Eric's Beijing Diary

The current market drops in Asia are due to worries about a possible recession in the United States. Market drops like this are not greeted with enthusiasm, but I tend to think they are actually good news. The problem in China is that there is no history of a stock market crash like the crash of 1929 that sobered American investors and tended to curb wild, undisciplined speculation. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has been rising very, very rapidly, and that is always scary. What goes up must come down, and if it goes up too fast, it will come down too fast, and could trigger a crash that would be quite devastating for the economy. So a drop that puts the brakes on speculation is probably going to be good for China's economy in the long run.

I am not against investment. But there is a big difference between investing in real value, and speculation--buying paper wealth or real estate that is highly over valued on the assumption that it will be even more overvalued a year later, and thus gain a profit for the reckless spender. That is a dangerous game, and sooner or later, somebody is going to lose, and lose big.

In his State of the Union speech, Bush referred to the economic stimulus package that is supposed to restore confidence in the American economy. This seems to be working somewhat in the States, but investors in Asia are still nervous. However, if the American economy rebounds, the stimulus package would indirectly affect the markets in Asia. This is just one more example of how dependent the world is on the American economy. The trouble here is that the Chinese people have never been able to consume what China produces. For all China's wealth, there are still 800 million people in this country who live on a dollar a day or less. So China has been very dependent on the voracious appetite of the Americans for more and more stuff. The Americans are addicted to consumption, and as long as they can afford to feed their habit, China is going to be doing well. As China grows, the number of wealthy (a relative term of course) people will increase, and China will eventually be economically independent. That is, China will be able to consume what China produces. But if the spigot should get turned off before China is ready, it would be pretty tough. China has a roaring economy. But while it is very dynamic, it is still quite vulnerable, and thus dependent on America's wealth.

Cut my head open yesterday. We had a faculty outing to a resort area north of Beijing. I had just come off the water slide on a tube. When I rolled off the tube into the water, my head hit the edge of one of the steps. When I got out of the pool, someone noticed that my head was bleeding, so they took me to a first aid area, where they poured some peroxide and alcohol on the cut, and also put some powder--some kind of TCM stuff. The bleeding stopped almost immediately. They assigned a student to help me go to the clinic to get a shot after we got back.

By the time we got back to the campus, it was getting late, and I remembered that I had gotten a tetanus shot before coming to China. I couldn't see the cut myself, but it wasn't bleeding, and people who looked at it didn't seem to think it was too bad. So I told them I would probably be alright. When I got home, I decided to have a look at the wound. Since I could not view it directly because it was on the top of my head, I held my camera behind my head and took a picture of it, then put the jpeg on my computer and blew it up so that I could examine the wound. Looked like a nasty gash, so I felt along the cut with my fingers and noticed that the cut itself was sticky. Not good. I called Wang Lihua and told her that I had an open wound and it really should be sutured. Fortunately, she was still in the office, so I went back there and she took me to the emergency room at the Peking University Health Sciences Center right across College Road from the east gate of my university.

The young ER doctor looked at me and sent me to the CT room. I really didn't think that was necessary, because I had no symptoms of a concussion. Not only that, but if I had hit my head on that sharp edge hard enough to have a concussion, the cut would have been a lot deeper than it was. But procedures are procedures, so I got on the table and let them slide me into the doughnut. I have no idea how to read those things--don't know what brain damage is supposed to look like, so I couldn't say anything for good or ill, but apparently there wasn't anything that concerned them too much, so the doctor took me into a small operating room and stitched me up.

Figure this one out. I have been fighting with Paypal the past few days trying to figure out why they will not approve a money transaction. I've been trying to send some money to my daughter, and I keep getting this error message that says, "This payment cannot be funded with a credit card at this time."

As of December, banking in China is supposed to be open to international banks. But you can be sure it will be some time before international transactions can be done smoothly. Part of the problem is that RMB is not convertible. You can go to any bank in China and buy RMB with dollars. But you can't buy dollars with RMB. So how do people deal with this problem? Some of them use black market dealers who will do the exchange. I have always been uncomfortable with that, not only because it is illegal, but also because I don't want to be trading in laundered drug money or buying North Korean counterfeits.

There are a few legal ways around the problem. If you are visiting China, and you convert dollars to RMB, you can keep a record of what you converted, and buy that amount of dollars back again. Also, I have a credit card with the Bank of China. So I can make limited purchases in dollars and pay the bill in RMB if I go to the bank personally. But credit cards cannot be used to send money, unless you have a third party agency such as Paypal. Hence the problem. But Paypal's approach to the problem is aggravating, because they don't tell you why the transaction is rejected. It wouldn't really surprise me if they rejected my credit card, because it is a secured credit card. In fact, generally foreigners cannot get credit cards with Chinese banks. I got one because an official at the Software College backed me up with an ID number. But Paypal insists that there is nothing wrong with my credit card. So what is the issue? They won't say. They don't know. They can't help me. Grrrrrrr.. Things are changing slowly, but international banking in China promises to be a bit of a hassle for some time to come.

I don't know, you guys. It might be "starve a cold" after all. It started right after the New Year, but I was basically winning until a week ago yesterday. I went to the coffee bar with my laptop but I was so weak I could barely hold my head up. Went home, got in bed and stayed there until the next morning. Didn't feel good all week, but I am starting to get ahead now. For some reason, colds really hit me hard.

Interesting discussion this morning on Dialogue between Yang Rui and Louis Palau. Palau is an evangelist who has just co-authored a book with Professor Zhao Qizheng called "Riverside Talks." It is a hit here in China, and is also coming out in English. As a conversation between an atheist and a Christian, the objective of the book seems to be an attempt to build understanding between people of different belief systems. But I think the greatest significance of the books is what his says about the change in the way Christianity is addressed in a country which was once so hostile toward Christianity. Make no mistake, the Communist Party is still atheist, and so China is still officially an atheist society, but there seems to be much more a feeling of accommodation toward various religious beliefs today than in the days before China's "opening up."

What does this mean for Christians in China? I think it represents a unique opportunity for Christians to show that they are not a threat to any society. But I have concerns. Christianity has always tended to decline in character when it becomes popular or "fashionable." Someone asked me today if someone who was not a Christian could become president of the United States. I said that there is no requirement for membership in any religious group, but a candidate claimed to be an atheist, he would probably be unelectable. So in America, membership in a church does not indicate that a person is really a committed Christian. In China, it is quite the other way round. Many young people ask me, "Do you think I should join the Communist Party?" I always ask them, "Why do you want to join the party?" Always, they say something like, "Well, it's easier to get a good job if you are a member of the party." I tell them that I do not think this is a good reason to join the party. But I have also told young Christians that I think it would be good for them to join the party and be a positive influence in the government of their country. The answer is always the same. "Oh, no, we're not allowed. You have to be an atheist." Will that situation ever change? And if it did change, would it be good for China? For the church?

Is it "Starve a cold, feed a fever," or "Feed a cold, starve a fever?" I can never remember, so I feed them both just in case. Chase that cold with a spicy Hunan dish. It usually does the trick. That and plenty of extra sleep.

Generally, Beijing is a healthy place to live, except for the summer, which is so muggy that it is hard not to get sick from the contrast between the outside temperature, and the cold, damp, climate created by indoor air conditioning.

Had a New Year's Eve pizza party last night. Piro Pizza has a new delivery service. Took them two hours to get the pizza to us, and by the time they did, there wasn't much heat left. But people generally liked the pizza, so I guess it was an OK experiment. Give them a little time, they'll get it figured out. China, as you know, has two New Year's celebrations. The big one is Chinese New Year, but they do celebrate the regular one with the rest of the world. Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar. The one thing that distinguishes Chinese New Year is that the whole country goes home. Working people, especially, will go home for Spring Festival even if they don't see their families at all the rest of the year.