On Information Control

1/18/2011

Just wanted to note that obviously I had heard about the extent of the government’s control on what people are allowed to know, but never really saw it firsthand. I’ve met several kids recently who had no idea about the Tiananmen Square Incident of 1989. I am ever the diplomat in China and do not take sides or criticize the gov’t with my friends (even if there is seeming cause). Chinese, especially young students, can get very very defensive and even break off a friendship if they think that you harbor adverse opinions about the gov’t. So, I simply said that there was a ‘happening’ in 1989 and that if they wanted to know, we could talk about it. That’s all I’ll say on this public blog.

On Bureaucracy/Quality

1/15/2011

This was inevitably going to show up in my blog. It was sparked this time by my experience moving into a new room at my university. First, getting into the room was a nightmare. I had to see three different ‘officials’ who responsible for different things. One took my request and gave me the appropriate paperwork. Another actually found me the room to stay in and handled the key handover and such. Yet another took care of my deposit and rental stuff. They all work in the same office and sit not 5 feet from one another. However, there is NO overlap between what they can/are willing to do. And their two hour lunches and their daily two hour ‘meetings’ make it very difficult to track them all down and get it done. Next, setting up internet. Much of the same issues. There is a special office that specifically handles campus internet access. They arrive at the office at 9, ‘work’ until 11, then lunch until 1, then usually have a ‘meeting’ until about 3 or 4, then go home. So, you have a very small window of opportunity to get ahold of them. Next, quality. I moved into my room which was ‘new’. The building had just been finished 3 months ago and I was the first person to live in my room. Everything seemed ok, the room was small but had two desks and lots of efficient storage/closet space. Then, I discovered that the heater didn’t work, neither did the hot water heater. Since the room, as many places are, is extremely poorly insulated, I might as well have been sleeping outside. Through much haggling and office visits, I got my hot water heater fixed so I could get a bearable shower. The room heater still doesn’t work properly so I bought my own small space heater. Next, the door broke. HOW DOES THIS JUST HAPPEN???? It simple started coming off the hinges. So, I went to the building management and they referred me to yet another office b/c that wasn’t their responsibility. After a day of waiting in my room, the repairman finally showed up, jacked with my door for an hour and finally got it to stay on the hinges and close properly. I should stress that all along the way, there were 10+ different office visits to different ‘officials’ in order to get it taken care of. No word yet on my heater. This is all due to a bad combination of poor quality and overbearing bureaucracy. Rant finished.

***UPDATE*** (as of 1/22/2011): still no internet, they closed the office until the 3rd week of february. my head is going to explode...

Thanksgiving in China

11/24/2010

It’s the middle of November and Thanksgiving is just a day away. It seems appropriate to make an entry into my travelogue. It’s been nearly three months since I arrived in China. I’ve experienced a lot. I’ve met a lot of people, seen a lot of things, and heard a lot of stories. I’d like to tell one of my own. Over the past few months, I’ve developed a good friendship with this kid who works at my campus as a security guard. He’s a year younger than me and comes from a poor and fractured family. His mother, formerly a cocaine and other hard drugs addict, is the only family left in his life, and even that relationship is stressed. But whenever we talk, we talk about his dreams of getting a lot of money and having no worries and how life would just be so much easier. We sit in tea houses and talk endlessly of business ideas and dream up how we could make money together, everything from starting an import/export business to starting a restaurant in Laos where he has some distant relatives and the cost of living is much lower. We talk as though we were from the same mold. So I decided to go with him and visit his mother who’s cooking he swears is the best in Sichuan. The usual conversation carried on all the way there. Upon arriving at his house, the conversation stopped abruptly. His mother’s house, little more that a shack, was in deplorable condition. There were dead vegetables rotting in baskets in front of the house, random chickens clucking about, a mangy dog staring absently at us. His mother emerged, a woman bent from years of hard work and drug usage, haggard features, surly hair pulled together into a equally surly knot, and managing a gappy smile. In that moment, the both of us just stood there, staring. Nothing but the ice cold reality of the gulf between us existed. The fact is, that he is from a poor family in China, and I am from a working class family in the U.S. That means everything. What I have been able to do in my life may have been beyond my wildest dreams, but it is beyond the scope of dreaming for him. I think in that moment, the both of us realized this. It remained unspoken. We proceeded to enjoy what indeed turned out to be the best meal I had had yet in Sichuan, and promptly returned to Chengdu to our normal lives. But I will never forget that feeling of thankfulness of being blessed to be born in a country that allows you, if you are willing to work hard, believe in yourself, and have a dream, to achieve almost anything. For that, on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful.