China

A lot of people have asked “how was your trip?” And it’s wild to try and condense any kind of experience like this into a few words. 

I sometimes describe traveling in China as travelling to the future and the past. Nothing cements that in my mind as much as meeting 烦恼风 this trip. 

烦恼风 grew up in a rural village, where the unreliable electricity meant that kerosene lamps outnumbered lightbulbs 2:1. He grew up the son of a local teacher, walking to school for over an hour each way. When he graduated middle school, he was one of 90 students, out of 800, that continued on to high school. 

His drive got him into one of the countries top schools, where he studied math in Hangzhou, one of China’s tech capitals. He got a job in the industry, where he lives a middle class lifestyle that looks a lot like that of a young, urban office worker in North America. He loves playing basketball after work, watching CBA and NBA, we talked a lot about The Shot, he’s been a huge Kawhi fan for years. 

Meanwhile, the village where he grew up has been slowly abandoned. It is no longer occupied. The villagers who remained in the are have moved to larger villages nearby, with solid concrete homes with running water, sewers, and electricity. People drive cars and other vehicles around while working in agriculture and small workshops. 

China is a place that is changing so fast, it’s a place of many different realities, and a place that’s so hard to learn about by just following the news. I’ll definitely be back.