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NOTE: This is the seventh (and final) post in an OpenLeft series entitled "An American Griswold In China" - a sequence of firsthand dispatches about my recent trip to China. These were written as my trip unfolded, but had to be posted now (a week after I returned home) in order to avoid any potential Chinese government censorship/sanctions for publishing while in China. We were guided around the country by my longtime friend Mike Levy, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in China and who has a forthcoming book about his experiences entitled "Kosher Dogmeat." These reports describe what we saw through the eyes of a progressive and just an average American. - D
DAY 18: There's No Place Like Home
We're finally in New York after 15 hours of travel. The journey back included a few interesting notes.
First, I had to spend the trans-Pacific flight next to an old Chinese man who kept getting up and massaging his own ass in my face. Evidently, this is an accepted way for Chinese people to stretch and massage themselves in public. Not cool.
Second, when we went through U.S. customs at the pre-clearance facility in the Toronto Airport, the uniformed guard was eager to find out if we had to deal with the riots in China. Of course, we had no idea what he was talking about (just like we've heard almost nothing about the pro-democracy strife in Iran), reminding us once again that while parts of China look and feel modernized and Western, it still is an old fashioned police state.
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| Sure, at the hotels catering to Westerners (ie. the Days Inn and the St. Regis) we got a limited version of CNN International. And sure, the embassy section of Beijing has some of the TV-receiving satellite dishes that are outlawed throughout most of the rest of the country. But tiny exceptions aside, censorship is real and intense throughout most of China - you only hear about what the Communist Party wants you to hear about and the Party, aiming to maintain its hold on power and prevent uprisings, isn't interested in broadcasting details of ethnic riots and/or instability to its own people. Thus, our completely dumbfounded looks when the guard asked us about the riots (note: having now googled the news, I can tell you we were never anywhere near the riots, which took place in the autonomous Muslim northwest regions of the country).
Finally, our patriotic "America, Fuck Yeah!" welcome home came in the form of the same U.S. Customs officer offhandedly telling us about a guy who came by his station a few days ago - a guy who told the guard he was going to Canada for the weekend to avoid celebrating July 4th. "I wanted to tell him, if you don't like America, why don't you just leave?," the guard said with a smile...but in all seriousness.
Emily and I laughed when he told us the story, recalling the "Team America" movie and South Park's "If you don't like America, you can get out!" episode. Usually, when I find humor in such things, I am laughing AT America - and more specifically, at the Karl-Rove-enhanced culture of testosterone-fried nationalism that sadly seems to have become the definition of patriotism today.
But that's just a distortion of real patriotism, and as we came home, what we felt was, I think, that genuine patriotism. Our trip not only taught us about China's very different culture, economy and society, but about what we truly cherish in our own culture, economy and society here at home.
When the customs officer asked us rhetorically if we were "happy to be back in a country where you are allowed to say what you want?" our answer wasn't a laugh - it was a solemn "yes." When I flipped on my computer and was able to Google whatever term I wanted without fear of running into a government firewall, I remembered that "freedom" is more than a Bush campaign slogan and more than just a given. And after a month away, as we reconnect with all of you, our friends and family, we remember how important our home and - yes - our country is to us.
Mike and the other Peace Corps volunteers in China we met joked that the secret agenda of the Peace Corps may be to take young progressive critics of America and pump up their "U-S-A!"-chanting nationalism by showing them what other countries DON'T have. These volunteers often come home feeling both more educated about the broader world, and more positive about their own nation.
In that same way, it feels like our 18-day trip to the other side of the planet simultaneously allowed us to "see the world" - and also see how much we appreciate right under our noses. |
