Things I Have Learned

-Tibetan nomads love techno music.  This is something I found very surprising.  I only thought Germans loved techno/drumandbass/house/noise.  But no...  Every motorcycle (and one horse) that passed us for 20 days had speaker strapped on the back and they were blasting Tibetan techno.  These are the things you learn when you travel.

 

-Chinese bathrooms are the most repulsive things in the world.  Believe me, I have seen my fair share of repulsive things, but nothing is quite like a Chinese bathroom.  For years I have believed the hullabaloo about China taking over the world.  Upon entering my first Chinese bathroom I realized this country will not be spearheading the 21st century until they pull their dunnies out of the 6th century.  I mean, come on!  No one, not even freedom hating terrorists (or Glen Beck) should have to stare another man in the eyes while squatting over a stinking hole.  You don't know shame until you've bent down, with your pants scraping years of dried bathroom viscera and made eye contact with the guy squatting next to you.  He nods his head and looks you in they eye as if to say, "Hey, its just the water and the food.  50 percent of the developing world suffers from dysentery.  I'm suffering from it while staring you in the eyes.  You'll get use to it here in a couple of weeks and everything will firm up for you."  He then goes back to blowing smoke in your face, while you continue to squat and want to die.

 

-I've tried to stay pretty apolitical on this, the most awesome travel blog in the world.  However, reading articles like this, and  fighting communist bureaucracy for 50 days leads to certain feelings of frustration.  Like most thinking americans, I am going to blame Wal-Mart shoppers for everything that is wrong with China and the world.  Stay with me. 

 

 I consider myself to a political pragmatist.  I'm not a latte drinking liberal elitist and I'm also not some yosemite sam shoote-em-uppist.  My politics fall firmly into the common sense and logic camp; a camp that seems to have been decimated by tainted moose stew. 

 

 I haven't been in America for a while, but when I left, the folks were all riled up about the imminent crush of socialism in America. This is what I find funny.  The same folks that are hooting and hollering about the evils of socialism, are doing so while pushing their shopping carts around Wal-Mart, and buying cheap consumer goods they probably don't need.  Cheap consumer goods that come from China.  A country that is blatantly communist.  Yes, American consumers, China is communist!  Believe me, this isn't some warm-fuzzy, new-age, kumbaya communism.  No, this is black boots, billy clubs, show me zee papers communism.  This is communism dedicated to destroying ethnic culture, ethnic identity and any form of dissent.  This is good old fashion communism with a good PR team.

 

Our Chinese experience has been diffused through the lens of not actually spending much time in "china."  We have spent the majority of our trip with different ethnic groups who do not identify with the Han majority and express no form of Chinese nationalism.  Everywhere we have gone, China has been cursed and mocked.  People have gone out of their way to make sure we knew they weren't "Chinese" but where fact, Dai, or Tibetan, or Uigher.  I have been shocked by the hatred people have expressed for the country they are governed by.  We have passed through hundreds of miles of militarily occupied country and subjected peoples.  We have passed through a country, that essentially funded our war on terror.  A communist country that we turned to because the folks at home didn't feel like paying for one of the biggest defense budget increases in the 20th century.  When did that become an ok thing to do?!  Can you imagine Regan turning to East Germany to finance star wars.  Give me a break.

 

And here's my point.  If we want to whine and complain and hoot and holler about the world.  Perhaps we should take a second  and look at our own shoulders and see the burden of responsibility we have shirked.  Perhaps we should look at the principles we sacrifice everyday so we can buy cheap junk.  Perhaps, as we lament the death of american manufacturing, we should stop and wonder how our consumption habits have led to it's decline.  Last time I checked I didn't see anyone picketing Wal-Mart when they shifted from "Buy American" to "Slashing Prices Everyday."  Perhaps, we should remember that personal responsibility is one of the greatest of American virtues.  And perhaps, we should stop trying to lay the blame on politicians and pundits and start looking in our own shopping carts.

 

-It is impossible to find egg-rolls, cream cheese wontons and fried rice in China.  I guess I had imagined China was one giant Panda Buffet line. I was wrong.  Very, very wrong.