Age, it’s a funny sort of thing
The other day, whilst I was bumbling along in my usual manner, I was slightly surprised to find how much time has elapsed. And I don’t mean because I was bumbling along or wasting time but rather how quickly I had grown from not very old to quite a bit older. It was one of those moments where you’re suddenly hit with how much things have changed and how radically different your life could have been.
The latter always strikes home when I visit China.
When I see family, I am always presented with a more conservative agenda (in the non-political sense) of the expectations placed on me than I receive otherwise. This fact is of great importance. It makes me realise that even though while growing up, I felt my freedom thoroughly restricted, the barriers that I met are in fact much smaller than what they could have been. But then again, I may never have clashed with those barriers had the society I lived in never required me to. Living in a society where the general philosophy on life is more liberal and the hierarchy in family is radically different has certainly had a positive influence on the remainder of my upbringing although it did cause a lot of problems in the first instance.
This fact secures my conviction in the belief that it’s not really the role of the government which has caused the sense of suppression in China but rather that of society, and society begins at home. Of course every government plays a role in the control of a society but in my experience, the limitations applied to freedom in China are no more than one might expect to find at home, except more formal. And in certain circumstances, even when the government hasn’t stepped in, the reaction from society alone is enough and we certainly have a hand in that. Western media often finds something to be terribly surprised at although more often than not it’s just a difference in culture. Yet it continues to be only those who have grown up in both cultures who have an understanding of this.
I have lived in the UK for longer than I have done in China and I did much of my ‘growing up’ here. Well that’s not strictly speaking true either. I often feel that I’ve already received much of my maturity at an early age while still living in China because that’s what was expected. You functioned like an adult even if you didn’t have the emotional understanding to do so. Despite an advancement in years, I don’t feel that I’ve matured much since. Certainly I still find myself in cringe-worthy moments where I wonder how I could be such a big idiot. But in terms of emotional maturity, well that part of growing up I did here at least. If you can call increasing cynicism maturity.
But more often than not, I feel that when I read articles in the papers and elsewhere, they’re all terribly ignorant. All the ideas, opinions and facts have been gathered and explored in a manner akin to someone who has just regurgitated pre-conceived ideas. People find time to be judgemental about something and yet they don’t take the time to try to understand. I believe that’s the very definition of ignorance. Once, while reading a simple food/travel memoir, a random, out of turn and completely ignorant comment popped in about China’s political past. I stopped reading straight away. The comment was completely irrelevant, contributed nothing to the merits of the article and quite frankly made the whole reading experience negatively pleasurable. The only thing it succeeded in doing was leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and perhaps the author a smug appeal to knowledge of history. And it’s certain not alone.
In fact, in my whole reading career to date, I’ve only found two non-Chinese authors to be writing from the point of view that reflects an understanding of the nature of what it is to be China. Although I don’t claim to be terribly well read, that still seems like a disappointment. The first of these is the most recent book I finished, Reginald F. Johnston‘s Twilight in the Forbidden City, in which he described a Nei Wu Fu which is not too dissimilar to any other bureaucratic giant. The second is a fantastically researched article in the Guardian. After reading the latter I had to go back and check the author and was surprised to find it wasn’t a Chinese person, well at least she had an English name. I am quite sure this must be true of other cultures too and I am certainly guilty of this crime myself.
When I meet my peers though, I get a more liberal representation of life but the path we have trodden is radically different. As they tell me stories about when they were growing up I feel a sense of relief that I escaped the difficult rites of passage. It also reveals my teenage years as rather hedonistic in comparison despite the fact that it was hardly wild by any stretch of imagination. It made me feel a little embarrassed because it presented to me the possibility that all these ailments we find in life only exist because we have nothing else to worry about. Maybe we are struggling against nothing.
Sometimes I was surprised at the things I was told because it was evident that my social norm had been cut off around 15 years ago, the rest of China had moved on but what I knew of society had stayed the same. I’m not sure how I should feel about that. I suppose in some respects I should be glad that in the not too distant future, my understanding of social norms here and in China would have converged and the transition in lifestyle would be small. On the other hand it seems a shame that society has become homogenised and culture and tradition is slowly phased out. Meanwhile, I guess the parallel standards are still upheld.
I wondered, is it the fact that those childhood memories are still so vivid for me causing this parallel standard, that had caused me to feel like time has gone so quickly. Or is life really slipping through our fingers like grains of sand? If nothing has changed, does time move on? Perhaps in reality very little changes, except for names and faces.
