Bob Schmitz's Reviews > Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road

When I saw the authors name on the library shelf, I had to read it.

Schmitz has written interesting story (I’ve always wanted to say something like that) describing changes in China over the last 50-60 years through lives of a number of people who lived on his street in Shanghai when he was a reporter there.

Miscellaneous:

The Chinese believe the spleen is the site of willpower and temperament.

There are more than 3000 tiny parts in accordion.

Earlier in his career when the author lived in the small Chinese village there were signs on the outskirts of the village saying “girls are people too” a warning against the practice of infanticide commonly practiced the rural areas

For a couple of years prior to the 2008 Olympics the Chinese government distributed millions of brochures regarding etiquette trying to educate the huge influx of rural people into the cities and stop habits such as walking around outside in your pajamas, spitting on sidewalks, letting your children pee on the street etc. Schmitz points out that similar efforts a teaching etiquette were made in the US around the turn of the last century with the great influx of rural people and immigrants into US cities.

China has a policy of encouraging people to move from the countryside to the cities. However, they also have a policy that a child could get an education past grammar school only in the town of his original residence. One of the people in the book an elderly mother left her husband to move to Shanghai with her very bright son but after grammar school he had to go back to the village to continue his schooling. There he found that he was several years behind the other students because in the countryside the ticket to get out is an education and they had been studying relentlessly for years unlike students in the city. This bright boy dropped out of school and ended up with the menial job, no skills and no wife.

This seems like a horrible policy and is greatly resented by the rural Chinese. However, it has also has had the effect of keeping the cities crime free as there are no slums in Chinese cities as there are other developing countries’ large cities. It also encourages bright kids to stay in their rural regions where they build businesses and grow wealth and has helped those rural areas progress.

All land in China is owned by the government from whom people can lease. (Some individuals can buy 70-year leases on their home.) Schmitz describes an area near his home where individual residents resisted the cities attempt at buying their property and selling it to developers. Land seizures by local governments to sell the land to developers is the major way that they fund themselves. There are no property taxes and 70% of the tax revenue collected goes to the central government. The story ends with hired thugs setting fire to one man’s house and bulldozing. This is clearly against Chinese law but it is not enforced. Seizing land and selling it to developers it’s one of the main ways that cities obtain revenue. One of the authors Chinese friends posits when China learns to protect personal property it will then enter the modern age. At present wealthy Chinese send lots of their money overseas.

Shanghai is Chinese for “on the sea”.

All of China is one time zone. Beijing time. Shanghai alone accounts for half of China’s industrial output employing half the countries factory workers.

Bride prices are still offered in China and vary by locale. In Shanghai it’s typically $16,000 and owning a home where as in Mongolia the price is $1500 and nine head of livestock and three pieces of gold jewelry.

Millennials in China are under tremendous pressure. Often, they are the sole source of income for unskilled parents and their own children. Chinese millennials outnumber the entire population of the United States.

In China the basic economic unit is the clan whether the family or the party. Individual Chinese often don’t feel in control of their own destinies and don’t believe their future is going to be safe.

As of the writing of the book China had paved 32,000 miles of highways in the previous eight years.

Public library so rare in China. There are just 3000 and they are in the country‘s largest cities.

The 158 million Chinese born in the 10 years after the 1949 revolution are labeled "the lost generation." They didn’t have much of a childhood, a family, or an education and have no skills to succeed in the new China. Their prime working years were spent in the countryside where many of them starved

The Chinese are not squeamish about bodily discharges. Gory images of mangled bodies in traffic accidents are common place on local television.

It is common for Chinese men to juggle a wife and mistress.

Instead of cheese is saying cheese prio