Day 7: Rahiel Tesfamariam, DIV ’09
Xi’an and Shanghai, Tuesday, May 22

During breakfast this morning, many of us said our farewells to Dean Salovey and his wife. It was difficult to see them go, as one thing that has made the trip so memorable for many of us is the close engagement and familial interaction with Yale’s highest-ranking officials. As we stored our luggage in the hotel lobby and checked out of our rooms, it became very apparent that we were embarking upon the last leg of the trip and every moment was to be regarded as sacred.

Many of us had been waiting for the trip to the rural village with tremendous anticipation. Having experienced the best that China had to offer for the past week, we wanted to see what day-to-day life was like for those who did not have the fortune of benefiting directly from China’s urban renewal and economic growth. Our tour guide, Mr. Shang, told us that an alternative village called Bai Cun had been selected for our visit, as the original one’s roadside had been destroyed by natural disaster.

Vast farmland and a very basic infrastructure seemed to be the invisible line of demarcation separating urban from rural life. Our caravan of three coach buses, a media van, a police car and two SUV police escorts with flashing lights stood out like a sore thumb, as you can imagine. We moved with tremendous ease, which was drastically different from the bumper-to-bumper traffic we had grown accustom to in Beijing and the center of Xian. When Mr. Shang explained that the 900 million Chinese people living in the countryside enjoyed their simple, quiet lives, I understood why.

What I did not understand were the police officers who lined the roadside as our caravan drove along. I did not understand the crowds of villagers who stood outside of their homes to watch us pass by. While there were those who smiled and waved, the majority of them stared at us with blank faces. I wondered what was going through their minds. Who did they think we were? Did they think we were more important than we actually are? What right did we have to be spectators intruding on their reality?

As much as I wondered about the countless men, women and children who seemed paralyzed by the faces they saw through tinted windows, it was those who went on with business as usual that captivated me the most. What compelled them to continue working, playing chess, biking and walking along the roadside without looking up to make eye-to-eye contact? Here was a whole village standing still lifelessly, yet they seemed unmoved. Had life been that hard on them that they were unmoved by strangers or was their sense of fulfillment so deep that even curiosity could not budge them?

It was at this moment that Mr. Shang stated that the government was trying to encourage those in rural areas to take part in the urban renewal and to contribute to the local economy as migrant workers. He also explained that these rural areas were the most representative of Chinese family values in that you could find five generations living under one roof. This made me wonder if we represented change to these onlookers. Were we symbols of modernization and westernization that some embraced and others opposed?

Arriving at Bai Cun, we were greeted with banners and the sounds of drums. It was a lot to take in for many of us who felt welcomed but at the same time feared that we were invading a village’s intimate space. Entering homes and classrooms, I thought a lot about their tremendous sense of community and devotion to collective uplift. Hearing them speak of shared profits and coupling that with the image of many generations living under one roof, I reflected a lot on my own identity as an Eritrean American and the similarities I was finding in Chinese and African social norms. I wondered if we had more common than we knew and just needed to take the time to explore what that common ground is.

Later that evening, as we arrived in Shanghai and started making our way towards the hotel from the airport, I realized that capitalism undoubtedly shapes the lens that I use to view the world. The skyline along the Huangpu River resembled a sci-fi movie to me so futuristic that it made my identity as an American seem behind the times— almost primitive. Reflecting on the faces of the people of Bai Cun village, I wondered what it means to the fabric of society to have different worlds living within hours of one another, yet representing an infinite time gap. It seems one is grasping onto the past in hopes of preserving it and the other is reaching out towards the future in hopes of actualizing what seems impossible today.