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Very Short Answer - Pretty HorribleShort Answer - A solid wastage of time and money.Detailed Answer:In my case, bride hunting via Matrimony sites started way back in 2016 when I was 27 years old. With 4.5 years of work experience in IT sector, I was employed with the 2nd largest software services company of India earning a modest pay package of 5.65 lpa. This was clearly and explicitly mentioned in my matrimonial profile along with my employer name. Below is a sample of one of my most memorable yet horrible experience:Case of the First Girl: This girl’s sister found out my profile and seemed interested for the match with her younger sibling. Somehow she was able to dig my facebook profile and dropped a message in my inbox with her parent’s contact details. I shared the message contents with my parents and soon with their consent, the initial phone conversations begain. Within first two days I realized that talking to this girl was like issuing a SQL Query i.e. you talk, you ask something she replies, but she hardly took the initiative of making the conversation happen (same like firing a SQL query to fetch some data from a database - no query no data). This was the first red flag, which, even though my gut feeling was saying no to, I chose to ignore. After 2 weeks in Feb 2017 when I proposed her for a face to face meeting, initially she agreed. But then she rescheduled and proposed to bring her brother-in-law and elder sister into the meeting. This was the second red flag which was pointed out by my best friend, but I chose to ignore. The point being, why does a legally adult female above 18 years age need her brother-in-law and sister in a face to face meeting with a prospective groom and decide about her marriage. Had it been her parents, still it would have been understandable. Meanwhile, her parents came over to our house to personally meet me and my family. All went good in that meeting. Nevertheless, I had to spend almost 15k and book flight tickets to Bangalore to meet this lady for a day. When I reached there, I met her along with her brother-in-law and sister. We had lunch at a posh restaurant where the girl was totally silent like the much advertised Daikin air-conditioner. It was only the brother-in-law who was doing all the tall talking. The brother-in-law is an alumni of my own college, and an onsite project manager in TCS who was enjoying his long overdue holiday doing groom hunting for the girl in India. He seemed to boast about how recklessly the girl likes to spend money without any second thoughts. There was a constant barrage of jibes regarding my inability to make a switch for a higher salary package, absence of a 4-wheeler and a flat, and me doing all the household chores by myself (I was living 1.5 Km from my office and let alone a bike, I hardly required a 4-wheeler. Besides, by doing the household chores by myself, I feel independent and empowered, exactly the way my parents wanted me to be - having the ability to survive with dignity outside their protective family shield). Nevertheless, after an hour or so the lunch was complete (with the lethal combination of spicy cuisines and demeaning jibes causing some serious indigestion). Then they left the two of us to talk privately and went for some shopping for their baby.Girl: “You have experience of 4.5 years right ??”Me: “Yeah.”Girl: “So, if you make a switch, your package should be 9 lacs minimum.”Me: “See, there is no direct relation between my experience and salary package. It depends upon my skill-set and how relevant is it to my prospective employer. For instance, with this experience, TCS might offer me 7.5 lpa. But, at the same experience and a totally different yet relevant skill-set for core product development, Amazon would offer me at least 25 lpa. So, like I said, what matters is the relevance of skill-set and not the overall experience.”As expected, her facial expressions were blank and stone faced as if I had showed her the image of a black hole and explained her the general theory of relativity.By this time, her brother-in-law and sister arrived. They dropped me at the bus stand, from where I boarded the airport bus and reached the airport. Upon reaching the airport, I called her to say that I have reached airport and will board my flight next. But she didn’t respond. Even my texts went unanswered. Nevertheless, I boarded my return flight and reached Pune late night. After a week, her father called up my dad and said that they expect me to earn a higher salary package after which we can think of this matrimonial alliance.My Genuine yet Unanswered Queries/Logical Concerns from this Meeting:If my salary package was a concern, then on what basis did the elder sister filtered me out and directly messaged me on Facebook Messenger ? It was clearly written on the matrimony profile itself, and, that too the true value, not any exaggerated value.If the girl did not want to take the biggest decision of her life, then why didn’t she explicitly mention it to me in the first place when we talked over the phone of Day 1 itself ? I wasted a month trying to make the conversation happen, when, in reality, the other person has chosen to outsource the most important decision of her life. (My good luck that it did not work out, else, I would have had to seek permission from the brother-in-law before making love with her and having our own kid & starting a family)If the girl’s parents have outsourced their duty to their elder son-in-law, then what prevented them to explicitly say it when they came over to my home and met me personally ?The brother-in-law is a project manager in TCS (An outsourcing giant), rather than a program manager in a product based IT company like Amazon or Microsoft i.e. he very well knew the business model and the irrelevance of skillsets in these companies (you get trained in one technology and get to work on projects in some altogether different technology/domain). Yet, on what sanity did he expect me to make a switch and start earning almost double the salary so that I can pamper the girl ?Calling me to Bangalore for a meeting when my flight tickets were almost one-third of my monthly salary, wasting my entire day (from 4 am to next day 1 am) and then demeaning me on my pay package is justified on what grounds, especially when the girl’s family is incapable of refunding me my precious time & money that they royally wasted.Prologue: The girl was serving her notice period with an offer letter of 6.5 lpa when we met face to face. At that time, I was still employed with a paycheque of 5.65 lpa. Ironically, before the girl completed her notice period and joined her new employer, I resigned from my current job without any alternate offers in hand, studied for a month, remained unemployed for overall 17 days, bagged 3 consecutive job offers from other companies, finally joined my current organization with a 50% overall raise at 8.75 lpa. In short, brother-in-law’s corporate arrogance was done and dusted. Later on the girl got another job in Deloitte, but with an overall CTC of 7.8 lpa (Not sure whether that is the actual figure or an overtly exaggerated one, considering the legendary bragging abilities of the brother-in-law).This was the case of the first girl I met. For the next one year or so, I physically met/talked over phone and knew about various other grounds and ways of rejection, such as:Girl not wanting to get engaged before marriage and keeping the relationship as open without any responsibility of the relationship, as calling off the engagement results in a huge embarrassment for the girl’s family. (A boy’s family is shameless though, so no embarrassment for them if the engagement is called off). Besides, no sane person goes ahead with engagement or marriage only to call it off later on random whims and fantasies.Absence of maid or girl’s inability to share household chores with an equally competent better half.My inability to wear certain apparel consistent with her sense of fashion (Yes !! Even boys do get judged on what they wear)Girls doing MH-370 Job (i.e. disappearing without a trace without having the basic courtesy of saying a plain and firm NO)Absence of onsite opportunities at my current organization (BTW, it is a product based organization, where there is no concept of an onsite and an offshore team to handle projects)Desire of the girl to live totally separate from parents & family (Not even during social gatherings).With these superficial attributes and unwarranted demands, I was literally pissed off and suggested my parents to stop bleeding money in these sham matrimony sites and delete my profile. Within 5 months of my profile being deleted, I got the proposal of my alliance with the niece of one of my father’s colleagues. I talked with the girl, we dated once, courted for over 9 months, got engaged, and just 2 months back, I am happily married to the love of my life.Aftermath: So, did all of these had any effects in my life ? Definitely Yes. Wounds heal but the scars remain. After getting friendzoned/rejected by N number of girls for M number of years in X number of ways for Y number of unwarranted reasons (where obviously all N, M, X and Y > 1), I had a hard time accepting the unadulterated love of my then fiance now wife. I had developed severe trust issues, and, it was only after my father’s untimely demise last October, when her presence in my vacuum life made me appreciate, accept & love her truly.Edit:To all those who appreciated - Thank you for your support and appreciations.To the one, who wishes to know about the alternatives to matrimonial sites - The biggest alternative to a matrimonial site is family, especially parents. In my case, initially, I had a communication gap with my father. We seldom used to talk much, and I poured all my happiness & tensions on my mother’s lap. But gradually we father-son started having open-ended conversations. By the time of my marriage getting finalized, we were more of best-friends. While I understood my father much better, the various constraints under which he raised us; he on the other hand understood that my attitude towards life is a product of his culture & thought process. So, before I met my then would-be wife for the first time, my father and me were on the same page regarding her. In fact, he was the one who suggested me to go ahead and initiate the conversation.Matrimony sites are not unethical/illegal. They simply mint money by taking advantage of the lack of transparency & open ended conversations in highly dysfunctional families of today i.e. parents expect something dramatic from their children, while the child has totally different aspirations and vice-versa. The sooner our society fixes the family culture, the faster this farce of matrimony sites will fade away.Kagome Suzzane Francis - Loved your curiosity, hence taking an honest attempt to answer all your questions one by one.Was I ready for the wedding while earning 5.65 lpa ? - Yes. I was ready. The reason being, there is no written minimum salary package mandated by the Indian Constitution that makes a guy eligible for marriage. For you, 5.65 lpa may be very less to start a married life, but for someone else like Akash Ambani, even 5.65 crores per annum might be very a meager amount. It depends upon perspective and differs from person to person. Regarding home-loans, car-loans and EMI, there is a life beyond that, which I will address later. The point being, where does it say that without a car and a house of your own, you cannot survive ? As a matter of fact, today I am earning 9 lpa while my wife earns 5.5 lpa, and still we are figuring out about our home-loan plans. While this is socially acceptable form of patriarchy (A man should earn more than his wife even though both together are unable to fund a house of their own), the reverse is not acceptable. This is where hypocrisy comes - Patriarchy is good as long as it comes with benefits but the same patriarchy is bad when a man starts dictating his own terms by virtue of the benefits he provides. The objective of feminism and woman empowerment is to accept that man and woman are irreplaceable backups of each other just like the way I share the partner relation with my wife. There might arise situations when I might have to go jobless for a certain time period, while my wife will be the bread-winner and vice-versa. As long as we are able to provide for each other’s basic necessities, we are good. Besides, it is a human tendency to disrespect what one has got without hard work. A person who gets the pleasures and security of a house and a car, without ever having to work hard, plan, prioritize finances and sacrifice some of the lower priority luxuries, he/she starts to demean and disrespect the comforts and luxuries that are hard-earned, and that spoils the relationship.About software industry being a volatile industry and my lack of domain awareness in 4.5 years of work experience - Let me give you a glimpse of my professional life, so that you can know the facts as they were and judge for yourself. During training I was trained in Microsoft .NET Technologies. In production also, I got to work on C# .NET coding. But there was a catch - The project was about implementing robotic process automation using C# code, which involved doing reverse-engineering of client web/mainframe/thick-client applications to automate it. Now, this work is conditionally ethical, as it violates the terms of usage of the applications/web-sites, unless the owner of the application/web-site gives his/her explicit written permission to reverse engineer it (You can verify it in Quora/Amazon/Flipkart where you will find use of web-bots and crawlers is against the terms of usage). So, why should any recruiter recruit someone who has worked on projects that lie in the grey-area of ethics and unethical behavior ? Besides, the crux of .NET technologies is exploiting its full fledged object oriented programming features to abstract and design real world problems into software systems. This work that I was doing involved writing a few elementary for and do-while loops and executing some if-else ladders. In addition, there was no implementation of any database technologies like SQL Server or Oracle DB. So, why should a recruiter recruit someone who has not even implemented a single design pattern in C# or written a stored procedure to fetch data using joins ? Despite knowing this, my current manager took a chance, gave me an opportunity and recruited me as I was readily available to join within a week. Besides, my first two projects were for telecom giants in US and UK. My third project was to extend robotic process automation capabilities to an automotive spare parts manufacturer, and my last project was to implement the same automation concept to one of the heavy machinery manufacturing company of US. So, considering this, what should be my domain exactly ?? Today I am working in a financial services company in digital payments segment. So at least, I can confidently say that I belong to card payments industry domain. Regarding sites like Udemy, Udacity, I did avail paid subscription of PluralSight, at the same time when I booked flight tickets to Bangalore worth 15k and got demeaned in the process. It was watching PluralSight courses like Game of Thrones series, and converting my personal laptop to a corporate level workstation, which helped me to rebuild the conceptual clarity and practical experience that was systematically eroded by the business model of an outsourcing company.Regarding unavailability of pension in IT jobs and a short time span to earn money - Yes, pension does not exist in IT jobs and neither there is a concept of fixed retirement age. But who says that one has to stick to IT sector only ? The middle-class people like N.R.Narayanamuthy who started this industry are the venture-captialists today. The idea of developing alternate career paths is always open. My senior manager has his own tours & travels company and he frequently conducts wildlife tours & safaris across the various national parks of India. He is a certified ornithologist and, now he is diversifying his core business from wildlife photography to trekking & adventure sports. My wife is good at managing events and I have developed a reputation in photography. So, we are planning to develop our alternate careers while we are having a stable IT job. The sooner the alternate career is developed, the better position we will be in to ditch the IT sector and do what we love doing. The idea of pensions belonged to our parents generations where they had a fixed retirement age. The sooner we realize that the concept of a secured life with pension cover does not exist today, and develop alternate skills, the better it is for all of us. In my humble opinion, nothing could be more sadistic experience than being a salaried middle class guy in India, who gets peanuts as salary from his capitalist employer, while 30% of whatever peanuts he earns, is taken by the socialist government to distribute freebies to the poor when the infrastructure development to lead a dignified life is the last item on government priority list.Regarding uncertainty in life - Yes, life is uncertain. After living for almost 21 years in rented quarters, my parents put their hard-earned money and built a decent house with amazing interior decoration & lighting. But just 11 months after the housewarming ceremony, when we were just settling into our own house, my father passed away, without even getting the opportunity of enjoying the fruits of his hard-earned money. So, what are the guarantees that after buying a new house or a new car, I would be alive to enjoy all of it ?? Today, when I look back, I feel happy about the way my father complemented his wife & kids with satisfaction, that we always stood by him, regardless of the hostile circumstances we faced together as a family due to his strong professional ethics. In short, in my opinion, life is NOT a profit-loss balance sheet of numbers, a man is NOT a money minting machine, a woman is NOT a robotic maid-servant, and a child is NOT a mark vending machine. Rather it is a collection of beautiful memories we create as a family. In my case, neither we mom & kids nagged my father to provide materialistic comforts beyond his capabilities, and nor he neglected any of his duties towards us. At least, he had empowered us kids to survive in this world with dignity, and, as a parent, it is my duty to pass-on that ability to my child.Regarding the girl deciding to meet me despite knowing my financial status to know whether I was appearing interviews and intent to switch - I was talking to the girl since one month, and was appearing interviews since the past 8 months before I talked to her the first time. I had already told her about the peculiar problem with my skill-sets and my interviews. In fact, as I have already mentioned about how I was a .NET developer on namesake only, there was a time when I had studied C++ from scratch and appeared interviews so that I could ditch the half-baked superficial knowledge in Microsoft .NET technologies and transform myself into a C++ developer working in Unix platform. So, in short, she very well knew everything I have written above - my situations and my attempts. So, if she felt I was an incompetent fellow who didn’t deserve to marry her and give her all the materialistic comforts she desired, then she could have easily said so and refused to meet face to face. But, calling me to Bangalore at the cost of wasting my precious time & money and then demeaning me on basis of my salary package/difficulty in switching, was uncalled for. It was simply derogatory to say at the least.Hope I have answered all your questions and satisfied your curiosity to the best of my abilities.

Disclaimer:I must qualify my answer, I know, I know, China is a big country with huge population, with 56 identified ethnicity. I also know all area are not well developed and China has like anybody else huge and mega problems. I also know there are pockets of poverty like any other country, I also know there some people in China although very small numbers are very bitter, full venom and do not like China. I also know there are troll on Quora and waste everyone’s time.Now that is out of the way.As a foreigner, when you first came to China, what surprised you most?China is a huge country, and very diversified population, I believe one life is not enough to explore this country. There are and future will be surprises, and to me they are equally important. I could not just pick one, to me there are all equal and therefore I am writing it all.Most courteous staff at the Toronto airport: (First surprise), as soon as we stood in line and reached the clerk, he said “ welcome to China”We used only one “Chinese airline domestic and international”I will start from Toronto, it was straight flight for 18 hours to Beijing, First Surprise. The flight was fully booked, and it was on time, start from the air port Chinese staff, fluent bilinguals, extremely courteous, and with very warm welcome, the booking clerk, one young man from China, said “ Welcome to China” I was shocked I said it is Toronto, he said sir, when you check in, and go in that flight, you are our responsibility, therefore welcome to China, you have your boarding pass, and once you cross the gate, you are our guest.Air hostesses and in flight staff: ( Good English skills ) Second surprise, one of the best caring and very hard working hostesses.With very beautiful manners, showed us the seats, and made sure our carry on luggage was secured, and pillows/blankets were provided, with no fuss or arguments. It was very long flight, but those girls were made of steel and tireless, and made sure that we are comfortable during the flight, food, snacks, and water, were abundant. They kept coming again to check, and recheck that each passenger was comfortable, mostly were Chinese but for them there was no discrimination, we were treated as good as Chinese.At the air port custom clearance: Third surprise. Very professional staff.At the custom clearance, young man spoke very good English, just general questions, we were scared that we may be held for a long time, we were extremely careful in packing our stuff, we did not even take our favorite coffee from Canada, fearing they may ask too many questions. Surprise surprise surprise, with a few minutes he stamped our passports, “ Welcome to China” “ We wish you have very memorable trip” Well Canadian passport, and other special clearances such as Nexus card also helped , I guess. No in reality Chinese officials are/were good, they are not what is/was portrayed in the media, for ages.Once we came out : Fourth surprise, Other than Chinese signs which made the difference, it blew my mind away,Wow, now this is called the first world, very clean, very beautiful, very modern……Our host was already there, spoke flawless English, and when he showed the bus which was to take us to the hotel, our jaw dropped, I never ever seen such a beautiful bus. Well, I like to mention, Beijing airport was extremely clean, organized, and very ultra modern.Once we saw the beauty of Beijing when our airplane was circling before landing, we kind of got the idea, that it is huge/massive city.Once we reached the hotel: Fifth surprise,Chinese hotels where we stayed were all five stars, this is not brag it is just to describe the high standards of five stars, China versus others.These hotels are ,(in my view) on the upper level of specifications to be called 5 stars. In fact they are much more than that(in my view)Sure I and my wife been in Canada soon be fifty years, we are Canadian citizens, from Indian origin, we have traveled enough and I could say we seen some extremely beautiful hotels. Wow, we both stunned solid, most likely this was the best 5 star we have ever seen, well staff at the reception was not a joke, they were out of this world staff, courteous, helping, taking time to explain, in perfect English.Once we reached the room : Sixth surprise.( Cleanliness, over all decor, some of the best wash rooms, beds…I have ever seen)Well, as soon as we opened the door, there are no words to describe the details, luxury, and extremely high standards, beds, sheets, pillow honestly they were so beautiful, I did not the courage to sleep on it, thinking it will get dirty. Wash rooms were fit for a Royalty. You name it and it had it, coffee/tea/soda/drinks what ever your heart desires, well it is understandable coffee/tea were free, but you have pay for the other things if you use it.After we checked out of the hotel from the first leg of journey : Seventh surprise ( the biggest of first leg of the journey)(The biggest Surprise of mind blowing customer service, never ever expected it)My wife Sue forgot to put her ear rings back after shower. Regardless we checked out of the hotel, she missed her ear rings, since those were not expensive she tried to forget it.We were shocked stunned when previous hotel management traced us in another city, and told us cleaning staff found the ear rings. We told them they are not expensive so do not worry about it. The lady on the other end said: sir we do not differentiate between expensive or inexpensive it is your thing and we will make every effort to deliver it to youAgain we were speechless regardless they couriered the ear rings, I am very sure the cost of couriers and their efforts far outweighed the cost of ear ringsBut the memory of this episode won our hearts and it will stay with me for everBravo Chinese and China God bless youI told this story to our two monkeys ( grand sons) 3 and 5. Five year said : grand pa Chinese are very good people because grand ma got her favorite ear rings back.There is a great lesson for me in customer serviceSome of the breath taking resorts/extremely beautiful background scenery,Following is one example:Beijing and Shanghai mega cities : Eighth surprise ,(Chinese mega cities are close to 20 to 30 million population and in my view run like a clock)I know, I know, I know there is poverty, slums, crime, beggars in every city around the world, so Chinese cities are no exception, however I could say with confidence, Chinese mega cities are relatively more cleaner, less beggars, less slums, lower crime rate per ca pita than most of the mega cities in the world. I know, I know Japan, Singapore and Korea may surpass, but in my view it is no comparison what so ever. Considering the China being huge in size and population, it is not an easy task to manage 1.4 billion people and move this country to such a stage.Considering the size of ultra huge cities and massive population, hats off to Chinese for keeping these cities very clean,They are very innovative in designing very effective systems, following are two examples of the efficiency of cleaning crew.Day to day life in big cities.Chinese are not uniformed robots, struggling in the sweat shops: Ninth surprise:I know, I know, I know my sample size is very small, and I have not seen all of China yet, but what ever I had seen so far, it is/was myth. I visited some light manufacturing, I had seen artist doing intricate work, I had seen sales people, and I had seen nicely dressed managers both sexes. I found work environment was no different than any or most of the advanced country.Artists/craftsmen/women in Cloisonne workshopJade factory and show room near Beijing.Jade factory and show room near BeijingPlease note the ear phone in one lady’ s ear, it is very creative environment contrary to our deep ingrained myth, of sweat shops.Buddhist temples visit : Surprise no Ten:In my view it is total myth that most of the Chinese are atheist, when I visited these temples Grand Buddha of Ling Shan, and Jingci Temple of Hangzhou, I was in total surprise. I being from Indian origin left shame after seeing the reverence from Chinese devotees, and kindness of Monks. I have seen lot of things in life, but I never ever ever seen such grand temple, and reverence to any Lord of Lords, no matter what religion. Statue of Lord Buddha is like a mountain, the biggest in China, and most likely in the world.In my view most of the Chinese may be atheist in the eyes of world, but not in my eyes, they may not chant, or go to the temple/church/ worship specific God, but they have real meaning of religion: most of them are hard working, honest, and down to earth, mind their own business, most of them free of jealousy, live with their means, obey the law, raise family as good parents, to me that is the real religion. And that is my religion too, God bless these people and country.Grand Buddha of Ling Shan: I be never the same ever, after visiting Chinese Buddhist temples and Monasteries, it gave a rebirth try to be the better human being.Bathing of baby Buddha, at Grand Buddha of Ling Shan, if you have not seen this, years from now may regret it. This is/was one of the most magical movement where modern technology, reverence of devotees, and just shear energy will last me life time. Although I have Indian roots, but reverence of the devotees put me to the shame, some of things I saw, I could not help, but just cried with happiness. That Lord Buddha has so much reverence in China. This alone is enough to call China my second or third home now.From Shanghai/Beijing MuseumGrand Buddha of Ling ShanOne act in a live show in Hangzhou, Lord Buddha still rules in some of the Chinese. They have great respect and reverence for the Lord.Jingci Temple HangzhouJingci Temple HangzhouJingci Temple HangzhouExtremely low crime rate: Surprise no. eleven:I do not have fancy graph/crime per capita and so on, but I have observed with my own eyes, girls/woman travelling the city buses/sub ways/ and working in the middle of the night by themselves without any fear. (at least I did not see it), this thing alone totally floored me, a city of 30 million, working like a clock, and girls/women are relatively safe on the streets. This alone blew me away, and hats off to China and Chinese. My Chinese host who is extremely knowledgeable born and brought in Beijing, confirmed my observations.The Great Wall of China: Surprise no. twelve:I read a lot, I believe, and I spent lot of time in preparing my mind and physical well being to see this world wonder, this wall has extremely long history starting from the first emperor of China, who started building this wall.Well I must say: I was totally stunned to see this mammoth structure, just a sample of it, I chose one of the very steep way to climb, I did reach to the top, but now I know it is not for weak hearts, and now I know more just to reach up with modern stairs was so difficult how did they built it thousands of year ago and with thousands of km of construction.Almost there, totally exhausted, gasping for air, for me it was not a joke to reach at the top. TGWC (the great wall of china)China the food capital of the world: Surprise no. thirteen.Chinese food was not new to me, Canada has lot of Chinese population, and the city I live is again very heavily populated by Chinese. Therefore, Chinese food is/was part of our lives too. Regardless, visiting China, and see the food service industry totally stunned me, Chinese have total mastery of this industry, they have mastered the art/science and business end of the business, be a low end “ hole in the wall” , street food, or grand high end restaurants.Mid range restaurants are huge, and the service and speed is assembly line, there are different dining halls, and they were serving 100s of customers at a given time. The speed, quality, taste and cleanliness of these restaurants was huge surprise.Mid range restaurant:Mid range restaurant one of the dining halls.Some where mid range and high end restaurant.High end buffet style restaurant:World famous Beijing Duck place in Beijing.Former president of USA, Mr. Richard Nixon dined in this restaurant with Chines counterpart.Chefs in world famous Beijing Duck place in BeijingChef’s serving /preparing Beijing DuckSmall restaurants take out.Dim Sum time :Mind boggling infra structure, one of the very best public transportation systems in the world : Surprise no 14.China as we know is huge country with massive populations and with recent urbanization cities like Beijing and Shanghai have ballooned to 30 million population, China is answer to this massive growth was state of art highways, roads, and subways, and public transportation. In China people have three ways to go to work and transport, BMW, bicycle, monorail, and walk. I have seen bullet trains circling shanghai as a kid plays with toy trains, And I have not seen it, but my host told me, subway in Shanghai is/will be envy of the world. What shocked me was he told me: they are on the verge of interconnecting provinces with underground systems. People who have seen Shanghai subway, and know about it confirm, boy that is called state of the art miracle.China/Chinese love for landscape, capturing beauty through rocks, shrubs, and pondsSurprise No : 15Chinese love for literature/live shows/ poetry:Surprise no 16Chinese love for literature/poetry/live shows is evident from the super quality of their shows. I and my wife were lucky to see, live show “ Golden Mask Dynasty” it was presented to Olympic 2008 athletes and luckily it was on in 2017. I never ever seen anything like it in my life, I must say that was the ultimate performance, everybody alive must see it, at least the video, it simply out of this world. One dance was with live white peacocks and we thought those peacocks are toys, but in the end they flew from the head of the dancers, they are/real birds.A scene from the Golden Mask Dynasty.A scene from the Golden Mask Dynasty.Very strong will to live, struggle to survive and thrive:Surprise no : 17I observed major portions of Chinese seem to have very strong will to live, struggle and to survive, and then eventually thrive. They may not engage with foreigner in small talk, nods and exchange of other pleasantries but to me I have a feeling Chinese are fighter, they will improvise and adjust and eventually are very hopeful to do well.I found the environment very motivational, they have will live, survive and thrive.Day to day people : with eye on the future.Breath taking modern sky lines, and totally architectural miracles:Surprise no 18:IBM Building in Beijing, Near the Olympic Stadium, Bird’s Nest, complete in the shape of dragon.IBM, Dragon shaped building, totally stunning, near the olympic site 2008, some of most expensive land in China.Breath taking buildings/sky line in ShanghaiShanghai the ultimate Jewel in the Crown of China, one of the most beautiful city in the worldSurprise No 19 (The Bund)Thousands of years of civilization well preserved, continued, built on wisdom from generation to generation.Surprise no 20Old Gingko Tree of Ling ShanThis tree is 1400 years old.Following are from Shanghai Museums.Model of a ancient village from Beijing/Shanghai MuseumVenice of the east, Suzhou, Canal city:Surprise no. 20We always wanted to see Venice, in Italy but we were shocked stunned when we saw Suzhou, the canal city. totally amazing.Chinese acrobats in Shanghai:Surprise no 21Nothing could have prepared us for this surprise, Chinese circus (acrobats) China’s answer to world famous circus in the west.Movie The Last Emperor Emperor was filmed in the Forbidden CitySurprise no. 22This is/was one of my most favorite movie, it is very rare that China gives permission to make film in their national monuments. I was very fortunate to see the place where this film was made.Chinese Tea is a very popular drink, in China and Chinese are very serious about itSurprise no 23,I knew about Chinese tea, I drank it for years, with my Chinese/non Chinese friends, but I never ever could imagine, how much Chinese love this drink,it is very serious business in ChinaChinese tea fit for Queen/Emperor/ Biggest of bigI have not seen slums, beggars, destitute, homeless and bums on the streets in the areas I visited.Surprise no. 24.I am very sure there is poverty, and there are beggars………bums on the streets in some part of China, and there is poverty in China as it is in every country, but the areas I visited I did not see any.Kids, parents and grand parents are number 1 in China, extended family is norm, grand parents love their kids tremendously, that is my evaluation.Surprise no., 25.I being from Indian heritage thought we are number 1 but after visiting China, and my close connection with Canadian Chinese I have rethink my status in my mind again,.I find Chinese kids and teenager were very well disciplined, orderly and in general very healthy.China/Chinese are world leaders in cultured pearl industry ( this is my view), I am in awe with the length, breadth and depth of the knowledge/technology/design in jewelry.Surprise no. 26Very solid and beautiful ancient to modern pure silk industry:Surprise no. 27China and Chinese have been known in the world for pure silk production for thousands of years, that reputation, pride and glory are still alive and well. I am very pleased to see, that it survived for thousand of years, and I have pieces of beautiful garments for my myself, wife, and grand sons. We enjoy day in and day, Thank you China/Chinese for being a great friendsRandom pictures of day to day life, it seems whole China/Chinese most of of it are busy in day to day life. ( I found Chinese people in general very hard working)Surprise no 28Hard working Chinese resting in the moving truck during going job to job.Chinese are building this nation with blinding speed,Joke around China is/was : New national bird is “ Crain”This what you see all over massive “ Construction”, speed is so blinding, even when a native son/daughter goes back to his/her neighborhood, joke is they cannot find their own home.Surprise no 29Now this new “ National Symbol/Bird” Brand new China of 21 century with “ Crain” as national bird please note it is not “Crane” but “Crain”.Random surprises: Yes Virginia : some fair number of Chinese speak good to English, Yes Virginia, they do have MacDonald, KFC, Coke, Pepsi,and Yes Virginia : I phones are made there, and I believe even now Virginia, there are no tanks rolling on Tienanmen Square, recently I stood there safe and sound and no one said anything we took lot of pictures there.Surprise no 30,Contrary to myth in the west China is communist country and police, military is running around is pure non sense and propaganda, no one ever stopped us from taking pictures, Govt officials were very respectful, police was very friendly, waved and gave thumbs up.World famous Tienanmen Square.Public in general was very polite in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou Buddhist temples in China were very good I have ever seen, I strongly believe God lives or visits there, in Ling Shan monastery, I never ever felt peace and calm in my life, in my view the most tranquil place on the earth for me, I wish I could die there.It is myth Chinese do not know English, some of Chinese never stepped out China and when they speak English they can put native to shame.China is not improvised/poor helpless and country of opium addicts, it is power house of future,China in certain areas is far advanced than the most first tier countries in the world. Like any other country, some areas are poor and very poor, but I have very high hopes one day Sun will shine there too.It is non sense and portray of China/Chinese in the negative tones, is all feel good and sell to news papers and create sensations and bash and shoot dawn a rising star, before you do that may be visit China, make friends with Chinese, and understand that country/people and culture more.I believe if you want to be some thing better start learning Mandarin and learn about China. I am taking my two grand kids, who are American born with so many options such American citizenship from birth, Canadian PR, Oversea citizen of India, and option to live in Singapore. But I prefer them to learn the Mandarin and Chinese history, culture, martial arts,Buddhism, fine arts, and above all hard work.Chinese do love to drink light beer with meals, and contrary to the myth they get drunk too quick, I did not see any Chinese staggering on the streets.Contrary to the myth Chinese speak very loud, I did not hear any Chinese out of control in talking, be it Govt official, security, guides , sales people, air hostesses, list goes on,.Chinese do love to dance in the country square, but that is the culture, I know some do not like it, but it is there culture/their country, if you do not like it, do not go there.Some Chinese parents do go to public parks and set up information booth to find a good match for their kids, I do not find anything wrong, it is also cultural acceptable thing there.Also on a lighter side, in Shanghai it is a joke, a girl looks in boy, Cash, Condo, Car, Cosmetic and Cooking. ( It may be joke, and it could be for a laugh) but it is known due to one kid family, there is shortage of marriageable girls.Also, extended families are norm, and in fact it is very good for the whole family, grand parents in most cases provide tender care love to the grand kids,Chinese myths, superstitions, lucky and unlucky numbers.Surprise no 31Never hit person with a broom, bad luck.Dog howling late night, deathKeep the face well shaved, good luckWhen baby cries for no reason, seen a ghostDream snow/teeth, death of parent/sHouse never face north, bad luckNever cut nails at night bad luckNever point to the moon with one finger, bad luckLucky number 2, 18,13 and 164Never cut noodles for soup, sign to cut life short.Never cage a turtle, bad luckNumber 4, bad luckRed color, Sign of luckGold color, wealth, luxuryWith rising power and economic might of China/Chinese, it created tremendous amount of wealth.it appears that there are lot more Chinese with mega wealth, every mega city I visited luxury cars which I never ever seen in such a show cases are usual displays in very elegant show rooms, and very posh area stores are filled with extremely high end huge brand names such as Rolex, and other designer garments.Luxury car dealerships: surprise no 32Luxury Car dealerships in beautiful ShanghaiHigh end European style cafe in very fashionable area of Shanghai, and other pictures are from the same area.More to come: please stay tuned.