"Helllllooooooooooo". The word 'hello' is going to be one of my abiding memories of China. When someone didn't understand you they'd say it, when someone wanted to impress their friends they would shout it out across the road at you. It isn't a proper 'hello' though, it's a long drawn out 'hello' followed by laughter.
After six years in the country I've finally decided that it's time to leave. I probably should have left earlier, the last two years haven't been that enjoyable. The pollution has got worse, censorship make the internet pointless without a VPN, the growing nationalist sentiment has also made me feel less welcome. For most of the time that I've been in China I've loved it, I just don't want to become that bitter expat that hates the place they live in but won't take the step to leave because they've become too comfortable. The world is too big and time is too short.
When I first arrived in China I didn't know what to expect. I genuinely had no idea. I didn't even know where Chengdu was, the first time I'd heard of it was when I saw a flight announcement for a plane while I was waiting for my flight to Beijing. When I eventually got there I was surprised at how westernised it was. Probably naively, I am not sure why I thought China and India would be similar.
In the first few years of living there I loved it. The all seeing authoritarian government that is portrayed in the media didn't seem to be there. Apart from Facebook and YouTube at the time, most of the internet was accessible. I couldn't speak any Chinese at all so I couldn't understand what people were saying, although it didn't take long to learn what the word for foreigner was. At the time the expat community in Chengdu wasn't very large, you'd rarely see another foreigner on the streets. The Chinese would stare and force little Xiao Wang to say hello to the foreigner.
For six months I lived in Leshan. A city in the south of Sichuan famous for it's giant Buddha. Working in a school full of spoiled rich kids and teachers that resented the foreigners popularity my time there was hardest to get through. Working on dodgy visas, processing a visa with five minutes left, and being told by a teacher that I was stupid on the basis that I was a foreigner were the highlights of living there. It was an experience that I wouldn't change, it made me a lot stronger as a person, you could offer me all the money in the world though and I wouldn't go back and do it again. The 'hellos' were particularly prevalent here, I don't know how many foreigners lived in the city but I only ever saw two in six months.
The best experience I had in China was that of learning the language. Going from having no words at all to being fluent is an achievement that I am proud of. Chinese is not as hard as people think and if you live there it is well worth investing the time into learning it. It makes your life so much easier as so few people speak English. The hardest part of learning was the monotony of the classes. Each lesson was the same and classes were never streamed according to ability. Every day you knew what would happen in the class. The teacher would go through some new vocabulary then ask you to make a sentence. My first teacher was an exception to that rule and was the best teacher I had in the whole time I was there.
While experiencing the education system for us foreigners was bad enough, spare a thought for the kids who have to go to school from 7 am to 9 pm with the sole goal of passing an exam that completely shapes their future. The education system in China is not one that should be emulated, it deprives children of independent thought and creativity. The difference becomes most apparent when you teach a class of first years in primary school who are inquisitive and excited and then teach a class in middle school. The children will be worn out, their eyes black with tiredness, the curiosity and youthfulness will have disappeared.
It is extremely hard to describe to people what China is like. On the outside, especially in major cities, it is no different to any other Western city. The buildings, the shopping centres the infrastructure. It takes time to see under that. Even then it's still hard to describe it. A society supposedly built on Confucian values, a government that teaches Marxist economics even at university at level but has unleashed capitalism at its worst. The contradictions in the society are ubiquitous. Harmony was the propaganda buzzword a few years back, on the surface it seems harmonious but I always have the feeling that underneath there is an undercurrent of rage that could boil over at any time.
One of the things that China has taught me is the evil of ultra nationalism. The belief in the superiority of a race and the belief that you have the right to impose your will on those that don't agree with you simply because you are inherently superior. The government has used the nationalist sentiments to direct anger away from themselves, people need to vent so let them vent at imaginary enemies. I do not think this is just a product of the Communist Party, it's more an ingrained part of the Chinese culture and can be traced back far further than the CCP.
This ingrained superiority complex is also contradicted in everyday life, not just by the rich moving abroad and sending their children abroad to school but also in desiring all things western. Living in China you will always be told that you don't understand. To an extent, no, we don't understand but the contradictions are more obvious to outsiders. When you point something out it doesn't mean that you 'hate' or 'don't understand'.
China pissed me off immensely, but when you live abroad it's always the case. Whichever country you go to the expats will tell you how difficult it is to live in that country. I am not a China basher and I don't subscribe to the China collapse theory, China will always have some relevance in the world. While I don't think the political system will collapse, it does have the potential to, and if it does it will be a spectacular collapse.
I often find myself defending China to people in Europe. China is probably nothing like what you expect it to be. It is cliched but China is not North Korea. It can have a lawless feel to it. If you're not getting involved in politics then you will be left alone. People rarely involve the police in disputes, not only are they useless, but people prefer to settle things themselves. Censorship has got worse in recent years, and in fact I became more aware of what I was looking at on the internet even when I was using a VPN. A testament to that is that I'd never have written this if I was still living there, perhaps paranoia on my part but better safe than sorry. I think China is at a turning point and this is the turning point that will determine the future for the nation.
China has been through immense changes since the CCP came into power. The famines of the great leap forward and the destruction of culture during the Cultural Revolution has had a massive influence on the way the country is today. Stability is paramount for both the government and also the people. In the west especially, we take our political freedoms for granted, and we have grown up believing that it is our fundamental right to have a say in how our government is run. At the moment Chinese people value prosperity and stability, there is no desire for upheaval. This is not an attempt at excusing authoritarianism, but is an explanation of the situation.
I'm still going to keep learning the language, and I hope I can go back to Chengdu at some point. I've complained about it, I've hated it at times but China and especially Chengdu will always have a place in my heart along with the Chinese people. I have some amazing Chinese friends and I learnt so much about myself and others while there. It's just that it has worn me out and now it's time for new adventures and so it's time to say thank you and hopefully I'll see you all soon.
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