china: epilogue
when we flew out of rio a year or so ago i was mentally counting down the days before a return. flying out of hong kong our fortnight in china seemed enjoyable and worthwhile, but i harboured no burning desire to go back. the sights are incredible, from the great wall to the li river via as many bustling modern day metropolises as you could hope for, but as a place to just be, to exist for a day, a week, a month, china did not capture my imagination as other places so vividly have.it does not help that we have an entirely different sensibility to the chinese in so many things, not least our approach to tourist attractions. we prefer peace and quiet and an aura of the untouched, so we can wallow in the nostalgia of what lies before us. the chinese, by contrast, do not feel their experience is diminished by teeming hordes, megaphones or bright lights; a skyscraper or two nestled amongst the karst peaks does not stop them being there, nor render them any less beautiful. and why shouldn't the chinese approach prevail in what is after all their own land? this is a country full of confidence, unapologetic of any gaudiness in which its ever growing wealth may be manifested, unashamedly proud of its tall buildings and neon edifices. the lonely planet may extoll the virtue of eating noodles by the roadside, but that is to fall into the trap of what rushdie describes as an imaginary homeland, a mythical historical image of a place which we hope to capture in the present. china will not stand still so that western tourists can take more authentic feeling photos; if you want to see the real china, not the one which you have may have cultivated and cherished in your occidental mind's eye, you need to wrench your eyes away from the search for rickshaws and other hackneyed oriental charms and spend half an hour or so sitting in mcdonalds. real authenticity lies in the present not the past and the gap in china is, for better or for worse, growing wider by the minute.
posted by bicrom @ 7:21 pm
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