The AA 0288 flight from PVG to ORD yesterday was very much full. The airline offered $600 coupon if someone is willing to give up his/her seat, because the plane is overbooked. As usual I saw more American than Chinese, besides business people and college students, we saw a little girl played ballet in Shanghai, and got back. She (seemed) likes Shanghai.
Couple things I thought it’s interesting:
1) 10 years ago when I first came to the US from Shanghai Hongqiao airport (SHA), at that time there is no Pudong airport (PVG), I noticed St. Louis Lambert airport (STL) is much bigger than SHA. But compare STL with PVG, obviously PVG is much bigger and it’s still expanding.
I believe PVG will join the status of NRT (Tokyo) or Hongkong (HKG) some day, as a important hub for commercial flights.
2) In the train inside Chicago Ohare (ORD), an American passgener, who is in his 50s and flew the same AA flight from Shanghai, said something “it’s good to be back home…at least it’s cleaner”. Well, I was going to say, Shanghai (or China) is not as clean as the developed countries, but there is at least one pollution factor is from the west: moving of the manufacturing from the west to China.
From airplane components, apparel, shoes, tires to toys, China is making so many things for the west. Although Chinese comsume some themselves, most are for export.
On the other hand, I saw Coca Cola, KFC, McDonald, and Pizza Hut,…are making tons of money in China. Why the Chinese don’t say American companies are exporting unhealthy food to Chinese kids 🙂