[cloudmountain]

Not sure if I completely agree with that characterization, it could be you ended up in a dirty area.
On China’s behalf, I would say the country is very crowded, and very ancient. Thousands of years, of a huge number of people all packed together, look different than a relatively young country with a rich background.
What I am most concerned about is, that businesses in China don’t build or support America. All the businesses which go to China become minority players there. Everything gets taken over, by China. All of it. We need to bring back businesses, and compete from here. IMO.

See my response to cringing cat.

My husband and I went to China in 1981. It was a great tour and I enjoyed it. Our guide was a "Mr. Chu." He had a few too many on one of the days of the tour and danced...so, NATURALLY, we called him "Cha-cha-CHU" fron that day on.

Anyway, we got to Shanghai, the "best" city in China at the time. We got to the YELLOW RIVER, its name at the time, and I asked the guide, quite innocently: What is that smell?
He answered: "Madame, that is the smell of 12.5 million people going to the bathroom twice a day."

So, I know about China's problem with cleanliness. The problem is that cleanliness COSTS. The Chinese will spend OODLES of money on education, real estate and cars. Maintaining "face" is VERY important to them.
CLEANILESS gives them NOTHING tangible. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" is a Judeo-Christian ethic, not a Chinese one.

[Simplified Chinese: 黄浦江; traditional Chinese: 黃浦江; pinyin: Huángpǔ Jiāng, formerly Whampoa and Whangpoo,[citation needed] lit "Yellow Bank River") is a 113 kilometres (70 mi)-long river in China flowing through Shanghai.]

China IS changing but I SERIOUSLY doubt that it will change its attitude about cleanliness. As per what the Chinese say about themselves, they believe in TWO things and TWO things only: LUCK and MONEY.

Finally, a good way to measure a country is how it treats its women. Lol. For the Chinese baby-girl infanticide is NORMAL. Girls are worthless; boys are keepers. THAT is why the 2-baby doctrine may become a reality.
Does the Chinese government REALLY believe that a family would KEEP TWO baby girls? Hah.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Thanks for your informative post.

I have also spent some time in China.

America doesn’t even think about China, yet China is now the largest exporter on the planet, and rapidly growing.

I agree with your post 100%. Even if I take some issue with how clean it is there.

I believe there is some uncleanliness there, but there is some uncleanliness here as well.

I completely agree with your broader point however.

China is becoming the most important country on earth, to America, yet nobody really knows anything about the place.

We now buy a huge portion of everything we use every day from there.

America has in my opinion, become a huge sell-out.

We need to compete. Not sell out.

Bring back American businesses, to America.