I look forward to bringing educational and fun experiences in Asia to my granddaughter Mila, who lives in Oklahoma, USA. She can learn about the world through all my adventures. I got a flat stuffed toy to join me. She is reversible. One side is a little girl and the other is a ladybug. I call her LadyB. I sent the same toy to Mila, which she can name as she sees fit. My Chinese name is Gonggong, which means grandfather in Chinese.

I posted the first 15 on Facebook and got so many complaints from fans who hate or don’t use it, so I decided to start posting them on China Rising Radio Sinoland. Catching up with #3 here.

LIFTOFF!

Story #3: traveling across the great Asian Continent.

22 October 2024, Paris.

Dear Mila,

We will fly across Europe and Asia. 13 hours and 12,000km later, we will land in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan Province, China.

That makes for a long day. Then we go to our new home in Puli Town, Nantou County, in the foothills of the mountains.

Talk then. Love, Grandfather Gonggong

PS: the video in our airplane is not accurate,

Western planes used to take the “polar route” in a big arc going over northern Siberia. The West blocked all Russian planes from their airspaces in 2022, so Russia had no choice to block them. It has come back to haunt the West, since to fly from Europe to East Asia, they now have to take a much longer southern route, over the Black Sea, Iran, Caspian Sea, then across all the “Stans” before getting to China and the rest of the region. It adds about two hours of flying time and lots more fuel burned, which is bad for the environment. See the map below,

 Pictured above: the polar route looks longer, but the circumference of the earth is much smaller heading towards the North Pole. The southern route is much closer to the equator, which has a circumference of 40,000km.

Countries friendly to Russia, like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the many others in Africa and West Asia can still fly the polar route, so they are making good money, while the Western airlines are bleeding cash on these routes. A number of Western flights to Asia have been canceled as a result and the European Union demanded that Russia-friendly airlines pay Western airlines compensation, which is a delusional hoot! The days of post-Versailles Africa and Asia are long gone.

Unfortunately, Taiwan is of course considered unfriendly to Russia, so our (Taiwanese) EVA Air flight has to take the southern route. Our consolation is that it is a direct flight from Paris to Taipei. LadyB and I had a very pleasant flight. EVA Air is highly recommended.

###