Cuba, Commerce

I have put off writing about commerce in Cuba for months. It wasn't because I did not have anything to say on the subject, rather because there was so much I could comment on. I could write for pages and still leave important elements out. There was also something I found disturbing about economic life in Cuba. I thought some distance from the subject might help put things in perspective. I am not sure it did.

I did not particularly enjoy being in Cuba and that was something of a puzzle to me. The weather was great - for the most part, especially when you consider I was there in February.  So, the weather was great, the scenery was good. Every day I would walk downtown along the Malecon and watch the waves crash onto the seawall with old Havana as a backdrop. The architecture, both in Havana and on my tour, was striking and charming. Diversions – food, music, Mojitos and beer were plentiful and cheap. So what was wrong?

Banner says it all: Work Hard!   A CUC Store

What bothered me was the pervasive feeling of economic hardship that surrounded me - but even worse, that I saw but did not experience directly. The overwhelming majority of Cubans are very poor. Poverty is their life. You see it in the food stores that you pass. There are spaces intended for commerce that are empty or nearly so.  Not because there is no demand but because there is no supply. I passed vegetable markets that had only four or five products on offer in a half empty store. Unlike here in California, where our winter fruit hails from Chile - in Cuba, if it is not local it is not available. Cuba's currency is not convertible and imported goods are not accessible to the average person.

Another  CUC  Store

They were accessible to me, however. I could have anything I wanted.  Anything, because I had CUCs.  CUCs are Cuba's tourist currency. Wherever you come from – Canada, Europe, the United States, Russia - tourists exchange their funds not into the currency used by Cubans, rather a separate currency that has its own economy, its own stores, restaurants, bars and services. In that economy, there are no shortages.  Everything is available.

The Ration Book

At my hotel, breakfast was included in the rate. By our standards, the food would be at best passable, but it was a buffet and hence it was plentiful. There was a chef manning an omelet station. Three egg, ham and cheese omelet? No problem. For Cubans, food is rationed. I was told the monthly allowance of eggs was six. Milk? After age 7 generally not available. Want more cheese in that omelet? Don't worry about what the people making it and serving it will eat.

But it is hard not to. Especially when you're confronted by the disparity and need at every turn. As you know, I wander a lot - not looking for anything, just to see what there is to see. That put me in neighborhoods tourists don't often visit. And clearly I did not look like a local. That made me a target, not of crime (though prostitution is a crime) but for commerce, or for charity.

Long lines & empty hangers

Because I wanted to learn about Cuba, I would talk (as best I could -my limited Spanish, their limited English). I heard lots of stories of hardship - some of them probably even true. Just a couple of CUCs would make a big difference to them and for me it was just the price of a beer. The CUCs open doors for them. With CUCs they can go into the stores that have everything. With CUCs they can get what they need.

But how do you get a CUC? You could rob a tourist - but I never felt at any risk in that respect - even wandering home at night down some very dark and empty streets. Tourists are the goose that lays the golden egg. Crimes against tourists would kill the industry.  The ubiquitous neighborhood CDR's (Committee for Defense of the Revolution) will not let that happen. So you have to coax the CUCs away from the tourists. Sob stories work. Mild scams (Come have a drink with us!) work. Graymarket sales (cigars, cab rides) work. But most reliable is a profession where tourists tip. Wait staff, maids, bell hops, musicians - these all see a steady stream of CUCs. You could be a doctor and earn $80 (US) a month or you could carry bags and perhaps do that in a week. What's a smart, young Cuban going to do?

Got CUCs?

I discussed this with Odalys, my tour guide. She has a daughter at university studying economics who wants to chuck it and become a tour guide, like mom. What should she do? I'm guessing tour guides do very well. Tipping is common practice and I tipped her as if I was tipping a US guide. If the other six passengers on our tour did the same, Odalys made more in tips in five days than her daughter will in a month.

It seems unsustainable. It is terribly artificial. It is creating haves and have-nots and not based on the value of contributions to Cuban society - rather on amusing tourists. It must be contributing to a pressure for change, and the government toys with modest reform. Will it be enough to head off dramatic change? Change is coming. What kind? Only time will tell.

Cuba, Daily periodical review: ‘Granma’

Does Cuba have newspapers? Of course it does. Everybody has newspapers. That's probably true, but my experience with newspapers in Cuba was very different from what I experienced anywhere else on my trip. Cuba may a have a newspaper but very few people pay any attention to it.

The first thing you notice is the absence of news stands of the sort you see pretty much everywhere else. That's not to say that periodicals (mostly magazines) do not exist, only that you generally will not find them on street corners at kiosks with vendors hawking their wares. I'm not sure if that is a result of the absence of convenience items (gum, sodas, candies) which add to the profitability of selling newspapers - or if it's mainly a result of the simple difficulty of selling newspapers in the first place.

Granma is Cuba's primary news organ. It is named after the yacht that brought Fidel and his compatriots to Cuba in 1956, the event that sparked the Revolution. Granma is, of course, published in Spanish and sold on the streets for pesos (not CUCs) - centavos actually - .25 (about one cent). They are not very expensive, but I saw very few people selling them, reading them, carrying them or even throwing them away. While I was in Cuba, Egypt was in the midst of its upheaval and I wanted to see how it was being covered. I looked for a Spanish Granma. (An aside: the English Granma was sold for .50 CUC by hawkers who hung out in tourist zones - same stories, 50 times the cost)  Even though I had no pesos, I figured out they would take .10 CUC, gladly.

Granma did cover the story - "People rise up to jettison US toady."  About what you'd expect from a communist propaganda organ - though I did think the underlying message: "masses protest, government flees," may not be the message they want Cubans to get. Since being home and reading it online regularly you can see why no one buys it. There's no news in it. The stories are just the thoughts the government wants you to have. Even a big story has no news to it. Recently, with much fanfare, the government announced the economic reforms that were the product of months of deliberation.  And the details? I had to go to the New York Times for that. All Granma said was: "they were the great products of a wonderful democratic process." Great. Not worth .50 CUC.

Cuba, Novel: Havana Black by Leonardo Padura

Havana Black was exactly what I was looking for. You do a Google search for Cuban authors and you will, of course, be introduced to a long list of authors, with some pretty impressive reviews.  Many of them don't live in Cuba any longer, however. There are a lot of reasons for this, no doubt. If you sell a lot of books, you make a lot of money and that gives you the wherewithal to pick up and leave the island. And leaving frees you from a whole bunch of hassles both large and small.  Life is no doubt easier abroad. You can live comfortably, buy the things you like and perhaps most important for an author, you can write whatever you like. I'm guessing that is why so many of the authors I considered for this element, I ended up rejecting. They did not meet my most important criteria: they needed to still be living in Cuba.

I wanted to read about Cuba from the perspective of someone who experienced it directly - as opposed to remembering it. I wanted to read the work of someone who would have to be accountable to Cuban authorities for what he wrote.  Someone who did not enjoy the total freedom of expression that comes with exile.  But they had to be big. Big enough to be confident that they could write and still be heard - even if the regime did not like what they had to say.

I thought Leonardo Padura fit that bill. He is described as one of Cuba's best-known authors and Havana Black was the fourth in a series of detective novels revolving around his character, Mario Conde. I chose it because it afforded an opportunity to glimpse life during what Cubans call the ‘Special Period' - the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Cuba's loss of billions in aid. Havana Black was written during this period and paints a picture of Cuban’s struggles.

The story itself is your typical crime drama ‘whodunit’. Well-written and engaging enough, but perfect for me . The reality of Cuban life came through.  Through Detective Conde I felt I was experiencing things that I had seen while in Cuba but as an outsider could never really appreciate. Havana Black gave me a better understanding of how a Cuban perceived that reality.

History, Cuba: a New History by Richard Gott

In looking for a history to use for Cuba, my first impulse was to look for a biography of Fidel. I loved the books I read on Lenin and Ataturk and thought surely Fidel was every bit as central to modern Cuba as those two were to Russia and Turkey respectively. But I think historians (and hence history) benefit from distance. Both Lenin and Ataturk are controversial figures even today, but time has cooled some of the passion and that makes finding a balanced biography a bit easier.

The passion around Fidel remains white hot. I expect 20 years from now, with access to archives and time to reflect, a good biography will emerge - but I don't think that has happened yet. So I thought perhaps I should broaden the subject and seek not just the story of the Revolution but something that puts that event into a context. Even there one finds problems. Cuba’s history is tumultuous and often tragic. Even its present puts it in the middle of epic East-West and North-South struggles. Many authors seem to succumb to the temptation to tell Cuba’s story through the narrative of their own perspective. At least that is the sense you get from people who have left their reviews of books online. Many books were simultaneously praised and condemned for the conclusions they reached. For me it was a bad sign. I was looking for balance.

In Gott’s book I think I found it. Gott is a British journalist turned historian. A 1960s leftist he first visits Cuba in 1963 attracted by the romance of the Revolution. By the time he writes the book some 40 years later, that first blush has worn off. It seems to me he presents the revolution and current system in a not unrealistic yet not unsympathetic light. He puts Cuba today into its larger context beginning the story before Columbus and benefiting from the detachment gained by not being either Cuban or American. He does not have a dog in the fight and can call it as he sees it. At the end I think he accomplished what I always hope to get from history - a better understanding of why the present is the way it is.

Cuba, Films: Barrio Cuba and Viva Cuba

The idea behind adding cinema to the project was to broaden the access to culture through exposure to multiple forms of its expression. When I made that decision, which then became a commitment by being enshrined in my sabbatical contract, I had no idea how difficult it would be to realize in practice.

Foreign films may seem like they are readily available - until you go looking for a specific film. Then, it is much harder to find exactly the one you are looking for. You are reduced to the small subset of films “someone” has decided the world should see. They are not always the films I wanted to see. That was the case with Cuba. You go to Google and there are lots of choices. But you can't find them and you are reduced to what Netflix offers. With Cuba, that is not much.

I watched Barrio Cuba and Viva Cuba. My guess is you have to put Cuba into the title to help with the marketing. Either of the films could have had different titles. Nonetheless both had some interesting things to say about life in Cuba.

Viva Cuba was more light-hearted. It was the story of a girl who's divorced mother was preparing to leave Cuba and take her daughter, Malu, with her. Malu is desperate to stay in Cuba and so she runs away with the help of her chum, Jorgito. They set off in search of her long-lost father, hoping he can prevent her departure.

Viva Cuba dealt honestly with issues of race and class separating Cubans. It did not sugarcoat the economic deprivation Cubans experience which makes them think of leaving. In general it was upbeat and had a ‘happy-ending’ facilitated by a character that seemed (to me) a lot like Ché (complete with motorcycle).

Except for the happy-ending Barrio Cuba was relentlessly downbeat.  It is the story of three families struggling to make it in Havana. And it is a struggle. Meager food supplies, substandard housing, alcoholism and hustling all feature prominently in a story where things just slide from difficult to worse. It is not the kind of film you would expect from a Leninist society’s film program. The panacea of exile features prominently and is presented as just that, a panacea.

Both films provide a sense of how Cubans see their lives - one that seemed a reasonable conclusion given what I saw while there. The only surprise to me was that distribution of this vision receives the tacit approval of the regime. Mild, indirect criticism as a relief valve?

Cuba, Academic: Kesselman (Marifela Perez-Stable)

Cuban fabric store - not much to sell

The chapter on Cuba is an online supplement to the paper published edition of Kesselman (et al) Introduction to Comparative Politics. In that paper edition, Kesselman includes all the usual suspects for a comparative politics text. The European Giants, Japan, China, Mexico they are all there. The fourth part of the text, ‘Non-Democracies’ is notably thin. It included only Iran and China and hence omits the surviving examples of Marxism-Leninism - arguably the most important ideology of the 20th Century.

Now, it is true that there are precious few of those ‘dinosaurs’ left. In fact, I think you could make the case that Cuba is the only surviving example. A factor that I think elevates Cuba's importance in the study of comparative politics. “What about China?” you might ask. Well, I don't think it fits the category anymore. The economic system is simply is no longer communist. China is a post Marxist-Leninist society.

China

This is a point that the author, Marifela Perez-Stable, makes repeatedly in her analysis of Cuba. About 30 years ago, with the collapse of communism in Europe, the surviving regimes were at a crossroads. China embarked on a relatively radical program of economic reform which has completely transformed the country. Cuba, or perhaps more accurately the Castro's, stubbornly avoided those changes - determined to keep capitalism at bay and make Socialism work.

Castro is convinced that his is the right path. On a 2003 visit to China, Fidel expressed his dismay: “I am not sure what kind of China I am visiting.” China today is a place very different from what is found in Cuba. Is it a model for a post Castro regime? That is the big question in Cuban studies: what comes next? This chapter does a good job of preparing students to do what everyone else is doing. Make a wild guess…

Cuba, Second site: Mausoleum of Ché

Lenin, Napoleon, Ataturk, Mao, Jefferson - I've seen the final resting place of a bunch of important historic figures.  The treatment of the body always seems to be a function of the utility of the person to the government of the day. That said, it should not surprise anyone that Ché’s final resting place would be a big deal in Cuba.

Ché is a big deal in Cuba. He is the embodiment of the revolution, its history, its ideals, its future (or so they hope). The image of Ché is ubiquitous, rivaled only by the figure of José Marti and of the two, it appears that Ché is by far the more useful. Marti is a quiet presence, meant to connect the revolution to its past. Ché is an activist, even in death, exhorting Cuba and down trodden people everywhere to engage in endless struggle against… - whatever we are struggling against today.

Your Ché Store

Ché really is the perfect revolutionary icon. He is extraordinarily charismatic - a quality that literally jumps off the page at you, not only in that extraordinary and literally world-famous Korda photo but in countless others seen in all corners of Cuban society. Ché makes the guerilla look cool. But he had more than image - he had rhetoric also “Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”  (until victory always) an inspirational catchphrase backed up with speeches and books. And he walked the walk.  As Minister of Industry, he rolled up his sleeves to do manual labor, he left the comfort and safety of government to lead insurrections in Africa and ultimately, where he died with his boots on, in Bolivia.

And that last bit is no doubt the cherry on top for Cuba's current regime. He's a martyr and martyrs do not criticize current policies. You can say “it's what Ché would want” without fear of contradiction. He's perfect.

And so of course his mausoleum is a big deal. It is in Santa Clara a provincial capital strategically located at Cuba's center. Why there? As the guidebook put it, “in a place where Ché was not born and neither lived nor died”? Santa Clara was the site of a pivotal battle in Cuba’s 1958 revolution. There, forces commanded by Ché defeated Batista's regular Army, captured important weapons and the town, which controlled a transportation hub that links North and South, East and West. After Santa Clara, the handwriting was on the wall and Batista's government collapsed quickly.

Part of the train they derailed...

Santa Clara is, then, a monument to the revolution and its military victory. It's central square contains artifacts of the battle and the Mausoleum not far away represents an important ceremonial space for annual remembrances of that victory. The mausoleum itself is remarkable and somewhat understated compared to Napoleon. It houses not just Ché but many other revolutionary martyrs and was actually built before Ché’s remains were found and were returned to Cuba. Next door is a museum dedicated to Ché’s life and work. Full of artifacts and pictures. In toto, Santa Clara has become a tourist attraction and essential part of the tour packages that divert sunseekers interested in more than just a beach. It pairs well with the commercialization of Ché’s image on T-shirts, bags - even refrigerator magnets. Somehow I doubt Ché would approve. 


Wit? Clue.  This statue was a big deal.  Big when it went in, big when it disappeared.  It's still big.

Exploring Cuba

As you know, for an American, even getting to Cuba is kind of a stretch - but it doesn't get a whole lot easier even after you arrive. If you are in Cuba on a license (like I was) you are limited in the things on which you can spend money. You cannot buy anything not related to the purpose of your license.  Still, that is not what makes exploring the islands difficult. No, it is the other financial constraints that get in the way.

Because of the American embargo, US companies are not allowed to do business in Cuba. This means that many financial instruments (credit cards, debit cards, even travelers checks run through US banks) will not work. Even the licensed American traveler needs to have a way to pay for things, not connected to the US system. So how do you do that?

Trinidad

Well, opening a foreign bank account and being issued foreign bankcards is simply not a practical option. That means you need to have cash or foreign bank travelers checks, enough to pay for whatever you will buy. For short and simple trips that might not be such an issue, but for what I had in mind it made me a little nervous. What if you get robbed, or somehow loose your funds?

Of course that could happen anywhere, but in a worst-case, you just have someone wire you some cash. In Cuba, it would have to be from a non-US Bank. I had visions of being stuck alone, in the Cuban countryside with no money and bad Spanish. I decided I had to find a different way to explore the island.

I did something I have never done in my life.  I signed up for a package tour. I had always avoided them because I prefer the freedom that comes from being on your own, but this tour would get me to a bunch of places I just could not figure out how to get to on my own. It was five days in five different aspects of Cuba. It seemed like a good choice.

Hanabanilla

We started out from Havana, where I joined a group that had been together, sightseeing, for a couple days. We headed south across the island to the Caribbean coast and the medium sized provincial capital of Cienfuegos. The routine was pretty constant: drive, lunch, visit, free time, hotel and again the same thing the next day. Our second day took us to Trinidad, an old sugar capital - quaint and well preserved. Day three we visited the nature reserve, Hanabanilla, a beautiful spot - all done up for tourists - a boat ride across the lake from a tourist hotel. Idyllic, but it felt very artificial. Day 4 was el dia del Ché. We visited Santa Clara, home of his mausoleum and scene of his great victory in the battle against Batista. And then finally they deposited us in that most alien of Cuban destinations Varadero. Varadero is to Cuba as Las Vegas is to America. It exists in the country, but if you think that is what the country is like, you're badly mistaken.

Varadero

At the end of the tour, I had seen a lot and learned a lot about Cuba outside Havana. Like all the countries I have visited, there are big differences between the city and the countryside. I also saw a lot of places where I wish I could've stopped the bus, gotten out and done some real exploring. I would've loved to have rented a car and been on my own. Alas. Given the trade-offs, I think my tour was the best I could manage – even if not as much as I wanted.

Cuba, first site: Trinidad

The goal of taking my tour of Cuba was to get outside of Havana (an urban Center, which one of five Cubans calls home) and see what life is like in the rest of the country. I am glad I did. Outside Havana, even in the larger cities, life is quite different for Cubans. It seems quieter, slower and economically less vital even than Havana - a place where frankly there was not all that much going on.

One of our stops, Trinidad, (no not the Island, rather the small south coast town) seemed to be pretty typical of life in provincial Cuba. The dominant economic activity is agriculture and much of the work you see being done relates to the care and processing of the local products. But agriculture moves in cycles. There are busy times and there are quiet times. February appeared to be a quiet time. Folks did not seem like they had a whole lot to do. Lots of people just hanging out, sitting in the streets, shooting the breeze.

There is a second economic activity in Trinidad, the one that brought us to town. Tourism is big there. In 1988 Trinidad was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The tour books like to say the whole town is a museum and they might be right. Trinidad's glory days came (and went?) a couple centuries ago, when sugar was king and plantation owners used slavery to create great wealth and its trappings.

They built for themselves great palaces around a beautiful central square. Cuba’s economic stagnation has served Trinidad well, leaving it little changed from those glory days and ready for its new role as a ‘must see’ stop for bus tours. During our short stay, I saw bus after bus arrive, disgorge its Russian or German or Canadian tourists who wander through the cobblestone and Car-less streets enjoying the views, but seeing nothing in particular. The town and its ambience is the attraction.

It's not that there's nothing else to do there. There was a nice old church with wooden carved altars brought at great expense from Europe.  And the museum in the building next door, the Brunet Palace, houses an extraordinary collection of colonial finery. A grand building, it was outfitted with even grander furnishings creating a stark contrast between the way the sugar barons lived and the reality of working people - either then or now.

It made me wonder what I was supposed to be thinking. Should I admire the beauty of their things or despise them for the exploitation required to afford those things? I think I know the answer Cuba had in mind - but for me it was a little of both.

Transit to Cuba; Trinidad, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara

Mass transit in Santa Clara

About 60 miles due east of San Francisco is Stockton, California. Having been to both, I think it is safe to say that it is unlikely anyone would ever confuse the two cities. They and the people who live in them are as different as night and day.

Proximity does not mean similarity. Spending the week in Havana did not mean I had experienced Cuba. I knew this, so getting out of the big city was important if I really wanted to get a sense of the place. But how to do it? Public transportation in Cuba is difficult and frankly a lot less comfortable than I was willing to accept. Like those quaint 1950s Chevys, Cuban buses have a few decades on them and nowhere near as much charm.

Cienfuegos

You could rent a car, but imagining the legal and financial hassles that would come with a fender bender was more than enough to deter me. That and the thought of trying to arrange hotels at each stop.  No, I wimped out. Took the easy way - a packaged tour. Destinations all laid out, lodgings reserved and meals arranged. Even better, it could all be paid in advance by wire transfer to a Florida travel agency. “Just don't mention to your bank that it is for Cuba” they told me.  I'm not sure why they give you those instructions or what your bank does if it slips out.

My tour began by changing hotels in Havana to spend the night before being picked up in the morning. It was a step down from four stars to three stars (Cuban) and you could tell the difference.  Not a big deal, just kind of dingy. It didn't really matter - all I was doing was sleeping there. At 8:30 AM the guide would pick me up and off we go.

Trinidad

About 9:15, Odalys finally arrived. When she found me, her first question was whether I spoke Spanish. “Not really,” I said. I could see from her expression that this could be a problem. The tour was supposed to be with an English speaking guide, but she did not really speak English. I tried my alternates: Deutsch? Français? She lit up. “Vous parlez français?”  I do and it was a good thing.  My tour had seven people in it. Four were from France, two from Argentina and me. Our tour was in Spanish and French. It was lucky I understood and kind of fun to do the tour in French but I wondered what we would have done if I hadn't spoken French. I don't think there was another tour to join. I would've been out of luck? It does not seem like a minor detail. To me it spoke to a deficiency that plagues the Cuban tourism industry.  It is not enough to have great beaches and great weather. You have to take care of people when they get there. They let a lot of things fall through the cracks in that department.

Transit to Havana

On February 5^th, I was sleeping in Rome, Italy. On the sixth, Montréal and on the eighth, Havana. When I left Rome, I had an idea of what I wanted to do in Cuba, but I still had not booked any part of the trip. I was having trouble working out the details of what was not a typical Montréal-Havana trip.

Montréal is a great place to begin a trip to Cuba. Winter in Montréal can be long and dreary and Quebecers love to escape. You will see them all over the Caribbean from Miami to St. Kitts, grabbing a week in the sun. As a result, there are lots and lots of flights from Montréal. Cuba is a favorite destination and tour companies sell packages at great prices.

Because of the financial restrictions imposed on US banks, buying a package and paying for it in Canada in advance was perfect for me. But I did not fit the mold and that caused the complications. The mold is leave Friday or Saturday, spend seven days and come back on the same plane that will take the next group down. I was trying to break up their model but still get the price break. If they had empty seats it would work, but they had to check, organize and then confirm.

Monday morning (2/7) it was all sorted out. For a little over $500 I got a round trip ticket, transfer to hotels and five nights in a four star hotel. Okay, a Cuban four star, but still it was a great deal. Especially since I could book the return flight when I wanted.  Tuesday morning, I was out the door.

The flight down had a carnival atmosphere. Champagne served right after take off, your vacation starts when you board the plane!  Arrival in Varadero (a tourist airport an hour outside Havana, but minutes from the beach) was unusual. There was a full-blown security check coming OFF the plane. Belts off, computer out, through the metal detector - the whole 9 yards. Not sure why - I guess they do not trust the airlines to catch all the things they care about. After that there was the immigration. I got sorted out. 

“What are you doing here?” I was an anomaly. Not there for the beach, and an American on a flight full of Canadians - staying too long for vacation. “Who are your friends in Cuba?”  They had trouble believing I had none. “Why are you here?”  “To discover Cuba” that seemed dubious, I guess, but eventually I got my Tourist Card and was sent on to the next official - Customs - who also could not understand what I was doing there. I unpacked my suitcase for her. She consulted someone and finally they let me pass.

Now clear, I looked for my shuttle. I felt bad, I was sharing my ride with five other people who had no doubt sailed through, then stood around waiting half an hour while Cuba figured out what to do with the suspicious American.

Back to the Future?

For years, whenever I have introduced the subject of China to my Comparative Politics students, I have posed the question:  Is Hong Kong the future of China, or is China the future of Hong Kong?  The point is that when compared to the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong has always been very different.  Hong Kong was British territory.  The Queen's government was not going to be mistaken for that of the Communist Party.  Of course it would be different.  Then in 1997, sovereignty was transferred from the UK to the PRC and it began to make sense to wonder.  Now they were both parts of the same country.  Could the massive differences be sustained?

That is still a good question.  We started our visit to China with a stop in Hong Kong to provide a baseline for evaluating that question.  Just how different are Hong Kong and the PRC today?  Judging from my short stay here it does not seem that all that much has changed from the British tenure.  You can still see the Rolls Royces in front of the posh hotels, waiting for a guest to need a lift.  If you wander (and we always wander) you won't go far in the downtown without coming upon someone protesting this or that.  I will be shocked if we see either on the other side of what they still refer to as the border.

In a few hours we will start to see what differences (if any) there are.  I am not sure if I will be able to blog from the other side.  I know some web sites are blocked (how cool would it be if they blocked mine?) you may or may not see another post before May 3rd when we head home.  If I can I will, if not - we'll catch you on the other side.