One Week Down

Hard as it may be to believe, as of today I've been in China exactly one week. After some initial culture shock and a bit of a health scare, I really do feel as if I'm settling in nicely. China, of course, is incredibly different from the US in countless ways, the true extent of which cannot be fully appreciated until you experience it for yourself. One of the most obvious of these differences became apparent to me shortly after the plane touched down in Changsha, a city of just under two million people (small, by Chinese standards) which will be my home for the next two months. After deplaning and finding my way to the baggage claim area, I took my position by the carousel as I have done so many times before. But despite the fact that there was only about a foot or so between me and the carousel, over the next 20 minutes countless people would step in front of me, nudging me from the right, from the left, from behind, in such a way that would have been considered rude by American standards. Yet I can't say that I sensed any rudeness or hostility from the people surrounding me; I'd describe it as more of a complete lack of regard for what most Americans would consider "personal space." Of course, compared with the US, there are many more people in China concentrated in a much smaller area; I read recently that while China and the US are nearly identical in size, approximately 75% of the Chinese population of 1.3 billion people lives on only 15% of the landmass, with the vast majority of land being comprised of uninhabitable mountain ranges, vast stretches of desert, etc. And so it is that the Chinese people have become accustomed to being pushed, shoved, and on a good day, gently nudged by their fellow countrymen. It's all part of the culture here, and no one's getting bent out of shape about it.

What's funny, though, is that in my short week here so far it occurs to me that the Chinese like to use their country's insanely large (and growing) population as the excuse for all sorts of things. Chaos in the street because pedestrians cross the road at will? There are just too many people! Have to wait for hours to get in to see the doctor? Get in line, there are just too many people! Toddlers flying around with their parents on mopeds, with not a helmet in sight? You guessed it -- there are just too many people to enforce any kind of law prohibiting such a practice. It occurs to me that there are a lot of people in many US cities -- New York, for example -- and yet there are such things as crosswalks, doctor's appointments, and traffic laws. It seems to me that there is something larger at work here -- a different set of cultural norms, perhaps -- which is more responsible for the way things are than just the population size alone. Still, I feel privileged to find myself here in this strange land, and I can't wait to explore more of this crazy, fascinating country called China.