New China

I am exhaused! No, I mean I am really, really tired. I averaged about four hours a night for the week leading up to travel, and last night when my head hit the pillow, I thought for sure I'd catch up with at least 7 or 8 hours. So, imagine my surprise when I woke up at 2:30 am, never to return to sleep again. But, in the quiet hours of the morning (quiet except for Bret's snoring which I think is actually illegal in China... or should be), I thought a lot about my first 24 hours in my daughter's home country.

I felt really guilty at first that we had spent the evening in a glittering downtown mall, the type of mall that would be the pride of any big city in the U.S. I came here to see "real" China after all. But, as morning dawned, I had an epiphany of sorts. I did see the real China, the emerging China, the new China. And the reality of a capitalist country with communist roots is starting to become the norm of big city China. I felt odd looking at Crocs in the store or drinking a Starbucks coffee, but those things are becoming a part of China. Shenzhen is not a city that was under British control for 150 years; there are not hoards and hoards of US business men walking around: Starbucks and Crocs are here for the Chinese people, for better or for worse.

China isn't all rice paddies and water buffalo. It is and it isn't the China I always thought it would be: exotic, foreign, beautiful. I guess what it comes down to is that my dear daughter would have experienced some of this new China at some point. She would have encountered fast cars, high fashion, and greed. She's both a part of the old China and the new... and, so, I'm experiencing part of her world.

China is a beautiful place, full of friendly and warm people. But, as old a country as it is, it's also very young, as it trys to emerge into the global marketplace, and so, my visit here is already one of so many contradictions, but it's a glorious ride that has already been the trip of lifetime... well, except for the lack of sleep.