An Imperfect Traveller
There is a Chinese saying attributed to Lin Yutang which says: “A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going. A perfect traveler does not know where he came from.”
I learned of this saying only after I returned home from China last August, and I recognized in its wisdom a mistake I had made.
I was invited to China to present my research results at a scientific gathering of The Second Asian Symposium on Academic Activity for Waste Treatment and Resources. I had traveled enough in Europe to feel confident in visiting places not quite home, but reading the travel guides on China made me hesitant. Frommers was cheerful about travel in China, but seemed to assume you would spend enough to go first class all the way. The Lonely Planet Tour Guide, on the other hand, was written by students who traveled on a fairly meager budget, and they seemed most impressed by how dirty the place was, and how easy it was to get sick. Perhaps I just didn’t want to go-I’m getting older, and I appreciate comfort more than I used to. It’s harder to get enthused about a gruelling trip. So I wasn’t sure, but I ultimately said “yes.” Once I was on the plane, got my head in travel mode and forgot my earthly responsibilities, I felt younger, tougher, and ready for the challenge and the fun.
And I was a good traveler. I let my hosts show me all over the place, and I ate all they dished up, even when I was thinking, “I can’t eat this!” I enjoyed it all, basking in the attention they bestowed at every turn. As the only American at the conference, my opinion was often sought. At one point, I was invited to join the conference organizers as they planned for the next gathering in Bangkok in 1996. I was surprised at that Japanese President of the organizing society, after much deliberation on the details of the next meeting, turned to me and asked what I thought. “Uh, um, sounds great to me!” They all smiled and the meeting was adjourned. Like Chance, the butler in “Being There,” I was sometimes accorded a weight I didn’t deserve.
However, I wasn’t a perfect traveler, as I realized later; I didn’t forget where I had come from. As a result, I found it very hard to understand some of the ways that the Chinese do things. The traffic, for instance, struck me as absurd: crowded streets of bicycles, pedestrians, honking, speeding, impatient taxis, all meeting at uncontrolled intersections where they slow to a near standstill while weaving through the congestion in the direction they want to go, narrowly avoiding collisions along the way. They need stop signs, I thought. Why didn’t they have them? It seemed so obvious to me.
And the way they build things—could they use some lessons here! I stood and watched as several hundred men hauled and shoveled and raked and hammered out a new roadway in the center of Shanghai. Large piles of stones had been brought to lay the foundation. At each pile, a single man stood with a shovel, spreading the stones, one shovelful at a time. A guy with a Bobcat could do in an hour what would take them days. When a man showed up with a frontend loader to spread some of the piles, I thought: “Ah, now this makes sense.” But then the loader suffered a mechanical failure, had to be parked, and the men with the shovels resumed their work.
These things bothered me for several days upon my arrival, but gradually I began to think it through and realize how absurd I was being. After all, Chinese civilization has a few years behind it, and if they don’t think they need stop signs, who am I to argue? The more I watched the traffic, the more I realized they don’t need stop signs. Their way works for them, and might even be more efficient when you consider how many people are here. Imagine how the traffic would back up at a stop sign! Instead, traffic moves, slowly, very slowly at times, but it moves, and bodies merge with and release from the central mass, without colliding. Close maybe, but I saw very few actual collisions. It suits them, they’re used to it, and perhaps even enjoy the intimacy of the intersection.
Road construction made more sense after a while, as well. There are 1.2 billion Chinese people. To impose artificially the efficiencies of mechanization throughout their society would create many idle hands. Some of their ways will yield to modernizing influences and some may not. The transition needs to proceed naturally at a human pace so that the implications and effects of the changes can work their way through the society without massive upheavals. So they do what they’ve always done, adding twists and modifications along the way, adapting gradually, the human way.
I wasn’t a perfect traveler, and I felt dumb later, thinking about my initial culture shock. I felt even worse when I got my pictures back and noticed, in several, that I had my arm around the shoulder of a Chinese friend in a comradely pose. I had read before I left that Chinese people don’t like being touched by others, but in the exhilaration of the moment, I had forgotten. Here, in color, was the evidence of my insensitivity. Then I noticed in another picture, a Chinese friend with his arm around me, and we seemed happy. I decided not to be so hard on myself. The world changes every day, and humans are adapting to a future world that is quite different from what we know now. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit China, make many friends and learn a lot along the way. I don’t want to get too comfortable again. I’d rather go back to China, be one in a billion, stay a while and learn more.
Next Issue: A report from China 50 years ago. “About Mose” by Alfred A. Johnson — Ed.