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Photos: China’s History of Bicycles 4

Photos: China's History of Bicycles
Beijing’s Changan Street in 1986 – Photo courtesy of Beijing Shots  During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the bicycle was the most popular product in China. Bicycles were often given as wedding gifts, and in 1986, US President George HW Bush received two bicycles as a gift from Beijing. The country was known as “bicycle kingdom” ...

Shanghai License Plate Costs Same As Brand New Fully-Loaded Sedan 2

Shanghai License Plate Costs Same As Brand New Fully-Loaded Sedan
Shanghai traffic congestion – Photo courtesy of Bert van Dijk In Canada, as in the United States, registering a license plate for a new car takes mere minutes, and assuming you have a valid driver’s license and insurance, anyone can do it for a nominal fee of about $100. In China, registering a license plate ...

Beijing Woman Dies Because Ambulance Stuck in Traffic 1

Beijing Woman Dies Because Ambulance Stuck in Traffic
Beijing Traffic – Photo by Safia Osman Unlike in North America, when the siren from an ambulance is wailing, drivers in China do not move over to let the ambulance past. Ambulances literally sit in traffic with everybody else – with their sirens on and lights flashing. I had witnessed this countless times while living ...

Traffic Congestion & Optimal Efficiency 17

Traffic Congestion & Optimal Efficiency
Beijing traffic – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country Beijing’s traffic congestion nightmare is perhaps best attributed to the much hailed Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s “socialist market economy” – which opened China up to foreign investment and brought significant wealth to the people of China over the past 30 years. Xiaoping ...