|
[Previous entry: "Vientiane, Laos."] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Bombay, Maharashtra, India"]
"Cheng Du, Sichuan, China" ?Posted by devon on Tuesday, March 16, 2004
China, a mystery that I would prefer to leave unmolested.
This country baffles me in a way that leaves me scratching my head at every corner I turn.
I try not to expect anything when I enter a country, but growing up in the largest Chinese settlement outside of Asia and all my experiences regarding Chinese people and culture made it very difficult.
I realize now how foolish my ideas what China was were based upon. They largely were formed from two sources, the medias presentation of China, and my first hand experience with having visited "Chinatown" in about 25 different major cities.
From the medias presentation. I imagined a country that was for the most part trying to catch up to the rest of the world in terms of industrialization. Scenes of rural backwardness and tranquility overshadowed by the Dickensian images of the Mechanized squalor in its "Special Economic Zones" came to mind. I also imagined sprawling old markets where you could buy goats tounges and cow bladders for breakfast and a shabby, run-down appearance to everything.
From my first hand experience, which was much more real to me, I imagined one gigantic chinatown. Cold, indestinguishable food, people spitting everywhere and a lot of crotchity old people walking around. A lot of things happening on the Street as well.
Now that I've written it out and reread what I was expecting (expectations are very rarely formulated ideas, for me they usually are vauge feelings tucked away somewhere deep in my belly), I realize that all of my expectations are defintely present here. Yet the feeling I got shortly after I crossed the border and one that has been reinforced as I travel on in this country, is that it is so much MORE than what I was expecting.
I'll append this update later tonight or tommorow, I'm sorry.
TTFN
|
