China Musings

To be honest, China will probably not be my favorite country that I'll visit on my trip; however, my experience there was just amazing. Although I was averse to group travel outside of climbing expeditions, I met the greatest people on my trip and had an amazing two weeks! Kunming, located in the Yunnan province of China, was a very daunting place when I first arrived. For example, I tried to find a place at the airport to change money so that I could pay the taxi or bus to my hostel. However, no one spoke any English or not enough that I could understand! Finally, through a series of hand gestures, some broken English and Mandarin and someone walking me out of the airport I found the China Bank a few hundred yards outside of the airport where I could change money. My favorite moment of frustration was when one of the security guards decided that since I didn't understand his spoken Mandarin, if he wrote it out in Chinese characters I would understand it!
One nice thing that the Chinese government does do is educate its people at every opportunity. Rather than commercial advertisements, billboards and bus stops are often filled with colorful information regarding topics ranging from medical care/HIV & healthy eating and lifestyle to Intellectual Property rights for new companies. China is not a communist country in the true sense of the word. In fact, it appears to be a controlled capitalist society with the government guiding the ultimate goals of its people through filtered information. For example, our guide, who I will call Jim per his request to stay anonymous for true fear of government retaliation of his truthful answers (NO JOKE!), was a very intelligent man and was very frank with us about most of China's history and present day roadblocks. However, with seemingly childlike ignorance, Jim declared that no terrorists would ever attack China. The government has promised the people that as long as they follow the laws and do not have too much freedom, the terrorists will never attach China. There may be some truth to the fact that the US was targeted due to our freedom; however, one thing 9/11 taught me is to never say never. I think what shocked me was the way Jim laughed as he responded to my question regarding terrorists -- as if I was the one proposing the preposterous idea. This was my first of many exposures to the 'brainwashing' that affects many Chinese.
At dinner that night stories were related of either ignorance, at best, or more likely cult-like brainwashing about Chinese history, Westerns, and other topics. One of my Aussie friends related a story of his friend who, upon having a second child (which is illegal in China) was fired from her teaching job and will only be able to work again if she can get one of her children an Australian citizenship.
One of the upsides of the 'one child' law is that the Chinese revere their children. You see many fathers, grandfathers, mothers, etc... doting on their child.
One final story about the imbalance of exposure to technology and a very scary experience: while flying at around 30,000ft, a man sitting in the window seat of the exit row tried to open the exit door for some fresh air. Ironically, the stewardess had tried to get me to move out of the other exit row seat because she thought that I, as a Westerner, wouldn't be able to figure out what to do in case of an emergency.


Chinese Words of the Day:
Yi (pronounced "ee") = One
Er (pronounced "are") = Two
San (pronounced "san") = Three
Si (pronounced "suh") = Four
Wu (pronounced "woo") = Five
Liu (pronounced "lio") = Six
Qi (pronounced "chi") = Seven
Ba (pronounced "bah") = Eight
Jiu (pronounced "geo") = Nine
Shi (pronounced "shuh") = Ten