The Origins of My Love for China

Various country topics arise in daily conversation, especially when you go to an international school such as Soka. One thing that I’ve learned being a student of SUA is that Americans are predominately ignorant to what’s going on in other countries.  On the real, Americans don’t even know what’s going on in their own country; and for us to even claim to be number one seems a bit arrogant to say the least (but this is another blog topic within itself).  We Americans tend to also generalize one country based on their citizen’s actions (or their descendents’) that have had an impact in our lives.  This thinking to me is justifiable, however, it often leads to many misconceptions.

Now my actions may not be synonymous with general American preconceptions, but I did have my own idea of what China would be like.  My idea:

1. The evils of Communism would be prevailant everywhere within society

2. The Communist symbol would be plastered and brazened everywhere

3. Poor living conditions, pollution, and unhappy citizens

4. Sweat shops everywhere

5. HELLA guys (since they hate having daughters)

Yeah, this list represents my mindset for the most part before my trip.  But let me explain why I went to China in the first place real quick.  So, in 2009 around October I was looking around my school’s message board about a class that I have to take to graduate called Learning Cluster that lasts for 3 1/2 weeks during the period after winter break but before the semester started in February.  While looking on there, I came across one called “Ethnic Minorities in Yunnan, China”.  I discovered this LC was actually going to China instead of studying about it, so I signed up to find out more info on it.

Much skepticism arised when I saw the group that was interested because of two reasons: 1) How much was I really interested in learning about Chinese minorities? and 2) I don’t know anyone here like that; will this trip even be fun with these people (who I’m fairly sure don’t know each other either)?  At this point in time we were still writing a proposal to see whether we could get grant money to even go to China, so I did my best to continue to contribute as much as possible to make this happen.  To make a long story short: I got accepted into the LC, we got the grant, I went through numerous stuggles to get a passport + a visa, and when winter break was over,  prepared for 4 days before we actually began our trip to the country with the highest concentration of people in the world.

And this experience is where I will begin in my rendition of my journey to China for two weeks.  Similar to the way the previous paragrahps were written, I will be doing my entries just like I would write it in a journal.  Actually, many lines in the beginning will come from entries that I already have in other journals.  Typing is a much perferable method in terms of speed vs detail vs time (even though I would prefer to have my thoughts hand-written) because of how detailed my writing is.  Nevertheless, I’m excited to recap my experiences with myself and with the ones who have not heard of my trip.  Even if you have heard about it already, these future posts will delve deeper into my perception of the events that took place; more of my perpective if you will. 

“Although it’s unfortunate that you won’t be able to participate in the LC that you helped create, I know that you will have a wonderful time in China.  As a little gift I got you this so that you can record your memories.” – This is a paraphrased quote from a conversation between me and Dr. England (our Health and Wellness professor).  I bring this up because when I opened the journal booklet that was given to me there was a quote and a message from her:

James,

May you have warm words on a cold evening,

a full moon on a dark night,

and the road downhill all the way to your door.

– Irish Blessing

“Best wishes for a fun, inspiring trip to China.  Record your observations and thoughs as your memory will fade with time” – Dr. England

In doing my best to embody these words of encouragement coupled with my hesitance to forget these precious memories of this almost indescribable trip, I will share my life changing experience with anyone who is willing to read it–and with these efforts today I hope to remember events such as these until the day I die.  I will get into this later, but our LC made a promise to never forget about the people that we learned about in our studies of Chinese Ethnic Minorities; so let this section of my blog be my representation of that promise that I will always keep- forever and always.

-Snowfield Rhapsody