"Has anyone been "on the ground" in China recently and found...

"Has anyone been "on the ground" in China recently and found anything to support the value hypothesis?"

I live in Suzhou. Below are a few random observations.

Apartment construction has slowed in SIP the last couple of years, but remains active in the less developed surrounding cities, such as Changshu further north.

Apartment prices are ridiculously expensive on any metric. As an example, until a few months ago we rented a 144sqm 3 bedroom + study apartment for 6500 RMB/month. It sold for 7.5 million RMB. Renting is very affordable and although it's not a fight for accommodation, apartments tend not to remain empty.

Three high end shopping malls have opened in the past few years and appear to be booming. Despite Chinese doing most of their shopping online.

Last week I counted 17 Starbucks within a 3km radius of my home. 3 years ago there was one. I used to enjoy getting some quiet reading done in Starbucks. Now it takes a concerted effort and strategy to find one quiet enough to even get a seat.

KFC's have been popping up everywhere the last 12 months. Currently, I've only come across 2 Pizza Huts. Although I'm keeping an eye out for each of these to further expand their footprint as Yum China is a core holding of PAI (and Forager which I also hold).

Foreign owned manufacturing dropped significantly a couple of years ago (based on student expat numbers in the two international schools) due to tougher taxation laws and a concerted shift by the government to switch the economic focus to local consumption. Though it appears to have now plateaued and big projects again look on the cards, such as this recent announcement by BMW and Great Wall just north from here.

Infrastructure has been focussed on further expanding thesubway. This has been a constant project since 2012 and has been done at incredible speed with minimal public disruption. A world class sporting stadium was also completed last year.

Those are a few observations.