Backpacking Addict
hello from shanghai.
It’s nice to be back online and hear from some of you. Sounds a little strange but I guess in the last few months your comments and thoughts have become such a frabric of my life that when I got on, saw some familiar names and words and ideas, it made me smile.
Here I am in CHINA. Here I am.
It’s such a strange feeling to be here, to achknowlegde it’s size and as I said the utterly vast experience. I went to Hang Zhou and it up and coming, I went to Shou Zhou and it was still very much old China that I remember fro 15 years ago, then Wu Shan, where there seemed to be nothing much but some funky factories where we were brought through for the express reasons for shopping along with a brilliant, Waring Period set for a huge TV series (Fantastic, I loved it,) . And now I am in Shanghai, one of the greatest cities in the world. All in four days? Five? I no longer know.
The backpacking game is to see how far you can go, how deep, how you can learn the minute of culture, meet the real people, live the life of those around you. \
Being on a tour, it’s all about how much you can force in, cramp in, have it brought to you for the express reasons of capturing your tourist dollar.
I am on a tour with my family, four aunts, one cousin, my cousin’s cousin, her aunt, and some family friends along with 30 something other people. To be honest I am sooo glad to be out and by myself for the first time in the last how many days, just me and a computer and a halarious business center girl, who I have been chatting with for a while in a mixture of Mandarin, Cantonese and English. I feel relieved to be talking to a REAL Chinese person, someone who actually lives in the country. I feel relieved to be out of the hands of the baby sitting tour guides who remind me to go to the bathroom, have I got the passport, and makes me stare at things and listen to them rapidly spit fire information that I may or may not be interested in, for about for as long as 3 hours at a time.
I think I am going to go nuts very soon, although I am sad that I won’t be able to spend time with my family, if this carries on for another three days I think I will lose it. I can’t explain the constant feeling of being herded luck a DUCK. That’s what they call it in Chinese. DUCK tours, because we follow the little yellow flag all over the place, being forced to stare at things they have deemed interesting at a speed they feel fit. Rush, Rush, Hurry, NOW.
Rush Rush Hurry NOW. No time to think, no time to take in. Come here, buy this, these are the reasons why. Here Yan look this way. Take this photo, stand next to me, Take this photo, make a face, Now, oh hurry they are calling. Man. Just wanted a little time to think a little time to take in.
This is China.
With all it’s beauty and a glimsp of the horror. The horror the rapidly constantly diverging life styles, the rich and poor, the people whose life is better because they left their village to be a massuse, who maybe are as bright as any of us, the women who shop at department stores because they are mistresses, the realities of life, but it’s changed so much.
The last time I really was here was 15 years ago. China was Communist. People didn’t work, and they suffered. If they worked hard they got 36 yuan, if they didn’t they got 36 yuan. That’s it. There was no point in trying or working. And now we are in one of the fastest growing economy in the world. First world cities, surrounded by third world realities. It’s so in your face.
And one night when i was getting a massage the man in the room before me who was in his 40s, was getting dressed and a young girl no older than 15 is looking terrified. A village girl, a little girl, she had that look of innocence. And as he left the room, I saw him kiss her. She moved away, I looked away, but as my cousin said, “When you told me that, I know just what happenned.” and I said, “Yes. We know just what happenned.” And we both remembered, we both thought. “There is a reason that this country was communist for so long, and why that was the right thing for this country for that period.” because he was just the master with his girl he bought to be the maid (Mui Gei), just like it was before in a different context.
And we also knew that if this country is not careful, if the divide gets as big as it did before. Things will not be peaceful. China is so vast. It’s so different. Like much of history, there is a time of peace, there is a time of properity and then it falls, due to whatever reasons, and mostly that those who had power for the dynasties begin to forget their jobs and the dienfranchised, the other general, the other state decides to attack as the power wane and there is war, and there is an uprising and there is a revolution. Things change again.
I have so many thoughts, but I must leave now.
Be back soon. I have so many new thoughts.
Yan
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 