Not in Beijing anymore

It has been an interesting experience for me, when native Chinese look at me and try to talk to me in their language, thinking that I will understand. I usually start talking to them in English and that does the trick. For the past few days we have been in Beijing which has been dressed up very nicely for the Olympic games (no doubt, it looks like a modern city with all of the modern conveniences).

Last night we travelled to a city named Taiyuan, which is midway between Beijing and Shanghai. It is a little more representative, I think of how the vast majority of Chinese live. It reminds me more of a third world country rather than the bustling metropolis that we just left, and the image that the government of China wants you to see. It turns out that Taiyuan is the industrial backbone of the country, supplying coal and power to the larger cities like Beijing (they actually turn their power off if it is needed in Beijing), and as a result is the most polluted city in the country.

We went on a sightseeing tour of a city that is supposed to be preserved in the old ways, called Pingyao. It was impressive, but kind of sad to see the living conditions of the people and their standard of living. One of the other professors made the comment that if you took one of them back to the US and showed them how we live, they would think that we were millionaires. Makes me think about my great grandfather, and now I can understand why he would risk disease and death to climb on a boat for months on end to land in a place where you do not know the language. I am greatful that he did this, otherwise who knows? I could have been on the other side of things today, watching some rich foreigners get off a bus wearing WKU shirts, hoping they would buy some of my trinkets.