Reflections on 29 days spent in China

By Jeelan Syed for the Toronto Globalist

Upon my arrival, I was utterly aghast at the scenery that was unravelling as I was being driven from Pudong airport to Shanghai city. The airport was massive, the elevated roads aplenty and wide, and the sky’s blue was hidden by a thick white translucent curtain, through which the sun’s glare was dimmed, giving the scenery a dream-like quality. On the highway there were two-, three- and four-wheeled vehicles; some the newest fruits of an opening up policy initiated in 1978; others, the relics of a disappearing world some political scientists would not hesitate to dub as the 2nd World.

The first the thing to hit me, as I was entering Shanghai proper was the massive scale of things – the hallucinating numbers of high-rise buildings one after the other seemingly never-ending, the width of roads, the multitudes of vehicles, and the number of people in, on – and at the back – of some of them. And the bicycles Chrétien once made reference to, now had a challenger: the motorbike.

The chaos at intersections; or perhaps no chaos at all, for after all it is but a question of norms. Having for the first time stepped outside of the Western world, it took a few days to get used to vehicles turning left and ploughing through oncoming traffic and pedestrians to reach a perpendicular road.

Once I had gotten used to the country’s modernity, I discovered another one of its facets, and it amazed me: China’s diversity. China is after all – by its size, geography and historical antecedents – the heir of many empires. And empires have never been synonymous with uniformity.

When what struck me in Beijing as a Central Asian mosque turned out to be a museum of China’s minorities, I realised with great joy that China was celebrating its diversity. Even China’s flag pays homage to them: The big star represents its main ethnical component, the Han Chinese (including both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers), while the other four represent the minorities which make-up 15-10% of China’s population. Not only is China multi-ethnic, but it is also multi-lingual, and multi-religious. Turkic, Korean, Mongolian, Kirghiz, Khmers and Thai, Tibeto-Birmanese and Uighur populations share this vast land with the Han. Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity, and to some extent Judaism, have had a presence – and still thrive – in China. Indeed China is a much more pluralistic and cosmopolitan place than we are made out to believe.

I was surprised to find out that the first mosque in the country was built in Canton in the 7th century C.E. by Tang Emperor Gaozong soon after receving an embassy from Uthman, the third Caliph. When I visited Old Shanghai in Puxi, there, in the crowded and narrow streets, hardly distinguishable from its neighbouring attached buildings, operated a mosque. Another – this one a thousand years old called the Niujie Mosque– I found in the ‘Muslim Quarter’ (as my Chinese friends called it) of Beijing. The most famous Chinese Muslim in history that I know of would be Zheng He, who in the first half of the 15th century C.E. led the great Chinese fleet (with ships much, much larger than Columbus’ Santa Maria) unto the world (This fleet even brought back a giraffe from Africa and David Menzies argues it even reached America). Unfortunately, after these costly expeditions, and due to several factors China turned away from the world and looked inwardly, destroying many of the records and documents pertaining to this unprecedented trip.

Christianity has been present in China since the Assyrian Church of the East ( formerly also known as Nestorians) sent missionaries in the third century C.E. It actually is in fast expansion in China and many of the Churches I have seen were very well furnished and resembled others I have seen in Europe. Christianity played a non-negligible role in China. In fact, the leader of the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace, was Christian, as was the founder of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat-Sen. The Taiping Rebellion, which I only came to really learn about in the Presidential Museum in Nanjing, is a story that I found so very intriguing and it shattered many held ideas I had of China concerning its imperial past and its social driving forces. The same could be said of the foundation of the Republic, in whose revolutionary spirit Mao Zedong believed to have still been operating.

In my visit of what used to be an operational Synagogue in Shanghai, I came to realize how deeply frightening and how beautifully humane this world was and could be. Jews from Europe had sought refuge in Shanghai at a time when other countries had closed their doors to them. Some of them had even gone on to fight in the ‘Anti-japanese’ war and join ranks with the communists.

Sometimes I tried to find signs, reminders, relics of the Cultural Revolution. In vain. All religious and spiritual buildings have been renovated since. Through a graphic novel written by Li Kunwu, under its french name ‘Une vie Chinoise’, I have come to realize that modernity is but another form of this cultural revolution, clearing the way of the past and paving the way of the future.

I visited three cities: Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing. I can say that although Shanghai blew me away with its modernity, I only really felt myself at peace in the more open, and greener cities of Nanjing and Beijing. The two competing rival capitals impressed me with the richness of the architecture, historical buildings, museums, parks and gardens that could be found there. Although Shanghai did have its share of green spaces, its skyscrapers and pollution left me a slight bit claustrophobic.

Nanjing I had decided to visit because it resonated more with me than did Hangzhou, which I could have visited in its stead. I was particularly marked by its memorial for the 300,000 dead at the Nanjing Massacre, and the Sun Yat-sen and Imperial tombs, which, ironically, lay at such proximity one from another. Ironic given their symbolic value.

Although I wish I could have travelled more, I must be thankful for having had the opportunity to discover this great and legendary land, whose cultural depth and diversity I had only just begun to imagine and contemplate. I have certainly gained a greater appreciation for China and have attempted to further shed preconceived notions and ready-made attitudes I may have been conformed to adopt towards the country’s form of government. The state politics of whatever is left of communism in China has, from what I could distinguish, a human face, one that is genuinely concerned for its people, which contrasted with the way I felt about some Western governments’ distance from its people. My 29 days in China have first and foremost taught me to observe before judging in order to escape the limits of time-bound fallacies.