Chinese people grumble like Czechs

After more than a year in China I think I can say that I’ve successfully got accustomed to the life here.

Of course, I still do miss butter and Czech bread, but I got a daily access of exotic foods, like Chinese noodles that resemble nothing of their European counterpart. That is how I came to like the local noodle place, where my schoolmates and I often go to get cheap and good food. We already learnt a bit of Chinese and so we befriended the owners, a couple originally from Xinjiang. We often take the chance to practice Chinese and talk to people in the restaurant about their lives. They are mostly laborers, either takeaway drivers or factory workers. Once we got an idea to invite some of these people to our campus to share their life stories, the good as well as the bad. The event will take place on December 4th, and I’ve been more than delighted to work on this within the student government. Student life can sometimes feel like a bubble of academics consisting only of theoretical concepts. Reminding ourselves of those who make our lives possible provides a chance to connect with the local community of Shanghai.

I also realized another interesting thing; Chinese people grumble like us, Czechs. Many times, I was caught in the middle of discussion over politics or economics, higher prices and so on. In the light of last months of China occupying headlines of many media outlets, I think it’s easier more than ever to oversimplify this country, to generalize all of its people, and satisfy oneself with limited information. It seems to me that the politics of simplification became a comfortable solution to our problems. Maybe technological progress is to blame, everything is so easy today. From online shopping to constant communication, the politics of simplification is just another step. For centuries, ‘us vs. them’ mentality defined humans, in our case Czechs as ‘us’, ‘them’ as technically anyone else. The problem arises once we see what such mentality brings along. It presents us as a group of varying opinions, complicated and familiar. Them is the community of people who seem homogenous, simple and oftentimes dangerous to us. However, each society has its specifics, and to see the world in this simple way feels sad, at least to me. During evening talks with locals I understood that also Chinese people live lives full of hope and disappointment, discussions over politics, favorite local pubs and more, the same way we live our lives. It seems easy, but I feel like oversimplifying is becoming a norm, and yet are we not all the same?

 

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