Chinaversairy- Thoughts after a Year in Beijing

A year ago at this time- I had lived in China for 2 weeks. As I reflect on the year that has passed, and all the life- changing experiences therein, it can almost seem like a dream. When someone asks- 'What's it like to live in China?'- I'm never quite sure exactly what to say. Perhaps the best way to describe it is through anecdotes. I have two in mind that are particularly telling.

The first happened one night last fall, when I was still relatively new to Beijing. I had tried to get a taxi driver to take me to dance class, but he dropped me off not at dance class, and I was unable to communicate this to him, so I gave up, got out of the cab, and tried to figure out how to find dance class another way. (I did eventually get there, but that's not part of this story). As I was walking, I walked past a string of shops of  different types, from KFC, to a bank, to some that looked rather posh. One of them, seemingly a very fancy wedding bakery, had displayed prominently in the window, one of the most beautiful and ornate wedding cakes I'd ever seen. I was interrupted from taking a picture of it by a a loud beeping noise, which turned out to be a large dump trump. Said truck was adding its load of dirt to an already existing giant pile of dirt, that was just sitting in the walk-way, right next to this shop. There was seemingly no other construction around, just a steadily growing, giant pile of dirt, next to a really posh wedding cake shop.


 
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The second requires you to picture a large, outdoor concert stage- the likes of which you'd see at any huge summer festival in the states. Professional sound systems, a laser light show, huge speaker towers, a giant banner proclaiming the special celebration, hung gloriously above the stage. It was the Friday night dress rehearsal for the Saturday, day-long festival. There was a 80+ piece orchestra of students mixed with professional musicians (did I mention, I'm a music teacher) rehearsing on stage, running through the festival music with the lasers to get timings down. As my colleague was working with the group, I found myself observing the surroundings. All around the stage were the lush, green fields that our school makes sure to keep well landscaped. Not 10 feet behind the stage, there was a ramshackle fence, beyond which were dry, brown patches of grass, dirt, and garbage that seemed to stretch the length of a football field, at least. And there stood a Chinese man, seemingly of the working class, who was slowly inching closer to the fence to examine the spectacle. He was wearing clothes that had seen a lot of hard work, and his shirt was unbuttoned to expose, what is affectionately known as, the Beijing belly. And soon, he was not alone. By the time I took the podium to conduct ' Pirates of the Caribbean' a small group had formed. They didn't talk, to each other or to us, but simply stood and listened. Listened as if we were the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and they had the best seat in the house.


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I was so struck by the stark dichotomy, I found it hard to focus on the rehearsal. I wondered what they must be thinking. They must have been on their way home from work, or perhaps, they were at home, and had been drawn out by the lights and sounds.  Perhaps they thought: "What is this?" "Who are these laowais? (Mandarin for foreigners, with a slight negative connotation) , or maybe, "Sweet, a free concert!" (most modern, and even pop, music in China still has a very classical feel. The stuff the cab drivers usually listen to can best be described as pentatonic elevator music, so it is very reasonable to assume the common Chinese citizen would find orchestral music and movie soundtracks pleasing and enjoyable listening) .



As I stood there contemplating this contrast, I realized that this moment, to me, was China. The juxtaposition of East and West, of rich and poor, of relaxed community (the Chinese men at the fence, the groups of Chinese men who sit around on small stools playing something like chess) and frenzied solitude (each of the people rushing around trying to get this concert sound check to run properly, the angry cab driver who mumbles under his breath knowing you can't understand, and proceeds to drive like a bat out of hell through traffic).

It is one of the things that has struck me most living here, the stark contrast. The fancy, western wedding cake shop, next to a huge, seemingly random, pile of dirt. The giant concert stage on a perfectly manicured lawn, with western music, lasers, and smoke, next to a dying field, populated by seemingly poor Chinese workers. A sprawling, fancy, over-priced western shopping mall, with smelly, hole in the ground Chinese-style toilets and no toilet paper.  

So much that I see seems as if someone, somewhere, saw something on American or British TV once, and thought it would be a good idea to try to make it happen in China; an attempted approximation of something Western, but not quite it.

 Perhaps so much seems like this to me because of the language and cultural barrier. Having only lived here for just over a year, perhaps much more of this dichotomy that I see would make sense if I could understand more of my surroundings. But without that ability for a deeper understanding, from what I have observed, heard, learned and read, it seems to me that China is, in many ways, forgoing its own ancient and beautiful culture, in order to approximate what it seems to perceive as the better way of the West. And the dichotomy comes from it not being able to keep up with itself. Personally, I feel this push for "progress" (ie- trying to be Western), at the expense of their own culture, is a real shame.