A Little Bit About China

Being that China is filled with people, there are some uncanny similarities to home sweet American home, but in their foreign attire, they’re more striking, obvious and strange. Business tactics and manners that we take for granted back home stick out like a sore thumb in need of amputation. Social stigmas and gender expectations hang around like big white elephants. Social standards for politeness and personal presentation seem to do a little dance and plead for your approval. Everything that we could find similar about our national oddities looks gruesomely magnified in this new setting, and I find myself dissecting ourselves a little more carefully for it.


I was talking to Andy earlier about the lack of drive and imagination at the schools. I asked my classes to tell me what they would be if they could be anything in the world and I got blank stares. Even with in depth Chinese translation, the best I could drag from them was “factory worker” or “businessman”. I told them to dream a little. Don’t you ever wish you could fly or have magical powers? Just getting an answer more daring than secretary was like pulling teeth, so imagining they could be anything was neigh impossible.


Honestly, it kind of scared me. The people here, the country is crying out for normal. Their people were raped, their culture wiped clean twice, and now they’re just trying to mimic the normalcy of their neighbors. It reminds me of a trauma victim, one who would rather aspire to the stable and normal life of a house wife or family man rather than test the wheel of fate on larger endeavors.


Andy argued that most cultures are like this, and I suppose he’s right. The majority of people are factory workers, waiters, secretaries or salespeople, while a few stand out and push a society forward. Even in the great technological revolution and industrial age, there were really only a few people driving it forward. And they were admirable, courageous, innovative and daring, but in the grand scheme of things, there were only a handful of them, and a whole society to put their tech to daily use.


I guess it stuck me funny because these are kids. All kids day dream, hope and imagine. Why is this missing for them?
It’s stressed here not to be better than your fellow man. The average is the expected level of success and aspiration and wanting more than that is unnatural. There are the new people, the new generation and a few from the last who are pushing for travel, education and greatness, but as before, these are few. Every time I see one, I am oddly proud of them and impressed, wanting to congratulate them on their bravery. That’s how rare it is. Like any country, what is normal for the masses is what’s attempted by the individual, so it is very rare to see people straying from the path.


Center. This country is very big on ‘center’. 中 Zhong (middle/center) 中国Zhongguo (China) means the center country or middle kingdom and came from the belief that China really was the center of it all…the center of the world.

Coming from a county that was cut off from the world as long as it had been, it’s not surprising that they’re stay at home people. Part of the reason why having a boy is considered so much better than having a girl is that when a boy marries, he expands the family, bringing more under its name. Whereas, when a girl marries, she leaves the family, takes on another family name and leaves them with less than before. And leaving your family is dishonorable. Until she is married, a woman most often lives with her family, as they’re supposed to take care of their parents and are expected to do so neigh indefinitely. I’ve noticed that most married couples have grandpa and grandma living with them at their home, though I’ve only ever noticed one set of grandparents, and I do not know who’s they are: the husband’s or the wife’s. The grandparents take care of the children, just as their grandparents took care of them. This situation is common with both wealthy and poor families: they never leave each other.


Here someone running off to travel and explore the world is not romanticized, but rather it is looked down upon, because it means abandoning your family and your country. (Except for the few). I have a friend here, Thomas (sorry, I don’t know his Chinese name), who has brought his young son with him on many travels to Japan, Europe and Australia, showing him the world and that it is open to him. He teaches him English and motivates him to excel. I am proud of Thomas for wanting more for his son and showing him it’s okay to wander off the path; that seeking out new and interesting things is glorious.

Not too long ago, China changed dramatically. The people were told that to be rich is glorious, and to create their own businesses, but they did not tell them how. Before this, the Chinese people were told that it is respectable to stay in China, to stay with your family and to give to the communist party. This has not changed. They were told to be average, be equal, and give back.

Having is different. Now they are told to want a BMW and an expensive home, to wear expensive clothes and spend money. They are adapting, but it is an awkward transition. They are trying to fit their traditional values into this new system and some things just don’t match up.
Within this society of “center”, they’ve opened their doors to Western values and are trying to look good in the new attire, but fit in it uncomfortably. They adopt values, patterns, mannerisms and technique, but it is as foreign to them as eating chicken feet is to me. It’s bound to take a while to become natural.

They are changing quickly. In just 20 years, they’ve done what took us centuries. China is like a child, but is growing up fast and is very impressionable like most children. Their business and goals are susceptible to suggestion. The way things are done here is a mixture of traditional Chinese thought and what they’ve thrown together from what they’ve seen.

I guess they haven’t seen too much of the beauty of independent thought. I believe it’s coming, like a far away tide, ready to wash over the land, but for now, it feels empty without it. You can feel and taste the absence of it on a daily basis.

Innovation and imagination are two of the most important aspect of a people; without it, they would not progress, evolve or learn, and that is death. For now, it works for them. It is a country of business and exports, but once they’re done catching up with the rest of the world, they’ll need creativity to push them on.
This lack of passion and drive is found in America as well, but here, it is staring me down, and it runs cold shivers down my spine. “Don’t they know what they’re giving up?” I think. “Don’t they know what they’re missing?” It’s death to me, not having that, but at home I understand how that particular strain of apathy was born. Here it is foreign, unknown and therefore more appalling. It makes me sad to think that those children do not dream (but perhaps they do, but not in my sense of it), that mediocre is all one should hope to be. My people have sunk into that same pit hole, but I know their excuses and it seems normal. Thinking of it now, seems all the more pitiful. If you tell the people how to live, and then set the standard so low and the ceiling so dreadfully short, well, you’re not telling them how to live at all; you’re telling them how to spend the time before they die.

I think in its largest form, society and government works to hold down a people, pushing them into a workable machine, and communism centers on mediocre, grey and export. This country is a machine just like ours, and it’s working quite well to keep all the wheels and cogs in their most efficient place. Little do they know that the cogs in this machine could be great if only they were told how glorious it could be. If they were told it’s glorious to be daring, they really would rule the world, as a super power, as a leader and a pioneer, but for now, the children mimic, like a tot repeating back it’s first word, barely comprehending what they mean. Hopefully, seeing how quickly this country is moving, they will be able to see the value of thought and creativity once they get to that point. A society of apathetic people works fine for a machine, and gets the job done, but it does nothing for the human race. I think again of my own people and wonder why we think it is so great if what we most perpetuate is stagnancy and easily categorized successes. I think the world is ready for more, and I'd like to see it here and back home.