Reflections

So, in 72 hours I'll be on a plane heading back to Hong Kong. Lemme say, I have never looked forward to my bathtub back at home as much as I do know. All in all, I had a good time in Beijing, but I'm not sure I would come back again, or that I would necessarily recommend this program to others. I think I learned a lot, but China was also a much more frustrating experience than I thought it would be. For one, I've definitely been getting crankier as the weeks have been progressing. This has something to do with the fact that I got really sick twice, but I think it's just daily life that has been wearing me down too.

You see, a lot of the 'normal' things that we take for granted back at home aren't necessarily true here. A lot of the times, the sidewalks aren't paved well or are non-existent, meaning that you have to walk on the roads. This means that you often get honked at by cars when you're just trying to get from point A to point B. Crossing the road can also be a very traumatizing experience (for more on this topic, please refer to one of my earlier posts.) And everytime I take a taxi, I have to be alert to see if the driver's trying to scam me. They even tried to scam us once when my parents were in town, so you can't just get in a taxi and sit back and relax like you do at home. Then there's the getting stared at. Which has to do in part with the fact that my friends and I are conversing in English, but also partly with the fact that we're dressed differently too. I finally had enough and swore at someone on this bus, after staring back at him twice. He did get the clue afterwards and ceased. Argh.

I do realize that I can't take my western ideals and expect everything to run the same way here. There are so many more people in Beijing, which makes the notion of customer service non-existent. If you're not pleased with the service, they really could care less since there'll still be a billion people left to take your place. Maybe my mood has to do in part with how the city appears. Beijing actually looks pretty modern now, though there are still some old areas left. Maybe it would have been easier if Beijing looked older and more 'Chinese', I would then have lower expectations. But since the city looks like any other western city, I kind of expected the corresponding western mannerisms.

There are some good points to this city though. I mean, the history here is awesome. I've eaten at some restaurants that have been around longer than Canada has existed as a country. I also like how the elderly are so much active and visible here. I feel in the western countries, they kind of just get shoved in nursing homes and ignored. But here, you see them walking and biking everywhere. They look so much more alert. The Chinese culture is one that respects its older generation, and the effects are so visible in Beijing.

It's also interesting how different the Chinese model is. Basically, everything I learned in business school about how stuff works gets thrown out the window here. I never see any machines - everything gets done by hand. But everything also gets done so quickly due to how cheap labour is. I've seen walls built, roads unpaved/paved in the space of a day. There are also no automated systems. Like how on the buses, you don't have this little thing to collect money, or a system to tell you what the next stop is. They actually have this person that rides around on all the buses who does the job of collecting money and announcing what the stops are. I guess that's what happens when you need to make sure that your large populace are all employed.

Okay, this is getting long. Will try to write again before I leave. If not, I'll definitely add some stuff when I get back to HK (and also catch up on some of my e-mails.) Enjoy the rest of your summer, I still can't believe classes start in two weeks........