China -- Observations after Four Years -- Pt. 1

China is in the news every single day and becomes more prevalent as the days go by. However, a large percentage of foreigners that I know won't even consider paying it a visit, much less living and working there for a while. Furthermore, it seems to also be the trend with quite a number of people in my home country.

I, however, have been living here for four years now. To this day, when people ask me "What's it like in China?" I still give the same answer that I gave the first time I was asked: "It's a place of extremes."

(Me back in 2014 with some of my friends in Guangzhou)

My first week ever in Asia started in Tokyo, Japan, where a friend and I stayed for a week before he went back to the US and I ventured on to Hong Kong. My first impression was that it was a bit dirty but, then again, every place seems dirty after you leave Japan. The day after that, I met a friend who'd been doing business in China for several years and we took the train to Guangzhou, a large and domestically famous city largely unknown to the common folk in the West. I wound up spending about a year and a half of my life there.

During my first few days in GZ, I was approached by a woman on the street and asked a few simple, straight, and blunt questions, such as "Where you from? You marry? I like you. I want you number." Yes, this actually happened.
The street where I stayed for the first six months was kind of a hub for foreigners and foreign cuisine, with sandwiches, a Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC, and a variety of independent restaurants. This is one of the good things about living in a foreigner-heavy area.

The bad things? Well...I'm not going to pull any punches on this one, because it really annoyed the you-know-what out of me. Because of the amount of foreigners, there also came with it a large amount of people soliciting all sorts of goods and services, trying to entice them to buy. This ranged from (illegal) SIM cards to shady money-changers, prostitutes (again, illegal in China), drug dealers (yes, you guessed it--illegal), and my personal "unfavorite," children begging.

The child beggars really pissed me off. Here's why:

One day, I got out of a taxicab and as soon as I did, I was practically assaulted by a young girl and a boy, who grabbed at my hands, pulling and kissing them. I couldn't understand what the little boy was saying, but he was quite a bit younger than the girl--even though she appeared to be under seven. The girl, however, was able to speak some English, and kept saying it over and over: "I love you." As I experienced this (for the and hopefully the last freaking time in my life), I looked up and saw an adult standing nearby, as if watching the children like a boss or an owner. I didn't get the impression that this was the parent of the children. I got so freaking angry and wanted to go over to the person and beat the snot out of them. I wanted to take the children away and find some way to get them a better life. I didn't know what to do about it. I have a daughter back in the US and my heart went out to these children as they reminded me of her.

I saw these same children again many days later but by that time I'd picked up a little bit more Chinese language, so I spoke to the girl directly. She kept saying "I love you" again and again but wasn't looking at me. Finally, she realized that I was speaking to her in Chinese and she looked up at me. I told her again, in Chinese, that she is beautiful. I wish that I could've said more, but I knew so little that it probably wouldn't have made much sense.

From that day until today, life in China continued to be a series of similar things, from great to unbelievable, amazing to mind-boggling, and deeply satisfying to utterly frustrating. In the end, it is, for me at least, an exercise in patience and understanding. I've seen people leave here quickly and I've met people who've lived here for twenty years--everyone is different. All I can say is that, no matter your preferences, this is definitely a place that I'd recommend spending a little time in, at least once, so that you can begin to understand it.

I can assure you that what you see on TV just isn't going to be accurate enough.