China, Final Thoughts

We spent over two weeks in China and saw its biggest cities and many of its cultural highlights. But, it still doesn't feel like we saw the real country. To me, China felt like the Wizard of Oz telling us to "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." In all of the major cities there were large cement walls next to the streets. If you aren't paying attention you wouldn't think twice about them. But if you are able to peak over them you notice that inside its filled with old, dilapidated houses or old houses being torn down. The biggest example of the government trying to white-wash everything is in Beijing. There is a tall building that is next to the CCTV (China's state owned and only TV company) building in the central business district of Beijing. You probably remember the CCTV building from the Olympics as it looks like a giant silver N. The tall building next to the CCTV building is completely burned out. The building was burned during Chinese New Year when, against the fire department's wishes, CCTV had a huge fireworks show. The fireworks started a fire in this tall building and it got completely destroyed. Because this is in the central business district of Beijing and very visible the government has put up massive billboard walls along the freeways and roads in the area to try to prevent people from seeing it.

We also had a hard time talking to our tour guides in China. Some of our guides were fairly open and you could tell they were very progressive. Others spoke just like the government would talk. One memorable scene happened with our first guide who was fairly liberal. On the bus she would speak on a microphone as she toured us. When we asked her questions she would respond on the microphone as well. Lara asked her a question related to how she felt about a government policy. Even though Lara was in the back of the bus our tour guide put the microphone down and told her how she felt. Clearly, our tour guide wasn't comfortable talking candidly. This was a rare exception of a guide speaking candidly, but her body language said even more.

It wasn't just the government censorship that made us feel like we weren't seeing all that we could. Our tour company never got off the beaten path. We only ate at tourist restaurants filled with white tourists. We only drove on the main roads. And we only went to the main tourist attractions. You would never see the real America if you only drove on the freeways, stopped at the big tourist attractions, and only ate at Chili's.

We're both so glad that we went to China, but the jury is still out on what to make of it.