---It
was a month I will not forget. From June 1st through June
30th I had an amazing opportunity to visit China and spend
time with other engineering and hydrology students from
around the world for a conference focusing on China's water
resources and culture. The conference was sponsored by the
Department of International Cooperation in Science and Technology
of China's Ministry of Water Resources and the Nanjing Hydraulic
Research Institute (NHRI).
I was selected to attend through World
CARP, which is an international student organization geared
toward making a positive difference in families, schools,
nations and the world through living for the sake of others.
It was through World CARP that my friend Kenji Toyomura
met Dr. Hu Shaowei of Northwestern University, who is
currently a departmental head at the NHRI. Through Kenji
and World CARP, Dr. Hu made many lasting friendships while
he was away from his native China pursuing postdoctoral
work, and saw on a small scale the joy created by a global
family that lives for the sake of others. It is on that
foundation of prior international friendship in America
that I was able to visit China with several other members
of World CARP.
Culture and the People
I apologize that I am not able to fully
convey everything I experienced to those not from China.
I was deeply moved by so many of the people I met and
witnessed while in the orient. In general the Chinese
people work very hard, even those with the most humble
jobs. On Nanjing's streets I saw people everywhere, buying
and selling goods, rushing here and there, and even many
women were involved in constructing city sidewalks and
infrastructure. As far as work was concerned, women could
do anything men could, and vice versa. Even though I don't
speak Chinese I wanted to talk to these people on the
streets just to find out more about the lives they lived.
I assumed that the majority of Chinese
were kind people based on the many Chinese friends I have
in the United States, so I was not surprised to encounter
the same kindness and sincerity in others while visiting.
From what I was told and witnessed, there is very little
violent crime in China's cities. Even when my friends
in a small group visited an old part of Nanjing late at
night to see several historical buildings, the people
they met was a family that opened their home and hearts
to spend time with them. To see the smiles of the little
kids held by "foreigners" fills me with hope
that different peoples really can make a global family
divided neither by race nor creed.
Normally you associate meeting such
friendly people on the street with small towns in America,
but even in a city as large as Nanjing I saw that many
people were very friendly toward each other. I think this
is indicative of the Chinese concept of family, a view
that embraces people beyond blood ties. Countless times
my Chinese friends spoke of their brothers and sisters
in conversation, not that their families are exceptions
to China's one child policy but instead referring to their
close friends. I honestly believe that attitude is largely
the result of the Confucian values that guided China for
thousands of years.
While most Chinese may say they don't
believe in religion, I saw many Chinese pray to Buddha
and their ancestors and live by Confucian values, and
there are even a growing number of Muslims and Christians
in the country.
One area where Chinese people especially
express a lot of their heart is through the dinner table.
At first I was not happy that so much food was repeatedly
wasted on conference participants, as many in this world
do not have enough food to eat. Yet I discovered that
the Chinese have such a deep desire to make their guests
feel welcome that they do not mind going to extremes with
food and drink at the dinner table, even when there isn't
so much food available or it is very expensive. I learned
that this tradition dates back many years to times when
many Chinese did go hungry and people would greet each
other with the phrase "Ni hao ma" which then
meant "Have you eaten?" After learning these
things I understood a lot more just how much warmth our
hosts at the NHRI not only expressed toward us, but to
the nations from which we came.
Despite some of the negative things
I've heard and read about China while in the United States,
I am simply enamored with the country and the people who
live there. Being able to experience Chinese culture for
one month helps me appreciate many aspects of American
culture while also seeing areas that can be improved.
I also realize that there is a lot of correspondence between
the two cultures as both Chinese and Americans work hard
but also have a lot of fun. While the customs of two nations
may be different, I see that love is something that all
people relate to. After all, people are essentially the
same without regard to appearance or anything else.
As an elder once told me, people wake
up in the morning either happily or unhappily, go to a
job that they either enjoy or don't, and so on. Of course
this is true. Once you get past differing cultures and
languages, you find that all people share a lot in common.
Science: Another Universal Language
One of the bigger culture shocks I experienced
while in China was the degree of modernization the country
has undergone. While touring the facilities at NHRI I
was amazed that despite the difference in language and
culture, alot of the testing and modeling apparatuses
were similar to that used in western countries. For some
reason I expected to find relatively primitive equipment
and technology, yet the biggest difference I found between
the technology used in the United States and China is
that United States makes a much greater monetary investment
in equipment than China.
In fact, science and mathematics was
one of the few things that I did understand while working
in NHRI's Geotechnical Engineering Department. In spite
of being in a foreign environment and feeling a little
homesick, through understanding my mentor's project and
being able to do the statistical analysis needed to calibrate
equipment I felt right at home. Science really is a universally
spoken language that not only helped make the conference
possible in the first place, but I see that it can also
go a long way in bringing people together for the good
of all mankind.
Final Thoughts
China is a rapidly changing country.
Within 100 years it has gone from a Confucian society,
to Communist, to a consumer society. While I know that
tensions remain between the United States and China over
Taiwan, my experience makes me hope that we can find peaceful
resolutions to such problems in the world. I believe that
this trip goes a long way to help make such peace a reality.
It was beautiful to see people from many different nations
and even religious backgrounds become such close friends.
Pictures may be worth a thousand words,
but I don't think they can really describe how close friendships
become after spending a whole month with others from Africa,
Asia, Europe, and America. I can honestly say that I had
false ideas and prejudices about what certain people are
like, but I surmounted many of them through building friendships
and seeing others for who they really were. Unfortunately
many people do not relate to others simply because they
are different. I hope that through the presence of each
conference participant many people could see others for
their inner qualities rather than their outer. For making
this experience possible I am very grateful to NHRI, specifically
NHRI President Dr. Zhang Ruikai, Dr. Hu Shaowei, Mr. Ge,
Ms. Sun, Ms. Chen, and the Chinese government.
It is sad to leave China and all of
my newly found friends behind, but I have all of them
with me in my pictures, my memories, and my heart. This
is a small world, made even smaller through such exchanges
and by the Internet. My home is the entire world: not
a house, not a nation; and my family is the people who
live there.
--Blake Poland is a senior Mechanical
Engineering student at the University of Maryland
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?tab=weblogs&user=i_am_blake&uid=321851999
(2005-08-08)
