Bonzer Words!: China
"China strikes me as a country of contradictions,'' says Lytrice Adams.
I visited China on a whirlwind tour. Six cities in sixteen days. Coming to terms with my experiences is proving quite a challenge.
China strikes me as a country of contradictions. I found it brooding and ancient, yet vibrant and modern. The streets are spotlessly clean, but the waterways are heavy with sludge and pollution. The roadways are teeming with vehicles heedless of traffic rules, but there are few accidents. There are multitudes of people, but few individuals.
Our tour group was given the royal treatment. We stayed at five-star hotels, brushed our teeth with bottled water, jetted between distant cities, and coached between those that were not so very far from each other. We climbed the Great Wall, gazed at the terra cotta clay figures in their dusty tombs, visited mausoleums and temples and pagodas and beautifully sculptured gardens, and were lectured on their ancient histories by competent local guides. Among other places, we visited a silk farm, a tea terrace, a pearl factory, an embroidery workshop. We were lavishly entertained with music and dance, and great food.
However, it is difficult to really get to know a country when you are doing the tourist thing. Especially one as large and complex as China. While we admired the intricate architecture of the ancient buildings, the amazing artifacts in their museums, the smiling rock-carved Buddhas, and the elaborate monuments erected to honour their national figures, we could only imagine what life is like in the farming villages where much of the people live and work. In a land of limited resources and a population of 1.3 billion, it must be quite challenging simply to survive.
It would seem that the Chinese focus their energy on the spirit of achievement. There is a sense of determination, a dogged persistence about the crowds rushing from one place to another, intent on their objective. The figures in their Buddhist temples seem to reflect the human condition in their expressions, pain, joy, anger, such that the ordinary person can feel a connection, an empathy with them. In a country without an institutionalized religious belief, it would appear that people look for personal meaning in their own lives, in their traditions, in their little triumphs. They strive for excellence in whatever they are doing, from sweeping the streets to creating wonderful works of art.
A scheduled visit to the Hutong area in Beijing was quite interesting. This is a residential district on the bank of one of the canals, where narrow streets are lined with old wooden dwellings fronted by verandahs crowded with older people playing mahjong. Sometimes the players spilled on to the narrow sidewalk and blended in with the workers digging up the sewage pipes underneath the streets. Our procession of fifteen rickshaws threading its way in between mounds of piled earth and oncoming traffic, occasionally coming to a dead stop for five minutes, did not raise any eyebrows. I suspect this was a daily occurrence. We had lunch with a local family in one of the aging buildings which we were told once housed aristocrats, but which was now occupied by poorer folk. And of course, the squat toilets hinted of a culture still very much in vogue.
Tiananmen Square was another experience. However, thousands of people assemble in the huge Square every morning, silently making their way into the Forbidden City to pay their respects to the body of Chairman Mao lying in state in the interior of the Imperial Palace while vendors stealthily peddle their wares among the tourists in the area, inviting them to bargain for hats and Gucci handbags and Rolex watches!
Standing on the Bund in Shanghai. the wide look-out walkway on the Canal that separates the towering skyscrapers of the modern city from the ponderous gargoyle-fronted architecture of a long gone era, you are confronted with the two faces of China: the modern thriving metropolis that it presents to the world, and the hidden reality of its chequered history. As you watch the two different sky-lines, the bustling activity around you, and the heavy grey waters of the canal, you have to ask yourself how much of China is represented in the new world power of its rising horizon.
© Lytrice Adams
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Lytrice writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
