What is Capitalism but a way of life for many who want to get rich. Communism gets a bad rap for its ability to stifle innovation and effort. However, when you look at Communist China, growing at 7-9% GDP per year, do you really think its citizens have no desire to improve their living standards beyond what is generally proposed?

We all have an inherent nature of wanting to do better. Not only do we want to continue improving, we also want to one-up our peers! After all, what’s the point of making $100,000 dollars a year if everybody else makes the same?

We learned a good amount about how the happiest people on Earth live after my 2.5 week trip to Scandinavia. So, I decided to take a trip to Chongqing, one of the fastest growing cities in China to learn more.

THE CHONGQING FIREBALL

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Figuring out how much to tip is one of the most awkward things to tackle because tipping is not mandatory. But if you live in America like I do, tipping is part of our culture. Not tipping for service feels weird, so we tend to do it anyway even if it’s not a part of another country’s culture.

Although each country in Europe has a slightly different tipping culture, I’d like to provide a rough guideline of how much to tip any waiter or hotel staff while traveling in any country in Europe. The tipping amounts have been researched through my own travel experiences and speaking with numerous travel industry veterans. And if you’re ever in doubt, you can always tip more!

In order to get to my friend’s wedding in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I stopped by Seoul, Korea for five days. In addition to checking out some amazing palaces and eating kalbi every day, one must also take an hour bus ride, 35 miles away to the Demilitarized Zone, aka the DMZ.

The DMZ is ironically one of the most militarized areas of the Korean peninsula. It was established on July 27, 1953 as a 2.5 mile wide buffer between the North and South. The line in the center of the DMZ is called the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). I was curious to see the place for myself since a flare up in country relations always seems to occur at least twice a year.

So why was the DMZ created in the first place? It started with the Japanese when they took over Korea from 1910 until the end of World War II in 1945. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and—by agreement with the United States—occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel. The US subsequently occupied the south and Japan surrendered.

From 1950 – 1953 over three million people died fighting for the sovereignty of Korea. The North, influenced by the Soviets and the Chinese with their communist ideology, felt they had right to rule the land. The South, helped by the Americans and our democratic ideology strongly disagreed.