China

No "hellos" or "nice to meet you" or even "wai guo ren" ("foreigner") on arrival. However, I guess that should be expected in a city the size of Chengdu. My plane that day left Hanoi at 8:30am. After a layover in Guangzhou, I arrived in Chengdu around 4:30pm. I went to the bus station where I needed to catch a bus to the city of Mianyang and immediately realized that I should have written down the Chinese characters for Mianyang because nothing was in English.  However, I told the lady at the ticket counter "Mianyang" and she gave me a ticket. I asked a couple of people which bus was going to Mianyang ("Mianyang zai nar?" or literally "Mianyang where?"). Once on the bus, I asked the girl I was sitting next to if this bus was going to Mianyang, just to make sure.

I went to Sichuan China in 2008 through a college exchange program. For part of the time I studied at a college in Nanchong. While I was there I met a Chinese college student that I became pretty good friends with. She is now a primary school English teacher in Mianyang. I stayed two full days with her and her family.

Mianyang is very pretty but also unfamiliar. It was strange to start my trip of revisiting China in a place I had visited yet. But it was still fun. On my last full day there I went with my friend's friends to a hot springs where there were dozens of different types of baths. There were tea baths, various flower baths, and vegetable baths. It was interesting to sit in basically a large cup of tea.

Next stop Nanbu. In 2008 I taught English for about a month a half in the city of Nanbu at Nanbu Number 1 Middle School. Coming back to Nanbu was a little bizarre. For one thing, since it was still the New Year holidays, many people had come home so the city was packed. When I was last in Nanbu, I remember walking around the city and seeing only old people and their grandchildren because students were in school and their parents were at work. However, now everyone was out and about. Also, last time I was in Nanbu I was constantly hearing people saying "hello" or "lao wai" (foreigner). However, this time I probably heard those comments maybe a total of five times.  Nanbu also seemed bigger. A huge new park had been built and an old stadium had been torn down to make way for a new shopping centre.  I stayed with my old Nanbu host family and went with the out and around the town and visited the school where I taught in 2008.

After that I headed to Nanchong where I stayed with another old host family. Last year my host sister got married, so I stayed with her and her husband and her parents. Being back in Nanchong was great. It was great to see familiar places and old friends and was great because, unlike Nanbu, Nanchong was relatively quiet and empty. In China and in Vietnam, during the Lunar New Year big cities become smaller and small cities become bigger. This is because people return to their hometowns for the holiday. Some part of Nanchong weren't very different, but some parts had changed quite a bit. Nanchong had recieved a makeover about a year ago and now the streets and shops looked very modern.

Here I am with a good friend in front of the school where I had English class in 2008.

Nanchong host family.

While I stayed at their house, I talked with my host sister's husband, Mr. Long, a lot about politics. Mr. Long is a very intelligent person who will soon be getting his doctorate in International Studies, focusing on China-India relations. It was great to talk with someone who knew a lot about Chinese politics but who also thought outside the party line. During my stay in China, I was surprised how much coverage the protests in Egypt got on the news. Mr. Long seemed to really like the fact that protests against government corruption was actually successful. I asked Mr. Long if there were ever any protests in China. He told me that everyday there is probably a protest against a local government. He told me that people in China have become more vocal against local governments. He told me that 20 years ago, if people protested against local government they would have probably been arrested or shot, but nowadays that is not the case. He stated that one of many Chinese people's complaints in China is when someone or some organization makes the case for something on "behalf of China." Mr. Long used CCTV's reporter Rui Cheng Gang's question to Barack Obama as an example. At the G20 Summit in Seoul, Obama asked if for questions from South Korean reporters. No South Korean reporter stood up so Rui Cheng Gang stood up to ask a question on "behalf of Asia." Apparently this ticked off a lot of Chinese. They criticized Rui, stating that he could not ask a question on "behalf of Asia." He could not even ask a question of "behalf of China." Many Chinese people said that he could only represent CCTV or himself.

It's easy to see why this would be a pet peeve of many Chinese people. When "China" makes a decision, that decision is not representative of the Chinese people. Despite America's voting process and politics being kind of screwed up, at least there is some connection between the people and the powers that be. While I'm thankful for news outlets, there is one aspect of journalism that I've started to disdain. In the news you will hear things such as "China continues support of North Korea" as if all 1.2 billion people in China continue their support of North Korea. I understand that it is easier and simpler to say "China" than "the Chinese government" and that most people understand "China" to represent the "Chinese government".  But after a while, it begins to form the basis of how you think about an entire populace. The other day I was reading an article about Liu Xiaobo, China's detained Nobel Prize Winner and found myself thinking "man, screw China." And then I thought, "no wait, I really like China. One of the best time's of my life was spent in China."  It is part of the reason why many Chinese people hate Japanese people. Yes, Japan did many horribly horrendous acts things during WWII to China (Rape of Nanking) and yes there are Japanese people that deny these acts but that is more to do with cultural brainwashing (there are also Chinese that don't believe the Tienanmen Square incident occurred). I highly doubt that everyday normal Japanese citizens are thinking about continuing any of those atrocities. It is part of the reason why many Vietnamese people hate Chinese people and many Cambodians hate Vietnamese people. I can't say that I have been everywhere, but I haven't been anywhere where everyone was just plain dirt. I've find that most everywhere I go, people are friendly on an individual basis. You run into jerks, but usually these seem to be in public settings. They might be a crabby cab driver or a cop that might just be having a bad day or may just be acting a certain way towards you because of the aforementioned stereotyping. But probably if they really got to know you and were able to look past race/gender/sexuality/religion/culture/favorite football team, they'd realize that, hey, we're both the same animal. Anyway, that's enough ranting. One of the few things I dislike about Asia is the strong animosity most people have towards people in neighboring countries. I guess I just have never felt that way but maybe if I had been raised in a different culture or in a different family I would feel different. The only people I have ever regarded as jerks are the French. And that doesn't make any sense because every French person I've known personally has been very kind and friendly.

But despite that, I can still say I don't like certain governments. (Ok, I actually don't really know of a government that I can honestly say that I all-around "like".) But now I at least try to differentiate between the government and the people, especially in countries where the government is not representative of the people. 

While in Nanchong I made the mistake of telling my host sister and her husband that I'd possibly be interested in teaching English in China in the future. Therefore, they set me up with a gig to go to another city where my host sister's friend, who runs an English training school, lives. I would have to spend a couple days there overnight and I could help teach at the training school. I really didn't want to go. I want to spend my precious time in China hanging out with old friends and seeing familiar places around Nanchong, not teaching English. But I could really not see how I could straight up tell them I didn't want to go without being rude, so I went. And I had a good time.  The husband and wife headmasters showed me around the city of Xuanhan, which was smaller than any city I had visited yet in China. But it was still freaking big. Walking around the city, I felt like I was back in China in 2008. Everyday I heard lots of "hello"s and "lao wai" and everywhere I went there were lots of stares. One night a bunch of girls came up wanting to take their pictures with me, and then another group of girls, and then another. A crowd began forming around me and finally my hosts decided it was best to break away and head home.

The highlight came on the last night of Spring Festival when I went out with the teachers from the training school (who were all young girls around my age) to watch the fireworks and the thousands of sky lanterns being sent off from the ground below. Before going out to enjoy the festivities, I went to eat hot pot with the teachers and headmasters. At the hot pot restaurant I noticed a waitress wearing a Chairman Mao pin and red arm band which I thought was a little odd. What was odder still was that she was dressed in all green. I looked around and saw that all the waitresses were dressed this way. I then realized that it was a Cultural Revolution-era hot pot restaurant and that all the staff were dressed as Red Guards.  However, the hotpot was basically the same as hotpot anywhere in Sichuan. Which means it was really good. Although I'm not sure which people during the Cultural Revolution would be eating at a fancy hot pot place like this.

I didn't even realize that it was the last night of the Spring Festival (or Lantern Day) until I exited the restaurant so I regrettably didn't bring my camera. But here's a picture from Wikipedia that looks exactly how it looked that night.

The sight of thousands of sky lanterns floating through passages of tall buildings and then off into the dark was otherworldly. I managed to get a picture after I returned to the hotel where I was staying, but by that time there were less lanterns.

(Those bright dots are the lanterns)

The next day I helped with teaching two classes. Because this post has grown rather long, I will let the pictures do the talking.

After that it was one more day back in Nanchong and then off to Chengdu and back to Hanoi. All in all, it was a great trip. It was more of an experience than a vacation. Perhaps I needed a vacation, but I probably needed an experience more. Coming back to China, I could see how much I had grown and matured since being there. Anyway who knows me well knows that I always talk about my time in China. My time in China in 2008 was one of the best times of my life. Coming back, I was able to make peace with that time. I realize that I can't revisit that time again but that's okay. In 2008, I came with an awesome group of people from my college. It was the first time I had gone to another country without a family member. It was the first time I lived in another without a family member. It was a lot of firsts but since then I've experienced many other great things as well. When this experience in Vietnam is over, I may regard it as the best experience of my life. But that doesn't mean that the high point of my life is now. There will be lots of highs and lows ahead. The summit is a lot more enjoyable if you've had to start from the base and half the fun of climbing is hiking back down. So here's to yesterday and tomorrow.

But not to right now, because right now I have to get back to work.