Blog

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

Oil shock

Owners of electric vehicles must be feeling pretty smug right about now. With the Strait of Hormuz closed thanks to the American President irrationally ordering an attack on Iran, petrol prices have climbed significantly in the past month. And it’s only going to get worse until there’s truce.

I’m so glad I do not have a car commute. Though if I did, I would have purchased a fully electric vehicle a long time ago. EVs are the perfect commuting appliance. The lack of combustion engine means a super quiet cabin. The torque innate to electric motors makes zipping in between traffic gaps a cinch. There’s far less maintenance items for an EV compared to an internal combustion car. The only negative is that, for those who can’t charge at home, you’ve got to wait a bit long to “refuel”.

But you’d rather have that, wouldn’t you, than paying for stratospheric gas prices. If your livelihood is car-dependent - ride share and delivery drivers - and your car uses petrol, it is currently not a very good time. Fix cost per mile has shot straight up. Another smug feather to the cap of Waymo. Their fleet of self-driving taxis is fully electric, therefore insulated from the inflating gas prices. I reckon the human taxi driver as a profession is slowly going towards extinction.

The taxi driver that drove us to the airport in Guangzhou was not feeling the gas price pinch. Because his car is fully electric. China has successfully weened itself from internal combustion vehicles. Can’t have an oil chock if you’re not dependent on oil! Perhaps it will prove shortsighted for the United States government to roll back on its EV incentives and infrastructure spend. If not for air quality, do it for oil independence.

That said, even if you drive an EV, this turmoil in the oil markets will touch you and all of us eventually, one way or another. Way too many things are dependent and correlated on the stable availability of petroleum. Gas prices is only the tip of the iceberg we can easily and initially see. There’s surely more pain to come in many other areas. I should book that flight for my fall vacation before airlines raise ticket prices…

Buy nothing movement

I’m the type to travel light. I take what I need for everyday stuff and leave everything else behind. Visiting gifts for family? How about I give you money instead. That way I don’t have to explain to the Chinese customs personnel why there’s a dozen bottles of fish oil in my carrier. I’m not a reseller! My father’s side of the family is simply, large.

I also don’t do any shopping when I travel. That way I don’t have to lug things all the way back to the States. In this connected world of ours, what is it that we can’t buy in our home countries anyways? Remember when matcha flavored Kit Kat was something you can only buy in Japan? Not anymore. Cheers to globalization. We can buy almost anything on AliExpress.

In addition to the hassle of extra luggage - if I were the travel shopping sort of person, there’s also the extra stress of going through customs. Not that I would be smuggling in (or out) anything illegal. But it’s just so much mentally freer to not have to declare anything. What I brought into your country is exactly what I am carrying out. What I brought out of my country is exactly what I am bringing back. Easy.

This is why it is stressful to travel with my Asian mom. She likes to buy all sorts of things when we travel, and in vain I try to tame it down as best as I can. She doesn’t need to heed potential hassles of going through customs because if there’s any questions, I’m the one left holding the proverbial bag. You see, these are tea leaves, not plants… Crossing international borders is of zero consequence for my mom because she has zero skin in the game.

I’m at the age where I want life to be least stressful as possible. Purposefully adding stress by buying things on overseas trips is naturally out of the question.

Eyes up, buttercup

As I walk the not so mean streets of Guangzhou back home in China, I noticed many a building - public and private - being guarded by security. Not sure why that is actually needed because due to the massive video surveillance apparatus in China, nobody is stupid enough to commit physical crimes. But hey, who am I to get in the way of job creation, even if said jobs are kind of meaningless.

What does look wrong is that most of these security guards are staring at their phones! A clear indication that their jobs are of zero consequence. Any worthy criminal would easily pass on by without them noticing.

If I were leadership walking by I would immediately take these building security guards to task. Even if the whole charade is just for show, you still got to make it look convincing. The person responsible for safeguarding an area should absolutely be barred from doing anything but have constant awareness of their surroundings. You’d better know immediately if so much as bird lands on a second story window sill. Perhaps more importantly: you’re not getting paid to watch Douyin videos.

Imagine if the guards at Buckingham Palace - surely purely for ceremony, were staring at the phones, instead of standing at absolute attention. Right to the Australian penal colony, right away.

I would say the same for hired security at American malls. I’ve seen too many guards at our local Target store busy with their phones, rather than paying attention. This is not and should not be acceptable in any country on this planet.

Taking my air

Just a mere decade ago, I wouldn’t have imagined spending multiple weeks in Guangzhou, China. The air pollution back then was off the charts. Us San Franciscans damn sure take our clean air for granted. I can remember getting off the train at Guangzhou East Station in 2015 and immediately regretted coming back home. It was the dead of winter, too, so you can’t exactly pin it on the high humidity of summer. It’s as if the city was enclosed in constant second-hand smoke.

Fast forward a few years, and the air quality has completely changed for the better. Primarily this is due to switching from gas-powered transportation to fully electric. Seemingly overnight, the city’s buses were fully electric. Most passenger cars were electric, and so were the motorbikes and scooters. Word on the street is they’ve also built a new nuclear power plant at the outskirts of Guangzhou, too.

If a tourist like me can feel the difference, imagine what it’s doing for the local populace. Cleaning up the air can only have positive effect on the health span of citizens. Such radical transformation in such little time can only be done under benevolent dictatorial direction. The infrastructure spending to support a complete flip-over from petrol to electricity is no small feat for a city the size of Guangzhou. If this were any city in America, such grand designs would still be mired under constant committee review. Or outright rejected because of “my freedoms”.

Imagine how much cleaner our air can get if all of our motive transportation is electrically powered. It will happen someday, but definitely not as quickly as Chinese megacities have done.

I think sometimes westerners get stuck on viewing other forms of government with our own specific lens. The application of democracy is unfortunately not democratic. How many coups have there been in countries with democratically elected Presidents?

It’s easy to criticize the one-party system of China when viewed with a western lens. Our rugged individualism cannot stand to see agency stripped away from the singular common man. However, the reality on the ground in China reveals the government in power is doing the best it can for as much people as possible. Its methods can be argued for or against, but the results are evidently beneficial. Clean streets, great air quality, public amenities aplenty, and zero crime. Who wouldn’t want to live under such conditions?

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.