Insider and Outsider

After graduating from college, I went back to Chengdu last month first time in seven years. I was lost in the city, and I couldn't find the gate of my college! The real estate has doubled its value in less than five years in Chengdu and where my parents currently reside. I sometimes read about how the maps of some cities in China have to be updated in every few weeks. I also heard how people outside of China were amazed by the pace of developments and changes in China. Every time I went back to China, I felt like I had to catch up so many new things, and sometimes I even felt myself like a person who was coming from the countryside visiting the big cities.

For the first few years in the US, I was so occupied by experiencing the US: studying in English, making American friends and friends from all over the world, doing part-time jobs, traveling in the US, etc. Then I was trying to understand the US and Americans. It was then that I recognized there were so many things different between the US and China. I grew up in China immersing in Chinese culture, Chinese education, and Chinese values. I have taken them for granted and haven't thought about them intellectually, or at all: how the Chinese think and behave, how those thoughts and behaviors relate to Chinese values, culture, history, etc. The feeling of ignorance of China and the Chinese was frightening. I borrowed a book titled "My Country and My People" by Lin Yutang published in 1930s about China and the Chinese people. This book is a little bit outdated. However, I still found it useful.

When I started the PhD program in urban planning three years ago, I saw studying China and Chinese become popular in the US and other parts of the world as China has gradually emerged as an important international player thanks to her fast economic development. More and more news on different aspects of China could be found in the US major media. I got to know the changes in China through different media both from the west and the east. However, the gigantic size of China often results in grasping information/facts on China uncompleted. The reports in the media only reflected part of truth.

Bailout and Milk

For the last several weeks, the economy in the US and Chinese milk quality have been two of the major concerns in my family.

My father has been quite concerned about the economy in the US. Not because he has money investment in the US banks. It is because his only daughter is in the states right now. He is concerned if her research funding for her study will be secured, and her monthly stipend from school will be enough.

There are nearly 53,000 children in China ill due to the the tainted milk. The scare spreads to Europe, and other parts of the world where Chinese milk products were imported. The food safety has been a concern for a quite a long time in China. I think ever since environmental pollution has been concerned, or even earlier when piracy widely spread in China. Both my uncle's family and my parents' friend make their soy milk from the scratch every morning. My parents started to do that last week as well.

Seven Year Itch

Last Sunday, it was my seventh anniversary in Seattle. I have lived in five cities until now.

Han Yuan --3 Years
Lu Zhou --8 Years
Zhongshan --7 Years
Chengdu--4 Years
Seattle--7 Years

I wonder how much longer I will still be here.

Visiting Sichuan, Summer 2008

Last month when I went back to China, I visited Sichuan. I was born in Han Yuan, a small rural county in Sichuan. I went to college in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan.