| I’ve now been back for around a week and a half. I’m
pretty surprised at how long it took to get all these journal entries
edited and typed in. I still haven’t even started working with all
the pictures I took.
 Well, now that I’ve been back so long, I suppose this last entry
should be about reflection. What did I learn? What have I gained? How
am I different? These are difficult questions to answer, and maybe I would
be able to answer them better after a long time, like a year or two. But
I know that you all don’t want to wait that long, so I’ll
write what I can now.
To tell the truth, “summing up” my experience, or eloquently
putting together all the “wisdom” I’ve gained, is a
bit of an intimidating task. I feel like I should be a bigger, wiser,
more worldly person after having been on this trip. But it looks like
I’m still just me. I do know more than when I left. I guess I have
an increased perspective. But these kinds of advantages are hard to feel
in your daily life. I’ve gone back to being who I was before the
trip, and doing the things I did before the trip. The trip didn’t
make me into a new man. But that’s okay. I’m not - and would
never - say that the trip wasn’t worth it. It was. I saw pieces
of history I had no idea that I was missing. I was at that second level
of unawareness – the one where you don’t even know that you
don’t know something. But now… I know. I guess that’s
where the change in me has occurred. I have the knowledge and memories
of what I did. And I guess I now have this journal to remind me when I
forget stuff, which will inevitably happen.
I wonder if people expect me to have a new perspective on Shanghai.
I think some do. Well, I do, in a way. I wouldn’t say it’s
a *better* perspective on Shanghai, but it is different. I have seen cities
and people much like what Shanghai probably was and had maybe ten years
ago. But that’s not a completely accurate statement, either. Shanghai
*still is* those places and *still has* those people. The pigeon guy exists
somewhere in Shanghai, for sure. The difference is that here in Shanghai,
because of the advantages given to me in my life, and because of the high
degree of class separation, I rarely rub elbows with those people or spend
time in those places around here. I can’t say that, in terms of
degree of civilization, Shanghainese people have “progressed beyond”
the civilization of people in northwest China. I can only say that *some*
Shanghainese have progressed beyond that point. But, I can also say that
some people in northwest China have already progressed past many Shanghainese
in that aspect, despite the lack of metropolis city surroundings. When
I think about it, if I were to choose between meeting someone who was
open-minded but who was just uneducated, and another person who was educated,
but very close-minded, I’d almost always choose the first one, unless
there was something really special about the close-minded one. I guess
the end conclusion is the same one I always make. I’m kind of tired
of reaching this conclusion, but the more times I reach it, the more likely
it’s right, and I suppose that’s good. It works like this:
Whenever I start a thought process in my head or a conversation about
comparing people from place A and place B or people of this race with
that race, I always seem to end up thinking that it really doesn’t
matter what group of people you look at, you will always have around the
same ratios of thoughtful, scared, jealous, hard-working, strict, criminal,
mature, friendly, or whatever other sub-group of societal members you
could come up with. People just end up being people. I just have to do
my best to find the good ones wherever I am, and ignore the bad ones,
however hard that may be – due to their numbers or the fact that
I’m sitting next to them on a bus.
Anyway, I think that’s just about enough reflection. If I keep
going, I might get caught up, and make you spend even more time thinking,
“WHEN IS THIS JOURNAL GOING TO END????” Soon, soon. There
are only a few things I’d like to mention before I finish.
 ” What would I have done differently?” - Well, lets see…
I wouldn’t have gone for that 4 day / 3 night trip to Heavenly Lake.
I think one or two nights up there is plenty. And I could have probably
achieved the important parts of that portion of the trip without going
through Mark Zhong, who proved to be a bit of an anticlimactic find. Especially
now that I’ve been there once and seen how things work, getting
guides and horses and yurts to stay in would be very easy. With the extra
couple of days that could have given me, I would have taken a train to
Kashgar. It is the westernmost big city in Xinjiang, and China. It is
said to be one of the places least like the rest of China, and most like
the Middle East. Osman from Turpan told me that if I went there, the frequency
of people mistaking me for Uyghur would increase greatly. That the southeast
Xinjiang Uyghurs had changed in general appearance over a couple hundred
years, now looking a little more toward the Han, Tibetans, and Mongolians.
He said my appearance much more resembles the western Xinjiang Uyghurs.
As enjoyable as it had been to be mistaken for an Uyghur by Uyghurs in
places like Turpan, I’m sure it would be even MORE enjoyable if
it happened more often…
”How much did this cost you?” - Well, my total expenses
were 10,637 Chinese Yuan (or RMB), which is not quite 1300 US dollars.
This includes my airfare from Shanghai to Urumqi and from Lanzhou back
to Shanghai, and my 3800 RMB trip to the Heavenly Mountains arranged through
Mark Zhong. If you don’t count those expenses, if you just count
the expenses I had on the road from things like hotel, to ground transportation,
to food, the total was 3817 RMB or 462 dollars. That works out to about
300 RMB or 36 dollars a day. Not too bad. If I adjusted my trip according
to what I said in the previous “what would I change” paragraph,
the total cost probably would have come out to be about 8050 RMB or 975
dollars for EVERYTHING. Once again, I’d say that’s not too
bad for a 17-day trip.
”Do you think you’ll ever go back?” - Hrrm. I don’t
know. I would certainly like to someday. But the problem is that world
is full of wonderfully interesting places that I haven’t been to,
places which are once again and maybe even more so “different than
what I know”. Undoubtedly, there are an infinite number of places
that I don’t even know that I don’t know about. Which is a
good segue for:
”Will you go anywhere else soon?” - Um, does visiting my
homes in the US count? I don’t think so. So, the answer is –
maybe. I have promised to go with my dad to Tibet sometime soon, maybe
in the next year or two. That would very likely prove to be a worthwhile
and fascinating trip. Or perhaps I’ll make a jaunt over to Vietnam
sometime soon. That would be novel, don’t you think, Ashley?
Anyway, I think I’m out of possible FAQ questions. If you do actually
have some questions for me, feel free to contact me and ask them, and
perhaps I’ll post them up here if it seems like something people
would want to know.
I want to thank a few people before I forget. I want to thank Ed and
Li Jun for giving me light by which to write this journal, and to see
things in dark caves and hotel rooms when there was no electricity. I
want to thank Michael Freels for giving me hand-warmers that kept me from
shivering when I had a fever from my food poisoning. Also, to Michael
Connolly putting together Shanghaiexpat.com, which has been extremely
valuable to me both in terms of planning my trip and posting this log,
and in terms of my getting by in Shanghai in general. But the most thanks
goes to my dad for suggesting that I take this trip, giving me so much
support in planning it, and giving me the opportunity period.
Oh, and of course, You. Thank you very much for reading my journal.
I honestly appreciate it. In some respects, my weblog here is for my own
good, so that I can remember as much about this trip as possible. I didn’t
buy one souvenir on this trip. I’ve had trips like that, and you
always end up forgetting the significance of the thing you bought, or
you lose it, or it gets stuffed in storage somewhere, rarely to be looked
at, if ever. But these things that I have written are my own words, and
as I re-read them, I’ll be able to remember exactly where I was
sitting when I wrote something, or a detail that I wanted to write, but
was too tired for at the time. This is probably the best way I can think
of to remember my experience. Well, that and pictures of course, but I’ll
get to work on those soon.
Nonetheless, the weblog is also for the benefit of other people, and
my desire to share, or I wouldn’t be putting it on the web, right?
And when people read the log and give me comments or simply tell me that
they read it, it helps to make all the work feel like it was worth it.
Thanks again, and a sail full of forward winds to you (一帆风顺).
Jeremy
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