It’s time for another post about China – before the memory fades… Today, some thoughts about lifestyle.

Communication finds it’s way and means

China is a country of mobile phones. And never have I seen selfie-mania in this dimension. There are victory poses everywhere – at Shanghai’s Bund, at the mountain top, in the middle of nowhere. Victory everywhere. And everywhere you go you see kids with their heads bend down towards a mobile screen, typing away at the speed of light. Our guide called this the „thumb generation“.

But communication finds other means as well. Go to the park around the Temple of Heaven, and you’ll find other languages of communication: Women immersed in extensive group crocheting, men gathered around a game of chess, happy people lost in dance and movement. Communication does not always need words, let alone a mobile phone.

Family is everything

According to what we heard, China is still a country of family traditions. With a big, big problem. Nearly 40 years of One-child-policy have left the country with some kids who will need to care for two parents and four grandparents when they are grown up. Now, that the policy is lifted to two kids per family, they find out that many of the young women don’t want to have ANY kids at all anymore. I think Germany’s overageing and pension problem will be nothing compared to China’s.

But still, family counts, according to the real estate planning we talked about in an earlier post about infrastructure. Appartments with 250 m2 are absolutely meant to be inhabited by a big, multi-generation family. If no children are born, it can easily be used as a shared flat for the elderly.

Weddings and marriage… That seems to be a story on its own. We were told that (a) the husband / the husband’s family will pay for everything, which is a wedding worth up to 50 k Euro, the couple’s appartment, you name it. No wonder that if you have done that once, you try to avoid it the second time. Hence, divorce rate is low, at 4%. But… is that still true? The news tell differently, with divorce rates jumping up to 40% in some regions. Interestingly, the point in time when divorce plans peak is after the kids have passed their university entrance exam, the Gaokao. When the kids are done with that, there is no more need to pretend… Of course I heard all of this second-hand only, but it seems a little disturbing to me.

There are MANY chinese

There are really many Chinese, and all of them seem to have agreed to have the same hobbies. Example: We got up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning to see the sun rise over the foggy mountains, naïvely hoping for a quiet start into the day under a breathtaking sunrise spectacle. Ohlala, we did not count in the 9.000 fellow travellers in yellow raincoats who also got up at 4:00 a.m. to see a breathtaking sunrise example. Problem was, some of the other guys already got up at 3.55 a.m. and were now blocking the view, yellow raincoats and victory pose and selfie and all…

At least the many fellows are well organized. Let’s take the visit to the Wild Goose pagoda, where we were accompanied by a school outing of 1.000 pupils, all in their blue jogging suits. But, it was not just 1.000 look-alikes, they were neatly organized into groups of couple of dozens by brightly colored high-visibility vests, so that you easily could tell the pink group from the orange group from the green group. And, they were very disciplined also. System works well, apparently.

It is not fun to be a creature

Uhm, but please don’t be born as an animal in China. This does not seem to be much fun. We already saw the big fluffy white dog in a box in one of the streets in Beijing. The poor boy had barely any room to move. We also saw the „lucky piglet“ which probably was not so lucky in the end because it had to part from his mom and siblings far too early.

Similarly, the sparrows in a box, offered by a street vendor near a buddhist temple. While I first thought that they were supposed to be eaten, he corrected me: They were supposed to be purchased to let them free… Isn’t this absurd? Oh. My.God. Other creatures, like squirrels and chipmunks, share this unfortunate fate.

Around the Temple of Heaven, the hawk swallows are much better off. Those guys are so fast and shy, probably not going to be easily caught by a street vendor. And so they speed through the air, catching insects probably, that you get dizzy from watching. I love that (not getting dizzy, but seeing the guys fly playfully around the Hall of Harvest.

Last observation: A crowd of people gathered around a tree in the park. Many of them equipped with heavy cameras and lenses, all gazing upwards to a little hole in the tree trunk. Nothing happens. Still nothing. But then, suddenly, a hoopoe flies in, delivers his catch into the open beaks arising from the cave-nest and – swoosh – it’s gone again. Within the time of a split second, 1.000 photos were taken, most of them for sure blurry. And it was over. The paparrazzi got their shot – or not – and the celebrity hoopoe had disappeared again into the vast open sky.

Let’s dress up

Let’s have a look into fashion. I think in particular the Chinese ladies love fashion. While tastes vary widely, there seems to be a trend to at least strive for an elegant and fashionable appearance. A new Gucci bag, anyone?

It starts early. You will see little girls in lace dresses, with a mom in veeeerrrrryyyyy high heels. You will see lot’s of lipstick, Dolce & Gabbana. But you will also see funnily combined print patterns in bright colors which seem to be stolen from Mao’s pyjama drawers. But anyone can dress as they wish, right?

I want to break free!

China is a land of control. Despite opening up to the west in recent years, I have barely been to any place where freedom is as subtly controlled as in China. While the emperor is long gone, the tradition of bureaucracy seems to be left, everywhere.

As tourist in an organized group, our guide took care of us being registered each night. Think about that: The government knows exactly where you are every day. And if you don’t register, they will also know that you got lost or broke free from the reins. And what happens then? I’d rather don’t want to know.

I found this particularly strange in national parks, those beautiful places in the middle of nature. The system is perfect, you won’t happen to disappear from the system.

It starts at the gate. There will be an average of six people in uniforms, all of them heavily armed with big, big guns. There they stand, with a little grim face. Because they are young, and there is no charisma or natural authority yet radiating from their boyish persoalities. So they must find other ways to be taken seriously. Pull the hat far down over your brows, and look strong, will you? Good, that works. But then, when our bus arrives and a bunch of foreign tourists emerges, a stirring goes through the serious group. There is some tension, some nervousness. And then: a giggle… And then THEY will break free, free from the protocol, free from the seriousness. Because… they want that selfie with the German guy or gal, that smile with the foreigner, cheek to cheek, armes around shoulders. Yes! Thank you.

So, they are happy to open the gate for us in the end, but not before taking another photo, this time with our own guide’s phone, and this time of us as a group. What we later learn: This part of the protocol is not just a random act of kindness, because the photograph will serve a purpose later. When stopped by a national park official later on in the middle of the park, he will check the photo of us at the guide to get proof that we actually entered the park at the official place and not sneaked in otherwise: wading though a river, falling from sky or digging through from Australia, for instance. I was dumbfounded by how simple and effective this system of control is. And hard to fake.

And, hey, should this system ever fail, there is a safety net in place: China was the first place I have been to which has a video surveillance system installed IN THE WOODS.

But the woods are still not the safest place, as you can guess. Let’s have a final look at the forbidden city in the middle of Beijing. Be careful of how you behave, the SWAT troop is not far away to deal with any explosives you might carry in your hand bag.

Education is key

Chinese society puts lot’s of stress to their children to get into a decent university. „The big exam“, gao kao, is a huge thing for the kids at the end of their schooling years, it is THE big day that determines their future. Things seem to change as universities get privatized, and it will be interesting to see how the entrance mechanisms will evolve over time. Will there be selection of the best and brightest, finding ways to fund their studies, no matter what their financial possibilities? Or will it rather be the richest that are going to be admitted, no matter what their academic achievements? I’m sure it will be interesting to observe how things change in the upcoming years, as they will need to find the right balance between the poles of the student selection spectrum.

Mao is alive, but Mao must go

Let’s make it short w.r.t. politics. Everywhere we went, it seemed that Mao is still alive. And he is still admired, at least that’s what you cannot get away from feeling. Be there the millons of dead caused by his Great Leap Forward or the cultural treasures forever lost, destroyed during the Cultural Revolution – he is still there, nonetheless. And he and his legacy is protected every day by the guards at Tian’anmen, who remind me of times luckily long gone in Eastern Germany: young boys in uniforms, marching around and playing soldiers. This makes me too sad to watch.

But there is hope. Standing at Tian’anmen on 04th of June (!!!), peering towards the big portrait hanging above the entrance door of the forbidden city, our guide got sentimental, looking the big leader in the face, muttering: „Mao must go.“