Final Thoughts on China

To the person, it seems to me the question I get asked is "How was China?" My response to that is complicated and there are different reactions to different parts of my experience there. I guess I'll take the cheap way out and express what I saw/learn/felt in a series of bullet points, instead of trying to combine them into one coherent well-crafted thematic essay.

• The first and foremost thing that struck me was how I felt like a foreigner in a foreign land, but wasn't seen as one. I could walk down the street and I would simply go unnoticed. In places like Europe, perhaps it is my self-perception that I'm being looked at like a tourist, but in China I was one of 1.3 billion. Sometimes I could even get away with speaking and they wouldn't bat an eye. However, when it came to having to read something, I totally was nailed and had to confess to being an American. It is truly different to be in the majority as to being in the minority The different is subtle but present. One funny story. I was at an internet cafe, typing an email and I look up and realize there are five people standing around me watching me in awe as I type not in Chinese. Yeah, I outed myself at that point too.

• Yes, China is an economic superpower. It's amazing to see how rapidly China is making progress in a traditional modernization way. We learn in Economics that developing countries start by manufacturing textiles and consumer items and move into high technology goods. China is racing along this path. Why is it happening here is a question I asked myself and lots of others have as well. I'm not a foremost expert, but from what I saw, the people of China are willing to do what it takes to achieve prosperity. They are taking advantage of the fact that the basic tenets of a free-market system are in place, private property rights, justice and then beginnings of meritocracy.

• What about all those left behind in the economic wake? I constantly thought about that. What about those people in the rural areas? The one thing that I heard was that this economic development has made hunger a relic of the past. Poverty surely still exists, but people going hungry is not nearly as endemic as in times past. The rising economic tide isn't raising all boats at the same rate. I wondered if there would be resentment and hostility to this fact. There certainly is a huge urban/rural divide in China and it's growing. I'm not sure how it will play out. It certainly is going to be a major issue in the decades to come.

• Pollution and the environment. Yup, it's huge. First of all, the country needs to install more public trash cans. One just can't help tossing trash onto the ground. It's an ethic that exists and will hopefully change. Environmental standards just aren't up to standards that we have and expect in the West. I guess what struck me as amazing was how the laws that we have implemented herein the West do work. All these emissions standards and regulations do make our air cleaner. What I do know is that we can't mandate China to do what we now know is right. Everyone and every country needs to make mistakes and learn from them. But hopefully, they will be willing work at developing their economy while maintaining the natural beauty and ecosystems that make the place so unique.

• Then there is this trade surplus that China runs with almost every country. From what could see, I don't think the majority of Chinese residents can afford anything that we can offer them. They can manufacture or grow everything themselves and for cents on the dollar. Their lives are simpler and simply don't need as much stuff, so of course they're going to export more and not need to import.

• Lastly, on a personal revelation, I have to say that spending two weeks in China opened my eyes to the fact that all those weird things my parents do and eat are what people do in China. As a child I always looked on it as something kind of extraneous in my American life. It felt like this additional stuff I had attached to my person but I never really understood how the food and the language were comforts to them. I never really understood how difficult it must have been for them to be young adults and simply moved to a completely different culture and have to assimilate. Almost every hour or so I would stop and think, "could I chuck it all and move to this country? What would I have to give up and what would I have to endure?

Overall, my trip to China was more than I could have expected. It was truly something I needed to experience and see.