China

I am very moved by the disaster in China. I've just been reading Peter Hessler's book River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, a memoir of his life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, Sichuan province, China, which is not far from Chendu and the epicenter of the earthquake. In fact, he has written about reports from his students in The New Yorker online. His insights and the stories his former students are sending are more interesting than most of the other reports, although the NPR coverage has also been magnificent since its correspondents were in that province working a week-long special about China.

My office has a consultant in Shenzhen, who I met a recent trade show. His response to my email asking after his family and letting him know that we Americans are very concerned for the Chinese, was "That's very kind of you... I can sense more clearly the friendship between Chinese and Americans in this difficult time - there is a US medical team working in the epicenter in Sichuan to help save lives. I will pass this friendship to my countrymen..."

On one level, it makes me sad this he might not have thought well of us before; I thought of him as a partner in our efforts in his country; our manufacturing partners must be hiring hundreds of Chinese. On the other hand, it feels very warm to make that connection on the other side of the planet.

My feelings about China are very mixed. I've been big fan of the Chinese people for decades. In the 1980s, I read a lot of Chinese history, studied Chinese and was thinking of going to China to teach English. My hair was long and straight in those days, and I was mistaken for being part Chinese once in a while. I was planning to go to China with a Christian group, the Dutch Reform Church. In fact, I went to one of their training sessions.

On the other hand, it really bothers me that everything is made in China and that we appear to be unable to make consumer goods in the US ... or any where else in the West. What if China has a meltdown, political or geologic? As they fear that we might overpower them, I fear that they may over power us economically. Plus I was totally pissed off by Wal-Mart siding with the Chinese in trade negotiations. WTF!

Cultural friends, economic competitors? All of those single men are worrisome too. Having so many more males than females seems a recipe for war to give the single young men something to do.

Footnote:
Getting back to teaching in China. I never did it. I was very impressed with the young people from the Midwest who were on their way to a strange land for a year. They didn't speak Chinese. They hadn't read any Chinese history. China was still very poor and Maoist. And, they couldn't even use chopsticks. But they were happy and confident in their mission, because they knew when they came back they would have a place to be, an identity beyond themselves, with a palpable and supportive community. A week after the training session, one of the leaders of the group called me to ask what I thought of joining them. I said, "Well, you know I'm not a Christian." She said that was fine as long as I had a strong sense of self and community. Well, I didn't. And, didn't go to China. I went to the Synagogue instead.