A tryst with China - Part 4

This will be my last post from china most probably. I am leaving back to India on 31st of March. For initial 2 months here I was so bored that I was ready to leave any day and the irony is when the time has come, I am not 100% confident if I want to leave. This is partly because finally I have made some real good Chinese friends in Nantong and partly because I am afraid of what’s ahead for me in India. But anyways I know I have to return so I am not thinking about this anymore. In my 11 weeks (read 11 weekends!) of stay in china till now I have been to yangzhou once, to wuxi once, to suzhou twice and to shanghai thrice. During left 4 weekends, I hosted couchsurfers on 2 and had fun with Chinese friends on other 2.

The English names of my Chinese friends in nantong are as follows:
1. Polo
2. Bill Gates Senior
3. Bill Gates Junior
4. Ice Girl
5. Cherry
6. Orange
:) Amazing isn’t it? :)

Polo my darling :)

Chinese friends, Indian dance :)

As a foreigner in China, the question which I was asked maximum times is “You are living in china from 2 months. Why don’t you have a chinese girl friend?” … hehe … every time I am asked this question … I am left speechless … because I know the person who is asking this has a different definition of girlfriend then me … so I don’t try to explain … and let them understand that there is some problem with me! Actually I met a beautiful girl few days ago who fell for me slightly but I refrained from taking it any further as I knew I am leaving soon. Pufffff … “the thing” between opposite sex and me is like that only! :)

The Chef :)

The ultimate chinese self-cooked dinner!

Anyone?

This weekend I learned to cook “malata” from polo. It’s a chinese dish in which you have a choice to choose any vegetable or meat or noodle etc. You give the things you have chosen to the cook which puts all of them in a soup and cooks it for few minutes. And here we go … instant delicious Chinese malata is ready. The secret of this dish is the soup and no shopkeeper wants to tell the integrants. My friend polo once had a malata shop and hence he knows how to cook it :) Also I did a lot of shopping … Chinese traditional knife for a colleague, TT bat for my brother, leather hand bag for my mother, Chinese green tea for my father, grandfather and many others, Great Wall red wine for friends back home etc. etc.

Eating something very hot and sweet ... hehe :)

Posing on the stage of chinese classical opera :)

Last weekend I invited polo and other friends to my apartment. We watched hindi video songs together and even danced! They couldn’t stop wondering on the songs (esp. songs from Lakshya like “agar mai kahun” with Hrithik Roshan and Preity Zinta). And then there was a declaration from one of them “Indians must be happiest people on earth” :)

Eating spicy food in Wuxi!

Hiking in an orange farm with Chris from Canada :)

All in all I had good time in China. I made friends for life, understood the most populous country in the world, enjoyed cooing and eating chinese food, hated the work, learned few Chinese words, watched a lot of DVDs and wondered where our human civilization is leading … I am returning home better informed and satisfied but my journey towards “wisdom unlimited” continues …

Few things I like about china:
1. The respect and proud they have for their culture (except morals and values. These dimensions keep on changing depending upon whether it bring prosperity or not!)
2. Amazing food (yes you can enjoy Chinese food even if you are vegetarian!)
3. Slim, beautiful, amazingly charming, sexy and mysterious chinese fairer sex
4. Chinese government knows what they want. They want to be rich and powerful, and they are going for it … everything else is secondary!
5. Beautiful Gardens

Few things I hate about China:
1. They can’t mix with other civilizations, I don’t really know why! A simple proof is the existence of china town in every other big city in the word. So it’s difficult to feel at home in china.
2. They really don’t care about the environment. They use infinite amount of plastic and are polluting atmosphere with every harmful gas discovered by humans till date. To justify themselves they give example of the industrial revolution period of the western world. And I am sure they will not change their mind.
3. A new soulless younger generation is emerging. I have never encountered youths who are so empty in any other place. China’s one child policy and ban on practicing any religion are major culprits I think. Religious places are nothing more then tourist attractions today.
4. Their obsession with America. I wonder at the speed china is Americanizing and the cultural confusion/shock this phenomenon has created here! Every developing country in the world has westernized to an extent, thanks to open market policies, but China has crossed the limits. Somehow, I think moral policing in India has saved us from this blunder, and I am glad.

I will remember the time i spent in china ...

There are many things to say but as every proud traveler does, I remember more then I write and I write more then I remember. The excitement of future, tensions of present and memories of past are taking over me.

Peace Out!