This is a man-made lake that was created when the government put in the dam on the right side. The valley used to be inhabitable, and there used to be several villages in the valley, but the Chinese government wanted to build the dam, so they moved all of the villages out of that area, built the dam, and flooded the valley. This theme of moving people to accommodate national will, obviously something that happens in the US to some extent, seemed to be a common one in China. When we went to see the terra-cotta warriors, we found out that the government had moved all of the villagers out after the discovery and built these big high-rises to accommodate them outside of the excavation zone.

This is a picture of yaks grazing in a high-elevation valley. Quite a few yaks, but most of them were positioned along the roadside as photo opportunities for tourists, so it was a nice change for us to see them in a normal setting rather than staged as moneymaking devices.

This photo was taken at the top of a 4800 m pass through which we travelled during our nine-hour car ride between Lhasa and Xigatse, Tibet's two largest cities. It's of one of the sacred lakes of Tibet. As you descend towards the lake, you see many villages dotting the coast. One would assume that they rely on the lake for fish, and indeed there are many fish in the lake, but, because it's a sacred lake, the villagers are forbidden from fishing in it. We eventually reached an observation point along the edge of the lake, and we saw these Chinese tourists throwing pottery tied in the traditional scarves that are given to travelers upon entry (to say "welcome") and departure (to say "good luck"), and we thought, "Oh that that's kind of a shame, given the lake is so clear, and you can see the stuff everywhere, but maybe it has some significance." So we asked our guide, and he replied, "no, they were just littering." So that was sad. I must say that the tourists there did not always seem concerned with the preservation of natural beauty.

Hi all! My family and I took a trip to China this summer for three weeks. Needless to say, it was incredible! I will be posting photos over the next few days with captions to add context, but to start here are a few big takeaways from the trip.

In Beijing, we met one of my Dad's former graduate students, Yu. Over lunch, he made some interesting points about the Chinese people's attitude towards its government and its economy as he sees it.

He mentioned the fact that, within China, China is not thought of as a major superpower in the global stage, the way the United States and most areas of the world seem to think of it.

He talked about the drawbacks of quick periods of growth such as the one in China that now seems to be drawing to an end: for example, the speed at which many large-scale housing developments were put up, the drawback of which was relatively shoddy construction. They were built to be short-lived, so all of these houses that were put up five or so years ago are going to have to be rebuilt in another 10 years, and maybe that will create a lot of jobs, but it will also be a giant drain on the Chinese economy.

Another thing that came up pretty often was the multifaceted nature of the Chinese government. We tend to think of governments' actions as black-and-white, right or wrong, but there is always a trade-off that occurs, even with the invasion of Tibet, which many outside China regard as purely bad.

Our guide, a Tibetan, despite what he could and couldn't say is a state-controlled tour guide, clearly did not view the Chinese government completely favorably, yet was still able to see the value in the contributions that it had made. For instance, he claimed that rural Tibetan farmers used to bathe approximately once every year before the Chinese invasion and that now it's around once or twice a month. In the sanitation department, that's still not amazing, but it's a clear sign of improvement and is also representative of the giant growth in infrastructure since the beginning of the Chinese occupation. Tibet is covered in new roadways, bridges, tunnels, hotels, housing systems, and schools that owe their existence to the Central Government. But we also learned that, after a large protest in Lhasa over the Chinese government's treatment of Tibetans in 2008, The government confiscated all Tibetans' passports. Many temples, though they appeared old, were actually built in the 1980s and 1990s, or rather they were rebuilt after being destroyed in 1959 during the Cultural Revolution and the invasion of Tibet. On the other hand, their reconstruction was state-funded.

My conclusion is that the Chinese government was very good for China as a developing nation. In Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck comments on the trade-off between the large scale corruption and greed within the railroad building companies and the fact they built the railroads, I think that's a very good analogy for the Chinese government. They were necessary when China was still developing, and it is still developing (but not nearly as much), so now they've been forced to change. They will continue to be forced to change because there's no longer an end so vital that it can fully justify the means. So the people are calling for change, an end to corruption, a greater amount of freedom and the upholding of their civil liberties. China just isn't doing enough good for its people anymore to justify the bad.

I also found myself thinking about the Chinese economy, and I was very fascinated by the government's artificial stabilization of the RMB. For those unfamiliar with macro economics, like myself, I offer my self-concocted, little-researched, somewhat unsubstantial explanation:

Countries' economies, in theory and according to international economic guidelines, work kind of like a sine curve. When their currency is valued relatively low, they're attractive exporters, so more people buy from them, but, as more people buy from them, their exchange rate increases, so they're not as attractive anymore, so less people buy from them, so their currency falls, and then they're attractive again.

What China has done is essentially break the rules. They keep their currency valued low so that they remain attractive exporters, so, instead of a sine curve, their economy grows as a linear function.

And, while many countries protest because China is essentially cheating, other countries keep buying from China because at the end of the day it's cheaper.

So it remains attractive because it exports basic goods for low prices and gains wealth. But as it gains wealth, it moves from a developing country to a developed country, and developed countries are expected to treat their workers better, and treating their workers better means paying them more, which creates national standards that raise prices, which means it's less attractive to foreign markets. For that reason and since they haven't specialized their industries, IE producing things in a unique way rather than just a cheaper way, foreign markets will just move to other nations once China becomes too expensive. China's function is no longer linear, but sloping worryingly toward m=0. In other words, if China does not specialize, its economy might fail. So just specialize, right? Easier said than done.

According to Yu, the slow in Chinese growth, not a recession but a move toward stasis, has caused a lot of panic among Chinese people. That fear, combined with the average middle to upper class Chinese person's purported lack of involvement in the stock market in comparison to the average middle class American's (many have 401k's or some interest-earning investment system), means that, while there exists a perceived need for specialization, for China to find its economic niche, there is little time and even less capital with which to do so. This looming issue, plus the housing problem, means that China's economy, thought by the average American to be strong and getting stronger, may actually be fairly precariously perched.