Here's the thing / Kunming, China

China's population is said to be somewhere in the mind boggling 1.3 to 1.4 billion range and if you ever step foot in one of the major cities it is not hard to imagine it's true because they all seem to be out, smothering the streets, walking, on motorbikes, buses, pushing carts, driving cars; some that even look like the ones at home, but with different names as though someone just switched the logos.

There is a saying about Asia and China is no exception...it's goes something the effect of 'no matter where you go there is always someone (usually a woman) eating food, preparing food or selling food, at all hours of the night and day in every direction.' It's no secret the Chinese are an industrious bunch, a massive country in the process of undergoing equally massive progression into the new millennium. Consider the above; that accounts for about half the people I walked past...the other, well, simply put there is a loooooot of loitering going on in China, mainly men, sitting, standing, smoking, spitting endlessly and on rare occasion smiling or laughing. Street corners, storefronts, restaurants. I could walk past the same place three times at varying times of day and the same group would be chilling right there where they were 6 hours before. It was weird.

Motorbikes are an omnipresent here as they are in many other Asian cities, but in China you are much more likely to be run over by one. That is if you're a young white guy because they don't seem to like those, or at least that's the impression I got. If it weren't for, wrong directions, rude deliberate shooing's and the constant stream of unfriendly gawking I might dismiss the fact people regularly walked or drove within a inch of my toes without even looking and chaulk it up to the fact they have no sense of space since there seems to be so little of it here.
When I arrived here (by cab) I noticed how modern it all appeared, boring and indescript, but modern all the same. Clean, sterile, developed, a city of the verge. The China I saw from the window of my railcar as I left was a distinctly different China. Crumbling brick buildings, decaying apartment blocks and soiled shanty villages sewn together with colorful lines of drying laundry. A sense of guilt washed over me for feeling a little hard done by during my stay. I have it so good at home and almost everywhere else that I've gone. I'll admit China was a tough go, but the fact remains, I'm just visiting and this isn't how I will ever have to live. Poor me, I got stared at, shooed away, ripped off and nearly run over more times than I want to mentionm but the truth is I get to get on a train and go on with my trip in some other country and when it's all done, I get to go home to a country where I don't have to live in a shanty village or work in a nasty market or try to rip off foreigners so my kids can eat. I'm reminded of my old saying, "We've got it so good, even when we think we've got it so bad." For millions and millions of people in slums all over the world it isn't a choice they are able to make.

• Things I've noticed
  
  Chinese people don't like me (or so it seems)
  
  Chinese love to shop and eat and if they're shopping or eating, they're NOT selling food or working in the one of the bevy of shops or market stalls.
  
  Staring. Everywhere I go there are nothing but long curious stares. Then when you smile back, they turn away or simply continue staring until you have walked past. In Vietnam, sometimes I felt like a celebrity. In China I get the understandably less appealing sense of being in a Zoo.
  
  Honking, ALWAYS WITH THE HONKING!!!
  
  There is no hockey in China. In fact the only sign of sports that I saw was that 10 foot Chinese dude on billboards who plays in the NBA.
  
  In London, Vancouver and NYC when you want to get on the subway an elevator or simply go into a shopping mall you wait until the people who are exiting, exit. In China when you want do any of those things from what I can tell the thing to do is push in as hard and as fast as you can. To say it's an irritating practice would be an understatement. How I don't 'spaz' and trade my best impression of the language into my best impression of my favorite kung fu movies is a real mystery? Perhaps Chinese prison is part of it.
  
  Markets of very interesting, but stink with the stench of thousand deaths. PS. Don't wear shorts and sandals, I think that was the breaking point for me.
  
  A plain old suit costs about $10-15 so every second guy is wearing one, even in the country while riding a bicycle. I saw a lot of people wearing camouflage, which when you think about it, kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it.
  
  There are fake 100Y notes ($12.50) circulating so watch out. I have one, grrrrr.
  
  In general (in the South anyway, since I haven't been to the North) virtually no one will voluntarily talk to you so be very suspicious of anyone who approaches you with a syrupy sweet "Hellloooo, my friend, where you from" is definitely NOT your friend 99 times ouf of a 100! In fact he may give you a fake 100Ynote as change, knowing that you're leaving and won't notice until you try to use it in the next town. NOT that I would know anything about THAT!!!!!!
  
  Perspective enhancing yes, but parts of China also made me very grumpy. Time to move along.