A Glimpse of China 2005

Rush of modern China in front of their World Trade Center.

A recent advanture into China provided a glimpse of the future and small window to the past. The county is a grinding mix of ancient and modern struggling to coexist in this sprawling nation of over a billion people. I was told by an american living in China that the longer you are their the less you understand and after two weeks I truly believe that. Also, I realized that whatever you say about China is true. Here are some random impressions and thoughts:

Dispite the reputation as a harsh communist dictatorship, I saw very few uniformed police or military. I moved around with impunity and no fear of crime.

Many religious centers are open to visitors and worshipers. I visited Buddist, Taoist and Islamic centers in Beijing and Xian. Xian is a smaller city (7 million people) that has a large muslem population and an impressive mosque. There is a picture hanging in the visitor center of Muhammad Ali visiting this Grand Mosque.



The main tourist attractions such as the Great Wall (which is actually many walls over a vast area), the Forbidden City, Teracotta Warriers are far larger and more impressive than expected having seen them on TV or in books/brochures. Go see it for yourself.

I was never a big fan of chinese food and this trip did not change that. Peking Duck was good but did not leave me longing for more. I had food at a variety of places from posh to street venders. One of the best meels I had was at an Indian restuarant in Shanghai. Beer is cheap and fairly good and the Chinese drink plenty of it!

Struggling to communicate in Chinese is not like struggling to communicate in a European language. At least in European languages. I know the alphabet and numbers. In China I was like a mute. Using public tranportation, taxis, or rickshaws was a major challenge. I promised myself I would not eat in western fast food restuarants(McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC are popular), but one day I went exploring on my own and could not order in the Chinese restuarant. In desperate attempt to keep body and soul together, I ended up in KFC. Enough said.



While I did not delve deaply into it, China has a vibrant counterculture. Signs of it are everywhere. Young people with colorful hair, tattoes, women smoking in public no less, leather, and piercings. My brush with a form of counter culture came at the end of a hutong (traditional chinese neighborhood street) in a small tea house. There trendy chinese chatted with equally trendy foreingers while ethnic mongolian (previously banned)music played in the background. Almost smoked, all drank and it was kewl.

Suprising, Chairman Mao seemed to be nothing more that a picture to the ordinary citizenry. Capitalism is everywhere as peole try to evercome the vestiges of the the cultural revolution (circa 1965-1975). From what I could gather, the cultural revolution devasted China with the most damanging effect being 2 generations of people with little or no formal education. People were literally driven from the urban areas on to farms, ranches and rural projects. They worked all day and had revolutionary meeting at night with little food or creature comforts.