Really, these two topics could also come under the header of Iconic Idiosyncrasies but they deserve a much closer look than that collection will allow. They have in fact merited their own entry. This is it.
I often daydream about being your tour guide as you visit China for the first time. I know where I would take you and I’ve studied some of the more significant history attached to all of the tourist spots so I can wow you with the depth of Chinese history and culture. Or maybe the depth of my knowledge… but I think it is more the former. I don’t like to show off, you know.
Invariably I wonder how you would see China: as a progressive society with a 5,000 year-old culture, trying to find its way into the modern world? Or would you only see the dirt and the drab – which is plentiful? I imagine, after sightseeing for a few days, and maybe being disgusted over some of the lesser qualities of my adopted home you would ask me: “Show me YOUR China. What do you love about this place?”
Before you ask me that question, you have to see the paradox.
Life in China is hard. For many Chinese, there is no hope of rising above their current station in life. When there are only 8 slices of pie and 2.2 billion people are reaching for them, you’ve got to figure some people are going to be left out. It is not a matter of ambition at all; it is just the way this society works, and the people have absolutely no illusion about it. Or about themselves.
There is no sense of entitlement here, and certainly the people do not operate under a belief of manifest destiny. They live their lives as their parents and grandparents before them lived, often using the same methods, from washing clothes and cooking food to larger concerns such as construction. Still: the women sweeping the street and the men laboring in construction are possessed of a dignity that is simply magnificent to behold.
If you ask me “Show me YOUR China”, I would show you the people. The true embodiment of 5,000 years of living experience, cloaked in an unsurpassable dignity.
To me, that is the true and lasting beauty of China.
However, for as much as the Chinese people live as dignified a life as possible, there are stunning displays to the contrary. They throw their garbage out the window of their high-rise apartment and it accumulates on awnings and rooftops below. Walk any given street and you can see piles of garbage littering such rooftops. Also, there are no dumpsters, just pits where people throw their garbage in. That is to make it easier for people to sift through it in search of recyclables. In the summer, the stink will drive you to distraction.
Although there are so-called Western toilets available, especially in tourist areas, Eastern toilets still prevail. They are pretty much just a hole in the floor with two ‘foot steps’ flanking either side of it. To use it you place each foot on a step, drop your drawers and let go. The stench in these bathrooms is untenable, especially when you consider that wastebasket you’re supposed to put your used toilet tissue in that may or may not get emptied.
Personal hygiene is also questionable. On the occasions I’ve been invited into a Chinese home for more than a few days, I can’t help but make note that people shower or even sponge bathe only every few days – sometimes up to 5 days pass before the next shower. And although there are modern conveniences available to them such as washing machines and dryers, the laundry is still washed by hand in a small, plastic tub, beaten with a stick and hung up in a window or outside of a window for all to see. And that includes underwear.
Finally: there is a certain lawlessness in China that simply would not work anywhere else. Here, people meander in the streets among moving vehicles regardless of traffic crosswalks, drive with no regard to traffic laws, lanes or common courtesy, and disregard civility completely when using public transportation – pushing and shoving, jumping ahead in line. This is a particularly strange contrast to the China everyone, including me expects to see. China is supposed to be so regimented, right?
While walking down the street with a friend one day, I was horrified to hear the squeal of brakes and a scream. I turned just in time to see a woman get hit by a speeding taxi that was straddling 2 lanes. She pinwheeled through the air a few times before landing on the ground and somehow, miraculously, caught her baby before completely collapsing.
Immediately I ran to help her while yelling at my friend to call the police. He was uncertain of what to do, but followed me onto the street. By the time I made it to her the woman was already sitting up and cradling her crying baby, while beseeching us for a cell phone. I checked her out and found no blood, however her legs from the knees down were at a very awkward angle from where the taxi bumper had hit her. I didn’t dare palpate her there, but I suspected her knees had been broken.
By this time a crowd had gathered around us and someone proffered a cell phone. Visibly trembling she dialed a number and sobbed into it. While she talked into the gadget, I checked out the baby as well as I could and found no blood on him either. However, the poor tyke was crying, no doubt frightened by his mother’s tears. I did my best to cradle her to me and offer comfort while she cradled her child and comforted him, still trembling violently. I gave her water to drink, which she gratefully accepted and partook of.
The police showed up and soon a gurney appeared to load her on it. That’s when I made my exit, with my friend by my side.
Because I don’t know how these things work in China, I asked him what will happen to the woman now, and how that situation will be handled. He informed me that the taxi driver would pay all of the woman’s expenses: medical bills, living expenses, even lost salary if she was employed. But his next words horrified me.
He informed me that, if we hadn’t gotten involved so quickly, and especially now that the police were on the scene, the taxi driver would have simply driven off and left that woman and child in the middle of the road. Now that the police had become involved, he would be required to pay for everything.
I do not understand how such a dignified people can revert to such undignified behavior.
This is a bit long, and even though I love the title of this entry, I simply cannot include the oxymoron here. It will be the subject of the next blog… but this cool title stands.
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