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China from the inside out

By Brian Hennessy - posted Wednesday, 15 February 2012


In my opinion, western style democracy is unlikely to take root in mainland China (despite its success in the island of Taiwan). The best we can hope for is some kind of benevolent central government which is based on Confucian ideals rather than socialist ideology. Chinese people would be more likely to accept this traditional home-grown model.

I mention these controversial matters in order to put some balance into opinion on China and to provoke some independent thinking in my countrymen.

LAST WORDS

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No, I haven't abandoned my own culture and gone native. I have just adapted to my local Chinese reality. The only way to survive in a foreign culture, especially China, is to be proud of and to maintain your own cultural identity. Otherwise you lose yourself. You have to be internally tough to survive in such a strong culture.

But I am not sure where my home is anymore. Maybe it is on that bridge between cultures that I mention above?

One end of the bridge is anchored in Australia with family and old friends. But my memory of Australia is eight years out of date. Time and life have moved on. "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there," said Hartly in his book titled 'The Go-between' (1953).

The other end of the bridge is in China. My home is here also. Embedded in mainstream Chinese society out here in the hinterland. But I will always be regarded as a foreigner in this country.

My conclusion? Family is my country. Wherever they are, that is where I belong.

Since living in China, I have travelled much of the country, read more about its history, appreciated its arts, admired its civilisation, and so on. I have also experienced the bad side of this society as well as the good. Believe me, that's how you really get to know a place, folks. China is an enigma to foreigners, and after eight years I feel that I am just beginning to understand this culture.

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You can't know this ancient civilisation in a few short years, and you can't know it from a top-down perspective alone. You also need a boots-on-the-ground bottom-up perspective to know how much you don't know before you can claim to know anything.

You get a real feel for this giant society if you live an authentic life here in the middle of the Middle Kingdom. Eating the local diet, commuting by bus and train, and hearing the local gossip and political comment. Travelling around this diverse nation via local transport and observing everything. Talking to peasants and minority ethnic people as well as the new rich and rising middle class. Watching the news in Chinese. Discussing politics with switched-on independent thinkers and brain-dead suckers for Party propaganda. Drinking baijiu (maotai spirits) at a lively dinner with friends. Checking out the middle-aged ladies doing Tai Chi in the morning and who sit around gossiping for the rest of the day (nobody's character is safe). Observing old veterans of war and the cultural revolution remembering the past or sitting in silence on cold concrete benches scattered around the residential gardens. Hearing the latest political gossip from my government officer mate Huang Yiping. Watching the schoolkids returning home; naughty little boys creating a ruckus, and sweet little girls chatting quietly together. Listening to grandmothers loudly scolding younger children as they supervise them in the communal playground beneath my window in Jin Sha Shui An. Getting the inside information on what really happened during the corruption cleanup here in Chongqing and why the mafia-busting police chief has disappeared. Shopping for groceries in the Yong Hui supermarket, going to the post office in Guanyinqiao, and buying fresh vegetables from a street-trader who grew them in the dry season on the banks of the nearby Jialing River. Learning from a friend that not much is known about Xi Jinping, the next president of China because his history has been whitewashed. Saying 'Ni hao' to the shoe-shining lady with her baby on the street outside the north gate, and chatting to the guards who let me inside when I have forgotten my key. Getting a phone call from Medok, my Tibetan friend up on the Plateau saying, "Brian, when are you coming back to Litang?"

Daily life in a nutshell on this end of the bridge. A bottom-up perspective. A counter to the top-down reporting and analysis from foreign luminaries in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

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About the Author

Brian is an Australian author, educator, and psychologist who lived in China for thirteen years. These days he divides his time between both countries.

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