Thoughts and Travels

5.5.2008 Let’s go to Nanchang!

Today was pretty stressful altogether.  A good day though, to be sure. I was a bit nervous this morning when I had to pack everything up.  I wasn’t sure where things would stay, or what I needed to take to Jianxi with me, who would meet me etc.  It turns out my fears were ungrounded.  Ai hua got me some tickets for the fast train (around 200km/hr) and said it would take about 4 hours to get to Nanchang in Jiangxi province. 

Mr. Long came with me to the train station (that was nice of him and I really wasn’t sure what to expect).  I ended up just taking a small backpack with my laptop in it and all the “precious” things (passport, money, change of undies, etc) with me.  I left the big bag in Hangzhou.  The train ride was pretty nice.  The train itself rivaled any of the bullet trains that are in Europe.    

The train station itself was an awesome experience.  The whole place was filled to the brim with people traveling to other places.  It was hot, sweaty, dirty, and stinky in the place.  The newspaper vendor at the entrance of the platform was chanting, selling her wares with an almost musical intonation.

As we sped through the countryside, we stopped at various buroughs.  It was a bit sad to snake through the countryside, because while the fields were lush and green, the housing looked like a lot of what I would imagine wartime buildings to look like.  Hollowed out and dark, partially crumbling and bare.  This was sad because while there were very noticeable people living in these hovels, the people (affluent patrons of the train) sped by their own third-world.  Very interesting perspective (of course, I’m one of those affluent people sitting and watching the poor countryside go by like it’s something far removed from me when it’s just on the other side of the window. 

The gentleman sitting next to me was pretty nice and I could tell he was a businessman of sorts.  He was about my age and talked on the phone throughout the whole trip.  Many of the train patrons stared at me during the first part of the trip, but when they decided I wasn’t going to grow wool and fangs, they decided there were better things to look at.  The girl sitting by the window (probably 17-22) was talking to herself most of the time and then spontaneously laughing every 2-3 minutes.  Either she wasn’t right in the head or she may have been on something. I couldn’t really tell, but it was sort off sad.

When I got off the train, I called Mr. Wang and he said to just “follow the people” so I did until we got off the platform.  After that, I waited for him and his liason (who speaks better English).  We went to the hotel I will be staying at, (A really nice place for 248  yuan per night – $35 dollars or so).  This would rival any place downtown in Minneapolis. 

We went out to eat after I had a 10 minute rest in the hotel room, and they took me to a country food shop.  It was pretty good and we had some really spicy food because I said I liked it.  It wasn’t that spicy, but I was glad to get chicken and pork rather than crawdads and horror-film cockroaches. J Although I’m ready to eat anything, I do like some stability in my diet after a while.

I found out that Mr. Wang is also 32 and was born one month before me.  He then started calling me his “little brother” although by stature he is quite a bit smaller than me.  It was a good laugh and we seem to get along very well.  He is a landscape designer and decidedly likes natural looking areas rather than man-made looking areas. He seems really on top of things and very interested in communicating.  We have found it hard to communicate some because I don’t have much for Chinese and his English vocabulary isn’t very good, but we’re making it work.  

After supper, we walked along the river in Nanchang and looked at the skyline.  I’m slowly forming an opinion about how China deals with “development” at least how they want themselves to look.  As an analogy, (perhaps not a good one) I’ll say that China seems similar to the guy who owns that fully loaded Mercedes and flaunts it.  Is he overcompensating for something else?  Well, I can’t say if China is overcompensating, but to me it seems that every town I go to is not only filled with pollution from air, water, and land point sources, but there is also a lot of light pollution.  It seems like every town I’ve been to recently is a small version of Reno or Las Vegas.  It’s almost like the Cities in China think that they will look “Developed” if they have very flashy things.

I think this may actually be the opposite.  I think as you work toward a more simple and efficient society, you look more developed and begin to come into a “harmony” with the world around you.  Although I have talked with Mr. Chen about some of these things at length, my opinion is definitely not the only one.  This is just what I’m noticing and what first comes to my mind.  

Developing a country as large as China with such a large population who all want to live like we live in the west is going to have to overcome some real hurdles.  I think, however, that if I’m preaching these thoughts, that we in America should also take an initiative to show the world how to live better and WANT LESS.  I’m not talking life goals, I’m talking materialism.  I’m talking about wanting to do more in life, learn more, experience more, but want fewer material things.

If we value ourselves as leaders (and we’d be dumb to think that China and other “developing” countries aren’t looking at the way we do things to mimic them) then we should take some initiative and help mold the world society and economy into something more sustainable that it is.   

Just my two cents.  All that from a day that started off on the rocks and ended up floating in a sea of tranquility.