Bursting our Bubbles

We’ve had our bubble burst twice in our first three weeks: first our preconceptions were punctured, then we were disabused of our first impressions as we learned more about our surroundings.

“Third World” Hohhot (above and below): This is how Hohhot felt to us at first: chaotic, noisy, polluted, filled with cars, bikes, carts, and people, a peculiar stench emanating from the sewers. It was all a bit overwhelming, and, I must admit, it was a little more rough around the edges than we had imagined.

“First World” Hohhot (above and below): This is the Hohhot that we encountered after more than a week in the city. The downtown is modern, filled with high end stores and shoppers, and yes, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC. My colleague, Dr. Sun Yongsheng, did not even know that these American chain restaurants existed in Hohhot, and, in fact, they did not five years ago. The city is modernizing rapidly (more on that later).

For me and my family, the prospect of coming to China was largely about “bursting our bubble.” The prospect of leaving our comfortable lives in eastern Washington for an unfamiliar country was all about moving beyond our sheltered comfort zone and seeing China for ourselves.

Here is an entry from my journal before our departure:

“If there is any one thing that motivates me to take this trip it is a desire to puncture the bubble of ignorance that surrounds me with regard to China. To me, and most Americans, China is so foreign and incomprehensible--the language, the culture, the political system. My imagination conjures up poor peasants, disease, air choked with heavy smog from coal burning factories, party propaganda, passive masses cowed into submission by an oppressive regime. What is it really like?”

We came to Hohhot with a vague, impressionistic sense of China shaped by books and articles, most of them focusing on environmental problems, political repression, and how rapidly China is modernizing. With the knowledge that Beijing would be hosting the 2008 Olympics, and with all the discussion of economic modernization, we were a little shocked upon first arriving in Hohhot (at the shabby “Old” airport which will be replaced shortly by a sparkling new facility). Now that we’ve become more acquainted with Hohhot, I’m ashamed of our first reactions. But we were in shock. And we also hadn’t seen anything yet. Here is an entry from my journal after all of two days in Hohhot:

“Arienne and I are both reeling, trying to get our footing in unfamiliar territory, without any protective cushion, without anything familiar (like a hamburger or even the internet) to anchor us, to reconnect us to our familiar world. Don't be misled about the "New China"--the bullet trains, the public transit systems, the glamorous skylines, the Starbucks and McDonalds--this Brave New World has not yet penetrated the fringes of China. This should make the place quite quaint, except for the fact that a crude modernization has indeed come to Hohhot. It is transforming life here at breakneck speed, filling the streets with cars, SUVs, tractors, trucks, and motorized scooters, filling the tenements with people, overtaxing the frail and dilapidated infrastructure to the hilt. Modernization here is just another term for uncontrolled chaos--a "planned" economy that has collapsed into a nightmare of primitive and unregulated capitalism. This is not the "first world" by any stretch of the imagination.”

A wonderful piece of sociological observation from a person who had been “in country” for all of forty-eight hours and had seen a total of one square block of the city. Actually, we had seen a little more than that: On our second night, Yongsheng took us in our first cab ride to his in-law’s apartment in Hohhot, only a few miles north of Inner Mongolia Normal University. That first cab ride contributed to our initial shock. It took us over an hour to travel about three miles. To be fair, this was because some of the roads had been blocked off by central party officials who had come to Hohhot that evening to celebrate the sixty year anniversary of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous region. Traffic was at a standstill. We could barely breathe. When things began to move, the pattern of traffic was so frightening and seemingly unregulated that both Arienne and I had to look away, trying to maintain our composure with our little ones squeezed tight between us, no seatbelts, of course. (Note: No one in Hohhot wears seatbelts, and we’ve finally given up any pretense of even trying anymore. In fact, if you happen to sit in the front seat of a taxi and pull the shoulder strap over your shirt, you’ll wind up with a thick diagonal stripe of dust across your shirt, because NO ONE has ever worn the belt before.)

Traffic really was a big part of our initial culture shock. After 3 ½ weeks, we are now totally nonchalant about it. We easily stroll across the street in front of our apartment as bicycles, donkey-carts, motor scooters, and taxis whiz by us. We ride carefree and comfortable in taxis, not a thought anymore about seatbelts. But in those first days, traffic was really intimidating. Pictures cannot really capture the sense of what traffic is like here, because, obviously, everything in pictures is STANDING-STILL. Moreover, I have yet to attempt a picture while standing in traffic for fear it will be my last. This picture (below) was taken from a bridge above a downtown street in traffic that, I kid you not, is actually quite tame.

All kinds of vehicles choke the streets--cars, bikes, scooters, tractors, buses, all orchestrating an amazing choreography. Everything moves by the informal rules of the road, a process that, even to an American who lived in Los Angeles for ten years, is absolutely harrowing.

Again, my journal from the first few days:

“Here I could not even imagine a child riding a bicycle on the streets (and I have yet to see any), as our children do at home. I could not imagine myself riding on the streets, for that matter.”

Well, let me eat more of my first impressions. Within a week and a half, I had bought bikes for the entire family (with the exception of Grace who rides on the back of Arienne’s bicycle) and we happily ride along the streets for miles, just like everyone else in Hohhot (including little kids).

Samuel, Arienne, and Grace make their way down a shady street. We are apparently the ONLY people in this city of 1.5 million who wear bike helmets.

Our sheltered first impressions of “third-world chaos” began to be shattered in every way imaginable as we explored more of Hohhot and began to get our footing. In those first days it was hard just to find food that our children would eat, and, as we browsed the crowded shelves of markets in our neighborhood, we longed for a modern grocery store.

I wrote in my journal:

“There are apparently no modern super markets here--just small side groceries that compete with informal street vendors of all kinds.”

Wrong again!!! At the beginning of our second week, Helen (her English name), a faculty member in the International Exchange College here at IMNU, took us to the upscale “Wei Duo Li” shopping mall in down-town Hohhot, which has a gigantic modern supermarket that covers the entire ground floor, offering everything under the sun, including all those staples that American kids (and grown-ups) desire: mayo, tuna(fish), peanut butter, black tea. There are three huge supermarkets in town, actually, aisles bulging with so many brand name goods it’s hard to understand how China can still be considered a communist nation (more on that later).

Finally, as the chaos that we saw in the first few days began to look more orderly, we also noticed there were many places for kids to play and adults to exercise, another thing we had despaired of in those manic first days. May I embarrass myself once again? Here is my insightful journal once more:

“It is not just chaotic traffic and crammed streets (and the lack of Western things) that is so shocking to our sensibilities, it is also the seeming dearth of parks and green areas in the city. Where do children play?”

This is a particularly painful and embarrassing passage. What a freaking idiot! Can I still claim “shock” as an excuse? I really should have done less journaling and more walking around the city in those first days. The picture below is of Manduhai Park, one of the many beautiful and tranquil areas where the kids can run and play.

As you can see, the learning curve so far has been pretty steep. Things are now starting to normalize. I mean, it’s not quite like living in Des Moines, Iowa, yet, but life is beginning to take on familiar routines. Kids playing and whining. Mom and Dad screaming. Me working. Oh yeah, I am also working here. In fact, I’ve already been teaching for three weeks—the semester started August 6. More on that to come!!!!

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.

Dave