China'd

One of the other couples on our Sydney tour was a young couple from Wuhan ("where the virus came from!"  - their words and way of introducing themselves) on their honeymoon. The new wife had studied in Russia, in Russian, and was also 9/10 fluent in English, as well as "Shanghaiese" (their term). Very impressive.

(Short discussion about where the virus came from - many Chinese people think America created it, but these guys thought it came out of a wet market. Last I read in The Economist, there was good evidence that it DID come from a lab in Wuhan - but no evidence that it was intentionally released).

TBH I was a bit intimidated by them at first but they were very pleasant and I regret not having made more of an effort to milk them for information about what it's like to be a 100% Chinese resident.

He had also spent 6 years in USA studying and mentioned that when he returned to China, the biggest shock was that cash had virtually disappeared - everything is AliPay, or similar, now. Nobody uses credit cards, it is all-phones, all the time.

For me, the cash part is true - I almost never have or use cash. But I probably whip my credit card out half a dozen times a day, even back at home.

--

There was also an older couple from Lake Simcoe, and a woman on her own from Hawaii. I was slightly embarrassed when the Canadian guy loudly proclaimed that Americans know nothing about other countries - which I suspect is broadly true, but probably not in her specific case, and in any case, I mean, she could have had a gun!

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