Why Ningbo?
Many friends of mine perhaps wondering why of all cities in China, I picked Ningbo as a destination twice in a roll, why?
There are two reasons I want to lay out for those “wonderers”.
I had a lower back pain stemming probably from years of bad postures, I carried tool bag on the job. My friend and old classmate, who is fluent in four Chinese dialects, Mandarin, Shanghais, Ningboese, and Cantonese, he resides and works in Ningbo, and his own back pain was cured by a retired air force medical doctor. I witnessed his pain one year when he was doing R & R in Vancouver, he could hardly move about because the chronic pain that suddenly flared up one week before he was due back to work in China. Doctor Tung cured him, and he showed no time of any back pain, or even a hint of discomfort, yes, a bit of stiffness now and again, it affects nearly 65% of all North America adults.
Anyways, soon after I retired, I wanted to seek this doctor out and had him take a look at my condition. My lower back pain.
Doctor Tung did not disappoint me, I arrived Ningbo in mid October of 2011, received treatment about five times, both in acupuncture and needles that contained muscles relaxant, and both were not for the faint of heart.
The acupuncture silver needles were long and sharp; he unenhanced the effectiveness by heating the free end with a separate heat source. The needle he administered with medication was huge and when the liquid reached you in the area, it felt cool and pain, yes, a bit of pain!
After five or six treatments, I do not, to this day, experience any acute lower back pain, any sciatic pain, minor stiffness, yes, but I will testify that, my back condition is gone!
Plus, I wanted really to bone up on my Mandarin, and experience a bit of the food and culture. 2011, I stayed in China almost three months, I did some travelling though, around the The Three Gouges Cruise, Shanghai City trip, and some local day trip in Ningbo area.
Came 2013, my classmates in HK organized a four day holiday in a Malaysian resort call Sabah Shangri-la Spa and Resort. I signed up for it, and since Stephen also signed up for it, he invited me to visit Ningbo just for old time sake. Why not! Too bad I didn’t get to see Doctor Tung this time, because he was out of town.
So, second time in Ningbo, what happened? You ask.
Ningbo had a bad flood, the second week we got back; we had big rain falling on us for three days solid!
A second hurricane hit China in one month, it landed in a city called Wenzhou, it located about five hours drive by highway south of Ningbo.
Ningbo had precipitation of close to 300 cm in three days straight; all the low lying areas around town, neighboring counties were all flooded, sadly, household even in the big cities, let alone country side. Do no carry insurances.
The flood water ruined household furniture and items, causing havocs with people’s lives, financial losses, and risks of contacting water borne diseases.
A hardware store owner told of his own personal experience in how he fought the flood in his back room storage area.
His hardware store faced a raised sidewalk with a foot of so elevation from the road, so all the business on his street thought they would be spared from the flooding.
Unfortunately ten or so business are part of an apartment building that butt against an ever so slightly incline landscape, during the three hard day of raining, rain water gushed through the back walls of these establishments. I saw people lining up their merchandises to dry out a week after the flood water began to subside. The city called on the province, the province mobilizes the army, just like in here in Canada, and you see soldiers helping residents escaping from their flood ravaging homes. It was a heart warming feeling. Goodness from people’s hearts often came from disastrous time; I saw from the TV screen that people donated their time to set up reception centers for those who lost their home to the flooding, gave out warm meals, water, blankets, and toiletry items. It was wonderful, but it took a natural disaster.
People took disasters on this land with a stride, yes; there were occasional tears when people just overwhelmed by the magnitude of the flooding, by and large, the majority of people are stoic and resolute.
A funny news media hot item was flashing on people’s cell phone during that week of the flood. It went like this:
A taxi driver stopped just a few meters short of a flooded underpass, eye balling at the lowest roadway segment of the underpass; it was all filled with flood water. His taxi safely parked on the road, and he was not anxious to go any further any time soon. Soon a guy with a “Land Rover” drove by going towards the underpass, seeing that the taxi stopped, the owner/driver jumped down, casually asked the taxi guy, how deep did he think the water was? “Oh, about knee deep!” Taxi guy said.
“No problem!” Land Rover guy said proudly. And drove towards the underpass.
Not only didn’t he make it to the other side, his much treasured import 4 wheel drive died right on the spot at the lowest point. He had to escaped the trapped vehicle by pushing out the door, swam towards the dry segment of the road, he had the audacity to ask the taxi guy after he reached safety, “Why didn’t you tell me it was so deep!” Taxi guy said,” I said it is knee deep over there.” Pointing at a meter away, this was indeed about knee deep! Moral of the story? Either Land Rover China Corp has super sales people, or these newly minted citizens figured that with money, it comes with indestructible machines!
I saw a Bentley cruising along a major highway, plenty of high end imports like Porches, AMC, Hummers, BMWs, taking their children to private school in the morning.
China is a land of opportunity indeed for those with the right education, work experience, and right connection, but it is moving at a break neck speed, it is going to take a lot of fine tuning, and adjustment for those up and coming citizens!
(To be continued)