One of China's most remarkable qualities is its ability to produce endless contradictions. It contains some of the poorest regions of the world and has been home to some of its greatest disasters (the Sichuan Earthquake 2008) and conflicts (Tibet, the recent terrorist attacks in the western provinces, decades past massacres and genocides). It also houses a great part of the world's factories now and has proven enormous economic success in the last couple decades. It possesses great expanses of mountains and deserts, cold and hot, camels and pandas, giant cities and humble rice villages. There exist delicate and ancient secrets buried deep in gorges, beneath tropical foliage and craggy rocks. The most sophisticated of technologies carry passengers on the world's fastest train from one of the world's largest cities to an enormous international airport at 431 km/h while the same city's streets teem with bikes and rickshaws.
The Chinese government is one of the most closed and secretive in the world. But the people and the culture are open and warm. There exists a dual inclination to obey, to a degree, the regulations set out by the government and also to evade them. The system may be socialist but yet the machine at work supports one of the strongest capitalist systems in the world.
As I sit and try to compose thoughts about my days in China, I find the task I rather overwhelming one. The hospitality shown me by my friends and those I encountered in different cities around China touched me deeply. One friend drove with me, though I had a driver to take me, all two and half hours to the airport in Wuhan, stayed for lunch, and saw me off through security, waving all the way. He showed me the honor one would to a dear friend - only having known me ten short days. Another friend insisted upon shipping all my purchases back to my apartment for me by DHL so I wouldn't have to carry them with me through the rest of my travels. Yet another took me to dine an Italian restaurant, thinking I might miss the food I loved so much.
No longer in China, I find myself constantly confronting those misconceptions about the Chinese I myself once also held: They are truly a diverse, interested and interesting people and, in my opinion, some of the most generous.
I also met Americans and Europeans on my travels. People who, like me, had found their way to China in search of something - be it a job, money, love, adventure, themselves, the next step, mystery... Some of these people were profoundly interesting. Some, not so much. I chatted with people working in hotel design (a hot business), marketing, environment, oil drilling, English teaching, economic development, finance, banking, and TV. Sometimes I met people who came just to visit (few yet).
No doubt, the economic crisis can be felt in China too. People talk about it - as they do everywhere - but here, unlike in the US, the government has taken the unlikely opportunity to use money usually invested abroad for heretofore neglected domestic projects. For a country with a 50-60% savings rate, too high, really, for a developing country and high even compared to developed countries, this comes as a disguised blessing. New construction is everywhere - and this time not on factories and high-rises - but on roads, bridges and other necessary infrastructure. Could the financial collapse of 2008 bring a better quality of life to the common Chinese person? It's possible...
At this point, while sitting on a cushion in southern Tuscany, I want to conclude with some thoughts (in accord, I think, with the opinions of one James Fallows, who I have mentioned before and whose book, "Postcards from Tomorrow Square," I recently finished and immensely enjoyed): It is evident from spending but 4 weeks in the Republic of China that a strong economic and political future for the US will necessitate a strong relationship on every level with China. This includes more visas for students and teachers, better attempts at understanding the motive of our neighbors across the Pacific and more openness and willingness to shift our own policies toward them. China is strong but it is not "there yet." Links may be made that will become strong bonds. China and America have more in common than not what is not might be yet change. For now, the Chinese seem to have a deep curiosity and, for now, respect for the US. That is something we should not disregard lightly.
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