Reflections on The Journey Home

I wanted to post some final reflections and realizations about my time in China. Specifically, while here, I've learned a lot about myself, about China, about how we live as a society, and other things.

I have come to desire more permanence and stability in life. Perhaps this is only a temporary stage after feeling transient for the past five years or so, but I have a feeling it is a larger shift in my mentality.

I think this time has helped me better understand the importance of friends and family. I hope in the future I will appreciate them more.

I realize that I no longer really want to sleep in dorm rooms in hostels, especially in China. The hostel in which I stayed in Hong Kong was the absolute most disgusting of my life. The day I left, all of the other people in my six-person room moved to a different place to escape the bed bugs. I had previously moved out of a 12-person room for the same reason.

I'm more confident/less concerned with what people think about me. I suppose this is only a natural consequence of teaching and living in a place where people stare at you everyday.

I can't wait to go back to school.

I desire to become an "educated" consumer again:
- to be able to buy things that suit my tastes
- to know what the products I am buying actually are
- to know what is in the products I am buying
- to know that the products I consume are (almost) always safe
- to know how much something costs without having to haggle or fight
- to know I am being treated fairly
- to know that the product is quality and will not break soon

I am less scared of the idea of China. When I came here, I imagined it as a giant that would be conquering the world in the next two decades. I now realize the intricacies of Chinese life and understand that the process will be a long one. Of particular difficulty will be slowing and reversing the rapidly growing disparity between the rich and the poor. One of the biggest things that has surprised me has been the relative disregard for the poor. Far from what I imagined, most of the Chinese people with whom I came into contact are less collective and as individualistic as and, if I may say, perhaps more selfish than, Westerners.

Appearance is very important in China, particularly in distinguishing one's higher wealth/status. For instance, it's possible to buy gold club bags for each individual golf club. Thus, most people that do "golf" don't even have more than a few clubs and therefore don't really golf, but see it rather as an opportunity to display wealth. Thus, even though carrying around one golf club in a bag to a golf course has no real purpose for actually playing the game, it allows others to see that a person can, indeed, afford to play golf, or at least afford to carry around a golf club in a bag. It's also very common for Chinese men to grow out one or both of their pinky nails to show that they do not engage in manual labor. The nail is usually brittle and yellow and looks disgusting, but at least others know they aren't farmers. Finally, appearance can be important in the purchasing of goods. If an object looks like an object, it's good enough; it is not necessary for the object to actually function as the object it represents. For example, I purchased a "suitcase" for a few dollars before I returned home, but before it had even made it to its first plane, two side handles had fallen off, the pull-out handle had broken away from the suitcase, and the wheels had been completely ripped off. It originally looked like a suitcase, but it sure hadn't been made to function as one.

Perhaps the biggest thing I've learned about China regards its struggle to find an identity. The country is changing so rapidly that it seems to have little time to think about the actual direction in which it's being propelled. There is an immense respect for the past, as seen in the regard for ancient art and poetry, but much of it seems to be lost to the growing desire to conform to the West. Unfortunately, this usually results in something unidentifiable that is neither Chinese nor Western, as seen in the monstrous and hideous buildings that characterize almost every Chinese city. I think reconciling this dichotomy will be the greatest challenge the next generation of Chinese faces.


I'm sure I will have more reflections as time goes on, but I wanted to write these down before they fade into my memory. Now, I'm off to pack my last few things. Hopefully I'll have fewer things than the man below:



Believe it or not, this is not the most outrageous thing I've seen carried on a bike or a three-wheeler. I've seen a man riding a bike carry another bike on his shoulder, and I've also seen a washer and dryer strapped to the back of one.

The Journey South

My time is almost up! Only one day left in China! I am in Beijing now doing some last minute errands, shopping, and packing, and tomorrow I'll be boarding a plane back to Atlanta.

Since I last posted, I've been traveling non-stop. I had been planning to join a Vanderbilt field school in southern China for months, and as soon as I had finished entering my grades at the university in Weihai, I purchased my ticket to join the rest of the members. I flew from Weihai to Beijing and then to Guilin. In Guilin I met a lady who was returning to her hometown in Liuzhou, also my destination, and after talking with her on the airport bus into town, she accompanied and even pad for my ticket to Liuzhou!

Some views of southern China from the plane:





The field school was examining Urban Planning, Rural Development, Health Services, and English Education in Guangxi Autonomous Region. Guangxi is known for its geographic beauty-- limestone karsts situated along the Li River. I was originally assigned to the Education team, but unfortunately it had recently been completed. So, I joined up with a few members of the rural development team instead. Originally, the team had planned on conducting ethnographies and surveys and then using them to write a grant to provide assistance to the area. Unfortunately, the local government had blocked most of their proposals even though the Chinese consulate had previously approved them, so we could also do some informal observations about how some of the villages have been affected by tourism.

One of the first things I did in Liuzhou was visit a local winery:



An old gate to the city:


People dancing in a local park:


Most people have umbrellas attached to their bikes in case it suddenly starts raining. In the summer it rains almost everyday, and earlier this summer Liuzhou experienced several weeks of intense flooding that killed several people.


The central square in Liuzhou:


Eating some southern Chinese food with plastic gloves!


Some local karst scenery:


Guangxi is not exempt from Chinglish:



After spending a couple of days in Liuzhou, we took three buses to a small village called Ping'An, which is famous for its rice terraces. The next days we hiked five hours to the smaller, surrounding villages, and spoke informally with the village inhabitants. As more tourists come to the area, fewer of the townspeople must farm; up until six or seven years ago, however, the villagers ate almost only rice, so the tourism really has improved their lives, and no one we met said they preferred the village ten years ago the the one now. Of course, foreign money makes them happy, but it is nice to know that their economic development has also seen an improvement in their social lives.

This is the fattest baby I have every seen, on the bus to Ping-An. It also had diarrhea, so the mother had to change its underpants four times during the two-hour ride (she didn't have diapers). By the end of the trip, she had baby poo all over the front of her clothes. It was disgusting.


This girl was vomiting, probably partly from the baby diarrhea, and partly from the incredibly fast driving around the mountain with sheer drops offs the side of the mountain:


I don't know what this product is:


Men waiting to carry (lazy) tourists to the village:


The entrance to the village:


These guys really smelled:


Split pants!


Some Dong minority women in the village (that is their really long hair wrapped around their heads!):


Ping'An at dusk:


Workers around Ping-An:


Walking back to the paddies:


Some children idling the day away:


We could walk right through the paddies!


An old man who has probably lived and worked in these rice paddies his whole life:


Cock-a-doodle-doo!


Rice has been farmed here for centuries. I wonder how long this hut has been here:



After two nights in Ping'An, we took the three/four buses (one change included walking across a destroyed bridge and boarding another bus) for another two nights in Liuzhou.

Walking from one bus to another, across the bridge:



On the afternoon of the 14th, I took a 16-hour train to Guangzhou, followed by a two-hour bus to Shenzhen, followed by a one-hour train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong, like Guangxi, was another place I had hoped to visit since I came to China, and the fact that the Field School participants would be attending a conference in Hong Kong gave me added incentive to go. The conference focused on international social development, though a lot of the presentations focused on social work and social work education. Honestly, much of the conference was a little disappointing because a lot of the papers presented had too little quantitative data and too much fluff, but some of the presentations that focused on human trade and trafficking were excellent, as was Amartya Sen's keynote speech.

Aside from the conference, Hong Kong is a great city. As it has a European history, I thimk it will be a good transition back to America. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco, though no one else seems to agree with this evaluation. The city is situated around a harbor, has lots of skyscrapers and trams, and is very hilly, crowded, and diverse.

A mosque in Kowloon, Hong Kong:


Hong Kong from atop Victoria Peak:


And from the ferry at night:



Having recently surpassed Britain's per capita GDP, Hong Kong also has its share of the absurd that only comes with too much wealth:



Posing on a pink pearl panda:


A shopping street in Hong Kong:



Macau served as one final destination I had hoped to visit since arriving. An hour away from Hong Kong by a (very bumpy and nauseating--barf bags are frequently used) ferry, it made for a perfect day trip. It has a history similar to Hong Kong's, though it was in Portuguese hands, not British, until a few years ago. Much more so that Hong Kong, it has the feel of a European village, as the city has seen much less wealth than Hong Kong until recently and thus retains a smaller, older, and more intimate feel.

The street signs are written in Portuguese and Chinese:


Incense hanging from a temple in Macau:


The old city center:



The first Christian church in The Orient:


The ruins of St. Pauls's church:


And the grittier city center:



After finishing up the conference on the 20th, I flew back to Beijing for two more days to do some final shopping and packing. I'll be home the night of July 22 for those who wish to throw me a "Welcome Home" party.

Weihai, Zaijian!

Tomorrow I say goodbye to Weihai for probably the last time. That means I have a little more than two weeks left in China. I must say I'm not too sad to be leaving Weihai at the moment: many of my good friends are also leaving; I've been fighting with the international office because they don't want to pay me for my work in July; I've been on the toilet for two days because I've had a combination cold/stomach flu/traveler's diarrhea/food poisoning/stress from moving back/stress from fighting the international office; the water is currently turned off for three days; my apartment consequently smells like poo; I'm going to be joining up with a Vanderbilt research team in southern China after I leave Weihai; I will then go to Hong Kong; I will then fly home to the open arms of my family and friends; pizza and ice cream will be waiting for me at home; and it will be much easier to conduct an interview for a job on the same side of the globe as the actual job.

Tonight, my last in Weihai (the only reason it wouldn't be my last is if I have to return to fight the international office some more), was a great (and typical of my time here) way to go out: karaoke! I went with my Asian standards, as well as some of my other best friends in Weihai, and we sang a few classics by Madonna and Britney of course, some Christmas ones (it is July, after all), as well as a few Asian ones that I was mostly unable to read. Then I came back to start/finish packing, and I'm still working on that at 3am.

Sora and Sumin shaking their stuff:


Xu Dong breaking it down:


A few nights ago, they even organized a fountain spectacular in front of the library for my farewell (actually, it may have mostly been for graduation):


Three cool cats (from a few weeks ago):


I don't know what I'm doing in this one (those aren't my empty beers):