I haven't written in a very long time. Getting home, and Christmas combined with various birthdays and get togethers with aging relatives and funerals has taken up much energy and time. Now I have been home from China for almost three weeks, but in some ways it feels like much much longer. After I got back from Chengdu, I was caught up in a whirlwind of packing, which was basically trying to get all of the odd shaped things I had acquired (read: 2 erhus) into my two small suitcases, see more of Beijing--I ended up going to this very odd national minorities amusement park, it was about 20 degrees and my roommate and I were practically the only people there, it was odd to see a fake Lhasa built in the suburban wastes of Beijing, but only dubiously worth the 1 1/2 bus ride to get there, and grapple with a goodbye case of food poisoning (of course, two nights before I left, I would have to spend it at the toilet), as well as deal with a new, temporary, and completely shocked Korean roommate. When I unlocked the door to my room, she was in the bathroom, and I don't know who was more surprised, I suppose the Chinese desk attendents were laughing over their little prank. Luckily, she was extremely gracious about it.
Now that I am back, and people have been asking me all about my stay, some things really strike me. Perhaps the biggest is, almost 30 years after his death, the role that Mao plays in Chinese life. His policies are moribund and no one would deny the follies of the great leap forward or the cultural revolution (party line is now that Mao was 30% wrong and 70% right, whatever that means). Instead, from the very small and superficial observations I made, he seems to live on as a cross between grandfather and minor deity. On the train, I was awakened at 7 am with lights on and "thoughts from Chairman Mao" broadcast over the speakers. In an upscale bookstore, for 1,000 kuai (120 dollars) I could buy the anniversary commemorative set of Chairman Mao's poetry, or if that was unaffordable, there was always the "Grandpa Mao" book for only about 30 kuai (3.50). I don't know what it means, or even if my observations carry any weight whatsoever, but to me, I wonder how Mao, or Marxism for that matter, will fare in a country that is striving to make itself into the next economic and global superpower.
