Over the Semester i was asked for my Chinese Culture class to write 10 blogs about my experiences in china connecting them with the book China Road written by Rob Gifford (which by the way is very interesting and not what i expected them to be). I figured that this was a quick way to include some of the things that I have done and was thinking about. The first one is my actually my last post so they are in descending order with the most recent being first.
Study AbroadStudying abroad has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I think about what I would be doing right now if I was at home, and I just cannot imagine what it would be like. I’ve been having the time of my life looking at historical sites, government buildings, and being around people who speak a different language and improving my Chinese. I think everyone should have this opportunity. When I was reading China Road, there was a section of the book that talks about the government of China offering the most intelligent minority children (in this case it was the Uighur people) in school the opportunity to study in a university in the east. To these children, this is an opportunity that is impossible to refuse. In America, you think about traveling across the country for school and you think “yeah no problem, I can do that”. It is interesting to me how many people are not able to have this opportunity. How many people go straight from school into working a farm, or even how many people in China do not even have an opportunity to finish school. These people live in poverty and there is no way for them to get out of that poverty other than moving away from their homes and moving to a big city, which in itself would cost a lot of money for a small chance at success. The government pumps so much money into the large cities to make them booming economic centers for trade, and forget the smaller villages, with people that are making just barely enough to support their family. What’s more is the children that are given the opportunity to study in the east are slowly integrating into what China wants them to be, losing what culture from their people they have left. Even with this problem I still think it is great that these people have the opportunity to study at good universities, that they are able to learn from other people, that they have the opportunity to study other cultures. I cannot complain that others have this opportunity since I want others to have the opportunity to study abroad. My hope is that these people can study away from their culture and families and keep their culture.
Independent ThinkingChinese people are very intelligent people. I look at the structures that they have created, at the parks, the different solutions that they have come up with for their daily problems. It amazes me that China has so many intelligent people but, does not want to give them too much freedom to express that intelligence. Now Im not saying that at the first sign of something new, China stamps it out. No that’s not what I mean. However, Rob Gifford puts what I think into words best. “It seems that every time someone starts to think outside the box politically, either the state collapses or the people doing the thinking are crushed.” This is very true. On Tian’anmen we see people getting dragged off because they are trying to protest something, we see people handing flyers out get taken away in a van. Independent thinking is just something I don’t know will come to Chinese people very soon. “…China the concept, China the empire, China the construct of two thousand years imperial history has never been, and may never be, able to allow independent thinking.” This to me is one of the saddest outlooks for Chinese people. If I was not able to think for myself, try to change the world around me with my ideas, I don’t know what I would do. I guess follow what people told me to do but I feel like that is a very sad existence. Nothing quite makes you feel better than someone who listens to your ideas, listens to you as an intelligent person. It gives you a purpose in life. My hope for this country is that eventually people will be able to voice their opinions without being silences, or dragged off in a police van. One day maybe, but definitely not any time soon.
Open opportunity for successYesterday I went with Adam and Josh to get my face shaved by a man under a bridge. When I went I did not know what I was getting myself into. The man pulled out a straight razor and started sharpening it on a belt. Ever since I saw Sweeny Todd I had always wanted to learn how to use a straight razor, but to me this was the next best thing, but that changed into the next worst thing. As he scrapped across my face with the blade, I could help but think that it felt like the blade was serrated. As my eyes flared open in pain, Josh and Adam who had gotten their faces shaved weeks before knowing full well the pain that came from it, laughed. I could help but laugh myself, which of course made the man angry because he didn’t want to cut me. Walking around the city you see many people doing odd end jobs for money. Most of these people do not look like they are much above begging on the street, but they do their work without complaining. I imagine that most of these people are the people that Rob Gifford talks about in China Road. The people that move to big cities hoping to get a job so that they can send money back to their families until they can move there themselves. These people performing odd and end jobs just to survive. It has to take a lot of will power to perform these tasks every day for little money. This is one reason why I have a great deal of respect for the Chinese people. They are so patient with everything, well, most of them are at least. Sometimes I wonder how things would be different had communism not been put in place, or if there was a market where one could legally create their own business.
One-child PolicyIn our classes there have been times when we are asked to present a PPT about something, whether it be about travel or what we did over National Week break or something. More often than not someone includes pictures of vacations they took with their family, or returning home during the break and having pictures of family included in that. I multiple times we have gotten on the subject of family. My teacher asked us how many people were in our families. Many of us said 4-10, and she was amazed at how many of us had large families. When we asked her how many were in her family, we already knew the answer. She said she was the only child in her family. I makes me a little sad to see families so small. When I was growing up I loved having a big family. Granted I didn’t know anything different, but I could only imagine having a small family would be very boring after a while, especially if you were the only child. In China Road, Rob Gifford has an experience where he meets with the woman in charge of Family Planning in china. She explained to him that each county or city has its own family planning department that enforces the one-child policy. If the woman will not cooperate then they force the woman to cooperate. This to me is really scary. I think of all the families that want to have more than one child and what the government would do to them if they didn’t comply to their demands, how broken hearted I would be if my wide was taken and forced to abort a child that both of us wanted to have. What makes me angry about this is that I want to adopt children when I get married as well. Why not have the baby and put it up for adoption? This would save a life and bless the life of another.
Respect “’What do you want most from the West?’ I ask Mr. Zhou.
He doesn’t hesitate. ‘What we want most is respect,’ he blurts out as though he has waited all his life for a foreigner on a bus to ask him this question. ‘Yes, we want respect more than anything. I want to go abroad, like you people when you come here. You come to China, and we respect you because you are wealthy and civilized. That’s what I want too. I want to go to your country, and be respected, and get a job there and not be looked down on.’”
Very few times have I actually thought about this, thought about respect for those of other countries. Never have I thought that this was something that they felt like they needed, thinking that of course I respect you. I have thought about this more and more recently as I have been traveling. Traveling cost a lot of money, and being able to live in another country as a student takes even more. When talking to sales people in countries where bargaining is a big thing, it amazes me how many of them end up saying things such as “why don’t you borrow some from your friend” or “you came here, so you should have a lot of money”. Yes I am here, but that does not mean I have a lot of money. Yes I am white, but that does not mean I have a lot of money either. It is interesting how money has become the measure of respect to people. The more money you have the more respect you receive from others. The problem with this way of thinking is that those who come to America, we do not see them as people who have a lot of money. We see them as a person coming to our country. It was not until I started college after my mission that those people who go to school in other countries had to have a lot of money in their family to pay for the school payments as well as travel expenses. But does this get you respect? In my eyes, no it does not. Respect to me is gained by what you do. If you do something that is contrary to my beliefs, you bet you will lose my respect, but everyone gets the benefit of the doubt at first. Does China have my respect? Its government does not so much, but its people, I have nothing but the highest respect for their patience, hard work, and kindness towards me.
InnovationI was reading China Road, in the 20th chapter it starts up speaking about characters. Characters are made up of radicles and each radical has a meaning. Each radical is made of a radical and some other part. It was be very easy to create more characters when you just combine radicals together, but you cannot do that. You cannot create a new character for something that has just been created. In order to name anything you have to use existing characters, such as computer being called “electric mind”. This is much like China’s ability to branch out and be creative. China wants people to have the freedom to explore knowledge, to invent, but it is so afraid that if people were allowed to make innovations that the people would try to over throw the government. This being so, chinese progress for expression, for innovation, for progression is slowed down because of the government. Independent thinking is where this all happen. Chinese people probably have the hardest time thinking as individuals because every time they voice their opinion, if it is not in line with the government they are taken care of especially if it is in the relm of politics. “It seems as though every time someone starts to think outside the box politically, either the state collapses or the people doing the thinking are crushed.” We see this in examples at Tian’anmen Square, where people start to do a protest and get thrown into a van, in learning some of the rules, you have to petition the government 5 days in advance to have a protest. China has not been one to allow free thinking in the past, and it does not seem to be any time soon that Chinese people will be having this right either.
BeautifulSomething that I noticed as is that some Chinese women look considerably whiter than others. To me these women did not really look all that Chinese to me with the exception of the dark hair, eyes and how most of them are extremely skinny. I never really questioned why they were so white before because I had learned on my mission that there were two things that Asians dislike: 1. Rain 2. The sun. Even though I knew they did not like the sun and I knew that they thought being white was beautiful I never really thought that Chinese people would create a skin bleacher. In China road, Rob Gifford speaks to two women from a make-up company and had this conversation:
“What do your stores sell? Just lipstick and rouge and the usual stuff?
“Yes, but also lots of whitening cream, to make your skin pale. We hate dark skin.”
I tell her how Western woman buy suntan cream to make their skin look darker. She looks repelled, not seeming to care that every face on the bus is either dark skin of a Tibetan or Hui Muslim, or the darkened skin of a Chinese farmer who works all day in the sun.
“Dark skin is ugly. White Skin is beautiful,” she says.
After reading this part of the book I decided to take a look next time I made a trip to Wu-mart. I was surprised at how many different brand of Whitening cream there were. There were probably more than 10 different kinds. It is interesting how those who have dark skin wish they could be white, and those who have white skin wish their skin was dark. Very interesting how each other think the other is beautiful, but I guess beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.
SmokingOn the way to bungee jumping I observed a very interesting sight. On the side of the road was a Young Chinese boy, could not be more than 12 years old, standing amounst his friends, smoking. 12 years old? I could not believe my eyes. I had heard in other countries that the children as young as 3 years old were smoking, but I had never seen someone so young puffing away on a cigarette. As I was reading through China Road a sentence that was similar to this experience in there when Rob Gifford was in Tibet speaking to a 16 year old boy in a Lhasa nightclub swigging from a bottle of Budweiser. I think about how I was raised not only as a member of the church but also as an American and look at these examples and think “how are these kids getting away with this?” It is obvious that China does not have as strict of laws that America does with these substances, but the question that I wonder is how do the parents of these children not intervene with these activities? Even if the parents were smokers, or drinkers, it just does not make sense to me. Looking at other things that don’t make sense to me makes me look at the morality of China and the conclusion that I keep arriving at is that China just does not have as strong of a moral conscious as America does. You look at America and you see multiple laws, bans, and age restrictions on drugs and alcohol. Although I have not reviewed Chinese laws, the only drug I have ever heard of being banned is Opium and from reading and what I hear/see there does not seem to be a large restriction on alcohol. China can be a very interesting place.
Public Singing- karaoke So I had the opportunity to participate in Karaoke. The place was very nice and included a buffet. I went with some of the members from the ward and some of their friends from Hong Kong. It was a very interesting experience. I have done karaoke before at home with my friends, however it was in the privacy of our home. This it does not matter whether you sound bad or not, you belt it out like no one is around, like you do not care. Rob Gifford put it plainly: “Most Westerners (including most of those in China) would rather stick needles in their eyes than sing in public.” I love singing, and it does not matter where, however, when called out on or with people I don’t know very well, for some reason I would rather do something other sing. When they told me to sing a song, I was very apprehensive. I had no interest in sing at all. However as soon as the song popped up and I started singing, I could not get enough of it. When I waited my turn for the friends from Hong Kong to go, I noticed that some of them were not very good at singing, but that did not matter to them. They let it all out. I am still unsure why the Asian culture loves singing karaoke but the reason I think could be the reason is that they can express themselves in a culture where there is so much honor. Embarrassment is a highly look down upon. I went to dinner with my classmates and there was drinking involved. One of the Korean men in my class was so intoxicated that he admitted he did not know what happened that night, but in speaking to one of the Korean women in my class, she said not to mention anything from that night unless asked about it. She said that Koreans (and I think this is true of every Asian culture) do not like bringing up anything that could be seen as dishonorable. It’s a little sad that everything is so focused on honor and rank. I know that if our culture focused so much on those things that many people would have dishonored their families. This is one reason why I enjoy western culture more.
"You are my Friend"Ever since I was young I have been fascinated with Asian culture. I have been fascinated by the architecture, the way of dress, language, and their lifestyle for reasons I could not explain. When I got older I began to formulate a reason why I have always been fascinated by this cultural demographic. This notion that I have some purpose to fulfill with this group of people keeps dancing through my head. Little events such as an exchange program in Japan, my mission being mandarin speaking, keeping up with my Chinese and now that I am in China studying makes this thought a reality.
If there was one race of people outside of my own that I feel comfortable around it would be the Asian race. This is one of the many things I have found interesting with living in China thus far. I am comfortable here. I may not be able to communicate perfectly, I may make mistakes, look like a fool even, but for some reason or another, I do not feel uncomfortable being in China. I have been other places where the environment, people, or the general feel of a place has made me weary, a little on edge, cautious if you will. With China, the only caution I feel is being pickpocketed, which is a concern with any large city in America. Yes, there have been times when I have been tired of the food, miss family and friends, but the comfort that I feel being here keeps me on this purpose that I may have with these people.
When first told to read the book “China Road” I was a little skeptical about how enjoyable it would be. My preconceived notions that it would be boring and a little like walking through molasses to get through was swept away the first time I read the book. I was amazed at how informative and entertaining it was. As I read through the book, it poses a question: “what kind of country will China become?” Throughout the chapters, examples are given from the past, present and what is predicted for the future. None of them are conclusive to what kind of country China will become.
I had a very interesting experience this past week that gave me a little hint at what I could see China becoming. Since living in China and being without our Student Id’s allowing us to eat in the campus cafeteria, we’ve eaten a lot of street food. One vendor in particular, a man who makes homemade ice cream, has become our friend. One day, on one of my countless visits to this man, I attempted to give this man more than he asked for in exchange for his delicious dessert. I insisted, even though he was unable to offer a waffle cone, I still wanted to pay the 3 kuai. My attempts were met with a warming smile, a shake of his head and a reply to my question of why: “因为你是我的朋友”. This to me is where China is headed. China will become as China becomes. I do not believe it will be filled with people seeking to take over the world. I believe it to be filled people who are trying to succeed. I don’t know how the future will turn out for the rest of the world but I have high hopes for the success of China.
