I spent a lot of time in cars today. It’s a good place to make observations about China, and spend time ruminating amongst second hand smoke.

On the way to work, I watched a couple of odd videos on the taxi tv (some shanghai taxis have mounted 6 inch LCD screens in the upper right corner of their windshield; typically they play advertisements). First, I was treated to a bizarre cartoon in which oversized pigs kidnapped a naked baby, complete in all his animated glory, only to be set upon by other babies with swords and dynamite. Naturally, this segued into a 4 minute clip of what looked to be Russian artillery firing against tanks. Clearly staged shots were spliced with older actual footage and all of it was set to a dramatic score. It ended with tanks roaring over the artillery trenches, and then, finally, a somber shot of tanks, artillery and human bodies burning in silence. Nice morning fare.

Last year my company made a seizure of 400,000 fake garments. Today, I was tasked with checking out that the goods were still parked safely in their boxes at their AIC warehouse (Administration of Industry and Commerce). Seized goods have a funny way of ending up back on the open market. After half-assedly ripping or crossing out labels (though leaving identifying embossed buttons and stitching) the stolen IP (intellectual property) can be “legitimately” sold in auction and ends up at various outlet stores, such as Shanghai’s popular HotWind. Today’s trip meant driving into the sticks of Pudong. It’s amazing to me how quickly the gleaming modern facade falls away to trashy neighborhoods with ugly, bare concrete low-rises, half-finished (abandoned?) building projects and piles of rubble. It’s a pretty morose sight and I thought to myself, “this country has a long way to go.”

On the way back, as we travelled down an immaculate length of road, I realized I know of no other city with an equal length of elevated hi-way running not only directly through the urban center but for miles and miles into the suburbs. Truly an incredible feat of man and machinery. And I thought to myself, “my god, what kind of harnessed energy must it have take to accomplish this?”

Shortly after our car dropped down to street level again, a firetruck pulled in behind us and flicked on its sirens. For 10 minutes our driver jockeyed for position with other cars, as one normally does around here in a casually dangerous kind of way, while the sirens continued to blare immediately to our rear. No-one pulled over or made way, and presumably, somewhere, a fire raged. And I thought to myself “wonderful, communism has created a population of uncaring and selfish union members.”