third world

Last Tuesday, somewhat to my surprise, I came back to China. I flew from Lhasa, Tibet to Xian, in Shaanxi province, an ancient Chinese capital and the site of the famous terracotta warriors, and in so doing, left a third world country and was catapulted into a more sleek and developed future. This probably sounds stupid; everybody knows Tibet is a different country.
But China had been such a surprise, such a shock to the system that I really didn't expect Tibet to be all that different, in relative terms. Besides, so many Chinese had moved to Tibet, wasn't it practically Chinese already? Not quite yet.


This was brought home to me the day I visited the Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in Lhasa and lingered at the gift shop while my tourbus pulled away. Alone, I had a chance to talk to the two crewcutted nuns who sold me two pendants and a prayer wheel. As one of them tied a complicated movable knot in the string that held the turquois "Om" symbol that I bought, the other showed me a dirt-smudged elementary school English workbook and asked me to help her read the instructions. Then, when I asked for directions back to the Jokhang temple, the second nun volunteered to walk me the many blocks through the maze-like Muslim quarter of Lhasa, on the way trying out all the English she could think of. (This is not to say we haven't met very friendly Chinese--including a man outside a grocery store in Hangzhou who walked his bicyle over 5 blocks to help a fellow traveler buy a new memory card for her camera -- but there was something especially innocent and friendly about the people on the street who spoke to me in Tibet, vs. the many people in China who have seemed to want something from me.) As she walked me through the Barkhor, the nun asked me if this was my first time in Tibet. "Yes," I replied, "in fact this is my first time in China!"
"I have never been to China," she replied, "what is it like?"
Duh.

On my first day in Xian, I noticed the difference: as I strolled from my elegant French-run hotel past immaculate People's Square, I met none of the beggars I saw in Tibet who held dirt-smeared sleeping babies up to me and bowed down with their hands held out for money; nor did I have any runny-nosed five year olds tugging on my shirt chanting, "Hallogivemoneyplease." The white-fringed pedicabs were absent, although there was still a good quorum of bicycles. I wouldn't call the streets exactly clean, but I saw a lot fewer bodily substances make contact with them. Instead of open stalls of tightly packed goods, the shops hadt elegant glass facadeds that kept in the airconditioning surrounding artfully displayed merchandise.


OK, there are similarities: people are selling street food all over the place, people squat on the sidewalk and watch the world go by, there is the occasional beggar, and while there are actually "walk/don't walk" lights, vehicles seems to take them with a grain of salt.

But somehow, China just seems much more familiar than Tibet, which now seems like it is truly the other side of the world; children, when they dig, should aim for Lhasa from now on, it seems to me.

Tibet (including the Chinese enclaves in Lhasa) is clearly the Thirdest World place I've ever been. What really brought this home to me was the impulse, after returning to my hotel room at the end of my second day of walking around Lhasa, to take off my shoes, turn them over in the sink, and dump a bottle of Purelle on them and then scrub them under hot water. I also started laying a towel down on the floor before doing my back stretches. I guess this is when I sheepishly confess to those colleagues of mine at school whom I rib for being germophobes that there is a line for me, and I have crossed it, not only in Tibet, but also in certain parts of China. And the fact that I have been suffering for the past several days from Mao's revenge (despite avoiding tap water, ice and fresh vegetables) has only caused me to go through a lot more Purelle.

Speaking of Mao, we've heard a lot of interesting comments about him from our tourguides. Apparently, shortly after his death the official government position was to be critical of 30% of what he did. Now, among other things, it is very common to say that the Cultural Revolution was a big mistake, a fact which has been brought home to me over and over throughout my travels here. Guides never flinch whey they begin a sentence with, "Unfortunately, during the Cultural Revolution . . . . " They clearly don't say everything they think, and several have said that they prefer not to speak about politics. But Joe Yu, our guide in Xian, began talking about Mao's Long March and then went off on a riff that included the corruption of Chiang Kai Shek's government, the reasons why Mao didn't trust the U.S. even though he wanted to be friendly with us, the importance of "face" to Asian nations, and the reason why it was such a big deal when Nixon came to China. Joe told us about the day in 1971, when the news that the American president would come to China was broadcast over the village public address system (they had no radios or TV). Everyone was stunned into silence. He also explained why it was so significant the following year that Nixon, on Kissinger's advice, stepped off the plane with his hand extended to make up for the deep insult that had been perpetrated by John Foster Dulles when he refused to shake Chou En Lai's hand at a conference in 1953. (Fascinating, although Joe made no mention of the Korean War.)

It was because Mao seems to be fading from favor and there are so few Mao statues left in the country that I decided to have my photo taken in front of his statue in Chengdu, my hand waving just the way his was.

But maybe I should have been a bit more careful. Last night on the overnight train from Xian to Beijing, several of my fellow travelers were playing gin rummy in the bar car with a sent of Mao playing cards which can be purchased just about anywhere in China. Suddenly, I was told, a uniformed police officer strode over, picked up the deck of cards, threw them down in disgust and then announced, "This car is now closed."

Whether that was about hatred or reverence for Mao, I can't be sure.