WORLD: Different Sides of the Same Yuan

Excuse me, don’t you have any small change? Once you don’t, do not be upset, check it out in your neighbour’s pocket. I bet he’s got some five-kopeck coins. Well, have you got it? In case you have just take one of the coins as we are going to run a crime re-enactment. There’s nothing special at the first glance. However just as you turn the coin… Oh, my Goodness! It does have the other side! QED.

For fairness sake I have to say that it’s all about the two sides of everything in every aspect of our lives. And it’s most often that one of the sides stands for the stuff we take at it’s face value, the stuff we’ve got accustomed to accept. While the other one shows the truth as it is. Well, it’s China that can be fairly compared to a coin with the second side being unknown.

One may say that now, that there have been 30 years of “transparency reforms” introduced we tend to get all kinds of information about P.R.C. flowing like out of horn of plenty. However let’s try and run the issue in various perspectives. These are two big differences as they tend to say in Odessa. Well, the first side is like visible and is meant to be widely consumed. These are the aspects we daily get on the issue. What about the other side? You’ll find purely local flavor there with a turtle soup containing both blood and bile, with millions of scooters’ smoke and cigarettes steaming all over. You’ll see day-to-day China munching, expectorating, exercising. You are not going to find anything vaguely resemble to The Heavenly Empire, we are being constantly told of. So that is exactly the point to be revealed beneath.

НЕ БУДИТЕ КИТАЙ

China can be fairly compared to a proper ant hill with its residents being so energetic that they can’t stop even at nighttime. You’ll be no doubt rocked by witnessing a couple of Chinese playing tennis in the middle of the night; and according to them you are not expected to. As opposed to us our Chinese fellows are constantly being busy with some stuff. And the explanation to this is Confucius might have rounded in their ears something that we in the rest of the world still consider to be the greatest of Houdini’s tricks. A Chinese is busy through working, eating and debating. Well, it all changes when an alien is passing by when the whole of the former “business” as well as the whole of the attention is switched on to the very Laowei, which stands for “an old fellow from the outskirts”. That is the way Chinese are accustomed to call all the aliens from other countries, meaning us, taking into consideration our provincial origin. According to them their country is situated in the centre habitable planet, a kind of Median State. So that makes them treat all the others as coming form the outskirts.

Regardless of the stated above the legends on the Chinese hospitality are afloat. Moreover just provided you do not know a thing about the fact you are sure to be told every little point of it. Well, their hospitality is first and for most worked out in the food, in the plenty of food to be more precise. Food in China is everything standing for feed and hobby and private life and whatnot. In restaurants and small caffs you can try whatever you feel like, choice being not that difficult made. You are just expected to point with your finger at the fish, snake, turtle or toad in the aquarium you like. A benevolent cook will make this wonderful dish just in front of you. Do keep in mind that it’s you that seem exotic to the aborigines sparking their interest and curiosity. You are going to be welcome everywhere, and when I say welcome that really stands for its primary meaning!

Napoleon who had never been to The Heavenly Empire used to utter when being almost asleep: “Don’t make China awake!” I guess people listening to him were not far from being asleep as well as China did wake up. Nowadays it’s the third big country in the world after Russia and Canada. Well, it seems unnecessary to mention the population, there’s just no need to do so. Just as Russia and the USA did, China launched its taikonauts in the open space. The Beijing Western Railway station is the biggest in the world so far. The country has invested minimum 7% into the world economy within the late years, the “yellow” GDP increase is the most dynamic one in the Universe. If we recall the last Olympic games in Beijing we know that these were the Chinese sportsmen, who won by head the top of the overall standing, having left such acknowledged leaders as the USA and Russia behind.

ACHIEVEMENTS

We, Russian journalists, are going to have it quite narrowly in China. It takes its 163rd place in the list of the countries ranging the degree of mass media free speaking out. Well, they occur to be neighbours with Belorussia, which is at the 151st.

When travelling along the country one can easily come across locals living in kind of grots – caves made right in the hills and rock massifs. Well, any varieties of conveniences, such as plumbery, fridge, telly, whatever are out of question. In mountain settlements local “mountaineers” live in small houses, all sleeping around the heath, being considerably close to the livestock to get it warmer. And you know what, many of them have no idea of the fact that the life sparkles around their place, some of them being sure of the opposite. Ignorance stands for happiness in this case.

I guess, that is the reason Chinese afford themselves to smoke wherever they feel like to, nobody messing over. China turns to become the true Shangri-la by Hilton’s for heavy smokers. You can smoke everywhere: in public transport, in a bank, in a lift, wherever you’d like to, to cut it short. You are welcome to smoke to your heart content!

FOOD

Chinese eat everything that moves… meaning everything with no exceptions. Once you are ready for experiments, you’ll find the local cuisine good. You can’t even imagine how various the food is: besides conventional pork, chicken and beef you can even buy cats’, dogs’ and other home pets carcases here. By the way the Great Mao adored to banquet upon purtenance, which influences there higher price nowadays. Well, usually people tend to have cockroaches inside their heads, but Chinese keep them on the pans. Protein food addicts, especially those loving eggs are specially welcome to watch out: you know, it’s not a plain thing to do to decide on the type of the egg when you have 20 ones offered. As a matter of fact they in The Median State eat eggs with different conditioning periods ranging from one week to one month and even more. The most interesting about it that Chinese stomachs suffer no problems because of such eating experiments. The reason may be that they almost have no dairy foods in their diet.

Exotic food addicts can find some more eccentric options than let’s say fried grub or grasshopper. Once you find yourself in VIP zone you get the chance of a lifetime to try an ape’s meat, ape’s brains to be more precise. A waiter brings to your table an ape, (warning!) an alive ape, that you have previously approved. Then the animal is placed in the hole in the centre of the table so that you see only its head. You’ll get s hammer instead of the covers and start hitting the “die-hard’s” head until it’s dead. After that your benevolent waiter cuts off the upper part of the brainpan and adds sour-sweet sauce into the flesh… Dish is served, enjoy it.

They don’t make a religion of food. It’s just their life, chewing, munching, belching and fetching up one. To cut it short it’s all about eating. The whole action is accompanied by cries and disputes about politics, neighbours, then joking and again belching and so on. In view of the fact that it’s not accustomed to eat inside (sometimes houses do lack a kitchen as such) these tablefuls tend to reach the constant status, some kind of a feast in time of plague.

Overemotional are requested to skip the following passage. A severe population policy has been run in China since the end of the 70th. It’s gist is rather laconic and can be personified in the following formula: “One family – single child!” Once a family gets the second child, it’s going either to be heavy fined or to be sent to prison provided they do not have enough money to pay the fine. The letter is a common phenomenon for an average Chinese. Why should I talk about it in the food section? Believe me, I should. Once either the second child or a girl (these are usually boys considered to be the support for the family) is born, a mother has to decide whether to go to the jail or to kill the baby or to sell it as food at the “black market”. The demand for the human babes is always higher than the offer there. Severe, if not a fact. According to gourmands the “delicacy” resembles to beef in its taste. The tenderness of the meat as well as the price depends upon the number of days of a baby alive. Placenta is also of demand, though more available, at the price of some 10 dollars. I think you’ll agree that’s nothing for such fads. However many people consider placenta to be not that nutritious and will never prefer it to the “real” meat. Before a baby is cooked it’s steeped in a bowl full of spirits. It’s to be prepared after some 10-15 minutes in it.

PRC is the first in the world to have managed to consciously stop the population development. It was only January 2005 when the 1,3 billionth Chinese was born and it’s four years later that had been predicted. The party said to do, the Komsomol did so.

NATIONAL IDEA

Chinese culture is one of the most ancient in the world. And you can feel it in every house, in the face of every 160 cm high Chinese, at every counter with dried sparrows, simply everywhere. I guess that is the reason Chinese honor and preserve their culture so properly. However there’s a revealed China, different China from that colorfully described in guide books. This one contains endless 1,5 meters wide streets, resembling a big dump, where some are sleeping, others are making children, and some are just making fun as far as it’s possible.

The Great Wall of China has been considered to be the major pride of the Chinese from the earliest of times. It’s most likely to be the greatest human made construction 6000 km long. However today it doesn’t look as gorgeous as it’s expected to. The thing is that the local handymen have cabbaged huge pieces of the wall for building purposes within several years. Thus according to the data issued by the Beijing Government of Cultural Heritage only 20% of the whole of the monument is in satisfactory condition. The wall’s prestige was again damaged when people became aware of the impossibility to see the wall from the space. The news was provided by the first taikounauts to go to the space.

Until quite recently Chinese considered every foreigner to be a barbarian, as the true Arian can live in the native country of Terra-cotta Army only. However the modern world’s realias make them shift this point of view. Nowadays more and more young Chinese have to be operated. And it’s all about the notorious public opinion dictating its own laws. Foundations speak for themselves but they mostly prefer to employ people with European facial traits nowadays. Like in Moscow exotic plastic operation on adding one more eyelid crease becomes ever more popular. Chinky eyes, white skin, small mouth and sun-flower shaped face give under being left in the past. The USA has given way to China in the number of plastic operations. Today they have not only conventional beauty contests but those for plastic surgery regular customers. It seems the boasted Chinese uniqueness has slipped into obscurity together with Great Mao and turned to the Great Nothing.

We can endlessly meditate on the strengths and weaknesses of China, but we’d better not try understand the country. Moreover we’d rather start being frightened a bit. Every coin whatever its denomination is has got two sides. The question is what side we feel like scrutinizing. Anyway people see what they want to see. But remember “you create your own Universe by shifting your comprehension” (Winston Churchill).