Subject: Re: Updated China blog 3

My  world walk segment towards Jining City was enjoyable. As always I continued to meet people. Even when I stopped in restaurants and didn't engage some people for no apparent reason took my photo, which of course broke the ice. I also seem to have settled into a pattern of sleeping in restaurants and petrol stations. That way I meet more local people, I guess I am a social animal, I need interaction with people. Many of my friends who read this blog have told me they do their chatting during the day and when the sun goes down they prefer to be on their own. I am the opposite.
After approaching an establishment I show the people my saved messages on Google
Translate. My last message is that I have a sleeping bag and can I sleep there. Sometimes, depending on the setup I say that I have a tent and can I pitch it around the back. Many people are unfamiliar with camping, or don't understand me fully, so I also show a picture of my tent. Because I show them these messages in Chinese many people assume I can read Chinese messages and write back to me in Chinese. It also seems to be a waste of time showing people my business card as they just don't understand it and they always return it to me. One night after eating in a restaurant I offered the proprietor 50 Yuans (about 7 Euro) to sleep on the floor beside a stove. He returned 30 to me. In the morning after breakfast I slipped away quietly as he and his wife were having a loud argument.
As I walked further south in the Chinese Inner Mongolian province vegetation became more abundant and I even spotted some trees.
I was having problems identifying restaurants as they don't display food pictures outside. Everything is in Chinese. The doors are firmly closed to keep the warmth in and most windows were so dirty or made of dark glass that I was unable to see inside. One day while looking for a restaurant I opened doors of offices, a pharmacy, shops and even an indoor garage which had a car up on a ramp!
I walked past small walled communities which had stone built houses. Almost always they were all the same design. They could have been military accomodation for all I knew as they all looked the same to me.
When I manage to find a restaurant, many don't charge me or sometimes they give me a reduction. I find this embarrassing. So much so, that I had someone prepare a note in Chinese stating that I want to pay, and that I have money. When I show this they usually plead with me to accept their offer. I can see from their facial features that they really want to offer their help, so I try not to burst their bubble. It might be less embarrassing to just eat at the side of the road but in China, also Russia and Mongolia it's cheaper to eat in a restaurant than to cook ones food. Besides its too cold at the side of the road and too time-consuming. I also need my social fix and sometimes a place to charge up my electronics.
Arriving in Jining I found a hotel but was not allowed to stay as apparently I needed to be locally registered. Surely this is not going to be an ongoing problem for the rest of China?
The lady was apologetic and then called the police to assist me. I didn't realise she called them until they arrived as I was distressing on a cup coffee. One of the officers who spoke some English suggested an expensive tourist hotel which I had already checked out. At 80 euro a night it was not a possibility. The officer made some phone calls and the plush Jining Inn was available for almost twenty euro; so I decided to leave Karma where she was and return for her in the morning to continue my walk south. At the hotel the officers managed to negotiate my room for the equivalent of about 14 euro and the best part was that a buffet breakfast was thrown in by the kind manager.
Next day I was shattered. Mostly  due to my 3:30am stint at the My World Walk office. It was very late in the day when I made it out of the suburbs. I was pleasantly surprised to see the local city council workers in communist China putting up Christmas decorations decorations. That night I settled for another petrol station floor, 20 kilometres were walked. This station had a mini museum with many primitive tools and other exhibits on show in a glass case. Oh! To be able to ask questions.
Then I woke up to snow on the road. I walked past many more walled villages with pretty Chinese script. The villages were becoming closer by now, perhaps every five to ten kilometres. You can guess where I slept that night and I was glad of their radiator. A great days work, 43 clicks and I passed my 10,000th  kilometre of the walk
Next day the sun came out with a bang and melted the snow. Walking in slush is never nice, sloppy and cold. I don't know why I didn't put on my waterproof insulated shoes, sometimes I do stupid things. Instead I wore a worn out pair with a patched hole in the sole. I hope I can find a new pair soon. That was another pretty area to walk in, hilly but not too taxing.
Eventually I arrived in Datong which I have already written about in my two previous posts which were written out of sequence.

What sticks out like a sore thumb to me is the the lack of young children in China, at least in this part. As readers know this is because of the OCP: One Child Policy, which has now been scrapped. I am preparing a major post on this in the next couple of weeks; I just want to get a few more of my questions answered. I have often gone a days walking without seeing a single child and rarely see them in family restaurants. I am saddened by this when one compares the hordes of children in almost every village in India and to a lesser extent much of Latin America.
Another blog I am working on is an examination of what China is doing to feed its massive population. Does the word 'massive' describe this accurately? I think not! Why would the government encourage people to move from the rural areas to the cities, as they have been actively doing since 2013. By doing this they are loosing much needed farmers, besides most Chinese land is not arable for farming. It's impressive what the Chinese are doing! Please stay tuned.