The Head of An Elephant in Melancholy Madness

About ten minutes ago I woke up to the sound of pounding drums, trickling water, and loud Chinese singing that only recently switched to the voice of Celine Dion...welcome to Chinese New Years Eve in the morning! Monday started our New Years Vacation, so on Tuesday we decided to actually do something with it. In one of our rooms, we were left a list of day trips that the girls before us had taken; as we looked through them, we saw a place only two hours away that was described as the best place to shop outside of Beijing. On top of that there was a Folk Culture Village for us to explore over 30 different Chinese minorities and their dances. Without much planning, the seven of us were sold on the idea, so the next morning before dawn we caught a bus to catch another bus to catch a third bus to go Shenzhen.

Though I was tired from staying up too late the previous night, my eyes were wide open nearly the entire journey. Up until that bus ride I don’t think that I'd really felt like I'd been in China. I had had some shocks with food, or bathrooms, or people's stares, but it was nothing compared to what I saw then. As I left Zhongshan, my mind was thrown back to Friedrich Engles' "The Great Towns," where he speaks of the stark contrast between the up and coming streets of industrial England, and the poverty by which it is supported.

"A town, such as London, where a man may wander for hours together without reaching the beginning of the end, without meeting the slightest hint which could lead to the inference that there is open country within reach, is a strange thing. This colossal centralization, this heaping together of two and a half millions of human beings at one point, has multiplied the power of this two and a half millions a hundredfold; has raised London to the commercial capital of the world, created the giant docks and assembled the thousand vessels that continually cover the Thames. I know nothing more imposing than the view which the Thames offers during the ascent from the sea to London Bridge. The masses of buildings, the wharves on both sides, especially from Woolwich upwards, the countless ships along both shores, crowding ever closer and closer together, until, at last, only a narrow passage remains in the middle of the river, a passage through which hundreds of steamers shoot by one another; all this is so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of England's greatness before he sets foot upon English soil. [3]

But the sacrifices which all this has cost become apparent later. After roaming the streets of the capital a day or two, making headway with difficulty through the human turmoil and the endless lines of vehicles, after visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realizes for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilization which crowd their city; that a hundred powers which slumbered within them have remained inactive, have been suppressed in order that a few might be developed more fully and multiply through union with those of others. The very turmoil of the streets has something repulsive, something against which human nature rebels. The hundreds of thousands of all classes and ranks crowding past each other, are they not all human beings with the same qualities and powers, and with the same interest in being happy? And have they not, in the end, to seek happiness in the same way, by the same means? And still they crowd by one another as though they had nothing in common, nothing to do with one another, and their only agreement is the tacit one, that each keep to his own side of the pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd, while it occurs to no man to honour another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest, becomes the more repellent and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together, within a limited space. And, however much one may be aware that this isolation of the individual, this narrow self-seeking, is the fundamental principle of our society everywhere, it is nowhere so shamelessly barefaced, so self-conscious as just here in the crowding of the great city. The dissolution of mankind into monads, of which each one has a separate principle, the world of atoms, is here carried out to its utmost extreme."

Engles continues on to describe the utter poverty that is the outskirts of London. While I do not necessarily suggest that China particularly embodies the atomization which Engles describes, I have found that there is a strong correlation between 18th Century England and Modern China. Being American, I believe that I cannot feel the isolation that is perhaps so much more prevalent here - people, rather than hanging their heads in indifference towards me and my companions, seem opening interested and awed by us. However, the London that Engles describes is almost the perfect depiction of what I felt on the shores of Hong Kong. It is all "so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of [its] greatness before he sets foot upon [its] soil." I remember the first night I was in Hong Kong; all I could think was how big everything was. There is construction everywhere, and the thousands of cranes bring back the images of Dickens' Hard Times  "where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness." It is a city of marvel, but I have never in my life seen such industry. Though I have extensively studied the Industrial Revolution, I have never understood it until I came here. China's growth proceeds at an unfathomable rate. In so many ways it is every bit as advanced as the Western World, and yet, there is a distinct seam that shows where the tear is between the old world and the new. It is every bit as distinct as it was for the English nearly 200 years ago.

At this point, I know that most of my roommates have stopped reading out of boredom, and probably many of the rest of you have as well. These English tangents frequent my thoughts, so excuse my digression. The point of all of this is simply to say that yesterday it amazed me to see the stark contrast from Hong Kong to the town in which I live, and even more, the contrast from Zhongshan to the farming communities on our borders. The two hour bus showed us swamped field after field - each attached to a small, often stick, home. I was filled with the images I have only seen through the romantic window of National Geographic – actually being there was something indescribable. My thoughts took over; I no longer wanted to talk with the excited girls around me; I just wanted time to soak in the reality around me. I felt, in those moments, a profound respect and love such that my thoughts thereafter turned to self deprecation. My role in life seemed so transient so insignificant until I had this time to absorb this culture so close and yet so different from my own. I was traveling from one city to another – to go shopping no less – but my thoughts were only on the in between; the places I was spending no time, but just passing through. It is a feeling that made me feel more real than I think many have the opportunity to experience. Peru had changed my outlook, but China, even in just four weeks, has changed who I am. I wish I could live there just so that I never abandon the realities I have found.

Once we finally got to Shenzhen we were hit with the fact that we had NO plans. We knew what we wanted to do, but naively we expected that everything would be in the vicinity of the bus stop. We had a book with the name of the place we were trying to go, but we soon found out that “saving face” in China has a whole other meaning than we originally understood. See, rather than just telling us “no, I have no idea where that is” Chinese people will ALWAYS give you directions for where to go – even if they are completely wrong. Because of this, we ended up taking a 45 minute bus to another city in the middle of no where. From there we were told to take a taxi to another place about 20mins away. Once we got there and realized we were STILL in the wrong place, we decided to the nearest hotel and ask for help again. She was much more helpful, and got us another taxi, which meant another 20mins, but this too did not take us where we were trying to go. It dropped us off somewhere amazing called the Window to the World, so we stuck around for a while, but there was still no shopping to be seen. By this time the day was almost over, and we hadn’t seen what we’d come to see, but it was time to head back. We took the subway metro back to where we thought the bus stop was, and when we got off it was completely ironic. As soon as our white faces were shown to the general populace, we had about 10 people come up to us telling us to come to their stores. It turns out that the whole day we had been searching for a place that was only across the street. It was 6 stories tall and put New York’s

Canal St

to shame. We had an hour to shop, but then it was time to go home. Our feet were aching like mad, but at least I think it has opened our eyes for what to expect when we head to Guilin tomorrow!

I cannot even begin to explain Chinese New Years – I know that I will not do it justice….especially in writing…so just ask me about it when I get home J Much Love.