I loved our trip, but I'm eager to get home. The culture and atmosphere in China, even for tourists, grows oppressive. I didn't expect the regime to impact so much of daily life, but I found that it developed a general apathy, lack of empathy, disrespect, and unhelpfulness in the people. So while we had friendly tour guides and exciting tours, I am ready to be done with the shouting, pushing and shoving, obnoxious traffic, and general self-serving behaviors. My lasting impression of China is that neither the government nor the population respect their fellow humans.
Of course, I'm saying this in an extreme state of jetlag, so things might look more bright after a pot of coffee!
Travel recaps and photos to come...
Oh, that's too bad you had that experience with the people of China. I was in Shanghai about 10 years ago and had an incredible experience and found the people to be friendly and generous and excited to show me and my then 9 year old son their city. It makes me sad that things have changed since then.
ReplyDeleteSo actually, Shanghai was different! The strong Western influence shaped its culture and the residents are markedly more polite, friendly, industrious, and affluent than in the other cities we visited. I know it's partly just a difference in what is perceived as "good manners" in different cultures, but some of what we experienced definitely crossed the line between cultural norm and rude behavior.
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated by other cultures and can't wait to read more about your trip. China's place I'd love to see. Glad you got to visit some lesser-known places, it sounds like .
ReplyDeleteThose photos from your trip are beautiful! Sorry to hear you had to experience quite a bit of apathy and rudeness, though. I can see how that could be a byproduct of the way the government treats its people... Hope the jet lag isn't too awful but I know how tough it is to travel to a region with such a big time difference!!
ReplyDeleteOh wow - what a trip! My parents went to China three-four years ago and loved it. They were on a guided tour, so maybe they didn't experience as much of the rudeness as you did...that's so unfortunate! (However, my mom bleaches her hair, and every in China wanted pictures with her...which is interesting because if you did that here, people would think you're so rude. She thought it was funny.)
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