Hearing how overcrowded it is in China and seeing it in pictures are two different things, because nothing registers the meaning of the word "overcrowded" quite like a photo.
China is currently home to a staggering 1.3 billion people, a number which is growing rapidly since they dropped the "one child per family" laws established in the 1970s.
But it has only been a year or so since they dropped this policy so it's still unclear whether societal balance will be restored when more boys and girls are born in China.
However, if it works to restore balance between young and old and man and woman China could once again rise to its former glory as a society, only this time there will be a hell of a lot more people trying to live in the same amount of space.
See 23 shocking photos that show just how crowded China has become here
(An exception was about 3 or 4 AM. Sometimes I would go strolling then because the streets were so much less crowded at that time.)