China Trip ----- Tai Yuan (12/11 -- 12/24)

Environment
Centralized heating system for the whole Taiyuan city made many chimneys obsolete. Taiyuan is much cleaner than before. Maybe it is because I lived in Seattle too long， Taiyuan's sky has been impressively blue to me.

Fen He (汾河) used to be dirty and smelly. Now it is a 6-kilometer water park. Condos along its banks, featuring river view and easy access to the park, are selling at higher prices. A lot of water ponds along the old city wall (护城河）are all connected and built into parks, where people can exercise in the morning.

Telcom
All homes I visited in Taiyuan have land-based phones. All my high school classmates have cell phones. Even my father has a mobile phone (小灵通）．Most people use short messeges.

Transportation
Shanxi has been putting in a lot of efforts in building highways. When I was small, it took me 4 to 5 hours of train ride to go back to Fanshi (繁峙) county. This time, it's a two-hour ride on DaYun (大同－运城）highway for us to go back to Daixian (代县), where I met a lot of my relatives.

Shanxi has more than 70% of China's ancient buildings above ground (地面文物）. With the developement of highway system, I forsee fast growth of the tourist industry in Shanxi.

Many people have cars. My father-in-law bought a Honda Fit (飞渡）this year. In my high school reunion party, 16 people drove in at least 12 cars to the restaurant.

With so many cars, so many novice drivers and so many aggresive tax drivers, traffic is chaotic. I was surprised to see that many busy intersections are still lack of traffic lights. All cars jam to the center and fight their ways out. I took cab almost everyday and everyday I saw many car accidents.

Student Life
Students are REALLY REALLY busy. My friend's 5-year old girl needs to take English classes twice a week, dancing lessions twice a week and 琵琶 ( a chinese music instrument) lesson once a week. Two of my relatives high school kids can only come home from school after NINE PM. At my student time, school was over around five PM.

I visited my school, the No. 12 high school, where I have studied for five and half years. The campus looks very modern. I heard that each grade has 19 classes. At my time, it was only 7. My high school teacher told me that the school collects 20M yuan tuition from students.

Shopping
There are several nation wide chain electronic product stores (三友，国美）。Just like american, big screen tv is hot this year. I saw more brand names and variaty TVs in china. Chinese products are taking the lead in the following categories: cell phones, range hood, microwaves, small refrigiratros, DVD machines. Chinese brands such as 长虹，康佳，创维，夏新，海尔 are establishing themselves.

I like the chinese drug stores. One can get almost any medicine there. There are many big pharmacy stores around Taiyuan (远东大药房，万民药店）. Competition is fierce and customers are very price sensitive.

I also visisted some some book stores. In Taiyaun Shucheng (太原书城）, a five story book store, one floor is dedicated for various exam books.

Restaurants
Restaurant everywhere are making money. I had high school reunion at 瑞江饭店 and a birthday party for my niece at 壹尊皇牛 (hot pot). My wife's relatives had a hotpot party at 三晋饭店. I also had a dinner with my middle school classmate at 外滩风情，a western style restaurant along the Fenhe (汾河）river. When we were in Daixian (代县），we had lunch with many of my relatives at 福苑, where the mashroom dish was really great. We also had lunch at 山西大饭店 with my parents-in-law's friends. Before we leave for Shanghai, we had one big dinner party at 江南春-桃园饭店分部.