David's Big Adventure in China

The big news for this post if you haven’t already heard is that I recently became engaged. I proposed to Bonnie on August 28 on the top floor of the tallest building in Nanning (59th floor) with a view of the whole city (see pic). It was her birthday and we had gone to dinner at her favorite Japanese restaurant. After she said yes, we had some pictures taken then we headed back home where I suddenly became very ill. Apparently I got some bad sushi and I was spewing the contents of my digestive system from both ends. 24 hours later I was almost back to normal. We haven’t made any detailed plans as of yet but I’ll let you know when we do.

Bonnie and I took her mother with us and went to Hong Kong September 1 to 4 for fun and ring shopping. After Bonnie accepted my proposal, I told her I didn’t have a ring for her yet but that we could shop for that in HK. Being the pragmatic person I am, I gave her a budget for the ring which she happily accepted. Our first day in Hong Kong we stopped in a jewelry shop and started looking at rings. She was only looking at very inexpensive rings and I didn’t understand why. Finally I asked her if she was confused about the budget. I told her again her budget amount and she said she had misunderstood and thought the amount was only 10% of the real budget. We then quickly moved to front of the store from the back corner to look at the nicer rings. She was so happy when I told her the real amount and I couldn’t stop laughing. I was also very happy that even though she thought the amount was so small she never complained or acted disappointed.

Last time I said I would talk more about the power situation. Here is part of an article from China Daily 8-24-2011 (the English newspaper here)
“GUIYANG – A dry spell plaguing Southwest China that has pushed up electricity demand and crippled hydro-power output is exacerbating the power crunch in the region, officials said Wednesday.
In Guizhou province, power supply is about 120 million kilowatt-hours short of demand on an average day, statistics from the provincial power grid company show. The shortage is caused mainly by the chronical strain in the coal supply and declining hydropower output, officials said.
The drought has dried up the reservoirs which Guizhou’s major hydroelectric stations are located, reducing the province’s daily hydro power output by 28.5 percent compared to the same period last year, said Zhang Quanyi, an official with the economic and information committee of Guizhou.
Zhang said the hydro-power reserve was only 530 million kilowatt-hours, about one-tenth of what it was at the same time last year.
The neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is also squeezed by the power crunch, which has forced 1,000 factories and companies in the region to suspend operations, local officials said.
The output of three major hydro-electric stations on Guangxi’s Hongshui River was down 50 percent from a year earlier and experts suspect the stations will run on low water levels for long time.
Enduring heat and a lack of rain over the past few weeks have left parts of south China drought stricken. In Guangxi, about 150,000 residents did not have adequate access to drinking water. The drought also wiped out harvest on 10,000 hectares of farmland in the region.
Demand for electricity has soared with rising temperatures. According to the China Southern Power Grid, power demand in five southern provinces grew by 11.5 percent year-on-year in August, worsening the power crunch originally caused by the strain in coal supply.
Guizhou is southern China’s major coal-producing base with an annual output of 150 million tons of coal, but managers of the province’s coal-fired power stations say they have little incentive to generate electricity as the government-imposed cap on electricity prices make the business unprofitable.”

What’s interesting here is that the power company is mostly owned by the government which also sets the electricity prices. So it seems they’ve created a situation that is certain to result in significant power outages. We’ve been lucky here in Nanning in that they seem to keep the power mostly on in the bigger cities. That’s all for now.