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.