中 VS. 日
Forget Godzilla VS. King Kong, Batman VS. Superman, Speedy Gonzales VS. The Roadrunner, or My Dad VS. Your Dad…Finally, the face-off of the century, the battle to end all battles, a bilateral bombastic bout – only one country can emerge victorious…Who will it be? - CHINA VERSUS JAPAN!!! Let’s GET IN ON!!!
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Pollution & Grime:
A fun fact for your next dinner party is that of the world’s ten most polluted cities, seven of them are located in China. As an asthmatic, I only assumed that I would collapse dead of an attack the minute I got of the plane in Beijing. To be fair, this category is really a non-competition. I have not visited another society where people hand pickup litter and wash the streets every morning as they do in Japan. Japan also leads the world in smart energy consumption and environmentally conscious manufacturing. While Beijing was certainly dirtier than Kyoto, it did not seem any worse off than large American cities such as DC or L.A. The only place where I truly felt the pollution in Beijing was Tiananmen Square. Here, upon exiting the cab, you were enveloped in dreamlike a white smog. This smog is the reason why there are no pictures from Tiananmen Square on my blog. After a while, my eyes started to sting. My friends and I took refuge in an underground passageway. As we were ascending from the underground passage, there was a point where we were still halfway below ground but couldn’t see any of your surroundings above ground. This precise moment felt like you were enclosed in a sensory deprivation chamber of smog.
WINNER: China
Crowds:
As with pollution, I had the preconception that I would become entangled in a wild flailing mass of fleshy limbs if I dared walk the Beijing streets. This proved not to be the case. While China is currently the most populous country in the world with over 1.3 billion people, it sure doesn’t feel like it. Beijing felt like an airport in the early morning. The key to China’s spacious feel is an abundance of land. You don’t feel nearly as packed and cramped in China. The streets are wide, and you can get to where you want to go easily by foot (if you’re not killed by a “street killer” that is). In addition, where Japan has used virtually every ounce of its inhabitable space (there is still a fair amount of mountainside space available however, but Japanese laws prevent it from being developed), China has just begun its modern metropolitan development. I spotted Beijing city busses that were as crowded as the ones I ride in Kyoto. Also, The Great Wall was jammed packed with people, but that’s to be expected from the nation’s premiere tourist attraction.
WINNER: Japan
Prostitution:
One on night I ventured one block from our hotel to a shop that sold pirated DVDs. During this one block walk, I was approached by six different prostitutes. They would come up to me and say, “I’ll come up to your room” or “I’ll give you a massage big boy.” These ladies, many of which stood right outside my hotel, started screaming prices at me as I walked. It seems like I could have gotten laid for as little as $20. Japan has its fair share of “soap shops” and escort services as well if you know where to look. It only takes a stroll down a certain street in downtown Kyoto to see Japanese pimps at work. Unlike the American variety, Japanese pimps where black suits and earpieces as opposed to fuzzy hats and bling. Occasionally they will hand you a slip of paper and say “Hey, where you from?” Chinese pimps and prostitutes have a much better command of the English language which is better for business.
WINNER: China
Food:
My classmates gobbled up the meat buns, shumai, and other assorted Chinese dishes with huge smiles on their faces while I longed for sashimi and tempura. Chinese food in Beijing was dirt cheap – for instance, 10 meat buns would run you about a dollar, set meals at McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken were two dollars, and you could eat with your friends at a sit down restaurant and not spend more than five dollars each. This is compared to Japan where, unless you eat every meal at the convenience store, you can easily spend $20-30 for a small plate of sushi. The key difference however is that the quality range of the Chinese food you will get for $2 is huge. While in Beijing, my friends and I ate in a dumpling restaurant chain (there are stores throughout Asia and in North America as well) that was billed as one of the top ten restaurants in the world. While this accolade was an overstatement, the soup filled pork dumplings that gushed like geysers when you bit into them were delicious. We also went to the most famous Beijing Peking Duck restaurant and the gourmet food there was also wonderful. However, I also ate at sit down restaurants with friends where the cold congealed chicken and grisly chunks of darkened meat were uneatable. Also marring my Chinese food experience was the fact that nine times out of ten I got severe stomach pain several hours after eating anything in China. I still have lingering stomach pain as I write this blog entry.
WINNER: Japan (though I am biased, food is a personal preference)
Weather:
The weather in China was usually scorching hot: 95 – 105 degrees to be exact. It poured buckets of rain with thunder and lightening while we were in Beijing. Currently in Japan it is “tsuyu” or the rainy season, so I see much of the same in the land of the rising sun. It is currently hovers around 80 – 90 degrees everyday with a high level of humidity.
WINNER: Tie
Shopping:
You come to China to shop. From videogames, to electronics, designer fashion, to human organs, you can find just about anything you want in China (and chances are it is all fake). It is a general rule that you can haggle for anything in China – though if you try to go into the real boutiques and do so, they will ask you to leave. It is also a rule that everyone has something to sell you – from the innocent looking lady on the corner who is ready to shove a “genuine” leather wallet under your nose for a whiff, to the little kid who really wants to sell you the half-melted pond water popsicle he cooked up this morning, everyone is a salesman. Vendors in China are aggressive! Especially if you look fat, jolly, and white as I do, you will get physically assaulted by these vendors. Some women will put their arm around you and touch your stomach to get a sale– I call these ones the “lovers.” Others grab onto your wrist and pull you with all their might over to the booth – I call these ones the “fighters.” Others still will follow you for blocks, shoving fake DVDs in your face or opening and closing a shoddy briefcase filled with Folex Watches – I call these ones the “shadows.” All the vendors have a superior command of English than just about any Japanese salesperson I have ever met. This is because in China, they really want your money. Vendor’s utterances include:
“Hey sir, hey sir, come over here and take a look sir”
“I make you best deal my friend. Sir...PLEASE!”
“You show me final price, we end this now”
“What, you think I’m stupid? I go out of business!”
WINNER: China (you can’t shop this well anywhere else!)
Regular People:
Not being able to speak Chinese, I can’t really judge the character of the people I encountered. I will say however that I found most people (as long as they weren’t beggars, prostitutes, or salesmen) to be very nice and helpful, considering the fact that I was a foreigner who knew absolutely nothing. Staff members and restaurant employees I encountered were all very gracious hosts. The Beijing University students I met also seemed very bright and outgoing. While I disagreed with their adamant and vocal support of the Communist Party, they were very outspoken nonetheless. While many, myself included, would say that Japanese people wrote the book on being overly polite and accommodating, the Chinese people I met were no slouches by any means. In a sense, it was refreshing that, compared to the often silent and shy Japanese, Chinese people served as the exact opposite in personality– loud, abrasive, and direct.
WINNER: I can’t judge – ask me when I can speak Chinese and actually connect with people.
Atmosphere:
When you walk near any official government buildings or tourist attractions, you immediately see armed guards. The People’s Liberation Army marches down the street chanting each night. For sure, the overall atmosphere in China was very different from that in Japan. I never felt particularly unsafe in China, rather, there was always the sinking feeling that because I was a white tourist, everyone was trying to take me for a ride. In Japan you don’t have to check for your wallet every block, nor do you worry that your cab driver will lock the doors and refuse to let you out unless you pay him “60 American dollars.” These types of things mar the Chinese atmosphere in my opinion.
WINNER: Japan
Beer:
Tsingtao is a good beer - it is crisp and tastes a lot like Corona. I’m sure there are other varieties of delicious Chinese beer as well, but I didn’t get a chance to sample them. For sheer variety (and by this I mean three types – four if you count Suntory), I have to give this to Japan.
WINNER: Japan (please refer to my post “Kanpai” for more about Japanese drinking culture)
Money:
I pulled out an American $10 bill the other day and marveled at how small it looked. I had been staring at the novelty sized Japanese bills (nearly a quarter sheet of paper in size) for so long. Chinese bills are just as big as Japanese ones. Unlike Japanese bills, which feature different intellectuals, Chinese money all features the same picture of Chairman Mao in different colors (I think you can make a rainbow if you collect them all). I love currency systems that utilize high denomination coins such as Japan and Canada. Whenever I pop a 500 Yen ($5) coin into a vending machine, it feels like I’m spending no money at all. Because Chinese goods are cheap, you often need a stack of Chinese money to buy something. This is especially true for really cheap food below 10 Kwai (the exchange rate was 8 Kwai to the Dollar). Since the Chinese currency system doesn’t really utilize coins, you have to pay in one Kwai bills that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
WINNER: Japan
People in Need of Help:
Homelessness is a rising problem in Japan. Nowadays you see homeless people sleeping in the major train stations. Osaka Park has one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in all of Japan. Even Kyoto’s own Kamo River features makeshift box houses with blue tarps over them underneath each major bridge. All this said however, there is still no comparison with China. When you arrive at the Beijing International Airport and take a taxi ride to your Landmark Hotel past the new buildings being constructed for the 2008 Summer Olympics, you find yourself thinking of the phrase “developing nation” with disbelief. I had a similar feeling when I visited the resort areas in southern Mexico. However, with only a short 10-minute cab ride out of the city, you come face to face with extreme poverty.
Even without seeing the collapsing public housing and dirt streets as I did, you always feel poverty’s presence. Beggars roam the Beijing streets – they are crying children, people with pets, the elderly, and cripples. Especially if you are white, they approach you, hit their cup against your thigh and (in the case of children) begin to cry, or (in the case of adults) repeat the word “money” over and over again. When you are told that impoverished Chinese families can live on the equivalent of one dollar a day, you find yourself wanting to help everyone who asks for money – but this is impossible.
The theme of our academic conference was, “China and its Role in the 21st Century.” There is a lot of talk recently (especially in America) about China as the new Japan, thanks to the country’s recent astonishing economic growth rate (though nowhere near Japan’s level in the post war era). According to TIME Magazine, perhaps we should all learn Chinese and stock up on red-colored clothing. This is a misnomer. Japan is the second largest economy in the world behind the United States. Chinese GDP is growing rapidly – true – however, per capita GDP is still drastically low when compared to the world standards of the U.S. and Japan. While the Chinese government continues to funnel money into manufacturing and R&D, the problem remains that the overwhelming majority of Chinese people live in extreme poverty and have no quality of life. Add this to human rights violations and problems with pollution and the environment and it becomes clear that China has a long way to go. This is not to say that China is not making significant progress as a developing nation – it is – but, I don’t believe we will see a China on par with the United States and Japan in my lifetime unless significant advancements are made for the Chinese people – the ones who really matter.
WINNER: China
Scary Transportation:
“Street killers,” as our Great Wall tour guide told us jokingly, are anyone with a driver’s license in China. One of my Stanford friends kept telling me that every time you make a U-turn in a Beijing taxicab, you have a fifty percent chance of getting hit. It is a very interesting feeling to put your life in someone else’s hands. I lost count of how many times I should have died while riding in Chinese public transportation. I experienced everything from cab drivers smoking and spitting in the car, to drivers stopping and leaving their vehicles - refusing to drive any farther. One cab driver started screaming and fighting with another guy, while, on another trip, the driver had a broken fare meter and tried to charge us $15 dollars upon exiting (we knew how much the ride should cost, so we left the appropriate money and ran). Just like in Las Vegas, no one obeys any sort of pedestrian traffic laws in Beijing. People jaywalk a lot in Japan too, but it is nowhere near the same. Lots of people still ride bicycles in China, but unlike in Japan where it seems to work okay (albeit very frightening), in China bikes weave in between cars and routinely cause near-accidents.
Winner: China (buckle up and get ready to scream!)
Sightseeing:
The Great Wall was nice. The Summer Palace was overrated in my opinion. Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City were enveloped in eye-burning killer smog. Beijing University was a nice tour of identical looking concrete buildings with a lake smack dab in the middle. All in all, the temples, shrines, and historical districts you can visit in Kyoto alone (not to mention the rest of Japan) beat the pants off of Beijing’s major tourist attractions.
Winner: Japan
China: 5
Japan: 6
Tie: 2
WINNER: JAPAN!!!
B.E.W.
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