Thoughts
The trip itself was fascinating. I learned more about Chinese culture and history than I had ever known before, and it sparked a lot of questions about what it means to be a successful nation, how that success can be attained, what a country can and can not do for its people, and the differences between China and the other Asian countries I’m familiar with (notably Japan), and between China and the West. Where Japan is quiet, subdued, and mannerly, China is boisterous, loud, and gregarious. Japan’s version of rural is nothing compared to the poverty and poor infrastructure that still exists in parts of the Chinese countryside. If I think I get gawked at here (Japan) for my slightly Asian-slightly not features, it was nothing compared to the looks I – and even more so, my blue-eyed friend – received throughout our trip. Though in many instances, they believed me to be Chinese and yammered away at me accordingly.
In addition, I think China might benefit from a program like the JET Program, with which I am affiliated. There is a foreign person in almost every city, town, and village in Japan. Japanese children are exposed to foreigners as young as preschool these days, and while there is still this huge sense of “outsider” vs. “insider” mentality in Japan, it is nowhere near as jarring as it might be if the past generation of Japanese kids wasn’t exposed to foreigners until their later years.
I was also surprised to learn that China just entered its Industrial Revolution less than one hundred years ago, compared to Japan. In many ways, it is still playing catch-up (quickly, at that), but is stuck behind some major obstacles. The water is undrinkable. The notion of waste (i.e. trash everywhere) is shocking to an outsider. The backcountry enthusiast’s green motto “Pack it in, pack it out” seems to hold little social sway in China, where I was astonished to see so much debris along the country’s number one claim to fame, the Great Wall.
In my earlier post, I mentioned our guide with whom we did not get along. However, meeting him really inspired a lot of thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and furthered my already instilled sense of privilege at being born a woman in America. Here was a young man, born in 1984 in rural China to farmers, who worked his way through the seemingly grueling Chinese education system to become fluent in English and with a good job as a tour guide in one of China’s biggest cities. Bravo. Somewhere along the line, he began to question his country’s policies and even the rhetoric fed to him throughout the years about the Evil West. He mentioned to us reading Orwell’s Animal Farm post-university and how it opened his eyes. This is a book that almost every American reads in either Middle or High School and which many of us take for utter granted. However, our guide often swung widely between stereotyping the West, particularly America, in a favorable light and an unfavorable light, taking his vast textbook knowledge and trying to apply it to a country he had not once yet stepped foot in. Though he mentioned his enthusiasm at making many American friends, the only investment he seemed to have in us was for just that sake, and none else – that we were Americans. There was no effort at getting to know what we, as Americans, were really like. As to why, we can only guess that we two represented the unfortunate half of our species: women. This case was further illustrated in such comments that his family was lucky to have had two sons (sidenote: the further out of Beijing you get, the more lenient the one-child-only policy is) and in his general behavior towards us.
China’s form of communism is also very different to the form I witnessed in Cuba (shhh) only a year ago. Where in Cuba, it seems that everyone was in the same impoverished boat living off government staples and earning the same meager wages, China is obviously very capitalistic. From what I could gather, China’s communism was based on: one single party consistently holding all the power; blocked websites such as Facebook, You Tube, and personal blogs; control of the press; such programs as farmers contributing money per household capita or a portion of the year’s harvest – which is really just as similar to our tax system; the fact that no one can own land; and it’s justice system, where rather than suspects being reviewed by a jury of their peers, they are judged by officials elected by (and therefore representative of?) the public. How can two countries (China and Cuba) both be politically communist yet be so vastly different? How is China able to reconcile its politics with a developed capitalist and focus on education, while Cuba flounders in the Caribbean?
In the end, I admit that that my view of China is widely incomplete and hugely elementary. Spending a week in one city and on the Great Wall by no means a China expert make. And, perhaps some of my opinions seem harsh. We also met some charming, friendly, welcoming and open-minded Chinese people, particularly getting to share the generous hospitality of family friends who showed us the “local’s” Beijing, and meeting a college girl traveling solo with excellent bohemian fashion style who accompanied us on some sightseeing we did our last day in the city. What I can state for fact though: that China is an onion of a country – layers upon layers of history and culture, and getting to travel there even for the briefest of times highlighted that which I value in travel (and life). Exposure to new sights, sounds, foods, people, and ways of thinking. So yes, my week was certainly Golden.
**This was definitely a mammoth of a no-photo post. Thanks for getting through all the words. Any thoughts and comments are always appreciated. KS.**
Sail Forth - Japan Chapter 