Tired of the city, tired of the culturally ambiguous modern Shanghai, we were excited to get out to the country on this trip. We wanted to see some of “real China.” We wanted to meet some Chinese people. So in between the splendors of karst hills and rice terraces, we decided to leave the typical tourist path a little. We hired a guide who planned our trip to small minority villages and little towns, arranged transportation, met us at the airport, and whisked us off.
We didn’t have to do any of the work, and yet, we were so unready.
In our hasty desire to see The People, we’d forgotten that, frankly, The People live in poverty and squalor. The People don’t have hot water, screens on their windows, and proper sanitation. The People live with their pigs.
Our first hint of just where we were going came when our guide suggested we stop and buy bottled water. Now, we drink bottled water in Shanghai, so this hardly seemed unusual. Then she explained, we were buying water for the whole week. They didn’t sell it where we were headed.
Oh.
We drove for eight-hours, over and around mountains, and through gorgeous red hills bedecked with terraces of tea. It is the spring harvest and workers in blue with their traditional conical caps were picking away at the young leaves while toddlers waddled nearby. From the road, we peered up and down at small villages, nestled in tiny valleys or against sharp hillsides, made exclusively of patched together wood houses. Power lines jarred the landscape and satellite dishes the architecture, but these were the only conspicuous elements of development.
As we walked down to the first village where we were to stay the night, our guide explained that the satellite dishes were an effort by the government to teach the people of these villages “the rules.” We snickered a little, thinking this meant some manner of propagandizing, but then she explained more, and it became clear that she meant “health and safety” sorts of rules, not political or legal ones. Then we walked through the village and it became obvious why this effort was gravely needed.
Animals roamed freely through the streets, littering the whole town with their waste, before taking nightly residence on the bottom floor of the houses. Little children toddled and played right through the waste. Household trash was dumped in whatever corner or on whatever hillside was mildly out of sight. Sometimes it was burned, filling the air with a vicious stench, and sometimes it was just clearly left to rot. The plastic remains of individually packaged snacks and goods were incessantly underfoot. All of this could be seen as a gross nuisance, but on a walk through one village, our guide pointed to a clinic filled with mothers or grandparents and their small children with IVs. “This is a hospital,” she told us, “they have a lot of sick children in these villages.”
The dignity of the simple life, however, was equally apparent. In the tiny village we were visiting, an elder had just passed away and our guide explained that the music we could hear wafting through the down was a funereal song, making this announcement. Now, she explained, everyone in the village would know that this family was grieving and would come to pay respects and help them through the difficult times. She noted, and we agreed, how such decency and community might never happen in a city. Unlike Shanghai, we never ended our days feeling battered by the jostling crowds or on edge from having to fight our way through the store and back. We talked about how the children were free to roam and how houses were not simply unlocked but open. She, speaking the local tongue, encouraged us to enter several homes, unarranged and uninvited, but we were always met kindly and once foisted with food. The food was something else entirely.
Regardless of their circumstance, it seems that The People know how to cook. Even in the darkest corner of the dirtiest kitchen, even in the government cafeteria of a small town, or a random empty noodle shop on a side road to nowhere, we ate well. We had weeds, we had chicken eggs (and not the kind they lay), we had a completely unknown root, and our only poor meal was when we tried to eat Western food at a tourist spot. Home again, we have since found ourselves tackling local joints we had never thought we would try.
Beyond re-enthusing us for Chinese food, our trip revitalized our expatriate spirits. We had allowed ourselves to become bogged down in work and big city life, and neither offer the sort of experience that justifies all we gave up when we left home. It’s easy to start thinking that we’re here to work in China. In fact, we’re here to live in China and work. It’s up to us to make the most of our breaks and weekends.
Finally, after and despite the appalling poverty, I found myself feeling a renewed gratitude for all I have. Even here in Shanghai, it is easy to feel deprived away from all the comforts of life in the US, but I’m reminded again of what it really means to have not. Nonetheless, I also feel a little hopeful for the Chinese rural poor. Everywhere we went, new roads and houses were being built. A train line is being run that will link the largest of these villages to the big cities of the South. And some gains are coming at the speed of light.
One night, as we went up to our rooms in the village leader’s house in the tiniest village we visited, I spied a familiar glow emanating from a room behind the stairs. I peeked past the door and here, in house still shared with two pigs, there were six computers, each manned with an adolescent. Some were chatting, some were playing games, and one appeared to be reading or writing a blog. Our guide explained, “The leader is a very clever man. He knows what the kids need to learn.”
Indeed!
