Yeah, so I know that this is supposed to be a China blog, but since I’m not in China no more, I’m gonna have to turn this into a whatever blog until I return to the motherland.
It’s been almost a month and a half since I’ve been back to the states now. Back in that little city that never really changes. The day after I came back (I slept the entire first day and night), I went over to the shoreline that was near my house. It’s not those traditional sandy beaches that you imagine of California though. The shorelines in northern California are mostly rocky. The one near my house is half landfill and half wildlife preserve. I went there for a little run at 6am in the morning because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with my jet lag.
It was strange. My hometown has absolutely nothing of value. It has a BART station and a pair of freeways that run through it so most people have heard of my city though the only time they ever enter it is if they get off at the wrong stop or off ramp. The run to the shoreline showed that nothing really changed down that road since my grandpa took me to there when I was a kid to watch trucks pass by. The chop shops and junk yards lined one side of the street while clean and empty single storied office buildings sat on the other. Nothing changed except they pulled out a bunch of trees by the community college to make space for more classrooms.
So when I first got back, I couldn’t help but feel how primitive my hometown was. Where were all the bright lights and hip young people walking around with bursting wallets? Where were the cars, the hustle and bustle, and the life that existed in Beijing 24 hours a day? It was empty on the shoreline that day I went running except for some old man and his dog (which seemed to strengthen my belief that America had fallen far behind). The air was too clean and the sky too blue for there to be any evidence of proper industrialization. There were too few people around for there to be a sufficient market demand. There was too much nature and unchanging buildings for there to be signs of progress. It’s like I went from the 21st century in China to some sleepy pre-Colombian America where the people are still happily living slow lives with their animal companions while advanced peoples across the ocean were blasting people into space.
Of course none of that is true. Once I finished by run it was around 8am and there was the rush hour traffic spewing toxins into the air. I went to the City a few days later and there were those nice shiny buildings and fancy cars parked on the side of the road. I even found my way to Chinatown one day and lo and behold, there were people selling all sorts of goodness on the side of the streets.
I guess 10% GDP growth really is much faster than 3%. I’ve got mixed feelings about it now that I’m back. I miss the rapid change of Beijing, but at the same time I’m kind of glad that the swing that I used to play on back when I was in elementary school is still around. What we all need a perfect balance where the world we live in changes enough to be exciting while enough of the old remains so that we can remember where we came from. With that said, I have come to the conclusion that a 6.5% GDP growth rate per year, a number that is right in between the growth of China and America, would be best.
What can I say? I’m so prepared to take those graduate economics classes in a few weeks.
Stupid Pig's Part-Time China Blog 