-driving taxis is fully electric, therefore insulated from the inflating gas prices. I reckon the human taxi driver as a profession is slowly going towards extinction.

The taxi driver that drove us to the airport in Guangzhou was not feeling the gas price pinch. Because his car is fully electric. China has successfully weened itself from internal combustion vehicles. Can’t have an oil chock if you’re not dependent on oil! Perhaps it will prove shortsighted for the United States government to roll back on its EV incentives and infrastructure spend. If not for air quality, do it for oil independence.

That said, even if you drive an EV, this turmoil in the oil markets will touch you and all of us eventually, one way or another. Way too many things are dependent and correlated on the stable availability of petroleum. Gas prices is only the tip of the iceberg we can easily and initially see. There’s surely more pain to come in many other areas. I should book that flight for my fall vacation before airlines raise ticket prices…

Buy nothing movement

I’m the type to travel light. I take what I need for everyday stuff and leave everything else behind. Visiting gifts for family? How about I give you money instead. That way I don’t have to explain to the Chinese customs personnel why there’s a dozen bottles of fish oil in my carrier. I’m not a reseller! My father’s side of the family is simply, large.

I also don’t do any shopping when I travel. That way I don’t have to lug things all the way back to the States. In this connected world of ours, what is it that we can’t buy in our home countries anyways? Remember when matcha flavored Kit Kat was something you can only buy in Japan? Not anymore. Cheers to globalization. We can buy almost anything on AliExpress.

In addition to the hassle of extra luggage - if I were the travel shopping sort of person, there’s also the extra stress of going through customs. Not that I would be smuggling in (or out) anything illegal. But it’s just so much mentally freer to not have to declare anything. What I brought into your country is exactly what I am carrying out. What I brought out of my country is exactly what I am bringing back. Easy.

This is why it is stressful to travel with my Asian mom. She likes to buy all sorts of things when we travel, and in vain I try to tame it down as best as I can. She doesn’t need to heed potential hassles of going through customs because if there’s any questions, I’m the one left holding the proverbial bag. You see, these are tea leaves, not plants… Crossing international borders is of zero consequence for my mom because she has zero skin in the game.

I’m at the age where I want life to be least stressful as possible. Purposefully adding stress by buying things on overseas trips is naturally out of the question.

Eyes up, buttercup

As I walk the not so mean streets of Guangzhou back home in China, I noticed many a building - public and private - being guarded by security. Not sure why that is actually needed because due to the massive video surveillance apparatus in China, nobody is stupid enough to commit physical crimes. But hey, who am I to get in the way of job creation, even if said jobs are kind of meaningless.

What does look wrong is that most of these security guards are staring at their phones! A clear indication that their jobs are of zero consequence. Any worthy criminal would easily pass on by without them noticing.

If I were leadership walking by I would immediately take these building security guards to task. Even if the whole charade is just for show, you still got to make it look convincing. The person responsible for safeguarding an area should absolutely be barred from doing anything but have constant awareness of their surroundings. You’d better know immediately if so much as bird lands on a second story window sill. Perhaps more importantly: you’re not getting paid to watch Douyin videos.

Imagine if the guards at Buckingham Palace - surely purely for ceremony, were staring at the phones, instead of standing at absolute attention. Right to the Australian penal colony, right away.

I would say the same for hired security at American malls. I’ve seen too many guards at our local Target store busy with their phones, rather than paying attention. This is not and should not be acceptable in any country on this planet.

Taking my air

Just a mere decade ago, I wouldn’t have imagined spending multiple weeks in Guangzhou, China. The air pollution back then was off the charts. Us San Franciscans damn sure take our clean air for granted. I can remember getting off the train at Guangzhou East Station in 2015 and immediately regretted coming back home. It was the dead of winter, too, so you can’t exactly pin it on the high humidity of summer. It’s as if the city was enclosed in constant second-hand smoke.

Fast forward a few years, and the air quality has completely changed for the better. Primarily this is due to switching from gas-powered transportation to fully electric. Seemingly overnight, the city’s buses were fully electric. Most passenger cars were electric, and so were the motorbikes and scooters. Word on the street is they’ve also built a new nuclear power plant at the outskirts of Guangzhou, too.

If a tourist like me can feel the difference, imagine what it’s doing for the local populace. Cleaning up the air can only have positive effect on the health span of citizens. Such radical transformation in such little time can only be done under benevolent dictatorial direction. The infrastructure spending to support a complete flip-over from petrol to electricity is no small feat for a city the size of Guangzhou. If this were any city in America, such grand designs would still be mired under constant committee review. Or outright rejected because of “my freedoms”.

Imagine how much cleaner our air can get if all of our motive transportation is electrically powered. It will happen someday, but definitely not as quickly as Chinese megacities have done.

I think sometimes westerners get stuck on viewing other forms of government with our own specific lens. The application of democracy is unfortunately not democratic. How many coups have there been in countries with democratically elected Presidents?

It’s easy to criticize the one-party system of China when viewed with a western lens. Our rugged individualism cannot stand to see agency stripped away from the singular common man. However, the reality on the ground in China reveals the government in power is doing the best it can for as much people as possible. Its methods can be argued for or against, but the results are evidently beneficial. Clean streets, great air quality, public amenities aplenty, and zero crime. Who wouldn’t want to live under such conditions?