Re: Modern China: Peter Hessler
- From: ppp@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 03:43:55 GMT
More good stuff from
http://travel.news.yahoo.com/b/rolf_potts/rolf_potts4328
Q&A with author Peter Hessler
China is a huge country,? bigger and more geographically diverse than
the United States. Amidst all the options, what is a good starting
point for a first-time China traveler?
PH: Most people start in either Beijing or Shanghai, which makes
sense. Those cities are easier for non-Chinese speakers, and they
have good offerings. But they aren't representative of the country,
and it's important to try and see something different as well. I
always encourage people to find a way to visit rural China, which is
where most Chinese still live. Outside of Beijing, there are lots of
small guesthouses in the countryside, in the villages near the Great
Wall. Or a traveler can visit Yangshou in the south, which has become
a backpacker center. It's heavily traveled but if you rent a bike and
go into the countryside it's quite easy to escape the crowds.
Is there an under-traveled region of China that you might recommend
for more adventurous independent travelers?
PH: I like the western regions: the scenery is stunning and it's
uncrowded. Parts of Yunnan province are becoming quite heavily
traveled, but there are still many areas that are relatively
untouched. And Tibet and Xinjiang are both amazing.
One less-traveled area is Gansu province, especially in the north.
Dunhuang is still under-traveled, in my opinion. It's famous for the
caves of Buddhist art, as well as the massive sand dunes and the
desert scenery. It's a very relaxing place with a completely different
feel from the east coast and big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. It
makes a good complement to urban China; after visiting Dunhuang, you
get an appreciation for the size and range of the country.
What have you found to be the most difficult and challenging aspect of
living and traveling in China? Any tips on how travelers can ease the
difficulties?
PH: The language is probably the hardest aspect. My first six months
in Sichuan were quite difficult, largely because I had trouble
communicating. Once I began to pick up Chinese, things improved
rapidly, and soon I realized how open and friendly most people are. At
this point, living in China is really quite easy. To be honest, I'll
probably struggle more in the States, where you have to worry about
money and where life is more complicated.
But Mandarin is quite hard to learn, and it's a bad phrasebook
language. A book can't really tell you how to handle the tones, which
means that you can't get around with a phrasebook like you can with
Spanish or most other languages. In '94, I traveled here for the
first time, for more than a month, and I never really learned anything
about the language. I had certain key phrases written down, in Chinese
characters, and I was patient. That's the key: you have to be patient
and you can't expect everything to work efficiently. Fortunately, the
Chinese tend to be patient with foreigners, which helps a lot. Also,
it's basically a safe place to travel, so you can be more relaxed than
in other parts of the world.
Culturally, China is vastly different from the United States. What is
the most common Chinese misperception about America and Americans?
Conversely, what American clichés about China need to be reconsidered?
PH: The Chinese tend to view America in extreme ways. Some Chinese
speak of the US as if everybody there is rich and happy ? I'd say this
is probably the most common viewpoint among average Chinese. But
there is also a lot of talk about American poverty, violence, guns, as
well as the bullying tendencies of the American government. This line
of thought is often encouraged by the Chinese media. When I taught in
Sichuan, my students used a Chinese published textbook called Survey
of America, which included one chapter about "Social Problems." This
is a sample paragraph:
"In 1981, in California University, robbery and rape increased one
hundred and fifty percent. In a Cathedral school of Washington
District, a girl student was raped and robbed by a criminal with a
hunting knife while she was studying alone in the classroom. In a
California university, a football coach was robbed on campus by
someone with a gun. It is said that, in South Carolina University,
gangs of rascals have been taking girl students, women teachers and
wives of teachers working in this university as their targets of rape,
which has caused a great fear."
You can imagine how frustrating it is for an American teacher to be
expected to use such a book to introduce the United States to a
classroom of young Chinese. I'm sure that these incidents are true ?
certainly, there are rascals in South Carolina ?and I imagine that the
details were culled from American newspaper stories. But that doesn't
make them a useful starting point for students in a small town on the
Yangtze. They need context, not a bunch of scattered facts and trivia.
When I talk to Chinese about America, I often find myself trying to
push them away from the extremes. I don't want them to think of the
U.S. as either paradise or hell. They need to see it in human,
everyday terms.
The American perception of China tends to be quite negative. Our
media generally focuses on human rights and political events, neither
of which, in my opinion, is the appropriate lens through which to view
China during this period. These are not fundamental issues for the
average Chinese, whose interests should set the tone for any
responsible coverage of the country. But foreign journalists tend to
focus on extremes, just like the Chinese textbook. The motivation is
different, of course. That textbook was government-produced
propaganda, whereas independent American publications are trying to
fulfill a more noble ambition ? the great journalistic tradition of
exposing problems and inequalities. This plays a critical role in
American communities, and it also serves a purpose in foreign
countries that can't function on their own or require outside
intervention.
A correspondent who writes about a famine in Africa can save lives.
But China is a very different place: it's stable, functioning,
independent, and increasingly powerful. There's a limit to what
Americans can do there, and more importantly, the U.S. doesn't need to
do very much. China has been steadily improving the lives of the vast
majority of its citizens for twenty years, under its own governance.
When Americans look across the Pacific, the central question isn't how
they can change China, but how they can understand the people who live
there. Again, context is the key. Americans need a better sense of
how the average Chinese lives and thinks. I know that this is often
frightening to Americans ? the sense that they can't do much to help
the Chinese. Personally, I find this to be a relief. Given how
difficult it's proven to fix up relatively small countries like Iraq
and Afghanistan, Americans should be grateful that they aren't
responsible for the welfare of 1.3 billion Chinese.
In this sense, China is a unique place, and our media hasn't quite
figured out how to respond. There have always been standard ways of
covering foreign countries, and foreign correspondents generally
bounce from one place to another. It might be time to rethink this
strategy. As we learn more about the outside world, we realize that
different countries should be covered differently, and it makes sense
to find specialists ?people who speak the language and are willing to
spend more time on the ground.
I want to emphasize that I'm not saying that everything in China is
good, and my opinion isn't based on a desire to "help" China or show
the country in a strictly positive light. I'm an apolitical person; I
see myself as an observer, not an activist. I have no patience for
either Chinese or American nationalism, and I believe that both
countries have serious trouble understanding and interacting with the
rest of the world. My experiences as a teacher showed me how damaging
it is to give people a warped view of a faraway place. It disgusted
me to see Americans depicted in extreme terms, and I react the same
way to inaccurate portraits of Chinese.
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present,
(HarperCollins, $26.95) debuts in bookstores this month.
.
- References:
- Modern China: Peter Hessler
- From: ppp
- Modern China: Peter Hessler
- Prev by Date: Re: What is The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, "SCO"?
- Next by Date: Re: pidgeon chinese?
- Previous by thread: Modern China: Peter Hessler
- Next by thread: MY MISERABLE STORY (6/22/2006)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
