Halfway into the trip and I officially admit that I'm sick of Chinese food. It isn’t that the food is bad. In fact, the food is good, but after a week of eating it for three meals, it all starts to taste the same. By the way, it is nothing like the Chinese American cuisine that we eat in the U.S.. As my cravings for cuisine other than Chinese increased, I found myself eating less and less at each Chinese meal. I craved variety and the food began to taste monotonous. This is ironic because you have a choice of so many dishes for each meal. We sit at a round table with a lazy-susan turntable in the center and the food always comes out as soon as we are seated. How's that for service? An average meal will have 2-3 vegetable dishes, 7-8 meat dishes, rice and/or noodles, 2 soups, and fruit for dessert. The 8 people seated at the table will share the meal family style. I was glad I practiced with my chopsticks before the trip. I was able to master them in China because we ate all of our meals with them.
I remembered Dr. Becton telling us before the trip that there was a McDonald’s across from our hotel in Xi’an. He mentioned how happy we would be because we would be sick of Chinese food by that point in the trip. At the time, I thought, “Yeah, right. I'm going all the way to China to eat some Mickey D’s. I don’t think so. I was planning to fully immerse myself in the culture and I wouldn’t cheapen it with some American fast food”. Well, I was soon faced with my aforementioned reality and reality told me I needed a change. What could I say? I caved and thanked god that Pizza Hut and McDonald’s had reached this country. McDonald’s has never been my fast food restaurant of choice in the states, but beggars can’t be choosy. I enjoyed a Big Mac combo for 17 yuan or $2.25 and it was the best Big Mac and fries that I’d ever tasted.
Today, I saw the new technology industrial zone for Xi’an. It was huge and the master plan was amazing. I couldn’t believe the growth and development of the area in the last 15 years. We saw before and after photos and it did not look like the same place. I learned that Xi’an was spurred by the high technology sector in the area. Xi’an was also home to a number of universities. As a result, the incomes were higher than in larger cities, but the cost of living lower. That explained the high fashion and nicer cars. The high tech region of this technology zone was like a miniature Silicon Valley.
I also witnessed a loss of face today during the technology sector presentation. “Face” is very important to the Chinese people. For Westerners, “Face” is like your reputation or image. If someone embarrassed you in public, for example, you would lose face and they would lose face because they caused the embarrassment. Great care was taken in the Chinese society to not lose face or cause someone else to lose face. Well, as I mentioned, it happened today. Before the presentation, the host put some attending engineers and support staff from the Dalong company on the spot and asked them to introduce themselves in English. The employees didn’t speak strong English and were clearly caught offguard. You could tell it was unexpected of them and they were very uneasy trying to give an impromptu introduction in a second language. Because they were embarrassed, they lost face and the host lost face by placing them in that situation. I felt so bad for the employees. It was painful to watch them struggle through their introduction and the loss of face was magnified because it occurred in the presence of foreigners.
I guess I hadn't really thought of China as a developing country because of all of the economic growth I've witnessed in the large cities. After viewing the living conditions of the general population and the predominate use of bicycles as a mode of transportation, I realized that it is a developing country although it's developing at a very rapid pace. The bicycles are a necessity because most Chinese can not afford a car. We are visiting the more affluent cities and there are still a ton of bicycles. I’m told that they are even more abundant in the rural areas. The area and population in the rural part of the country far outnumber the residents living in the city. People have wondered why or how China fell behind the rest of the world in some aspects. Especially when its ancient civilization was so much more advanced compared to the rest of the world at the time. The reason is that China endured some civil wars and external conflicts that set the country back. The opium wars ravaged the country and soured it so badly against Western trade that China essentially became self sufficient and shut off its borders to the rest of the world. So while the rest of the world industrialized and grew, China continued to isolate itself and missed out on that growth and development. After the cultural revolution, leaders implemented the open door policy and resumed trade with other nations. After decades of isolation, the country is still trying to make up for lost time.
Our final stop of the day was to Northwest University. We met with the dean and some students. Although we required a translator to facilitate communication, I thought it went very well. The translator did an excellent job comprehending and conveying the information to both sides. I learned that there were many similarities in college life and the duties of the professor in both the U.S. and China. One difference, however, was that most of the college students in attendance wanted a government position after graduation. I don’t think that ranks high on American college graduates list of dream jobs. In China, government jobs are still held in high esteem. Teaching was also popular among the young women. We also learned that the government no longer paid for college. Parents were responsible for footing the bill and many had to save a lifetime to afford it. Graduates were also no longer guaranteed a job. It is a competitive job market so they have to sell themselves in the marketplace. Is it me or do the perks of living in a communist nation seem to be dwindling?
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