China's Yin and Yang

No other surviving civilization is as old and ancient as the Chinese. 6,000 years old by most records, peopled for over 8000 years. By comparison, the Chinese empire and dynasties are much older than the ancient Romans—perhaps a better likeness would be the Egyptians and their pyramids, long extinct except for their tombs along the Nile. But China is changing and adapting. Construction is as ubiquitous on the streets of any Chinese city as the bicycles once were in the Beijing of the past—proof that the Olympics are coming to the ecstatic Chinese in Beijing in 2008. The Middle Kingdom, as China was once known, is the world’s largest country with 1.33 billion people on the Pacific Rim. This is a colossus of a country, wild and diverse, that is now boosting its tourism revenue and growing economically by leaps and bounds. China is even expected to be the world’s top travel destination by 2020! Experts say this is the land that will shape and influence our world in the 21st century, if not lead it. Like a phoenix coming out of the ashes, China is being reborn. Outlasting 180 turbulent years of encounter and battles with the West, from the tea and spice trade to opium and British warfare to Japanese invasion, China is the epitome of pragmatic communism. “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white,” Mao Zedong once said, “but as long as it catches mice.” And mice the Chinese have caught: huge trade surpluses with most of the developed world, especially the US, double digit annual GDP growth, incredible economic forecasts for the future and the first Chinese into space in 2003. Chinese cities designated for certain industries are growing faster than the wildest economic planners’ dreams. But there is a yang to the Chinese yin—a positive to the negative and a harmony to the imperfections. 7 of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world are Chinese, and even more staggering, 16 of the dirtiest 20 cities worldwide are in China. The pollution epidemic and health crisis in many parts of China is spilling over into Japan, Korea and even California, with acid rain, smog and breathing problems. On the economic side, the gap between the 750 million Chinese peasants and the rich is the largest economic disparity in the world. It seems the Chinese miracle and fortunes have not reached the masses. Mao, his figure now a national cult well-preserved in Tianamenan Square, knew the power of these Chinese rural poor. Mao and his contemporaries were well aware that those who fail to learn from the past will be condemned to repeat it. The poor in China are a force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, traveling Asia, there was an envy and mistrust, if not hatred, of China in many of our previous ports, including Vietnam, Burma and India. Even in the States, a major Chinese trading partner, there is a growing anti-Chinese sentiment best illustrated with the local uproar about the trade deficit and sale of “key industries.” From Hong Kong to Beijing to Qingdao, this is the land of yin and yang, positive and negative, power and weakness, and my travels in one of my favorite destinations ever.

Hong Kong still isn’t a part of China. We ported here in one of the richest places in the world. Handed over from British to Chinese hands in 1997, the fusion city of East and West is like no other city in the world. Once known as a “borrowed place on borrowed time,” Hong Kong continues to make the transition to communist China as a new Special Administrative Region (SAR). With its own political and economic systems (and even its own currency and immigration!), the land of shopping malls, museums, and countless restaurants is the sign of a new China. And with the unique culture came a checkered, contested past. The Union Jack flew overhead Hong Kong harbor for 98 years, and then the British packed up and were gone. Only their legacy remains.

The history of Hong Kong starts with the silk and tea trade beginning in the 18th century with Portugues traders. Trade was lucrative for the Chinese, who were largely self-sufficient, and the British soon racked up a large debt. To balance the trade deficit, new empires funneled opium into the country. Long used as a drug medicinally in Asia and Europe, the Chinese found themselves quickly addicted with a large supply brought in by the British from Bengal and Burma. China acted quickly: they tried to stamp out all use of the drug and trade, including confiscation and destruction of large shipments of opium. The British declared war, using this as a pretext for aggression. In 1841, the Treaty of Nanking ended the First Opium War, and granted Hong Kong island to the Queen for perpetuity. Twenty years later, the British took more land, the Kowloon Peninsula, and the New Terrorities were added in 1898 for 99 years. Meanwhile, the island and surrounding land became an economic miracle over the course of the 20th century, when in 1984, an agreement was settled between the British and Chinese. The Union Jack would fly over Hong Kong no more. For the next 50 years, everything will stay the same, including a free-market economy and social and legal systems. “One country, two systems,” the Chinese called it. Through SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) to residency rights to language, Hong Kong has survived.

With only one day in this expensive city, I made the most of my little time; I went to Ocean Park. “You haven’t seen Hong Kong, unless you’ve seen Ocean Park,” said the advertisement in the subway station. The world’s largest aquarium, an impressive atoll reef, a huge amusement park with roller coasters and giant panda bears complemented a fun, relaxing day in this culturally different theme park with a bunch of students. We jumped from the log flume to the flying chairs to ferris wheels and Western-looking roller-coasters on a fun-filled afternoon. “Buy more,” the sign at the gift shop said, “to save the pandas.” Of course, I also went shopping, looking for a new camera in the streets of Kowloon and across the star ferry in Hong Kong island. But in this new world order, Hong Kong prices are surprisingly equivalent to the US—distributors now sell on ebay to fetch higher prices than the locally flooded cheap Hong Kong market.

This world is as small as the relationships that bind us together. I met up with Winson Shuen, a former RA and student at R.I.T. He was a gracious, welcoming host and tour guide, leading me through the intricacies of a land unknown, including dinner and walks through the hot, humid island. Although most Hong Kong residents speak English, . Winson showed me the inside perspective on Hong Kong, including the food, the shopping and the nightlife. The streets were alive with people, merchants and community, but closed to cars and buses. Vendors sold everything, because if you can’t find it here, you don’t need it. But best of all, Winson and I shared our stories. We hadn’t chatted recently, and it gave me great pleasure to see him successful, happy and proud of his culture and identity.

“Eating is as important as the sky,” a Chinese proverb tells. Indeed from dim sum to Peking duck, noodles to rice, and north to south, a culinary traveler could spend years testing the delicacies and specialties of Chinese cuisine. On the street, the Chinese first greet each other and ask, “Have you eaten yet?,” showing the significance of food in Chinese culture. Like the Yin and Yang, balance and harmony are key ingredients of food and everyday life. Vegetables and fruits complement fried, spicy meats. Hot and cold. In the south, especially Hong Kong and Guangdong region, rice and stir-fry are staples. This is the Chinese food made popular all over the world. In the north, the famous dish Peking duck is served with wheat pancakes, spring onions and fermented bean paste. Cabbage, fish, and chicken are the staples in Beijing with such exquisite dishes as Mongolian Hot Pot. As a fan of spicy foods, I have never tasted something as hot as the prawns, crawdads, beef, mushrooms, vegetables and meats we put into the Mongols’ dish of spices and flavors. Stir fry is also popular, a holdout influence from the past when cooking quickly was efficient given the scarcity of fuel and abundance of peanut oil. Filling, but a bit bland, the food up north helped to fight off the cold.

The yang to the Hong Kong’s yin, Beijing is the turbulent capital with a powerful past. Expecting to see streets crowded with bicycles, I was surprised by the modernity of Beijing. Many previous guests to Beijing were also shocked by the appalling amount of construction and development in the past 3-5 years. The traffic was menacing—a scary fact for the future with only 5% of Chinese currently owning a car. Meanwhile, Beijing is racing ahead to the Olympics in 2008, utilizing the large, fluid workforce to build 5 new subway lines and focus on construction. While traveling in the subway, I met 5 Aussies who were partnered with a Chinese firm to expand the 2 lines of the current subway. “Just like the Chinese way,” one Aussie told me, “they are building these subway lines in 18 months where the West would devote 30 years.” The ease and simplicity of a state-controlled economy, I guess. However, many companies refuse to come to China yet due to the governmental constraints, such as requiring the project manager to be in Beijing 80 of the 90 days each 3 months.

The communists and Mao came to power in 1949 after the Long Marches and battles with the Nationalist Chiang Kaishek. Long ruled by dynasties such as the Zhou, Qin, Han, Tang, Ming, and Qing, the emperors are long gone. When the last emperor, 2 years old, took over after the Dowager Empress died in the early 20th century, republican revolutionaries took over with Sun Yatsen. After a brief cease-fire between the nationalists and communists to expel the Japanese during the 1920s, the communists took over the reins of China through rural-based revolts in 1949. After the Civil War ended, the People’s Republic of China was formed, a bankrupt nation with uncontrollable inflation, poor infrastructure and economic mismanagement. The country was in ruin. Unified in the 1950s, they focused on rebuilding the country and defending their freedom from a possible US invasion in Korea. The Great Leap Forward was initiated, a failed experiment in economic equality. Trying to abolish money and private property, agricultural production was the focus and later a complete failure, with 30 million Chinese dead from hunger and famine. But the greatest legacy of Mao and his gang was to come in the early 1960s with the Cultural Revolution. Increasing extreme in his views, Mao was isolated within the Party and set about cultivating a personality cult with the “little red book” and his cohort known as the Gang of Four. A play was released criticizing the great leader, and the crackdown began. The Red Guards were born, and nothing was sacred—schools were shut down, intellectuals killed or forced into labor camps, freedom of expression crushed, and temples ransacked. Monuments and musical instruments and all remnants of the “feudal” or “capitalist” past in China were destroyed. Neighbors turned on each other in fear of being accused as instigators and millions of people died through beatings, executions or suicide. For survivors of this period, it is the source of great pain to discuss the horrors and difficulties of Mao’s success in cementing his power in modern China.

Despite massive social and economic upheaval over the past century, the Chinese endure.
They succeed and look to the future while holding onto important Chinese cultural practices, like the concept of guanxi. The Chinese rely on a tight network of friends and family for support and assistance, exchanging favors with the expectation that these deeds will be repaid sometime in the future. Indeed, it’s better to go through the “back door” than official channels in China. Another concept hard to grasp for foreigners is the idea of saving face. Simply put, this means behaving in a polite way by not embarrassing someone and causing them to lose status with their peers. For example, in bargaining, it is critical not to get angry, but better to show self-control, smiling and bantering back and forth for an agreed-upon price. When pressed or uncomfortable, many Chinese laugh or give an evasive response. Privacy is another concern for many Westerners in China. Growing up in mostly crowded apartments and conditions, the low importance placed on privacy carries over to trains, buses and tourist places. Family is truly the center of Chinese culture. Once considered a microcosm of society as a whole, the family provides support for every family member. Extended family are critical and carefully cared for, but this is changing with the end of the “cradle-to-grave welfare” or the “iron rice bowl” in the increasingly developed Chinese economy. There are also many cultural practices we learned before our arrival, including: taking off your shoes when entering a Chinese home, never opening a gift in front of others thereby appearing greedy, and never giving clocks as gifts as the phrase “to give a clock” sounds too similar to “attend a funeral” in Mandarin.

Just like Marx described religion as an ‘opiate of the people,’ the Communists profess atheism, but yet a growing tolerance of religion. In 1982, the Chinese government amended the Constitution to allow freedom of religion to appease minorities like the Buddhist, Lamaists and Muslims, but it continues to allow only atheists to become members of the Chinese Communist Party. Nowhere is this more apparent than talking with local Chinese. Our tour guide, Jennifer, talked about how she is researching the religions of the world to make an educated choice. Her family is not religious, but she really likes Buddhism and wants to make the right decision. Meanwhile, religion is making a comeback in all of China. After taking a beating during the Cultural Revolution (including the destruction of temples and Buddha statues and murder or forced relocation of monks), traditional Chinese religious beliefs like Confucianism and Taoism are taking off. However, all religious activity is firmly under state control, and many serve only as tourist attractions, with monks serving as caretakers. Mao truly crushed the Tibetan Buddhists, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to India after a Tibetan rebellion. More recently, the Chinese Communist Party was surprised by a new congregation called the Falun Gong (Art of the Wheel of the Law). Deemed a cult by Beijing, the Buddhist health system religion was outlawed as advocating for democracy and a change in government. It seems that as long as religions don’t advocate for political freedom they are allowed to peacefully exist. For now.

The two major traditional Chinese-grown religions are Taoism and Confucianism. Taoism is based on the Tao or “The Way” as taught by Laotzu. It is the primordial source of all beings, power and force in the Universe, unexplainable in words. Tao is known as the River of Life, a different concept of God, not part of our consciousness. Manifested in the universal polarities yin and yang, Tao is positive and negative and yet mutually complementary. To live a good life, people should order their lives to keep in harmony with the natural way of the universe. Manifestations of Taoism include finding the life force within the human body, channeling through diet, exercise and tai chi, and acupuncture. Confucianism is more of a philosophy than a religion dating from the 6th century B.C. Confucius was a teacher and advisor to courts and kingdoms during the time of warring factions in China; he was a master of states craft, diplomacy and good governance. “The Ruler himself should be virtuous, just, honest and dutiful,” he taught. “A virtuous ruler is like the Polestar which, by keeping its place, makes all other stars to evolve round it. As is the Ruler, so will be the subjects.” He emphasized rule by modeling, not dictating. Asked what happens after we die, he replied, “I am more concerned with what happens before.” Ironically, the Chinese government is promoting a return to Confucianism and Confucius values for its unquestioning loyalty and belief in the hierarchy. The cardinal principles are Jen (benevolence, loving kindness), Y’i (doing one’s duty, righteousness), Li (propriety, manners and rituals), and Yi (loyalty, reciprocity, “Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself”). During this time of civil service exams and a blossoming culture, students practiced calligraphy, landscape painting and music to develop their character. There are still legacies of Confucius in China with the formality of social relationships, where language matches age with appropriate respect and care. Ancestor worship has also been part of Chinese religion for centuries before Laotzu and Confucius.

One of the highlights of my four days in Beijing was the visit to Tiananmen Square, the world’s largest square. Now famous for the picture of a sole man standing in front of tanks pouring in to squash the protest (the guide told us it was probably photo shopped in), Tiananmen Square is a square designed to project the enormity of the Communist Party. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao with a Red Guard armband would stand and review parades of millions of soldiers in the square. Preserved in the square for all to see, he has been dead since 1976—his face still repainted each year to look fresh over the East gate to the Forbidden City. But in 1989, the worst massacre happened here when demonstrations calling for political reforms and press freedoms were squashed. Students, workers and young people were massacred by the thousands outside of the square as they gathered peacefully to mourn the death of Party Secretary General Hu Yaobang, a reformist. Today, despite being a public square, the government is in control. Closed circuit TV cameras and plain-clothes police monitor all behavior—even arresting several women for illegally selling souvenirs to the tourists in front of our eyes. Two weeks in jail, our tour guide said, not that bad. “No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver,” the Spanish say. “No hay peor sordo que el que no quiere oir.” Meanwhile, Tiananmen was in the news again in 1999 when thousands of Falun Gong practitioners gathered for freedom of religion in solidarity. Most are still in jail; combined with other human rights issues this helps China be one of the leading offenders of human rights worldwide according to Amnesty International and other watchdog groups. While economic liberalization and development continue at an unprecedented speed, hundreds of police, military and officers in Tiananmen Square ready at a moment’s notice are proof that the political landscape is still frozen.

I spent four days in this ancient Chinese capital. The Chinese are busy at work, plowing down many of the historic parts of the city such as the old windy roads of Genghis Khan and the Mongols and destroying the ancient city wall for more subway lines. But there are other legacies that survive with support from UNESCO, the World Heritage sites such as the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. The Forbidden City, the huge city of Chinese emperors engrossed by walls, was an impressive example of the architecture, history and culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties. While the Starbucks inside the Forbidden City was disturbing, the history and culture were astounding. Off limits for 500 years, the Forbidden city was home to 2 dynasties of emperors, the Ming and the Qing, who never left the city within a city. Buildings and rooms remain the same, best exemplified in the movie “The Last Emperor,” filmed inside. Other spectacular sites included the Lama temple, Beijing’s most beautiful temple and renowned Tibetan Buddhist place of worship, and the Summer Palace, a retreat for the dynastic families.

One morning we took a trip to Ri Tan Park, a popular and ancient recreation in the middle of the apartment buildings and skyscrapers in Beijing. Early at 6 AM, the park was alive with people, many exercising on machines, others playing badminton, many practicing Tai Chi. We joined in, playing badminton and climbing the rock wall. In a large group, we were taught Tai Chi, a graceful, relaxing exercise that focuses on the holistic and meditative aspects of life. Tai Chi, or shadow boxing, is an age old Chinese discipline that promotes flexibility, strength, balance, relaxation and meditation. Traditionally practiced as a form of self-defense, the aim is to dispel the opponent without the use of force and with minimal effort. Softness will eventually overcome hardness, Taoism teaches. The development of Tai Chi is to direct chi, or the life force throughout all parts of the body through mental training.

The highlight of our trip to Beijing was a 2 hour trek on the bus to the Great Wall of China. On a cold, snowy day, we climbed up the wall through showy cherry blossom flowers and elegant spruce trees. Although the toboggans were closed due to the slick conditions, we hiked a few miles and had a huge SAS snowball fight on a terret of this testament to man’s power and potential. The wall weaved and winded its way up and over the hills, impregnable to the warring states of old China. “The walls are only as strong as the men that fight on them,” Genghis Khan said referring to the bribery and manipulation he used to be the only leader to overtake the walls. The Mutianyi section of the wall is one of the best preserved and least disturbed. Other more touristy sections of the wall have been filled in with cement and concrete to protect the millions of feet that traverse its walls.

My week long visit to China ended in Qingdao, Semester at Sea’s first stop to the “Switzerland of the East.” Our first visit was tumultuous with immigration problems—the local city was very supportive, but the provincial government committee strained our stay in the harbor. Following the Chinese tradition and trying to save face, we issued official-looking passes to all passengers to appease the customs officials stationed at the gangway of the ship. Qingdao, long a German colony on the Northeastern coast of China, has only remnants of Germany—the Tsindao brewery and beer and Maier electronics are still here but not the Germans. Some friends and I stumbled onto a Chinese tour group that took us around the entire city for $8 all day albeit only in Chinese. We saw beautiful ocean vistas and terraced farming on hills and mountains. Along with the required shopping stops at pearl stores and tea tasting, we climbed Mount Lao Shan, a famous Taoist sanctuary and the most climbed mountain in the world. Seafood, such as clams, squid, fish and prawns, was on the menu for lunch as we sat trying to learn Chinese, pointing to foods we wanted to taste. As we wrapped up our time in China, we treated ourselves to the skyscraper dinner in a rotating restaurant. For $15, the all you can eat buffet offered unlimited Tsindao beer, sushi, and every Chinese delicacy. Amazing food and great company.
Steamrolling ahead in the 21st century is China’s President Jiang Zemin and more recently, Hu Jintao, described as a reformist. Zemin helped China to see the return of Hong Kong and Macau to the mainland, guide Beijing to host the Olympics in 2008 and see the admission of China into the World Trade Organization. But the picture isn’t completely rosey: state enterprises need reform immediately and there is no successful private sector in China yet. Some economic experts expect the Chinese bubble to pop if the Yuan isn’t floated and the economy doesn’t become less state-controlled. In addition, large-scale protests of 10,000 people or more are becoming more and more common throughout China. While in Japan, I read about several hundred villagers that ransacked several Chinese factories over the pollution that is causing cancer and other health problems in the region. Several people were injured in the destruction in Quanzhou in Fujian Province, according to the AP and the Chinese state-run newspaper Haixia Metropolitan News. Indeed, if China’s fast industrialization fails to address the pollution problems, especially air and water pollution with widespread coal burning, China and the rest of the world will suffer. This is the yin and yang of Chinese civilization, the oldest surviving culture in the world. No doubt they will continue to develop and thrive as they cling to the old and adapt to the new this century.