Blog

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

Too many Chinas

In my many yearly travels back home to China, I’ve taken the route through Hong Kong. An arduous 15 hour plane ride from SFO to HKG, followed by another two hour train ride into mainland China back to Guangzhou. Factoring in commuting and wait times, it’s an easy 24 hours from closing the door to my home, to opening the door to the hotel. Why put myself through such pilgrimage year after year? The food. Cantonese cuisine is undefeated.

A slight pain-point when taking the transfer through Hong Kong is that you’re essentially crossing two borders. Hong Kong customs welcomes you in HKG, while China customs checks you again before you’re allowed to board the train. This is a logistical inconsistency that undermines the whole “One China” attitude. If it’s truly One China, then why the heck am I subjected to two sets of immigration checks? The Hong Kong one at the airport should more than suffice.

Then there’s restrictions on how frequent Chinese nationals can visit the Special Administrative Regions like Hong Kong and Macau. Restrictions that logically should not exist if it is truly one China. That would be like if I’m only allowed to visit Florida - as a Californian - for only a few weeks out of the year. Though that would be just fine because I’ve zero desire to visit Florida. Everybody knows the best Disney theme park is the one in Tokyo, Japan.

The One China policy is a mere political bluster; a power-play by the reigning communist regime. The party’s legitimacy is predicated on being recognized by the outside world as the de facto China. Anything that can threaten that legitimacy - however small - must be censored immediately. You think the Taiwanese national team really wants to compete in world sports under the “Chinese Taipei” banner?

Come to think of it, why allow athletes from Hong Kong and Macau compete under anything but China? One China, one national team, right? If anything, Taiwanese athletes, you guys come on over as well!

Hand-pulled salty chicken is worth the 15 hour flight.

WeChat pay the proper way

It’s well known that digital currency is super common in China. The foreigner trying to pay in paper cash money is the extreme outlier. Everybody else just tap-tap with their phones for absolutely everything. It’s like paying for everything with credit cards, but with no fees - you add money from your bank account, and with way more surveillance. As someone who has used WeChat Pay And AliPay extensively for many weeks over the years, the system is fabulously convenient.

Unless you are a foreign tourist. The two main payment platforms cannot be bound to foreign bank accounts. Nor can foreigners open local bank accounts without some sort of residency proof. Tourists’ only option is to bind their foreign credit cards, which works just fine with official merchant accounts. However, the small mom and pop shops typically carry personal WeChat Pay and AliPay accounts. Even some taxi drivers carry personal accounts. Those accounts cannot accept payment from foreign credit cards. It’s paper currency for you.

And while official law is merchants must accept cash, in practice it’s hugely inconvenient for the cash user. At pay-before-you-eat restaurants, you might be served after people who are paying with mobile. Not because of overt discrimination per se, but because the cashier has to dig up the tiller from the back. Because you might be the only cash transaction for the store for that entire day. Paying for taxi with cash? Don’t expect change in return. There’s a solid chance the driver won’t carry enough amount and variety of bills.

The ultimate flex as a foreigner is to have a local person transfer money to your account. Word on the street is many a hotel front desk person has done this. Foreigners give them cash, they transfer digital money from their WeChat or AliPay account. No restrictions, no messing around with foreign credit cards. This is how I’ve done it when I do my yearly travel to China, and it’s fantastic. A truly cash-less society is one I can get behind, because it’s cleaner, too. Currency bills are notoriously dirty. No thank you.

Pure security theatre

I like to complain about the security theatre here in the States, but practically speaking it’s a necessary evil. When the founding contract of the country stipulates the right to own firearms, you must and can only do the best to mitigate the downsides. Unless the second amendment goes away - never, at least not in our lifetime, security screenings before being allowed into venues is just part of life in America.

Surprisingly there’s even more stringent security theatre in China. Can you imagine needing to pass a detector and bag search before getting into a subway station? That’s normal everyday life in China. Perhaps there was a time when this was necessary. But the modern Chinese cities are so heavily surveilled that no one would be stupid enough to commit any physical crimes. (Word on the street is online scams are where the crime is concentrated.)

Never mind the fact civilian gun ownership is absolutely verboten.

With crime practically non existent, why then remain the security theatre? Even if the government is worried about explosive devices, money is so thoroughly digital in China - WeChat pay and AliPay is ubiquitous - that it should be laughably easy to find exactly who purchased the bomb-making ingredients. The citizenry cannot throw away a piece of trash without the government being able to tell exactly which trashcan it is.

There’s got to be a point where the crime deterrence apparatus has been so pervasive for so long that the mere idea of it is enough. The government can then scale back the stuff that merely adds on inconvenience.

But hey, as a government employee myself, I can appreciate the amount of jobs the security theatre creates. It’s rather cushy to sit beneath an air conditioning vent looking at bags all day. Especially for those who did not pass the highly competitive Chinese university entrance exams.

Dude where is my money?

Word on the street is there’s a delay in folks getting their Federal tax return. A friend of mine filed for his parents back in February, and as of writing they are still waiting for their hard-earned cash from Uncle Sam. Good news is they are not the type to desperately need their tax return to balance the personal budget. However, for those who do, they must be pretty annoyed with our government.

Sir Elon Musk must have DOGE-d a bit too hard and got rid of a few too many IRS workers.

Maybe this will be good impetus to incentivize people to adjust their tax withholdings so they end up owing the IRS instead. We’re all familiar with the pithy saying by now: don’t lend the government money interest free. And if it’s difficult for you to come up with the sum to pay Uncle Sam at the end of the year, then I think you need to first look at how you’re spending your money. Good news for pay-in-four fans: the IRS already offer payment plans!

I end up owing money every tax year, which is as it should be. 2025 I owed a bit more because I sold some securities. What I forgotten about was that the State of California treat investment gains as ordinary income, which is absolutely insane. It’s already bad enough the Federal Government takes 15% of the proceeds, but California wants to wet their beak so much that it is permanently submerged. No wonder people are leaving the state, or carry bank accounts in tax havens.

Bad news for me I don’t make nearly enough money to resort to such financial trickery. It’s truly the middle class that gets screwed. The 1% may pay the most taxes, but the law of large numbers means what’s leftover is still way more than anyone can ever need. The government taking 5 million out of my 10 million still leaves me with my own 5 million. At the same percentage cut, $50,000 out of $100,000 really hurts.

Glued to the phone

One evening in Guangzhou, China we were having dinner at a local restaurant. We were soon joined at the table adjacent by a young couple. Instead of making conversation with each other, both were staring into their phones during the entire meal, each watching their own preferred programing. I guess dinner isn’t the best time to share details of your day?

As much as I assail our general addiction to smartphones, I am far from a luddite. There’s a time and place to enjoy the wonders of Internet videos. Dinner with your significant other shouldn’t be such an occasion? Maybe it’s cultural - here in the States, the person busy with their smartphones during a shared meal is absolutely the asshole.

Or perhaps I’m merely naive to think that conversation comes easily in a long relationship. Maybe when you’ve been with a person for an extended period, you kind of hang out by not really talking to each other. Enjoying each other’s company is just a matter of being in the same room.

That makes more sense. Thanks to urban density we can only dream of, big cities in China have plenty of local mom and pop restaurants. Sprinkle on some capitalism magic, and that means it’s not overly more expensive to eat out than to cook at home. The phone-occupied couple that sat next to us is practically eating dinner at home - the restaurant is not at all an occasion. Put it in this perspective, I can see the lack of conversation.

If it were me, though, I’d rather have the chat. The Internet videos will still be there when we get home.

Be smug about it

The ongoing TSA meltdown is mighty interesting to see. Thanks to our incompetent United States Congress, TSA agents have been missing paychecks for a few weeks now, with no end in sight. No one would work for free willingly, right? (Unwillingly is what they used to refer to as slavery.) So agents have been calling out sick en masse. This has lead to massive lines at major airports.

Imagining needing three hours just to get through the TSA checkpoint. For someone like me who hates to cut things that close in terms of getting to the airpot last minute, I’d plan to arrive at the airport something like six hours before departure, in the current situation, in order to feel at ease. Even the British would scoff at waiting in a queue for that long.

Thankfully my local airport -SFO - has TSA workers under contract by a private company. They are not affected by the ongoing partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. They weren’t affected last year when the government shutdown for a record 40 some odd days. How did we get so lucky? The local powers at be must have been a libertarian: the more you can remove government from a responsibility, the better.

Whatever the case may be, I was super appreciative of the normal operation at SFO when I flew to China a few days back. My smugness is through the roof when I now read the news of queuing chaos at other airports in the country. What I feel most worse for is the TSA agents that actually did show up to work, despite the continuing lack of pay. No shade to those that didn’t - again, no one should work for free, but the reality is the workload remains the same, and there’s way fewer people to execute it.

Wait a minute - isn’t that what “big AI” is doing in reality? Promise big efficiency so companies can lay off workers, but those left behind are actually still doing the same amount of work.

Too damn long

I was surprised at the amount of Chinese elders that were on my flight from San Francisco to Guangzhou. 14 and half hours is absolutely no joke to spend in a pressurized metal tube. Those of us in the peasant class are resigned to our fate of misery. The human body is not designed to sit that long whilst getting slowly dehumidified.

If our elders can endure that lengthy flight without complaint, then there’s nothing for my near 40 year old body to say. Then again, our elders are accustomed to enduring through tough times. Either suffering through the Cultural Revolution in China, or scratching out a decent living after immigrating to the States. A long intercontinental flight might as well be a cocoon of comfort in comparison to the hardships that came before.

Meanwhile, we can’t even stay still for a single minute without any sort of stimulation. Taking a dump without a using a smartphone at the same time might as well be a form of torture.

The magnetic call of home must be that powerful for octogenarians to willingly take a long-haul flight. The elder sat next to us was on her way back to her hometown to meet up with family. There’s another two hour bus ride waiting for her after landing in Guangzhou. A journey of an entire day when you factor in the waiting and transfers. I’ve great respect for that sort of dedication, especially when I cannot imagine doing the same myself when I am at that age. I am certainly endeavoring to be as fit as possible for as long as possible…

But maybe by that time, aviation would have figured out a way to make supersonic flight economically feasible. Even getting it below the 10 hour mark would make trans-Pacific flights far more bearable.