Bits of an email to Tess

What perspectives has China given me on Thanksgiving...not very many. I can't say that I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. They don't really know what Thanksgiving is, but when we told our guesthouse manager that today was a special festival for us, he sent fireworks off in our honor. That was sort of frightening, sort of fun :).

China isn't that...bad. I guess. It isn't what you would expect of a communist country. The way of life here is very very different from home, of course, but I feel like that is more because of the traditions than because of the government. The government has really pulled out of people's every day lives, I feel. I have also spent my entire time in a place known for low government control because it is so far away from Beijing. Kunming is nortorious for being able to get away with anything because of how little control the central government has over it. I imagine Beijing would be very different, and I have heard that Tibet is even worse. Tibet is considered to be a politically sensitive area, and so the police control everything. If you are gathering in a group on the street, the police will break you up because they don't want anyone plotting. You need to by permits to go and do anything because the government likes to know/regulate who is where. I think Tibet is a little bit more like what people expect China to be like.

I don't feel like the people are resentful because they can't grow up to be what they want. They can, more or less. It isn't like the 70s when the government told you what department to study in and what job to have. I asked my little sister what she wanted to be when she grew up and she answered, completely convinced that she had the choice. And she does. I have also been spending a lot of time in rural china where the farmers, if the water and land and weather are good, are very happy. Maybe it is because they don't know what they are missing, but the people seem content.



I have seen a lot of poverty, but I have also seen a lot of villages filled with people who seem content with their lives. This has led me to spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be happy. If you are only happy because you don't know what you are missing, does it really count? Happiness through ignorance is usually looked down upon by the enlightened, but then again, it is still bliss. And technically, none of us knows EVERYTHING that is out there for a person to see/do with his or her life, so if we are happy, it could still be argued that the happiness is only through ignorance. The only thing that I know for sure is what I observe. The other day, while biking through the orchards, we stopped and talked to a farmer. We asked him if he worked hard and if he had a hard life, and he said no. The water was good, the soil was good, weather was good, so life was very good. There was no denying the fact that he was, on the whole, happy with his life. It wasn't communist propaganda. And those that are considered not to be ignorant, those that have seen the world and know what is out there, are consumed by greed and materialism and depression. Those who know about the world see poverty and corruption and unhappiness. So maybe the truly englightened are those who know enough to wish they knew nothing at all. They are those who see the happy farmers and instead of pitying their ignorance, envy it.