Well, it's been over a month back in the United States. I've had enough time to get back into old habits and see most of my family and friends again, not to mention all the people I didn't have to worry I'd see while living in China. Back in America, I may have to avoid certain people again, but for the most part they have done me the return service of refusing eye contact and avoiding me. In China, it was a luxury- going to the grocery store, or just meandering about the city, as a complete stranger. I go to the Hy-Vee here in town now and I have to worry about running into someone I know or scanning a familiar face and trying to remember if I ever did anything to make them hate my guts. China was a rough and miserable place to live, but the stress of life between China and America never left, it just changed forms.
But still, one of my new phrases stateside has been "Better than China." As in, watching my family lose their patience over bad drivers, I had to remark that, after living in China for a year, nothing less than a crash could faze me. I had seen the world's second worst drivers in action (a well-traveled Australian couple told me Croatians were actively homicidal behind the wheel, besting the Chinese who are only absent-mindedly homicidal), so I couldn't care less about petty blunders like running red lights and turning left in and through oncoming traffic (yes, I witnessed these daily at every busy intersection). And while lifelong Americans resort to customary road rage, I mutter, "Hey, at least it's better than China."
Which leads me back to the commonly asked question, "Are you glad to be back?" I may say yes, but I'm not as happy to be in America as I am to be out of China. See, I love to travel and live in the midst of a foreign culture. Walking around city streets, immune from tiresome interactions by way of my inability to comprehend the native's language, just exploring and taking it all in- it's a great, refreshing feeling.
I also relish the opportunity to analyze firsthand the culture, state of society, level of infrastructure, and general atmosphere of a place. I like to question what factors contributed to the current state and what were the foundational beliefs leading to the culture's development and standards. For instance, Chinese spit wherever they feel like and speak brusquely like children fighting on the playground. The Chinese have to explain to foreigners, "We're not really arguing, just talking." Why is that accepted as a fact of life in China? Why, in America, is it considered below standard or surly to bark at full volume into a cell phone while in an elevator, or pushy to cough out your words whenever a customer looks over your goods? And the reverse of that coin: what would happen if Americans had to live without the foundation of their society, the car? And why does all the food have to be loaded with sugar?
After living in a foreign culture, I have become much better at recognizing the culture of my native land. The things Americans take for granted, assume are necessities, learn to live with, and love, are not the essential ingredients of a fulfilling life. Particulars vary wildly from culture to culture, each relishes its own pastimes and comfort foods, and in answer to life's basic questions each takes its own hardline or laissez faire approach. This is not to say that all things are equal and merely variations on the same whole. No, my time in China has educated me firsthand to the great discrepancies that will result when you take away the Christian beliefs that flourished Western culture and, in its place, erect a modern, statist system. China is emerging as a world power economically, and it is doing its utmost to thrust a state education on the people and develop its cities and infrastructure. And note that word "develop." China, I believe, is now classified as a developed nation, which might be true in Beijing and Shanghai. Anywhere outside the mega-cities, honesty would classify it as a developing nation. But I have become convinced that China will always be developing and never be developed. Though China has changed significantly in 20 years, I propose that if you gave it 200 years it would never arrive at a developed stage. Not truly.
Ask yourself: if China became the number one nation in the world (economically, militarily) then whose business would it undercut? Who would it copy? Whose ideas and copyrights would it steal if it were at the top? Leaders are expected to innovate; China's power has been leeched off others. Again, I say it all comes down to the foundational beliefs, and right now, other than Confucian ideals like respect for parents and harmony, most Chinese have little to believe in other than China. It is narrow, it is circular, and it is a testament to nationalism that so many people are devoted to such an impoverished country. It is not just the squalor and decay seen walking the streets, or the haze felt and seen, often smelled, in the polluted environment. It is the moral vacuum left after Communist revolution and decades of Maoism. So, until China takes Mao's bloated face off every bill in their currency, do not expect significant development. But do not expect that repudiation to come quickly, either. The Chinese government is hyper-sensitive to criticism, and it builds its powerful reputation by pretending it (i.e. socialism with Chinese characteristics, i.e. government by the Chinese Communist Party) is a great and benevolent servant of the people.
My ultimate message to Americans, concerning China, is to learn the truth about China's current state and apply those lessons fearfully to our own society.
More to come,
Mantis
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