My first impression was of Shanghai; a cleaner, more beautiful version of New York that is still expanding. I know already that this version of China is different than elsewhere in the country, that Shanghai is unique. Had I not been prepared, and had we not seen some portions of Shanghai that were less modern-looking, I would assume all of China was so new and clean. I know from watching videos of China that the country is vast and diverse in appearance, so I think my impression of China is biased. My impression of Shanghai as a city was very good. However, I hate crowded places so a population of 24 million is a con for me. The small places we went were beautiful, but I was thinking that they would be devoid of tourists. My logic was that the Chinese would be less interested in more common sights than foreigners, so any tourists we saw would be foreign like us. I was especially hoping this would be true of Zhouzhuang, and I was very unhappy to be wrong. I didn’t realize Suzhou was a more developed city, and thought it was going to be small like Zhouzhuang as another water town. So from these visits, plus the museums, I find that China is extremely commercialized to both foreigners and native Chinese alike. I asked Aining in the Shanghai Museum about traditional Han outfits, and she told me that the Han have none. From this I gather that the Han are like Americans; they supplement a lack of perceived cultural context with those of other cultures. The Chinese look to the past, and to minority groups, while Americans focus on any country outside the US, preferably the country where they assume their ancestors came from, or whichever culture interests them.

My impression on China, after the first in Shanghai, remains generally positive. I saw a great many things I can appreciate and desperately wish the States had something similar to, but I also have some negatives (because nothing is perfect, obviously).For some general observations, I’ll talk mostly about the restroom and pets. Bathrooms here in China predominantly use holes over toilet seats. I don’t know the technical name for these so I’ll stick with squat toilets or just “holes”. I noticed that there were some signs asking users to throw out paper in waste bins over tossing them into the hole itself, or just saw bins full off paper where in the states they would only have discarded pads and tampons. I thought this was unnecessary, since I always thought pipes could handle it and the paper would dissolve anyway, but my hotel toilets would sometimes spit paper back up into the bowl long after use. So I started just throwing out all paper, regardless of use, out of the fear that I would cause a plumbing problem. Another observation regarding the bathroom is over paper itself; toilet paper seems to be thicker than those brands sold in the states. The hotel in Beijing has very thick paper that is also very textured, and would surely cause some problems were it constantly thrown down the drains. I noticed animals in China were very few. Birds are plenty, but they always seem to be these long-tailed mid-sized species that look like blue jays from afar. There’s also a species that Dr Bu referred to as magpies. I was expecting sparrows to have invaded China as they did in America, but I’m glad to find these larger types instead. Swallows are more common around wooden structures, as they are in America, and it would make sense that there are more of them here than at home due to the larger quantity of wooden buildings. I hadn’t seen any hawks or ravens until Tiananmen Square, where I saw magpie parents beat back a raven going after their fledgling. I kept seeing ravens after, but only singly and not in family murders like in Alma. Perhaps ravens haven’t been long established in China? Beyond birds, there were cats and dogs. They were fewer than birds, and when one was seen, they seemed like ghosts. In the States, an animal is noticed. It behaves audibly, more alive-like. I can’t quite describe it, but the Chinese cats and dogs seem so silent and less present. I only saw one mid-sized dog on a leash among various small, rat-dog types that were both on leashes or strays. The only barking I ever heard on this trip were the sad cries of one at night in Shanghai were I think it was tied up outside. All others were silent and skittish. There was a small stray following a man on our way to the Summer Palace. The man kept looking back to watch the dog, but when he slipped between our group, the dog paused, analyzed our group, and ran in the opposite direction. Everyone seemed to notice since various people softly called out for the dog to return. I don’t know if the dog was unused to crowds or unused to a different kind of people, but his leave taking also made me sad. Cats are different, though. They were much less frequent even than dogs, and were usually not moving. The first was in Shanghai, standing in a doorway in our way to the gardens. There was one I saw walking into an alley sometime in Zhouzhuang. There was one in a bookstore inside Zhouzhuang. There were three inside the petting zoo in the underground mall with the Alpaca that never moved. There were two at the cafe in Badaling —our section of the Great Wall. They were all lounging or sitting or trapped in a tiny room trying to ignore idiots tapping on the glass. They felt like ghosts, too, but cats are usually ghosts anyway. I have strong opinions about the alpaca, but I feel that’s too obvious so I’ll skip on to the outdoor environments. I didn’t see any wildlife beyond birds. No deer, no predators, I barely saw any mosquitos. I know there are mosquitos, since I’ve been bitten thrice, but they seem absent also. Haven’t really seen any flies, either, save the rare individual that’s caught in our bus. On the drive to and from Badaling, I think I saw a bee farm, but the facilities looked unkempt with few boxes to house hives. The trees near cities are diverse and thick-trunked with plenty of undergrowth, but where wildlife would live, in Shaanxi, the trunks were thin and the grass was short. I saw herds of sheep minded by shepherds but they grazed on nonexistent pastures with such meager fields. I don’t know how anything lives here. I look and see dried up riverbeds and I don’t know how anything lives at all. How are there so many people? Where are the sheep they farm for meat, for wool. Where are their ducks? Where are their deer? Their cattle? Where do they get water for the water trucks that deliver hydration to the various species they plant within city limits? I don’t know how anything lives here. China is full of life. But I see so much empty. There are countless fields filled with crop and people both living and deceased to the point where I think China has allocated a purpose for every stretch of land within its borders, but I’ve only seen so little and cannot confirm. There are so many cars for so many people, too, and I see most of them parked in Hutongs or off the side of the road covered in tarp. I look outside the bus window and see driven cars covered in dust and watermarks even though the wind threatens to pull us into the sky. We’ve been in Beijing for such a short while and we’ve been so lucky to miss a smoggy day like in Xi’an, but I know it can get bad. I can only assume the dust on these cars is from the smog. I can go on, but this is getting more negative than I’d like. I want to say that I wish the outdoor gyms and the magnificent city-planning shown in Shanghai and Beijing should be more common in the states. The gym at the Temple of Heaven wasn’t exactly free, but there are others littered around Beijing that aren’t behind a tollgate that are smaller and offer the same services. Greater access to this equipment can help America tame its obesity epidemic and encourage young people to move better than a stupid public service announcement. China also employs an army of janitorial staff to clean up the city, from dusting off poster frames to picking up leaves and debris from roads. I sincerely wish this treatment was given to public restrooms, but that’s one thing most privately owned establishments in America has down already. We just need cleaner public areas as well as greener surroundings. I could go on, but I think that’s enough for now. Thank you so much for this opportunity to travel! And thank you for being my guide.