Our Love/Hate Relationship With Living In China

Among anyone who has spent an extended length of time in China exists a strange love/hate relationship with the country they're living in.

After the initial adjustment, you begin to get comfortable, and once you're comfortable where you're living, you completely forget that you're living in a foreign country and your family is thousands of miles away, but every once in a while, something happens that makes you completely want to erase all trace of China (or whatever country) for the day or however long.

I was reading this book a couple of nights ago, Fried Eggs with Chopsticks,

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and Polly was talking about the difficulties of travelling in non-touristy China with virtually no knowledge of Chinese, and upon arriving at her hotel, she says something to the effect of, "For one wonderful moment, everything Chinese beyond my hotel window disappeared and all was forgotten."

Before then, she was talking about some wonderful experiences she was having, and that although she was having some difficulties, it was obvious that she was having a great time.

So, why was it so wonderful that everything Chinese was forgotten? Weren't you having a great time until just then?

Well, yeah, but sometimes you just have to get away from all that Chinese stuff. China is a big, wonderful, diverse, and fantastically fun place to live and travel in, and it is wonderful to see so many new things, but you can only handle so much new stuff at a time. Sometimes you have to sit alone and take a break. It definitely happened to me - when you're in a totally new place with a new language, your whole brain has to kick in to absorb and keep pace with everything you're seeing, and it's exhausting. 

That's one part of it - the less important part, I think. Another part of it is that sometimes you can't help but get really mad at China - every once in a while, you'll really, really want a sandwich, and then, upon not being able to have one, burst out with remarkable intensity: 

"I HATE THIS F**KING COUNTRY!!  

and then want to blockade yourself in your room to escape the Chinese-y, non-sandwich-y world around you. It happens to many China people, I've noticed, but I'm sure it happens to everyone who's been abroad, I'm sure. It happened to me every now and then, but I didn't really think about it at length until I read that part of the book.

It happens with more serious things too. We learn about all the injustice that happens to the people around us in China - the homes are seized by the government without consent with little or no compensation to the owners, the Hukou system's unfairness that makes it really hard/impossible for people to be able to legally move and work in another city or province, the consequences of the One Child Policy, and many other things that make us think:

"How can I love a country so much, when it is capable of such terrible things?"

This is a question that bothers a lot of "old China hands", and some of them end up washing their hands of China, saying they've "lost their respect" of China after seeing it close up and being part of....less than savory circumstances. There are a lot of others who see the same inadequacies and faults, but in spite of all of it, still persist in their love for China. 

 Here is an interview with a guy that has some pretty harsh things to say about China after living there. 

Here is a link to a blog that I frequent that reflects the continuing love for China after leaving. 

China seems to bring out the best and worst in people who go there - it's a great, big, and very foreign country that forces people to look poverty, excess, consumerism, tradition and the loss of tradition, and much more right in the face, and it changes people forever, for better or for worse. 

(Left - this looks like one of the slums in northern Beijing, but I'm not sure. Below - 上下九路 － “Up Down 9 Road" in Guangzhou. I've been to both places, and they both reflect China's multiple cultural personalities)

America has the same kinds of problems - a growing disparity between the rich and poor, an education system that doesn't work well, and more, but the problems are much more obvious and much more pressing in China, and I think that some foreigners get so turned off by China is having to face these harsh realities every day, but not having the means to do anything about it beyond helping a few of their friends. It may not be the reason they split with China, but I'm sure it might be a factor. 

On the one hand, old "China Hands" love China and its people, but on the other hand, sometimes we hate China and its people. The Chinese can be wonderful and open and hospitable, but on the other hand, they can be closed off, arrogant, racist, and aggressively ignorant of many things. The Chinese government makes life for foreigners pretty easy, but lets its people fall through the cracks, particularly in the rural areas.

Why do people who've lived in China get these sharply divergent feelings about China and its people when the situations are not terribly different from their own country? People and governments everywhere can be hypocrites, right? It's just that they're more evident in China, right? We went to a place that we thought would be great, but it turns out that not all that glimmers is gold. 

(You're seeing the word "China" a lot in this post, but it can probably be replaced with any country you yourself may have spent time in. I'm not picking on China's government or anything, I'm really not. I guess I am still giving China the benefit of the doubt, when others more experienced than me have had it.)

Did the traveler think moving and living a few thousand miles from home might help make a difference in the world? Would (s)he confront and tackle all the world’s societal problems, put their personal demons to rest, and find their own little paradise?

Who knows? But I think it's all part of an even more profound longing, a greater journey: How can I get away from pain, from hypocrisy, from inequality? Where can I find a place of happiness, of true rest, of peace?

I guess we’re all looking for that perfect place - that place where we can live out a fulfilling life that has its challenges, but not too many or too difficult. Where we can be appreciated and loved by all we meet. Where there is true rest and peace. That disappointment that comes is born by not finding it where we thought it had to be. If we cared enough and wanted to find it bad enough, then it had to exist where we were going, right?

Will we ever find it? Who knows.....

"It's very beautiful over there." - the last words of Thomas Edison

"I go to seek a Great Perhaps." - the last words of François Rabelais

“Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” - the (debated) last words of Simon Bolivar

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor...such is my idea of happiness.” Leo Tolstoy - Family Happiness and Other Stories

(The above art is from underscorefive.deviantart.com)

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China's Ghosty Places, Oblivion, and Life Reflections

Yes, I wrote Ghosty, it is not a typo!

I've decided it is defined as "similar to spooky, but different. Like ghostly, spooky, and creepy all packed into a word taco."

So, yeah! That's what I get for being woefully inarticulate.

For a few years now, there have been stories circulating luxurious cities and places in China that are deserted because either no one lives around or can afford to live or visit those places.

- Wait, deserted cities in China?

- These aren't demo photos - these are photos that were taken on normal days at normal times when, in ordinary cities, people would be walking by.

Yep. (Ordos, China)

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but it seems to occur alarmingly often for a country like China that's asserting itself on the world stage and holding a lot of the world's debt.

It's a well-known and well-established fact that China is doing anything and everything it can to grow its economy in order to be a player on the world stage.

In some cases, they do it really well, like when they invest in factories which cheaply produce stuff that America won't even dare to try to manufacture because Americans need such high pay.

And then there's this.....

"The area is filled with office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields—not to mention acre on acre of subdivisions overflowing with middle-class duplexes and bungalows. The only problem: the district was originally designed to house, support and entertain 1 million people, yet hardly anyone lives there." - TIME (link here)

Also, in this Dateline report from earlier this year, an expert says that "there are an estimated 64 million empty apartments in China today....they're building stuff for which there's no demand."

 .........freakin back up, what??!! A (conservatively estimated) 64 million empty apartments in China today. The expert goes on to say that the property bubble which burst in the United States pales in comparison to what will happen in China if this goes on. 

One thing that is mentioned in that Dateline Report is the stringent requirements for home ownership that cannot be forgotten. The buyer has to pay 50% upfront and the balance of the account within 3 years. 

(Dongguan, China's main avenue...freakin empty)

Although this hinders the people being able to buy these expensive houses because of the lack of a really good credit system in China, it's also what's kept China from experiencing a credit crisis like the United States has.  

China's just full of these little paradoxes. There are cities with waaay too freakin many people like Chongqing and Beijing, but there are also deserted cities that were made to hold anywhere between 1 million and 17 million people (depending on which deserted city you're looking at). There's no credit market, which means that people can't buy the expensive stuff the government is building, which is feeding into a coming crisis, but it's also saved them from a crisis that the United States is still working its way through. 

[insert clever, appropriate, and memorable segue here]

These places are all free and legal to visit, with the (sort of) exception of the one below. 

But would you really go?

On one hand, I'd really like to go to one of these empty cities, but on one hand, it'd be a version of hell...you've got the whole world to yourself for all eternity, but you're alone. Forever. 

The idea of emptiness and absolute oblivion has always terrified me, so I try not to think about it, but I can't help it when I see these kind of places. 

("Wonderland" - an abandoned theme park 45 minutes outside of  Beijing)

I mean, who wouldn't be freaked out visiting a completely empty city or a rundown and deserted Chinese Disneyland that was built out in the middle of a cornfield?

But who doesn't want to at least go to one of them?

If you don't get freaked out or at least uncomfortable every once in a while, then you're not alive. I think that's probably the reason that we find the idea of ghost towns so fascinating - we see these ghosty places as a reflection of what the Earth will be like after we're dead and gone, because let's face it, humanity won't last forever.

Part of what life is about is trying to come to grips with the fact that it doesn't last forever, and what these ghosty places do is make us indirectly ponder our lasting impact on the world. 

What will it matter what we've done, if 500 years after the last human dies, plants and nature swallow up the last trace of humanity's buildings, sidewalks, computers, and literature? I'm not sure - it's not a question I can ask, but it's something to think about. 

If you guys are curious, here are some of the sources I used to write this post:

China's Deserted Disneyland
Amazing Satellite Images of China's Ghost Cities
Daily Mail - Ghost Towns of China
Dateline Report
TIME - Ordos, China: A Modern Ghost Town

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