I think growing up in China rather stained my outlook on humanity. At the age of two, I was innocent and content. Then, through the years, I grew less and less connected with humans and more and more content with the others. Stray dogs, mostly, were my joy for eleven years. Though through that I saw the horrors of the place I was in. I won't go into detail, but I assure you, China is much, much worse than what ads for Beijing vacations suggest. Yeah, I admit gladly that there are some places still that are like that. Xichang, my home from 2009 - 2013, in the middle of Sichuan, China, started off like that when I was there. You could actually see the mountains around you, unlike my time in Chengdu, where, even though I lived there for six years, I only saw the moon once, thanks to the pollution. And only after I moved back to America did I realize that the mountains were less than 10 miles from our last apartment there. Now, unfortunately, the pollution is so bad that I heard on the news that a lady said (and I do not quote because I don't remember exactly) "The air was so bad in the morning that I opened the windows." and I just remember thinking, 'Why? Why why why??' Because of all the factories (which by the way most are staffed, at least half, by either under-aged workers or severely over-worked women) there is sooooo much pollution that you can't even see the freakin' big building next to you. By the time we left our fifth-story apartment, I could barely see the people walking by below us. One of my only human friends worked at one of these factory places, she wasn't like, under-aged or anything, I think at the time she was just out of collage, but one of the things I remember being completely enraged about was her hours, I think they were around 12-14 hours long seven days a week. Ah, and there was also the complete rudeness of the people, most of them anyway. There were some nice ones, and I appreciated that very much, but still! And their driving habits were atrocious! You know how you have to test and study and stuff to get your drivers license? People get drivers licenses there by paying off the people that hand them out (without taking the test). In some extremely rare cases I imagine that people, good people, actually work to get their driver licenses, but seriously, if you saw the highways in Sichuan (at least there) you'd see that I was telling the truth. Well, I guess they could have changed in the two years I've been back, but I'd bet my life on the assumption that they haven't (but please don't come kill me if I'm wrong, ok?? Haha :) ). At one point, a little after we moved to Xichang, the government, or someone important, at least, decided to put in crosswalks (and traffic lights earlier, but I'll talk about that in a minute). I have no idea why because it made it more dangerous for pedestrians, and there we get to my main point about the crosswalks (and the traffic lights, I'm just adding that in, so keep that in mind). The white or yellow lines that indicate "walk across and cars will stop for you" in America apparently mean "Walk across and cars will speed up and run you over" in China. Seriously, like many things I do not doubt that this is better in some places, but at least the crosswalks I've seen were pretty much exactly like this. I get completely scared out of my pants when I cross roads, you're never sure if a car is going to stop for you or not. When I was in china, I got hit by many a car. Thankfully never hard enough to cause damage, but yeesh, still. Then again I get hit with a lot of huge stuff, so I think I just magically attract huge metal ramming things, so then if you come to china you might not have the less than good luck I had, but hey, I don't know for sure. So anyway, back to topic, crosswalks gave the false pretense that you could walk, but then to cars it just screamed "SPEED UP, SPEED UP!!!" so really it was a safety hazard. And now I come to the lights, finally. They (they are unknown people of importance) put in the traffic lights a LONG time before they put in the crosswalks, but they basically did the same thing. People who actually knew how to drive and cared about others' saftey would stop, usually, when the light was red or whatever, but then on the other hand, the people that didn't care about any of that and probably bought their license, would fly right on by, so all together, it wouldn't turn out well. An example is when I was sitting in my room, looking out the window (background is that they had just put in a new road behind our building and a new light, so it was kinda like the new highlight of that month... trying to count how many accidents there were that month. There were around 15, by the way) at the intersection and one car came from the West and one car came from the north and KWABAM!! High speed from different directions, ouch. And that happened A LOT. Many of the times the accident was also a hit ad run, or a hit. My mom didnt let me see those, but there were only like, two, in a month. One of the things that annoyed me most was the roads themselves. The manager or captain or whatever — the person calling the shots when they built a new road, would very often embezzle money from what the government gave them to build the road. Yeah, the roads would be nice and smooth for the first year or so, then they would start getting potholes...and cracks...and they would sometimes sink into the ground though I only saw that twice. Believe me, if you think the mountain roads here are rough, ride a mountain road in Xichang in a bread van, you'll never look at American roads the same. I don't even think they know what one of those dirt road smoother machines are. Okay and here's another thing. My parents work in villages, bringing water and stuff to them, but it really made me want to punch someone when we'd drive to a village or through one — realize first that what a poor village looks like is a bunch of packed mud, windowless huts, goats dilly-dallying on the side of the road, chickens everywhere, filthy starving children silently praying for food, a goose potentially chasing you (we call them the village police, they literally chase you if you speed, weirdos), basically brown EVERYWHERE. Oh, and dogs, can't forget them. But anyway, what I hate is when before officials or any government people come to inspect the village, they (again I'm not sure who) paint up all the buildings in the traditional colors of the culture, and I think they also give out some money for people to clean up, but I don't know. They basically dress everything up on the surface just for important people so they can get money and then spend it on drinks. Yeah, you know what I mean. In general, I guess it's not that bad, I mean, I get dressed up when my grandma ( <3 ) comes, but still, it really feels like an injustice. Yes, I know I said I don't much care for some humans, but as much as I dislike humans, I do have compassion, I'm not a total basket case after all. Well maybe I am, but that's not important. :) For now I think I will leave it at here, though there is much more to say. And I'm gonna say this again. This is only my point of view. I do not want you to come to me saying "Oh you're racist" blah blah blah unless you have experienced what I have. It's true, you might have a wonderful time in China if you visit, this place does have its perks, but tourists go to the Great Wall or somewhere nice and beautiful. They don't travel to the remote villages and cities and stay for 11 years among the chaos and the suffering. Do not judge me until you have learned for yourself the standpoint that I come from.
Yours truly,
TheYoungTraveler
