[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

I am becoming a worldly man. In the last 6 months I’ve lived in a new country and visited 3 others. I’m living in California for a short stint (4 months), and finally managed to go see Australia and New Zealand, and got to see China as well. This is on top of my past multiple trips to Europe and a trip to India. New locations always speak to the biologist in me because of the promise of biodiversity and landscapes. But,  It’s fascinating to see the lives of people in different contexts, but in some ways, it’s just more people.

For now I’m going to focus on China.

China is beautiful, crowded, proud, westernizing, polluted, enormous, busy, with a lot of familiar with enough different to let you know that you’re somewhere you haven’t been before (the major cities are, at least). There are some small things that really remind me that I’m in another country: the culture, the scenery, and the food. But in many ways - and this applies to almost every country I visit - it’s becoming harder and harder to really feel like you’ve gone somewhere else.

The culture of China is one that many westerners may find, well, rude and somewhat chauvinist. There is no sense of personal space or right-of-way etiquette. People tend to spit instead of swallow saliva, and smack their lips when they eat. It’s a very masculine society, where people have great awe for strength and size. I was repeatedly thought to be some heavyweight boxer, and lauded for my size and physique.

It is a culture of superstition, where numbers are symbols. In Chinese Imperial times, the number 9 was the number that preoccupied peoples’ lives, being the number of longevity and health. Now, the number is 8. 8 signifies wealth. Now, in Communist China, the guiding ideal is wealth.

China is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and has a rapidly expanding middle class. It is an incredibly large and growing consumer population, and it is open to foreign companies. China has a lot of market power, and can command how incredibly large corporations operate within the country because it’s consumer base is so large. But it is not a fully free market. The ruling government takes cares that foreign companies don’t give the opportunity to spread dissent. It’s pro-China, and pro-government’s-message-of-China.  (Given how business-minded China is, I wonder just how China can get away with calling itself communist, besides the single ruling party and lack of civil liberties. But that’s a topic for another time).

But this Chinese pride is contrasted with a strange submission and servitude to westerners and sense of fealty to idealized western culture. Western companies have command over advertisements, and even Chinese advertisements use western (see white) models to showcase western fads and norms. This is what success looks like. There is some fight against this (it is human nature to try to be distinctive, even when trying to emulate others), with people trying to showcase a distinct Chinese flavour to things. But my experience is that this Chinese flavour is saved for a reminder of historical China, and serves more to reinforce stereotypes of the Oriental  rather than really try to distinguish itself in a development trajectory.  It’s a country on the verge of becoming the largest economy in the world, and it still suffers the insecurities of colonialism.

And this western idealism is concerning. It’s one thing to want a higher quality of life, but the western model of growth is a perilous one to follow. The smog of Chinese cities is absolutely blinding, and can be suffocating. The human density is already extreme, and now everyone wants bigger things on the same amount of area. Desertification rates are high and the water is undrinkable. It’s a familiar path and environmental concerns and talk of sustainability are already forefront, with reforestation and aforestation efforts underway.

Many differences really do seem trivial compared to the similarities I see with many other countries. Many differences (but definitely not all) are novelties at best (like eating scorpion on a stick), and I think are becoming more so as time goes on. It’s a consequence of globalization that countries and cultures converge, and the economy and institutions of China reflect this (even cater to this). But even still, even when I was exploring the history of China - the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, temples and markets - a very common human character hit me. It’s a variant of the human drive to impress that defines much of what ever culture has to, and wants to offer. The structures, old and new, were made to impress - were made to awe. (This desire to awe, and the inevitable loss of these awesome structures, makes me inevitably think to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias). China is another place that humans built, and as alien as any country may  be, the people element is just more people. A variant of a theme. Yet I’m still drawn to it.

 

Rilo Kiley is now defunct (and has been for some time), which is truely a shame. Some of the most reflective lyrics and enduringly perfect execution I’ve ever heard comes from this band.

Don’t be Jim.

She did say to use tumblr, so here you go.

This is possibly the most honest political ad I’ve ever seen, espeically in America.

Stephen Harper may have sang with Yo Yo Ma, but this is so much more entertaining.