Halfway Home Part II

Note: because of the accumulated backlog, I'm updating The Great Escape in two installments. This time, it's less about my travels and more about the unique country, it's problems and virtues I'm currently travelling in. The first part can be read here.

One thing can't be denied. Chinese are getting more and more aware of their country's power and influence. They don't accept critism from the West anymore. They are telling the rest of the world: we are doing it our own way.

Internet censorship? That's for social stability. Tibet? Internal matter. Domestic market closed for international corporations? Chinese companies first. Some of it is understandable and maybe some of it rightly so.

On the other hand, too many times is China hiding behind the excuse of being a “developing” country and shying away from it's international responsibility. Or they retreat back behind their Chinese Great cultural wall: we have Confucius; our culture is different; we have five thousands of years of history; so we play a different ball game.

If that doesn't work, they can always revert back to the most childish one: the West doesn't have the right to say these things after years and years of abuse, neglect and bullying.

You can see all of this travelling around. There are the obivous signs of economical progress. Big, wide boulevards, huge construction sites, fast food restaurants, department stores, gleaming, new super highways, big SUV's and all-terrain vehicles. Money, status, pleasure girls, corruption, poverty and a serious lack of respect for the environment.

And there obvious signs of the “different” attitude of the Chinese. They find it kind of strange that the white monkey's (that's me) don't speak Chinese at all. Go anywhere else in the world and the traveller will find it strange that the local population doesn't speak English.

The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with Frank. Together with another Dutch friend, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provencial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six milion. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province.

Frank speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to kareoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.

I also “did” the tourist route, going north. It was a bit different from the typical, banana pancake trail in Southeast Asia. Tourism in China doesn't mean Western tourists, but domestic tourism. So a lot of Chinese taking a lot of pictures of unimportant things. It was nice though, and eventually I did manage to get to Shangri-la, high up in the mountains, close to Tibet.


Travelling like this was a lot harder. China is not easy, especially not when you don´t talk the language and when you can´t read the characters on signs and buildings. Walking through the streets, or trying to get a bus to a different city or ordering something at a small, dinky street restaurant almost felt like trying to access websites that before were easy to get on, but now were behind a closed door, the key thrown away. The feeling of being disconnected is frustrating.
Coming back to the Great Firewall: it serves two purposes. Not only does it blocks websites that are considered detrimental to the Chinese cause, but equally important, it enables Chinese companies and websites to set up shop and copy succesful concepts without having to worry about foreign competition.

An interesting pattern can be seen here. China is not only known for the being the world's workshop, manufacturing everything from shoes to oiltankers, but also the leading nation of counterfeiting consumer goods. China is the world's greatest copycat.

As far as the Chinese are concerned – they don't give a rat's ass about possible complaints or what the rest of the world thinks about this. Or them. Because for the Chinese, China is the world.

On a personal note: as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I have decided to head back home. After being on the road for more than a year, living out of my backpack, I'm starting to feel tired and the strain. I feel the definite curse of travel fatigue. Though I can't say exactly when, I'm planning to be back home in the near future. How? The long way of course.

And at the moment I'm in Hong Kong, that lovely city, finishing up celebrating the Chinese New Year. Welcome to the Year of the Tiger! Grrrraaauw...!