Information on the Train to Tibet

Greetings from John

I hope you have had a chance to get away from the Shanghai heat and have now returned refreshed.

News & Updates

I have been asked many times about the Beijing to Lhasa rail link so have posted a Q & A page on my website which should answer most questions. Please have a look.

*** Information about the new Tibet train.

*** FREE 1 Year membership – I have launched a new web-site, www.Trade-the-Real-China.com, which is a specialist China Trade Directory linking Chinese businesses with the world.

To mark the launch of this new web-site I am giving away 10 free, 1 year memberships. If you, or someone you know, would like to be profiled as a specialist within the field of business in which you are working here in China, please contact me for more details.

*** Make new friends within China, or find a travel partner to explore China with. Have a look at Travel-link-China and discover more of this wonderful country with the company of a travel friend.

*** My summer special is still running with a great trip on offer to the cooler mountains of the Guizhou Province

*** October Holidays – If you will be remaining in China, and wish to get out and visit some Real-China sites, please remember to plan well ahead, as it’s a busy time for flights and accommodation.


Take Care and Happy Travelling.

John McKenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com
www.Trade-the-Real-China.com
www.Travel-link-China.com

Please contact me at…
+86 021 63142759 ... 13585636884 ... mckenna.john@gmail.com

Taklimakan Desert Rally, Final Update

Hi All…..to continue on with my Urumqi Bike Adventure. – Final update.

The next day after the 69km stage was a rest day, all the bikes were checked again and repaired where necessary and we headed out for a 240km ride to the to the next stage start.

This was a very straight sealed rode, heading into the desert, the plan was to get to the start, camp somewhere and then race the next morning.

Well, we were late leaving so when we got to the turn off point for a 40km ride across the sand to the riverbed start, it was around 10pm and dark, to dangerous to ride in soft sand, especially for 40 km.

After some organizational difficulties, it was decided to spend the night just off the road and ride in the morning.

We finally got organized and got the tents up around 1am, it was a beautiful clear night, and you could see the stars, no wind. no need for the outer fly on the tent. I was in a tent on my own and I found out my pegs were missing, however it was such a nice night, not to worry.

Well by 3am a sand storm started, the wind was up and we all were in danger of blowing away, if I had gotten out of my tent everything would have blown away, with the fierce wind , with no pegs the tent just wrapped around me, had to just stay put, well it goes without saying, we all did not get much sleep. .

The storm died out around 6am, we had to be up and drive the 40km across the sand to the start of the race, the stage started around 9-30. After all getting organized, we finally got away around 7am.

The 40 km was very tough, the sand storm and covered all the tracks with loose sand and the 40 km took us over 2hrs, we arrived and was quickly told we had to report to the race start.

Great, not much sleep, no real food, and we were off to race 240km up a dry river bed, was I crazy or something.

This was the signature stage of the race, straight up the heart of the Taklimakan Desert just gotta do this. This is why we came.

At the start my stomach was in my mouth again, very nervous, the wind had picked up again and we were in for another sand storm.

The widest part of the riverbed was 6km, the narrowest 2, with thousands of km’s each side to get lost in, I had plenty of water, there was a fuel truck waiting for us at 150m, so I was as prepared as I would ever be under the circumstances.

3 of us this time to start together, soon lost these 2, wind had picked up and you could not see a thing.

The terrain was real tricky, the river has only a little water in it for 2 months of the year, so there were soft patches mixed up with the deep dry sand, also the water that flowed and was last to dry up, left deep holes throughout the area, which you just could not see.

One minute all looked flat, then suddenly a deep hole that could be as big as 1 to 5 meters across and 1 to 3 deep, turned p in front of you, well if your too late stopping you just went straight in hoping to stay on.

I only stayed on about 50% of the time with many times flying over the handle bars.

These holes, the sand storm, the deep sand, all made for an exciting ride...

About 140km and around the 4hr mark, I came across the fuel trucks, 2 very big trucks, but very hard to find in a sand storm and open dessert., 2 foreigners in front of me and me on time. All looking good.

From the fuel truck I could see Max about 200m away out in the desert, looking for the trucks, he could not see us, but we could see him, he drove from left to right about 5 times until final he saw us.

I waited for him to arrive, safer for us both to ride together, we still had about 100km’s to go.

He was as tired and beaten up as I was, constantly falling off, picking yourself up as well the heavy bike. He fueled up, we rested some more than drove out into the desert together.

The last 100 km was as tough as the previous 140, falling off less now; I was being a bit more cautious and Max rode a little slower than me so I was feeling safer and more in control.

We still rode and toke our own paths, but remained within eye contact, this at times could have been between 2 meters to 500 meters apart, however keeping an eye on each other.

The on and off sand storms did not help, I actually lost Max with about 30 km to go.

I had lost track of time, I just needed to finish in one piece, well no broken bones anyway.

I crossed the line, exhausted, in 8hrs 20, a little disappointed not to make the 8hr cut off, however arriving in one piece was the main goal. Max arrived about 5 minutes after me.

An exhausting day’s ride, 6 finished within our group of 10 this time, me the 4th in, only 2 made it within the 8hrs.

To sum up.

Many many logistic frustrations along the way, however we all had ridden over 3500km around and across the Taklimakan Desert, racing just 2 stages, an amazing challenge.

Only 4 out of the 10 of us actually finished both stages, so overall I came 4th in our group.

For me, a great personal achievement and one to be proud of.

Am I going to do it again next year, well just maybe…… you will have to wait and see.

Hope you enjoy this long story of the trip, any questions or comments please contact me anytime.

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

To see the Race pics, please click here

Taklimakan Desert Rally, Racing at Last

Hi All…..to continue on with my Urumqi Bike Adventure. – Another update 2

Will we ever get to actually race?

We had already ridden over 2000km, seen and experienced adventures along the way, however the point was to come and race.

Well… we all woke up early hoping this was the day, we all gathered at the main race hotel and then all rode about 20 km out of town to the race start.

A clear ..ish day, hot, all looked ok to race.

Getting to the race was a bit tricky, very deep powder sand, I actually feel off getting the start line…not a good start. Hehehehe

This was it we were finally going to do it; it was a 69km stage, with a cut off time of 6hrs. 6 hrs, this is a long time to cover 69km, strange this is an average speed of 11.5km , seemed a bit slow.

The race 4 x 4 all went first, then the bike bikes, with us, S-class (the foreigners) the last to leave.

Ok, I was now very nervous and thinking, what the hell and I doing here, keep it together, ride careful, just get through with no major injuries.

It was excitement and fear all mixed up, this was going to be fun.

Coming up the start was scary, deep powder sand that had been made deeper and more difficult to ride on; the main objective now was not to fall off at the start, to many TV and cameras about.

We would go off in pairs, at 2 minute intervals, my pair was Max, and he was a much better rider than me, so I knew I could always follow him for a while.

The adrenaline was really pumping, was I really doing this,

Yip, silly boy…hehehe

We were off, stay on, stay on, I was thinking, don’t full off; well I was ok I stayed on.

Where was Max, was he in front or behind me, all my concentration was on the piece of sand in front of me and trying the figure out a way to ride that did not involve falling off every 10 minutes.

The deep powder sand that I fell off in going the start was typical of the entire stage, sand dunes with soft sand, deep ruts, miles of nothing, the bike seemed to have a mind of its own and went wherever it wanted to, the slightest sand density change would either make me fall off, or make me go in a direction I did not what to go.

Either way it was a fight to stay on and moving, the entire 69km was done in either 1st or 2nd gear.

It was exhausting, constantly fighting and moving with the dunes and sand, you would go over a sand dune in about a foot deep sand, then on the other side, 3 foot deep soft sand, all you can do in this situation is fly over the handle bars and hope nothing gets broken.

Pick yourself up, dig the bike out, drag it to where you can pick it up and try to get going again. Tough stuff. I lost count on the number of times I fell off and went over the handle bars.

The whole day was like this, I can see now why there was such a long cut off time.

Well I did it, the pictures are in the Album “I Did it” 5 hrs 14minutes, after the start I crossed the finish line.

Only 2 of the 10 of us so far had made it out in front of me, Kyle and Jonno blasted in around the 2 to 3 hr mark with me over 3 hrs later, however still within the 6hrs, only 3 of us out of 10 made it within the cut off time.

I was exhausted but amazingly alive with a real sense of accomplishment.

2 others of our group came in about 2 to 3 hrs after me; that made 5 still out in the desert somewhere.

The race support was very good; sweeper rescue teams coming up behind us were finding everyone, towing the crashed or stuck cars, finding the bikes and riders.

Late into the night all of our team was accounted for, all safe and in one piece.

What a day, 3 of us on the score board, 7 now knowing just how tough it is, Max who I had lost very early on in the race was one of the guys to finish but not within time.

I finished and within time, this was the major shock to everyone for the day, the oldest member and one of the least experience riders of our team.

I was very proud of me today.

I will post the last stage in a few days; this stage was a 240km ride straight up a dry river bed, right up the heart of the Taklimakan Desert.

Take Care All

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Continued Story of the Taklimakan Desert Rally - Update

Hi All…..to continue on with my Urumqi Bike Adventure. – another update

Well it was finally a race time for us all…..what we all had traveled a long way for and committed so much time to

The night before we all had to get our bikes checked by the race referees, this was simpler than we thought, all they looked for and took note of was the bike chassis numbers, nothing else, we all were a little surprised nothing else was checked.

From there is was all into the race officials hotel room for a race briefing, we were always treated differently due the language issues, and that we still had not raced.

We had learnt that on the first two sections, over a third of the bikes got lost in the desert or did not finish and around half the cars.

Two guys were still missing… we found out later they were lost for 4 days, however all persons, bikes and cars were recovered and in good health.

The first two sections sounded a lot of fun………maybe.

After the race briefing we all were excited and eager to get going and race the next day.

One of the issues with the whole race that we all had, I mean everyone not just us foreigners, was that the riding or driving distances between the race starts and towns to stay in, were very large.

Like today, (our first race day) we all had to group ride and drive 150km to the start of the race, then race 230 km race section, then ride again 100 km to town to stay the night, WOW… big day.

Well… just as we all headed out, 50 bikes and 180 4x4 cars and support vehicles, this was real cool, a sand storm started, and it was a big one, (you will be able to see on the photos in the Album named “Finally we get to Race”), we found out later it was the biggest storm they had seen in a long while.

It was a bit of a struggle, the sand shifted and moved across the road, you could not see the bike in front of you, we keep at a safe pace, actually it was rather fun.

About 3 days later we found out, through rumors, not officially from the race committee, a support vehicle was late in leaving and was catching up to us and had rolled due to the storm, both driver and passenger were killed. This quickly brought us all down to earth to take extra care, conditions were tough and we should respect where we were
.
However on race day we did not know any of this and rode on through the storm to the race start.
When we finally arrived to the race start, we all just hung around, no-one really knew what was going on, all the TV crews were doing interviews, everyone was setting up ready to race, great atmosphere, but no real action to get going.

We were suddenly all told the race was off, due to safety reasons and for us all to mount up and drive into town. We were all very disappointed as it would have been our first section, however the conditions were very bad and it was the right decision.

We all headed into town to find no hotel booked for us and had to find another RMB 10 place; this one had a good shower… that was about all.

We worked on our bikes for the rest of the day and got ready for tomorrows race day.

Will we ever get to race?

Find out in my next posting

Take Care

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Continued Story of the Taklimakan Desert Rally

Hi All…..to continue on with my Taklimakan Desert Bike Adventure.

Two of us had arrived and were doing what we could to help Jonno and Max with all the arrangements. Max would go to all the race meetings, as he spoke very good Chinese, at one of the race meetings , only a few days before the race was due to start, he was told that the first two stages of the race were going to be within a restricted area of the Taklimakan Desert.

Foreigners are not allowed within this area.

Great logistic planning by the race committee, they knew months ago there was a foreign team and had got verbal agreements for us to go there, when the time came for us to go, we were told NO.

The actual paperwork had not been filed and there was some behind the scenes local and regional politics preventing us from going into this area.

We were told we were not allowed to race 2 of the 5 stages and the race by then would be 1000km from Urumqi, we had to get to them if we wanted to race the remaining 3 stages
.
We were ask for and had paid the entire entrance fee RMB 1000 each, then told we could not race the entire race, 6 guys had not arrived from the US yet, all of us wanted to race the entire race, one had even been commissioned by Sports Illustrated to do an story on the race, all the plans and expectations we had… felt a bit flat.

We had to make the most of it, “Qingqi”, our bike sponsor and our other sponsor, a new hotel in Urumqi the “Jin Hui Business hotel” both were relying on us for exposure etc, so when the others arrived and we broke the news to them, we all got ready to make the most of everything. When the race start day came, we all got set up and headed out to the opening ceremony.

We made quite an entrance, 10 green bikes all driving in, , we were the only motorbike team , all the other bikes were individual riders. Everywhere we went for the entire race, we turned heads, great for Qingqi, and the hotel, we got lots of press time and pictures taken of us

The race committee really loved us and the exposure for the race we generated; however no-one knew we were not allowed to race the first two stages…. OH well we are here to race, even the 3 stages would be OK.
We all rode out in a big group out of the city, an amazing experience, 50 bikes, 180 4 x 4’s race cars, all the support crews, all under police escort… real cool.

Just out of town we turned off and headed for a mountain pass as the others headed out to race the first 2 stages. We would see them all in a few days.

We headed out for a 300+ km ride over the mountain pass, WOW; we climbed to 4230 meters, spectacular. All the Race pictures are now loaded at Taklimakan Desert.Race Pictures

We had some problems along the way, Yvette broke her classes at the remote fuel stop, one of our support vehicles hit a dog that chased us all as we went by, Max got a flat tire and then a few hours later, his chain broke, a gear shifter fell off the only Chris’s Yamaha we spent an hour trying to find it, we did not, so he was stuck in second for the rest of the ride, this made for a very long ride. One of the support vehicles went ahead and booked the hotel, we arrived about 2-30am, a long days first ride with lots of drama... Good Fun.

We gave the bikes a real rough test for the next few days, we covered about 1000 km, things fell off, we feel off, etc so the few days we had before we actually raced was good for us and the bikes.

The scenery was desert, miles and miles of it, when you see a sign on the side of the road saying 1786km, in front of you and 1679km behind of you, you know this is a very long road.

I had never seen or experienced anything like this, it was quite stunning.

Over the next couple of days the rides were long and at times, very uncomfortable, but amazing and thrilling at the same time, we hit our first sand storm, this was a bit freaky as the sand moves and shifts along the road which makes the road look weird and makes it hard to focus.

10 bikes and 2 support vehicles, all filling up at remote petrel stations, driving into small local towns, wherever we went we certainly made an entrance.

We had to camp along the Rd at one point, this is when we first came across the scorpions, we actually found a few in the morning, we did not check for them the night before. Opps !!!!

Just riding off the road to the campsite was the first time I had ridden in the sand; we camped about 500m from the Rd, only fell off once, I thought this was a good start, not as easy as you see on the TV….. Hehe

Where we could, we went to the local Qingqi office and got the bikes looked at and repaired, ready for when we finally caught up with the race.

The logistics and administration of the race was not so good, time and time again all through the race there were not enough hotel rooms for all the competitors, and crews’ information flow was poor etc, all could be improved for next year.

We had to find our own hotels in towns that were already full of race teams and support crews, sometimes very late at night , so we ending up in RMB 10 a night places.

In China, even this is considered very cheap, the pics tell it all, however not liking the situation did not make it better, so we dealt with it as best as we could. We just had to check for scorpions before we went to bed as one of our group found one in their bed clothes.

I could go on about the race logistics and difficulties, however just to say it added to the frustrations and disappointment of not being about to race the first 2 days.

We finally caught up and found race HQ way out into the desert ( on a narrow dirt road about 150km from town) the next day was a race rest day so we headed even further out into the desert for a fun ride, hoping to return to town that night to a hotel.

The bikes can ride faster than the van on these dirt roads, so we would always get ahead, we would stop and wait from them to catch us, this time the van did not arrive, Chris rode back and found out the van had crashed into a bank and broke its radiator. The mechanical guys or the ones that new what they were doing, took the radiator out and the other support car had to drive back into town to get it repaired.

So we all made camp in the desert along side the broken Qingqi van, it was quite nice really, lovely clear sky, better than a RMB 10 hotel.

The next day we headed back into town and found another RMB 10 hotel, we got the bikes checked out ready for our first race day the next day.

RACE DAY, what we all have been waiting for.

Stay turned in, I will add another post in the next few days.

Take Care

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Taklimakan Desert Rally , Start of a Great Adventure

Hi All

Well I made it back in one piece, a little bruised and bashed up; however no broken bones, this was the goal.

So much happened that I will have to post for a while to cover everything.

I will start with the PICS already on the pic web site.

I arrived in Urumqi the find the bikes all in good order, however the arrangements for the race not. This was par for the course as I was soon to learn.

The bike had been softly run in and it was time for my first ride, Evett, an American China girl that was part of the team also, had arrived early like me to get conformable with the bile, we did not want to fall off on the first group ride.

Our first ride out of town: Jonno, Max (the captain and main organizer for the team), Evett and myself headed out of Urumqi for our first ride and was immediately stopped by police and had the keys taken away from us, we were ushered to the side of the rode and a big crowd started to form as soon as it was known we were foreigners

Max was very well prepared and showed the policeman a piece of paper with a Chop seal on it stating we were riders of an international team here for the Taklimakan Rally and we were told very quickly to be on our way.

I ride out of town was then very easy and we headed out into the hilly areas just outside of Urumqi.

As you can see by the PICS, we came across herdsman and their sheep, amazing views and sites.

A great first day with the bikes, we only had the police drama, getting lost on the way back and falling off once….All in all , I felt happy with how things were going .

Hope you enjoy the PICS

Stay turned in for more

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Taklimakan Desert Rally UPDATE

This is an update written to all the team fro Team captian " Max Gordon Oidtmann" he lives in Urumqi China and is arranging all the details for the race for us, we all start to fly into Urumqi from the 24th April.

Race update

The happy news here in Urumqi is many fold.

First I was awakened from bed this morning with a phone call from Manager Wang, of Qingqi-Suzuki, telling me that the all the motorbikes had finally arrived from Shangdong

So Jonathan, Tian Jian and I all trooped out to the Urumqi suburb of Changji,where, in a dusty filthy lot, stood two massive blue Dong Feng trucks from Inner Mongolia stacked high with our motorcycles in big steel crates.

The bikes were trucked in pell-mell all the way across China in an amazing three days - each truck had a team of three drivers so they drove non-stop. The storage lot's offloaded was broken, so there was no unloading today.

All I know is that our team now possesses eight brand new GREEN motorcycles, which are still in a semi disassembled state. That and they are all covered in about 10 sandstorms worth of dust.

Last week I took a trip to Karamay, the glorious oil city of northern Xinjiang.

I was invited up to survey the operations of the "An Tai Head Engineering and Consulting Company" (their translation, not mine). I was feted with crabs and baijiu, and put up in a lovely hotel right in the middle of an oil refinery (it felt very Syriana-like).

Anyhow this company has decided to endorse our team to the tune of about RMB 30,000, which will be handled by Tian Jian, and is also giving us the free use of a Nissan X-terra for the course of the race.

Of course this all comes with a catch: This engineering company is opening up a four-star hotel in Urumqi. It ain't open yet, but our uniforms will have their name on it

Currently Tian Jian and I are having uniforms made, basically a motorcycling jacket and pants set. This stuff fell out the "back door" of the same factory as the BMW motorcycling clothing, so it is really hot shit- nice durable all-weather fabric.

Our intention is that this is stuff you can wear around camp and during the larger group road rides leading up to rally sections. It could also double as an outer layer during race sections, 'cause it is really great material. Our outfits will be black, with gold and silver reflective patches for our sponsors.

We've currently got two mechanics/helpers coming along to provide support: DuTao has confirmed that he will be coming out from Lanzhou, and Tian Jian has arranged another mechanic from Urumqi.

Also, after long negotiations with the race company, your original race entree fees now also include something like 400,000 RMB worth of medical treatment in Xinjiang's hospitals for any injuries sustained during the race.

Jonathan of New Zealand has been busy too: He got us an endorsement from the
international distributor of Hoegardens Beer (belgium) and Boddington's Pub Ale
(England). So we're going to have crates of this stuff to get liquored up on during the race, as well as some t-shirts.

So we've got a sweet set of outer-wear for everyone on the team. It is warming up nicely in Urumqi and Xinjiang in general, so I will revise my advice to bring warm clothing. Expect daytime temps to be hot. Aside from perhaps one day, the racing will all be in low-mid elevation desert- no glacier crossings.

Considering that we've got several sets of jackets made for you all here, leave your extra sweaters behind. Please pack as light as possible.

Official team name: Jinhua Business Hotel- Talkimakan Rally Team

That's the news from Urumqi.

Good luck with final preparations.

We'll be sending pictures of the bikes as soon as possible.

A Great New Adventure in China

Hi All

Firstly I must apologize for not writing for a while, I got back from NZ and I have been just flooded with work and trips.

However no excuses… so very sorry.

I will try to do better and keep you up to date with my latest adventure

Yip , I am off adventuring again, this time up into the Urumqi area.

I have been invited to join in a motorcycle rally over the May holiday break, it’s called the “Around Taklimakan Desert Race”

It’s a 10 day, staged rally across the Taklimakan Desert, covering 4000Km

The race will have approximately 60 motorbike riders and about 100 4wd, vehicles racing plus TV and support crews

This is the first time a foreign team has entered the race and getting big exposure, we are actually the biggest team with 10 foreign riders

We are sponsored by the Qingqi Suzuki Motorcycle Company here is China, with us using their bikes and them supplying all the support crews and vehicles.

I will have my www.Travel-the-Real-China.com logo everywhere trying to get good TV, media cover for my Travel China Business.

It’s a great opportunity to see this area and design some adventure trips
.
To be honest, I do ride a motorbike, however not under these conditions, so I have bitten off a large piece of cake in doing this race, however, you only live once and when you get an opportunity like this... you just have to go for it.

I will try to keep online and update my “Blogs” over the race time; we only have to spend 3 days actually camping out in the desert, the rest of the time is in small towns and hotels in and around the desert, so keep an eye on this blog for more updates and if I can, some pictures as well.

MODBLOG pictures do not work all the time, so I have set up an on line picture gallery for all to see, this is easier for me to place pictures as well , hope you enjoy them as I place pictures of my travels and adventures..

Here is me in all my new gear, , full body armer, all the safety gear I could find, all the Moto cross gear in made here and sold in the US, however I have managed to find it all at a third of the price.

The gallery address is My new Bike Gear

Here is the web site if you would like more info on the - Taklimakan Desert Rally

Talk to you all again soon

Happy traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.comwww.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Time to Plan your trip to China

Hi All

I hope are all well and have not been caught out with the weather we are having… this 10 degree change from day to day is rather normal for this time of year.

Easy to catch colds… so be careful.

I have been away to sunny NZ over February, I am now back, and have caught up on all my backlog of enquiries.

If I have missed yours or I was late with an answer…. so very sorry.

Please try again and I will see to it straight away.

Now is the time of year to be planning your trip to or around China.

The in-laws, out-laws could be coming over, so now is the time to plan.

If I can help with some trips around China, please let me know.

I have now just settled a deal with a supplier to provide me with good prices for offshore destinations and tickets.

Vietnam, Bali, International tickets, etc , so if I can help now in this area, please let me know.

Please remember all my trips are arranged locally and are at local Chinese prices.

However, if you would like to see a special deal on a destination, please drop me a line and I can se e what I can do.

All Take Care

Happy Traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Back Home - Shanghai

HI all

Well I’m back from New Zealand.

I had a great 4-week holiday; NZ is a great place, a little expensive in some areas, however cheaper than China in others.

It was very interesting; being a tourist is expensive anywhere in the world.

If you need to know more about this, please drop me a line,
john@travel-the-real-china.com

Well I came back to massive quoting and work, I worked everyday while I was in NZ to try to buffer the workload, I still found out I had missed a lot.

Shanghai, Xian, Beijing and Guilin/Yangshuo all are proving very popular again this year.

I have some special deals for these areas this year, so again drop me a line if I can help.

This year does seem busier than last, so please plan…, tickets for all transportation is limited even with so many flights and trains with China.

Remember, many people live and travel here, so it’s a first in first served.

I have lots seats on flights that I have booked, just because the airline has found someone that will pay immediately for the ticket.

Issued tickets are the only save tickets in China…. please plan.

I hope all of you that come to China over this year have a wonderful trip and If I can help in anyway, lease let me know

Happy Traveling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com