National Day 2010 Trip: China Revisited

Below is a guest blog post from my dad.

Traveling in China with Sam is a whirlwind education into the growth and culture of a remarkable country. With Sam's knowledge and fluency, not to mention his zest and curiosity to see, taste and experience as much of the country as he can, we had a most enjoyable trip. I got to see Nanjing, and Sam's world of teaching and learning; Shanghai, a city that rivals any in the world for economic dynamism, and Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, which is about the size of Chicago, and is one of western China's major cities. In Nanjing, we biked past thirty foot city walls that were hundreds of years old and toured his new 14th floor apartment that was undergoing its final finishing touches as Sam signed a lease to rent with his Chinese roomate-to-be. We saw museums and universities and shopping areas that are "first-world". We rode subways that would be the envy of commuters in the USA; experienced affluence and poverty side by side in cities that are being transformed at a remarkable rate. In Shanghai, we saw a city that my mother might not even recognize 21 years after her trip there, given its growth and new affluence. In Chengdu, we laughed at China's most famous diplomats - the Panda - as they munched heartily on bamboo shoots brought to them by the wheelbarrow full, or if they are adventurous, plucked by their own paws in the bamboo forest that surrounded the breeding and research facility on Chengdu's outskirts. I marveled at Sam's mastery of the Chinese language every step of the way, and loved watching the Chinese light up as Sam began to speak to everyone we would meet on the street and they would quickly realize that this was no typical foreigner.

The US and China are remarkably similar in size, but many contrasts become apparent as soon as you step into each country. With 1.3 billion people to our 310 million, one of the first and recurrent themes is the density of humanity in much of China. If averaged over space, China has 365 people /square mile vs our 88, but I think it may be even more dramatic as China's vast western provinces are even more sparsely populated than our western US. So, the cities of China are packed with people. And when you consider how to house and feed and transport 1.3 billion every day, you can begin to fathom how remarkable China has become. Sam's new apartment, at 20 some stories, is one of thousands of new apartment buildings built every year. Shanghai didn't have a metro system until 1995, but now has 12 lines, the most metro miles of any city in the world, and had 7 million riders on a peak day last month. The metros of Nanjing and Chengdu, while smaller, are equally impressive, and more recently built than Shanghai. Sam and I rode from Nanjing to Shanghai, a distance of 284 km (176 mi) in an hour and a quarter for ~140 yuan (20 bucks) on a high speed train - another mode of transportation that has no equal to China in scope and extent. China is committed to investing in infrastructure on a scale never before seen, and at a pace probably never equaled as well. (I think the only infrastructure category we led the world in recent years was prison construction and we do quite well with new (unneeded) hospitals and sports stadiums). While construction in China definitely has a history of shortcuts and corruption (remember the shoddily constructed schools collapsing in Sichuan's hinterlands after their recent major earthquake), the grandeur of Shanghai's airport and the spotless efficiency and quality of their trains and metros means that they can build and build well when they want to. Even though China's expanding middle class is still a relatively small percentage of the population, it rivals any other in the world by fact of China's enormous population -- thus China bought more new cars than the US for the first time this past year while also creating more public transportation than any other country last year. Each city we visited had a busy street life filled with shoppers laden with packages; cars, bikes, scooters and walkers all jockeying for the right of way, and streets packed with shops of all variety, size and quality. The Chinese, viewed from street level, seem to have embraced the consumer culture full force.

While the US is described as a messy and dysfunctional democracy, Chinese Communism seemed to me to be an all-controlling, brand "China". They plan the economy and control the message; dissent is not tolerated at all (witness their treatment of the Nobel Prize winning dissident and his wife's house arrest - neither of which generated a mention in the state media while we were there). But if you can advance the economic engine, hop on the fast train with them - as the saying goes - because they move with ruthless effort. Speaking of effort, the average Chinese we encountered seemed to have it in droves, whether it was pedaling the overstuffed bicycle cart by a peasant, or the student's (and parent's) willingness to study harder and longer to advance themselves.

So, China is a land of transformation and tradition. Sam is embracing both as he has learned an incredibly difficult language well in three years and as he put it: "I've learned more in three years here than the previous four in college". The Chinese we met seemed to welcome economic opportunity and the meritocracy that does exist and is allowed in the system. They seem proud of their hard earned progress and prospects, and are willing to work and sacrifice to continue to advance their families' and their country's fortunes.
Sam fits in well with that dynamic and I was proud and honored to see a glimpse of it with him.