China: Like it, or don't, or both at the same time.

It happens to me all the time in China.

Usually on the same day, I’ll experience a sensation of how well China is doing in some aspect. Then within an hour or two, something else occurs giving me the opposite feeling.

This afternoon, my assistant and I were returning by train from Qinhuangdao, a coastal city on the Bohai Sea. I commented to her how pleasant and clean the train was. We had “soft seats” in the most expensive car – which means we paid about $8 for a three-hour journey. The train had high ceilings, big windows, bucket seats and a table for my computer. It was as nice as any train I’ve taken in Japan, or the U.S.

Between cars, touch panels lit by modern-looking diodes opened and closed the doors.

I remarked how pleasant the train was. She joked that I should offer to pay more for my ticket if I liked it so much.

But the satisfied feeling disappeared when I went to the bathroom, which also was relatively modern. I looked down to discover the toilet was a straight pipe down to the track below. Uggh! No processing of waste. Just dump it along the rails across the countryside.