a weirdo in china, pt. 4: service mission

It was my second full day in China, and I had pushed my body to the very limit on the first, spending virtually all of it in 100-degree heat, stifling humidity, on unforgiving back alleys that threatened with treacherously unbalanced cobblestones wherever they didn't crush you in great throngs of humanity...

It was interesting, but exhausting, and I decided it was time to take it easy. I spent the morning helping with a service trip, where we entertained handicapped children by doing crafts activities together.

Unfortunately, there were not enough handicapped children (a sentence I never thought I would get to write), so I was relegated to taking photos on the sidelines. I tied no dyes.

On the walk to the service site, I started to get my first taste of the fascinating architectural specimens on display throughout Shanghai.

Truly a city of contrasts. *sage nod*

On the way back for lunch, I became acquainted with the Chinese penchant for bizarrely specific signage:

Presumably woodwinds are A-OK.

Lunch was large, flat noodles, very very yummy:

Though I did notice, right above the last table in the restaurant, the alluring visage of the business' fuse box!

I was wiped, so I retired to my room for a nap (but not before raiding the nearby supermarket a second time, to pick up everything I had forgotten the first time). This gave me some time, also, to contemplate just what the heck is this China thing, anyway?

You're kind of receiving these impressions as I'm still in the process of forming them, of course. There's a lot to take in. I have to sort through what I've heard in the past, what I've read in preparation for this trip, what I'm seeing here, what people are telling me here, and what I can try to intuit based on movies I've seen and other Asian countries I've gotten to know.

It's tricky.

The gist of it is, I think, (and this would be the most important thing you could EVER hope to learn about China), that looking for answers to questions about this monolithic entity called 'China' is a venture doomed to failure.

China doesn't exist.

It does, of course, as a land mass, and also a political entity, and possibly a broad, broad, oh-so-broad cultural grouping. But in a more specific way, in the way we often mean when we ask about the characteristics of such-and-such a country, or its people, like how you can say "Do you like French food," or "Are Germans punctual?" In this way, trying to ask or answer questions about China as a whole falls apart. Even a nation as large as America has culinary and cultural elements that are generally consistent across its breadth, in spite of all its regional variation. China...doesn't.

So, I'm very conscious as I explore that I'm seeing only one part of China. And sure, it's one of the most enormous, symbolic, and effectively representative parts. But it's still such a huge country that every day I walk past Chinese tourists standing around and gaping at just how alien everything is.

This is a strange place, in that respect, and others.