On the bus ride to the Great Wall I wound up sharing a seat with a girl from the Beijing Sports University. She and I immediately hit it off when she complimented my ugly Hawaiian hat which the members of my group continue to prove unable to appreciate. She and I hiked most of the wall together, her English was great, and we were able to share a lot about our respective families and home lives etcetera. But the best was to come during the camping trip.
After we got to our camp site on the wall and set up our sleeping bags for the night, she and I found a place on the ledge and sat talking with our legs dangling over the side of the wall. Somewhere during our discussion our talk turned to, of all things, politics. It had probably been too long since I'd been able to go off on a nice, prolonged tangent in this regard, so I ended up expressing all of my frustrations with our country's current set of leaders. I accused both Republicans and Democrats alike of rampant corruption, complained about our lack of concern for the impoverished (which, despite my best efforts, I'm pretty sure she still does not believe exists in America), and listed a brief set of my other primary sources of anger. She was surprised a little, and was confused as to why we didn't just get rid of the current leaders and bring in a new set of upright ones. She was familiar with both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (which I was suprised to find are taught in Chinese schools) and said that she thinks the foundations of our government are right, even if the actual practice has become corrupted.
Anyway, somewhere along the way, almost out of nowhere, she turned to me and asked me if I--an expert in freedom in her mind--thought China's people would ever be "free." I assume what she meant was essentially whether it would become democratic. This was like a slap in the face for me. Travelling here I find the cities to be so similar to the United States that I often forget that these people live under such a radically different government. But here was this girl telling me that she didn't consider herself free and that she wanted to be. I think growing up in America we're simply so used to the idea of freedom that it's difficult to imagine life in any other way.
Sometime during this conversation I suggested that maybe both of our countries needed a revolution. Her reaction could not have been more vehemently opposed to such an action. She went off on a tirade extolling the hardship and suffering associated with revolutions--citing the French and Cultural Revolutions to support her arguments. She even used one of my personal favorite sayings: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." This girl adamantly believed that change should come slowly with time, and that rapid revolution was always negative.
I felt both of these reactions provided a telling glimpse into the psychology of the Chinese of my generation. Make of it what you will.
-Alex Weber
