Went to a restaurant with a Chinese friend (named Shino Lee. I have the sneaking suspicion it's Korean...) called "Snow" but the glasses literally say Snowflower Beer in Chinese characters. I don't know if that is the restaurant's name, or some random brand, or what. At the restaurant, we ordered some fried shrimp, a whole fish that was soaked in a hot soup/sauce, some fruit that I couldn't remember the name of, (in English even) some Chinese grass which is a vegetable that has the texture and look of thick grass but tastes like every other green vegetable on earth. It was the first time I felt truly full in this country. It was expensive (for China) and came in at 130 kuai or so for two people.
I asked a taxi driver, and it is 5.34 kuai for a liter of gas. The price here then is $3.57 per gallon, which is almost as high as the cheaper areas of the US. I had thought that China was one of several (now decreasing) countries that subsidize oil, but given that the US has fairly high gas taxes and the national average is $4.00 the price doesn't seem subsidized at all. After googling a little, it seems that subsidies are now only offered for specific industries and poor areas. Although the rural poor in America are getting hammered, I doubt the Chinese are. While the NYT article suggests commutes and inefficient equipment as massive gas and therefore money drains, one thing that helps keep your oil demand down is when you still use a bike to commute and have an ox instead of a tractor. Moral of the story: mo' money, mo' problems.
Anti-Engrish notification: my cell phone has a built in English-Chinese dictionary. It is ridiculously awesome, and I think that every cell phone here has it. Steak, in case you were wondering, (I certainly have been) is 牛排.
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