Lost on Planet China: One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation

by J. Maarten Troost

  But it’s not merely on the Internet that one finds this prickliness. When Mattel was forced to recall millions of toys because of lead paint and safety concerns, the CEO of Mattel was compelled to very publicly apologize, or kowtow, to its leading Chinese supplier. True, there had been lead paint, but for one of the toys recalled, which had come with small magnetic balls that could do some severe damage to a child’s stomach, the problem had been a design flaw, which, technically, wasn’t the fault of the Chinese manufacturer. As parents around the world rummaged through their kids’ toy boxes, tossing out everything from Thomas the Tank Engine locomotives to Polly Pocket play sets, the Chinese seized on this design flaw and demanded an apology. Some might say that this is simply a reflection of the importance of preserving face in China. Perhaps, although I don’t think there is anything uniquely Chinese about the concept of face. In the Arab world, it would be called honor. In American culture, we’d call it respect.

  But in truth, I wasn’t interested in face, honor, or respect. I was interested in nationalism, and for nationalism to really start galloping ahead, it needs an enemy. For a while, way back in the nineties (can we have that decade back, please?), it seemed likely that the United States would fulfill that role. Every year, when China’s trading status as a Most Favored Nation came up for renewal, members of Congress from both parties would loudly denounce religious oppression in China or the appalling work conditions of its factory workers or, with the Cold War still a fresh memory, the inconvenient fact that China was still Red China and confidently ignoring the bells of freedom ringing elsewhere in the world. And then they’d vote to grant China Most Favored Nation status. Business is business, of course. Nevertheless, these annual denunciations of China did little to engender soft and fuzzy feelings for the U.S. among the Chinese, except possibly among the religiously oppressed, exploited factory workers, and political dissidents. Then, during NATO’s bombing campaign against the Serbs, the U.S. very accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three diplomats and injuring twenty. Oopsie, said the U.S. So sorry. We had the wrong map. Belgrade, Belgium, so hard to keep them straight.

  The Chinese erupted. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in dozens of cities throughout China. The American Embassy in Beijing was pelted with rocks and diplomats were forced into the bunker. It was an accident. Honest. No one in China believed this. How could the government of the United States, the last superpower still standing, be so inept? The protests continued. American flags were burned. And throughout China, Americans everywhere found themselves sewing Canadian flags on their backpacks. As the protesters raged, the government encouraged them onward, until finally, after the American Embassy’s windows had been shattered and the diplomats inside had been thoroughly terrified, and President Clinton had issued his twenty-fourth public apology and promised to wear a hair shirt and flog himself daily, the Chinese government called the protesters off. The point had been made. Do not fuck with us.

  Three years later, a hot-dogging Chinese fighter pilot collided with an American spy plane above international waters just outside of China. The fighter pilot tumbled into the South China Sea and the stricken spy plane limped toward the nearest airfield, which, most inconveniently for a spy plane spying on China, was a military airfield on Hainan Island. What a bonus, thought the Chinese government as they pondered what to do with this high-tech surveillance plane that had been eavesdropping on electronic communications and phone calls in their country. Here were secrets to be deciphered. Technology to be reverse-engineered. Though they let the crew go after eleven days, they held on to the plane for another three months, and when they did finally return it to the U.S. they handed over a bill for a million dollars. See, the plane didn’t actually have permission to land in China. Thus the fine. But more important, the U.S. had delivered another propaganda gift, wrapped in a pretty bow. The Chinese insisted that the spy plane, a slow-moving, snub-nosed, propeller-driven EP-3E, had recklessly smashed into the fighter plane on purpose, a novel and exhilarating tactic for a prop plane to take when confronted by a missile-laden fighter jet. Nevertheless, that was the official line and newspapers in China reported it accordingly. American Aggressor Downs Peace-Loving Chinese Aircraft in Chinese Territory. Chinese Plane Was Delivering Toy Bunnies to Orphans.

  This was the first crisis faced by the newly elected President Bush. Diplomats burned the midnight oil. They sent telegrams to one another. Then they sent more telegrams. Experts in acronyms were called in to decipher the telegrams. What would the President do?

  “We should invade China,” urged the Vice President. “We’ll be regarded as liberators and greeted with savory dumplings.”

  “It’s a slam dunk,” agreed the Director of the CIA.

  But President Bush ignored them. Instead, he did something he had never done before, something so painfully challenging that few thought him capable of it. With his fists clenched and his jaws trembling, he squinted in that squinty way he has and said, Sorry. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Not good enough, said the Chinese government. How sorry are you?

  More telegrams were sent. New acronyms were created. The President stayed up deep into the night, to 9 P.M. even, and felt the weight of his awesome responsibilities. How sorry was he?

  Again he squinted into the middle distance, and with a steely resolve, declared that he was very sorry. It was the most trying day of his life, and he determined that never again, under any circumstances, would he ever say sorry again.

  Since then, of course, relations between the U.S. and China, while not a high-fiving lovefest, have been remarkably cordial, all things considered. True, there are still articles in American newspapers detailing the political repression, torture, appalling work conditions, etc., etc., but no one gets on the floor of Congress today to denounce Red China. Similarly, in China, people are hardly reflexively anti-American. While technically not American, I do occasionally travel like one (Can I have French fries with that? And a fork too?). Not once, however, did I detect any ill will toward me because of my nationality. True, I did sense condescension, but that was simply because I was a laowai, and many Chinese believe that anyone with the misfortune to not be Chinese is inferior. The general attitude among the Chinese toward Americans is similar to that of a young, hotshot quarterback waiting for the tired, banged-up veteran to step aside so he can lead the team.

  Still, while Americans might be pleased that nationalist rage is no longer pointed directly at them, it doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have an outlet to display some good, old-fashioned nationalist fervor. And the country that currently finds itself the target for this vehemence is Japan. It’s an anger that the Chinese government has learned to finely calibrate. On most days, newspapers will carry stories highlighting the villainy and treacherousness of the Japanese. Indeed, these anti-Japanese stories can appear in some surprising locations. Waiting in line for the cable car to see the Great Wall at Badaling? Bored? Looking for something to read while a hundred people cut in line in front of you? Well, the government has thoughtfully created a display highlighting Japanese wartime atrocities in the area. Now and then, such as when new history textbooks in Japan are issued sugarcoating the country’s role in World War II, the Chinese government will allow the country to erupt in righteous indignation, then backpedal furiously when the protests threaten to spiral out of control. When in 2005 Japan issued a textbook that referred to the Nanjing Massacre as a trifling “incident,” tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets. The Japanese Embassy in Beijing was besieged by rampaging mobs. Japanese pigs come out!, they hollered. Sushi restaurants were torched. And throughout China, Japanese people everywhere found themselves busily sewing Canadian flags on their backpacks.

  The rage that the Chinese unleashed against Japan had become so unhinged that, finally, the government felt compelled to impose a media blackout. Nationalism, of course, is the trickiest of dragons to ride. The protests eventually burned ou
t, but not before revealing that for the vast majority of people in China, Japan is enemy number one.

  To learn a bit more, I thought I’d head toward Nanjing, which had been the capital of the Republic of China early in the twentieth century. It’s the war, of course—the long struggle of World War II—that lies at the root of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, and no place suffered more under Japanese occupation than Nanjing. During what came to be known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japan, more then 20 million Chinese soldiers and civilians lost their lives. In 1931, Japanese forces had seized a broad swath of land in the bitterly cold northeast of China and installed Puyi, the last emperor of China, as the puppet leader of what they called Manchukuo. China, lost in its own struggle among Nationalists, Communists, and assorted warlords that followed the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, could do little to resist. By 1937, in a quest for more resources to fuel its war machine, Japanese forces turned south toward Shanghai and Nanjing, where in the winter of 1937–1938 they committed one of history’s most unparalleled atrocities, brutally murdering upward of 300,000 civilians. Inexplicably, not even today has Japan managed to say sorry, much less very sorry.

  If ever there was a place to grasp anti-Japanese sentiment in China, Nanjing was it. I considered my travel options. I could take a fifteen-hour overnight train—hard seat only, I was confidently informed—or I could fly. For all the hours I’d spent in rickety tin tubes elsewhere in the world, I remain a fraidy-cat when it comes to flying. And yet, as I contemplated a night wedged into the fetid space between two train cars, an airplane suddenly seemed a little less terrifying. I took a taxi from Qingdao and arrived at the airport, where I soon found myself marveling at the polished sheen, the courteous English-speaking check-in people, the lack of lines, the broad, expansive views, and wondered, Why can’t we have airports like this in the U.S.? I had expected the anarchic tumult of a train station, and yet this glimmering, multilingual, hyperefficient airport reminded me of Singapore. Of course, I’d never been to Singapore, but when I think of Singapore, which isn’t very often, I imagine something very like the airport in Qingdao.

  I wandered around the departure terminal. The majority of passengers appeared to be businessmen in trim, dark suits. At a bookstall, I perused the books for sale. Most were concerned with management and leadership and effective team-building and all sorts of other topics to help the businessman get ahead, including Wine for Dummies. There were biographies of Hu Jintao, Mao Zedong, and Ronald Reagan, and for the randy businessman, the bottom shelf offered a selection of soft-porn DVDs.

  As I watched the aircraft pull into the gate, I was pleased to notice that it was a new plane, an Airbus of recent vintage. Excellent, I thought, trying to settle down my preflight butterflies. New Airport. New Planes. And then I looked at the pilots. New pilots too, apparently. In the United States, pilots tend to be in their fifties, ex–fighter pilot jocks, comfortable flying a plane upside down. In China, pilots are barely old enough to shave. Earlier, I had read an article in China Daily that noted that while aviation in China has grown exponentially over the last few years, there were now acute shortages of mechanics, aircraft controllers, and pilots, and that flying today, even on a snazzy airplane taking off from a snazzy airport, is, apparently, a very risky thing to do. And that even though there haven’t been any major accidents lately, it was really just a question of time. I did what I could to completely forget what I had read just days earlier in a newspaper not particularly known for being critical of anything pertaining to, well, China, but as I boarded, I couldn’t help but note that something was certainly a little off here. What was it? I wondered. What was causing the electrons in my brain to buzz so strangely? I’m boarding a plane. It’s just like any other plane. What’s different? It’s…the music.

  Instead of Muzak, there was American Christian Country Music. I am, frankly, not very familiar with American Christian Country Music, and as the plane taxied down the runway, it felt just a little funny listening to a deep, drawl-y, baritone voice strumming a guitar, sharing his musings on the Lord and what He means for the good ole U.S. of A. Cool, I thought. I’m in China. I’m on an airplane listening to the red-blooded, God-fearing songs of the Confederacy. But soon, as we reached our cruising altitude, my attention turned to the bathroom, which was apparently the smoking lounge. Did the pilots just ignore the alarm? Or had the passengers disabled it, and would this tinkering with wires affect the plane’s hydraulic system? Was it possible to reach into the No Smoking in Bathrooms alarm system and very accidentally disable the rudder on an Airbus? At that moment, the pilot turned on the seat-belt sign. The flight attendants urged everyone to take their seats right now. The aircraft began to shake. Was it the rudder? Were we rudderless 27,000 feet above Jiangsu Province? The flight attendant spotted me, the lone laowai. “If turbulence causes feelings of airsickness, please vomit in bag.” And I clutched the bag, and I held it tight.

  I am quite likely the only member of my generation who still watches the evening news on national television. Our culture is committed to satisfying the needs of the old and the young, and those in between are often forced to choose. I once considered Facebook, but after spending a few minutes idling through its pages (they are called pages, yes?), I could never get beyond the Why of it. Scrolling through the walls of pithy comments, I’d wonder who, exactly, are these “friends” and why don’t they just call? And so I’d tossed my lot with the old, and begun to watch the Nightly News with Brian Williams on NBC. In between the pressing news items of the day—the quest for female Viagra, the perils of missing the annual colonoscopy—Mr. Williams would inform us of the day’s events in Iraq, a country where, apparently, we were fighting a war. Invariably, there would be footage of the grim results of a car bomb, and as the sirens wailed across the screen, my eldest son would scamper over, because nothing quite interests four-year-old boys like vehicles with sirens.

  “What happened, Daddy?” he’d inquire.

  “Well, it’s like this,” I’d say, assuming the measured gravitas of Mr. Williams. “In a place far, far away, there was a car accident, a little fender bender. And Mr. Frumple—you remember Mr. Frumple?—hurt his knee, so the ambulance is taking him to the Busytown Hospital, where Dr. Lion is going to make him feel better. Meanwhile, Bob the Builder is going to come over with his heavy equipment and clean up the scene of the accident.”

  Lukas would scrunch his nose and ask: “Is that true? Or is that another fairy tale?”

  “It’s true. Just ask your mother.”

  It’s what we do, cosset the kids behind thick barricades where they can enjoy the wonder of childhood without being disturbed by anything so troublesome as reality. When I sensed Lukas was troubled by the ladybug he’d just squished with his bike, I’d take the time to explain the phenomenon known as the Great Reincarnation of Ladybugs, and that right now, at this very moment, the ladybug was being reborn as a horse, and soon this ladybug would be galloping across a broad, golden meadow, so grateful to have been squished by a bicycle.

  This is a perilous form of parenting, of course. It is very possible that as the hard truth of the world begins to seep in through the barricaded doors, the kids will become bitter and twisted, distrustful of their parents, paranoid even, and eventually they’d start making furtive calls to AM talk radio stations.

  “We’ve got a caller from California.”

  “Hi, Rush. It’s me, Lukas…”

  Nevertheless, we persist with our NeverNeverland, and if the boys end up in counseling, at least we will have provided them with a few years in which nothing bad happens. Ever.

  Chinese parents, apparently, think differently. True, kids in China today are often regarded as spoiled, the pampered lone offspring of the One Child system. Of course, most of China is predominantly rural and poor, where a pampered child is simply a fed child. But for the little tykes of the newly evolving urban middle class, no sacrifice, no indulgence, is deemed too small. So perhaps they are
spoiled. But if the hundreds of uniformed little kids visiting the Memorial Hall for Compatriots Killed in the Nanjing Massacre is indicative of anything, it is that children in China are certainly not sheltered.

  I’d arrived in Nanjing during a spring storm, the kind of squall that tosses airplanes in bracing, sickening ways, leaving certain passengers profoundly grateful to be back on terra firma, even though it was pouring rain—sheets of it—the kind of nighttime maelstrom that makes it exceedingly difficult to see the bicycles on the road, which led to a groan-inducing collision with a cyclist, and though I bled from a gash in my fore-leg I didn’t care, because I was no longer on an airplane and that alone gave me cause for jubilation. Plus, Nanjing is surprisingly nice. There are, for instance, trees, lots of trees. It is a verdant city. And it is no wonder. Clearly, it could be extremely rainy in Nanjing.

  The city lies on the Yangtze River, the river system that carves China into north and south. The north gets heating. The south does not. The south gets rain. The north gets the Gobi Desert. Sun Yat-sen, universally regarded as the father of modern China, made Nanjing the capital of the Republic of China in that difficult era between the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 and the triumph of the Communists in 1949, thus restoring the privileged position of the city that had been lost when the Emperor Zhu Di moved his capital to Beijing. Temples and gates and walls from the Ming Dynasty still grace the city’s lush hills. But within those old walls there is a modern city, where taxis come with little flat-screen televisions, and the streets are all glimmering and neon-lit, and the buildings, too, come with enormous screens featuring gyrating girls, and it’s hard to believe that you’re not somewhere deep in the world of Blade Runner.

  And yet the city does not seethe like Beijing. Bargaining, for instance, is just far easier in Nanjing. I’d slowly adjusted to the need for haggling in China. At first, I moseyed about like a walking ATM, a convenient place for vendors and cabdrivers to extract a brazen first price from a dim laowai not yet familiar with the need for bargaining for the special price, much less the Chinese price. It was only after I discovered that I was paying approximately four times what anybody else was for a bottle of dodgy water that I’d begun, tentatively at first, to dicker for the special price, and I lived in hope that one day I’d be able to negotiate down to the Chinese price, the holy grail for foreigners. I’d found a Web site that offered discounted rates on hotels, and while there was no way I was going to input credit-card details on a computer in a dingy Internet café in China, I would take note of the discounted price at my target destination and make that my bargaining ambition whenever I needed to haggle for a roof.