{"id":129,"date":"2020-09-26T17:22:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T17:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/?p=129"},"modified":"2023-03-03T21:29:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T21:29:19","slug":"twenty-years-ago-i-visited-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/26\/twenty-years-ago-i-visited-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve Years Ago I Visited China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twelve years ago I visited China.<\/p>\n

I was teaching ancient civilizations to middle school kids at the time. When I saw the photo of the terra cotta warriors in the social studies textbook, I was blown away that such a spectacle could exist. Several football fields full of life-sized armies of clay soldiers, horses, musicians and acrobats, each with an individual face, had been unearthed in 1974, I learned. I vowed to someday see these statues in real life. When serendipitously I heard of a group that took teachers to China for a two-week tour for free, I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n

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I was a little in love with China back then.<\/p>\n

It was the time in my life when I starting to explore Buddhism and meditation, so teaching sixth graders about China fishtailed with my own interests. I loved the philosophy of Confucius. The yin yang symbol was cool and popular at the time, plastered on skateboards or dangling from earrings, and I loved learning the real meaning of the light side of the hill and the dark side, and how both were inherent in everything. I loved The Tao of Pooh, and started studying the Tao in earnest. I started going to an acupuncturist if I felt bad, or even if I felt good. I loved Chinese calligraphy and watercolors, and started taking classes to learn the art and the meditation of their pictographs. I painted the Chinese symbol for love in my bedroom. I got my first tattoo, the Chinese symbol for truth, on my ankle.<\/p>\n

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I was excited when I learned about our whirlwind itinerary. The group of twenty teachers would visit Xian, the sight of the warriors I wanted to see, as well Beijing. We would go on a cruise down the Yangtze River and see the Olympic stadium, a Chinese ballet, the Great Wall, and a whole host of activities the first week, and the second week we would study the history and culture of China in order to bring back information to our students. We would be required to take Chinese lessons online before we went, way before Zoom was ever invented. In order to have our trip paid for, we were required to be observed teaching lessons regarding the trip to our class upon our return.<\/p>\n

After my visit, I hated China, and vowed never to return.<\/p>\n

I realized early into the tour that entire two-week trip was nothing more than a giant propaganda brainwashing of us teachers, so we could take their views back to the states and indoctrinate our students. The first week we were treated with luxury, including five star hotels, the finest cuisine of each region, the touring of the best schools, evening entertainment, and a cruise complete with a doctor cupping us. The pace was such, that we were exhausted and satiated, with little time to think. Week two found us in barrack like dorms, where we attended class every day to have the history of communist China rewritten for us from their perspective.<\/p>\n

I could feel the presence of Chairman Mao and his authoritative government everywhere I went. We were taken to bookstores where our guides took notes on what we read. In Tiananmen Square no mention was made of the protests or the protesters that were killed. We saw how the highways we traveled were beautifully landscaped with fresh flowers to impress us, but I could see the slums and shanty houses right beyond. The high school we visited was brand new, and apparently state of the art, but so shoddily and hastily built that the crumbling walls and leaking roofs were plainly apparent. We visited a museum that boasted of China’s environmental program and initiatives, but the sky outside, that we saw with our own eyes, was never blue, only a sickly yellow. We saw where the Yangtze River Three Gorges dam was built, and how the government had no problem flooding the shores, displacing millions of farmers, and destroying ancient temples and artifacts. Although we visited one Buddhist temple, our tour guides told us that religion is frowned upon, because the more important focus of all the people was making money.<\/p>\n

I tried to talk one-on-one to the guides as much as possible, but they were tight lipped. I asked them about Google, and if they knew that their information was being censored. I asked them if they believed in God. I asked them if they minded giving up their kids, and only seeing them once a month in order for them to do their jobs. I asked them why people weren’t allowed kiss in public.<\/p>\n

I wondered why people in hazmat suits with face shields and helmets took our temperature with those little guns on all our plane flights. I thought everyone was wearing masks because of the smog, but no, a flu was going around, but I had never heard of it, and when I got home I was in bed for two weeks with the only case of the flu that I have had in my adult life. Only then, did I learn about H1N1 or the term ‘Swine Flu’.<\/p>\n

The virus had followed me home.<\/p>\n

And now it’s back. Everything I hated about China, the censorship, the authoritarian regime, the brainwashing, the fake news, the propaganda, the whitewashing of bad truth, the illness, the masks, the distancing, the smoky yellow sky, the lockdown, the rewriting of history, the focus on money, the discouraging of gathering and religion has permeated American soil. It’s all here, along with their new ugly virus. The shocking part to me is how Americans so easily succumbed and even embraced, the ways of China.<\/p>\n

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I am glad I saw those Terra Cotta soldiers up close.\u00a0 The magnificence of the vision of this guy Emperor Qin, or Ch’in, who had them built in his honor, (and of whom China is named after) was something to behold.\u00a0The grandeur of this ruler’s vision, and his attention to detail, is what enabled him to implement his authoritarian rule over the vast land. But eventually, his well thought out means of controlling people ended when rebellion erupted.\u00a0 People can only be held down for so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve years ago I visited China. I was teaching ancient civilizations to middle school kids at the time. When I saw the photo of the terra cotta warriors in the social studies textbook, I was blown away that such a spectacle could exist. Several football fields full of life-sized armies of clay soldiers, horses, musicians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[19,21,24],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","tag-china","tag-covid-times","tag-lockdowns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}