homecoming

so i arrived home a few days ago; i guess this is my last post. a few closing thoughts:

about the drum tower: i'm not sure why the man did it -- we heard he was mentally unstable and it was just bad timing for the americans. my chinese friend told me she thought maybe he was mentally handicapped and was manipulated into doing it by ''people who want to harm the olympics'' -- whether she meant tibetans, people from xinjiang, al-qaeda or what, i am not sure. the drum tower is about 5-10 minutes from our hotel so it was quite scary, but other than that we always felt very very safe.

and as for western media coverage, i am 100% disgusted. in my eyes, china is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. if it has military and police protection of opening ceremonies, it is an authoritarian show of the power of the Communist Party dampening the spirit of the games. if it has less protection, it is irresponsible and begging for a terrorist attack. everything that happens in beijing (and even things that don't happen) is manipulated into a negative light and used to show how much china sucks. it pisses me off even more because i would read things online that directly contradict the experience that not only i had but that everyone i have met had. (such as teh economist's most recent article about the lack of foreigners having fun -- i've never met drunker, louder, happier australians, dutch, or polish people ever)

the only people i met who had negative things to say were the parents of a swimmer that i sat next to on the plane ride home. they were from a small town in virginia and were all around rather narrow minded about china/life. i pretty much brushed off what they said -- if you don't want to enjoy china, you can't enjoy china. (they also proceeded to get tanked in the back of the plane, argue with the steward about how much money they owed and then show me their son's gold medal, which was in the dad's backpack the whole time.) and therefore, if you sat around and complained about all the bad things and missed the architecture, the history, the food, the culture -- then its your own goddamned fault.


The thing about China is this: yes, its dirty, the people are rude as hell, the transportation is taking your life and your sanity into your hands and hoping for the best, its hot, its loud, its smoggy, and its poor. But that is what you signed up for -- if you wanted to have an American experience you should have fucking stayed in America. Because while it is all the things I've listed above, if you have even half opened your mind to other cultures, you can't avoid being completely and totally charmed.

For every rude person, you have 2 who are friendly and kind. (although they are all completely uncomprehending of personal space). They are warm and just, at the end of the day, want to get to know you. They may not have manners, but how many times did we/someone we know lose something (such as AJ's pants with 2100RMB in them) only to have it returned immediately and untouched? 2100 RMB is a month's living expenses. How many store owners remembered us after only one visit and gave us a special place to sit? If you got lost, it was most likely someone would tell you where to go -- months before the Olympics started. For every smoggy day, you had a day where the sky was blue and your jaw dropped at how beautiful the parks and architecture were. For every time you thought it was too big and too shabby, you either found something as charming as NLGX with its cafes and shops, or something as ritzy and glittery as Block 8 or Banana. For every time you had a shitty iced coffee, you had a meal so good (and so cheap) that you nearly passed out you were so full b/c you couldn't stop eating. For every hotel like the HuaKai, there is a Grand Hyatt. And, for every time something gross happened (or you smelled the Yu'er Hutong public bathroom), you remembered that you are in CHINA, which 30 years ago was self destructing in the midst of the Cultural Revolution and now is powering its way toward the 1st world.

So I'm sorry if you think that it is slightly uncivilized -- because it is. China is not the United States, it is not Great Britain, and it is not Europe. But if you thought it was going to be, that's your own fault. The ability to see what it was (the Hutongs themselves, the ladies selling heads of cabbage and baozi on the street) and where it is going (infrastructure like Oriental Plaza, the National Theater for Performing Arts, the Bird's Nest) allows you to see what it is: experiencing growing pains between old and new. Striving to be new and rich and allowed to play with the older kids, while somehow maintaining its own sense of self.

This is not an easy process, and its definitely not easy when you've got other people (US, UK, EU) breathing down your neck at every moment, pointing out your flaws, great and small. Add to that the fact that some of the media is flat out lying about you -- and how do you expect China to react? It is not my intention to excuse their behavior in certain situations -- but it is my intention to make the point that bullying and hypocrisy will get us nowhere, particularly in this situation. The quote of the boat driver to PJ O'Rourke has only been confirmed by my two months in China:

"We just want to be friends."