I Don't Know Anything About China

I don’t know anything about China.

A country with a six millennia old history doesn’t lend itself to cursory study. For a lily white American like me to comprehend it fully, I would have to perfect my Mandarin, learn a dialect or two, read the major works of Confuciusm, Taoism, and Legalism, look into a wide variety of Marxist texts, and learn how to differentiate between many similar looking earthen ware pots. I will not have the time to do this before I actually go to China, since I am writing this in June and I will be leaving in early July.

So I will have to resign myself to knowing nothing.

That means my visit to China will doubtless be a long succession of me being stupid, hopefully with more hilarious results then dangerous, injurious, or expensive ones. I know enough words of Mandarin to indicate that I like eating duck and I don’t like eating cats, and I can ask where the bathroom is if I don’t mutilate the tones. I probably don’t have to worry about being sold as a bride to a country farmer, and I don’t have any particular urge to practice Falun Gong. I’m not dumb enough to wander into any opium dens or Hong Kong transvestite sex parlors. I should be okay.

A lot of people are surprised when I say I am staying alone in China. I don’t see anything dangerous about it. I’m nearly 19 years old, I’m only moderately stupid, and I’ll be staying in a modern city. China’s crime rate is low – extremely low. China is one of the safest places I can think of for a foreigner to be. I’d be in more danger in Manhattan. I’d probably be in more danger in Tacoma. But it’s true: China is foreign, China has a language I am not comfortable with, China has people who think and act and look differently then I do. I think I’m okay with this. I hope I’m good enough to be okay with this.

I am going to Hong Kong where my mom grew up in the seventies, where we will probably have tea at the Peninsula, eat funky sea animal parts, and buy many pairs of knockoff sunglasses. Then we are going to Xi’an, where we will ogle terra cotta warriors, try the dumpling banquet, and look at the old bell tower in the center of town. Then it’s off to Xinjiang province, where we will visit Urumqi and Turfan, and probably evaporate into puffs of feckless condensation in the 112 degree desert heat. I will also see the lost city of Gaochang, eat pulled noodles, and make some totally inappropriate but hilarious Borat jokes due tot he proximity of the Kazakhstan border. And then I will go to to Beijing, where I will be all on my lonesome for four weeks of attempting to tease my Mandarin into a vaguely recognizable form. I will hopefully drink pijiu, visit the Ming Tombs, and shake my booty to some Mandarin punk rock – if all goes well.

I have one other distinguishing characteristic: I love food, and I especially love Chinese food. Due to my mother’s connection with Hong Kong, I was lucky enough to be raised eating the real and the good stuff on a regular basis, certainly more then most foreign devils get to. Thus, I am looking forward deeply to eating every single funky thing I can possibly find in China, sanitation be damned. If you notice a curious obsession with food coming through here, you’ are completely and totally right. Wo xihuan chi fan.

So this blog will be about China and how it was for me, and possibly about what I ate every day too. I can’t guarantee it will be interesting or well written, but it will definitely be my own, so help me God.

(Am I allowed to say that?)