In China, East Does Meet West, After All

With all the neon, money and sky scrapers, China beyond the cliches is becoming hard to find.

Sour-faced, the stocky waitress leans across and peers between the near-empty bread slices. Shrugging her shoulders, clearly offended at the mere suggestion this tuna sandwich is lacking the key ingredient of tuna, she declares, “We don’t do things like they do in America.” I beg to differ… on so many levels. This inappropriate, and utterly inaccurate, statement was to resonate with me throughout my three weeks in China. As I came to realise, she couldn’t be further from the truth.

Much has been written about China over the past couple of years. It’s emergence as the planet’s superpower without a conscience has seemingly upset everyone; cue bitching about the Dragon Empire’s human rights abuses, environmental crimes and just plain balls at challenging the world order. In many circles, a backpacker visiting China, stoking the communist regimes coffers, might as well just beat a Tibetan monk to death. But I didn’t care much for the criticisms, because beyond the political crimes of any nation lies the country’s heart and soul, its culture and people.


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