Final thoughts on PRC

I felt a bit melancholy leaving Beijing last night.  Part of it was sadness at saying goodbye to Ping and Chris, who had been with us for almost two weeks.  Oh my, just the four of us again!!  (Fortunately, we have relatives to visit in Taipei, then will be joined by Melinda and Sid for parts of Southeast Asia.)

I was genuinely sad to leave the PRC, in part, because I had enjoyed it much more than I had thought I would.  Reconnecting with family was really special.  Going back with our kids felt completely different from past visits, when I'd been a kid or a college student.  This time, I was the grown up and my sisters and I had to step up.  Neil still shakes his head at the elaborate present giving and banquet thank you's.

Originally, we were going to skip Beijing.  But I'm so glad we spent 5 days there. Oscar and Ruby got to see the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple, etc, for the first  time.  We stayed in a lovely hotel in a historic, renovated courtyard on an old hutong.  Our quick visit made me interested in Beijing again.  It seems like a cool city with interesting pockets of culture, and a large expat community doing who knows what.

Yogurt bottles bought on the street in Beijing are the same as from the 1980s

In the 20 odd years since my last visit to Beijing, the city has become almost unrecognizable. Thank goodness for the incredibly convenient subway system.  The major streets were oppressively hot, muggy, and smoggy, so walking was not a real option.  One day, an afternoon thunderstorm cleared the air, but the other days, the thick, brown air was all too tangible (you could see, taste and feel it).  Imagine an air quality alert day in NYC, times 100.  

The air was even worse in Hunan. One cousin said she hasn't seen blue sky in years.  Another cousin, asking me about the US, said, "the air over there is still clean?"  That word, "still," stopped me in my tracks, and I tried to explain that the air in the US will never be like the air in China.  She was incredulous.  Sadly, I think air quality is one big factor that would prevent me from wanting to spend a lot of time in the PRC.  

We really enjoyed visiting with our Beijing relatives -- my mom's cousins and their kids.  Yes, everyone's a cousin.  We were treated to Beijing's best duck restaurant and authentic Mongolian lamb hotpot.  Neil and Chris were delighted to taste a more refined bai jou, my cousin's private label, 老白家.  Thanks to my cousin's wife, Neil, Chris and Oscar got the most unique presents -- official Chinese national team Olympic watersports uniforms!  And another cousin kindly arranged safe, comfortable transport for us to the Great Wall.  Thank you, and I look forward to seeing some of you in Utah!

Looking back on our two weeks in China, I'm reminded that China is overwhelming but worthwhile to visit.  In the summer, it's hot, humid, and oppressive.  You always want to destroy clothes that can't be fumigated.  Many people are pushy and rude.  Public arguments, attracting an audience, are not an uncommon sight.  I was berated so often, by taxi drivers, ticket sellers, random people, it became a joke.  At the same time, we met lots of lovely, friendly people.  Shopkeepers are much more polite than they used to be.  And strangers would sometimes ask about us and say nice things about our family.  I also got lots of unsolicited advice on the importance of, and methods for, teaching our kids Chinese.  People routinely expressed the view that even though I was born and raised in the US, I'm Chinese.  It felt good to be reminded of that.

I had interesting conversations with people about life in America.  A woman who kindly prepared chicken soup for Oscar when he was sick, asked me if Americans are mean to Chinese people.  I didn't know how to answer.  One guy in a parking lot asked me whether Americans eat more rice (like southern Chinese) or noodles/bao (like northern Chinese).  He was surprised to hear Americans mostly eat western food.  Again, I felt my answer was inadequate (maybe I should have explained the importance of potatoes?).  

These exchanges epitomized an axiom about China -- that China's sole reference point is China.  Thus, a three star hotel can have moldy walls and no AC before 6 pm, and a four star hotel can turn down the AC at night to save electricity.  Amazing tourist attractions that most westerners have never even heard of are mobbed and are advertised as top AAAAA sights.  China doesn't have to think about other countries because China is just so vast.  At 77 million, Hunan province alone has the same population as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile combined.

Finally, traveling in the PRC was both humbling and funny.  Our experiences reminded me why I love to travel, and why it's sometimes just so hard to travel.  Even speaking the language and knowing the culture, I had only about a 90% success rate in things working out.  A major misunderstanding over addresses led to an unnecessary rickshaw ride....taking taxis to an expat brew pub led to frantic texts and phone calls to confirm we'd ever see each other again....and failure to negotiate in advance cost us a whopping $125 for a load of laundry!  

As for Neil, an infamous bathroom trip in Hunan epitomized the meaning of travel. He wasn't feeling well, so he had been sleeping and was the last to exit our family bus to use the restroom at a gas station in Hunan.  Little did he know, everyone else had already investigated and deemed the bathrooms too disgusting to use.  Running off the bus, he also didn't know he had an audience.  All I heard was raucous laughter as my relatives watched him gingerly scope out both the men's and women's rooms.  He seemed the quintessential clueless American, a role we have played in every country we've been to on this journey.  When you travel, a day doesn't go by that you don't feel out of your element and/or completely clueless.  You just have to hope that there isn't a bus load of locals laughing at you behind your back.