Cherry blossoms and glimpses of picture-postcard beauty still dot the city landscape that has been overtaken by an explosion of modern architecture
Waiting in the connecting flight for a delayed take-off at Shanghai airport, I had just inhaled the aromatic chicken soup served up by a smiling Chinese stewardess when my sister pinged from Beijing, “Avoid chicken and eggs”! Jolted into awareness of bird flu in China, I ignored the rumbling protest of my stomach, and returned the soup. For once I was grateful the Chinese either pretend to or genuinely have a problem with the English language. It saved me the embarrassment of having to explain why I returned the soup. All I had to do was work on a regretful look with a sad shake of the head. The stewardess’s eyes questioned me, but the language challenge proved too much, and she gave up with a reproachful moue!
This is my second visit to China. This country really helps me hone my facial and eye expressions; words don’t seem to hold much meaning. But I get by. Once in Beijing, the first thing that struck me in one of the world’s most populous cities was the lack of people! Where were the teeming millions, I wondered, as I looked at the strangely still and forlorn trees lining the road, offering lovely glimpses of unnaturally placid waters through the wispy foliage. The scene looked like a picture postcard from childhood, and strangely, much like the card, nothing moved nor made any sound. Yes, not even on the road, where I was stuck in a huge traffic jam. And then as I finally crawled, sudden vivid splashes of pink and white cherry blossom trees sent a thrill through me as I realised it was cherry blossom season! Though traditionally more a Japanese cultural fix, cherry blossoms for the Chinese symbolise feminine beauty, dominance and female sexuality.
During my last Beijing visit, which was a couple of years before the city hosted Olympics 2008, Beijing was an interesting mix of traditional and new. One still saw many hutongs (historical alleys), that were being fast demolished to make place for new, modernistic buildings. This time round, I see an explosive building boom in Beijing, reflecting aspects of many cities of the world. If one area reminds me of New York high rises, another is a colony of classic British mansions, and yet another reflects the elegance of French architecture or Italian villas. You see glass, steel, chrome structures, then you glimpse futuristic white curved orbs connected by skybridges, and in sharp contrast, squat Soviet-style brick and mortar buildings. The cultural mix overflows onto the streets as you spy street hawkers selling Tibetan ware on the pavement outside a swanky area, where you can stop for a pizza or go to a funky café or cocktail bar within a traditional hutong!
The city is dominated by daunting structures built by architects from across the world; these buildings loudly proclaim China’s status as a newly emergent global economy. What I am missing are traditional buildings that reflect the rich history and culture of the city. I am told some are still around, I just have to embark on the quest, which I soon intend to. The crowds, I am told, are to be found in the malls, and of course in cars on the roads that are jammed with traffic (Delhi traffic is far worse, by the way).
Our first stop on the way from the airport was a food hall where I was dazzled by the overflow of brands and varieties that make India seem backward by comparison! We think we have choices back home, but we really don’t! We picked up the makings of some exotic sandwiches and some local Chinese beer. As I entered the kitchen in my sister’s home, I was greeted by the bizarre sight of her washing an egg with soap. “Instructions are to wash eggs and then cook them really well to avoid bird flu,” she explained sheepishly.
From an egg-shaped national theatre, to well-stocked malls, to hutongs, to cherry blossom trees and washing eggs with soap – Beijing suddenly seems full of promise, mystery, discovery, all begging for exploration. The city is certainly on a roll – I am game for enjoying this particular rollercoaster ride!
Travelling by local bus in Beijing, I saw a grandmother who was eating a green-tea ice-lolly transfer a bite of ice-cream from her mouth into that of the one-year-old in her lap. Even as I gagged, expressions of wondrous delight spread on the faces of granny and the kid’s parents, who had eyes only for the baby now enjoying the explosion of cold sensation in her mouth.
Such scenes are not uncommon in China, where grandparents take responsibility for bringing up kids as parents go to work. Remember, the single grandchild will almost certainly be the sole focus of not only its parents, but also two sets of grandparents in a country that has insisted upon, and ensured, single child families since 1978. The child has no siblings, cousins, nor uncles or aunts! Its parents are also single kids probably struggling to support their own set of parents and four grandparents each, with life expectancy having gone up along with other benefits in one of the world’s fastest developing economies.
Can you imagine how tough it must be to grow normal under the intense focus of six doting adults, who fulfill every wish before it is uttered? And indeed, China is saddled today with a generation of spoilt brats called “Little Emperors.” One sees them all around – brattish, self-centred and selfish, a generation focused on itself and caring little for others. Recently a study conducted by the ‘Science’ journal concluded that the Chinese single-child generation lacks entrepreneurial drive and the willingness to take risks. They are “significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk averse, less competitive, more pessimistic and less conscientious.”
Another negative impact has of course been female foeticide and the resultant skewed male-female ratio. According to one account there are 120 young men today for every 100 women – that makes it about 40 million men with poor marital prospects! Aware of their exclusivity, girls are playing hard to get and according to some media reports, parents of young girls have high expectations of their sons-in-law and are in some cases, also demanding dowry! A young girl’s much publicized recent confession on a television talk show says it all — “I would rather be crying in a BMW than laughing on a bicycle!” Young boys have started feeling the family pressure to get married and are disparagingly referred to as “bare branches” if devoid of love or fatherhood.
And if media reports are to be believed, China has started understanding and dealing with the disastrous impact of its one-child policy, despite the huge role it has played in the country’s economic miracle. Reportedly the new regime has started making moves to backtrack on the one-child policy in a phased manner.
In the meanwhile a notable sight in Beijing was a spattering of youngsters moving around with pollution masks and bottles of Evian or green tea. They are careful to eat only food that is imported and stay indoors on an especially polluted day, at a time when the Chinese are hugely concerned about pollution and food health hazards! ‘The Telegraph’ quotes Paul French, founder of Access Asia, a China-based research company, “They are ‘precious snowflakes’ wrapped in cotton wool from day one. Nothing is quite right for them. It is always either too hot or too cold and they are all hypochondriacs. They get immediately stressed out if they ever have to lift a finger.”
What will this do to the prototype hard-working, disciplined Chinese image? Indeed by 2050 China will be dealing with a generation whose average age will be 45 years! In such a scenario, with China losing its most precious commodity, a young, willing workforce, innovation and dynamism will soon be a thing of the past, wiping out the entire golden story of the rise of the Chinese dragon. Interestingly on the other hand, though India will be more populated than China by 2040, we will also be much younger. By 2020 India‘s average age will be 29, while China’s will be 37. China’s workforce will decrease by 5 percent in the next 20 years, while India’s will increase by 32 percent, according to a report.
And hence, despite China’s giant strides and India’s more modest growth in the recent past, the future could be more promising for us if only, as Shashi Tharoor never tires of saying, we can manage to ‘feed, house, clothe, educate and train these young people so that they can contribute to positive change rather than be embittered terrorists and rapists!
more pictures click here http://clubdesexymind.blogspot.com/2013/05/kores-nude-model-posing-naked-freelance.html
