Elysium

Abandoning the Past

Posted by snow under Blog, china

China is an interesting place. Despite the modernity of Shanghai, or Beijing, its success is very much a modern phenomena. In the countryside where time passes more slowly, the traces of the old world have not completely given way to the new. Dig one or two generations back and an almost mystical world unravels itself, one without electricity, modern industry or concerns. Now, these relics and ways of life are slowly slipping away into history while the rest of the nation is focusing on the future.

When i was a child living in the countryside, not having electricity was the default state. There were so many brownouts, during the day that it could not be relied on for any part of our life. It was not uncommon for there to be no electricity for weeks or months. Bedtime was usually when it was too dark outside to do anything productive (8:30) and we owned no appliances. Nobody seemed to mind. We had a wood stove to cook food and on some days, the smoke from burning corn stalks would mask the courtyard like gunpowder flashes on a battlefield. I use to splash water into it and be chased away elsewhere to play. Everywhere in the house, there were strange devices of wood and bamboo that seldom saw use: a roomful of equipment for making cloth from cotton (something my dad told me took up the majority of a wife’s time), carpenter tools for making furniture, a chisel for printing ‘money’ to send to deceased family members. It was all strangely fascinating and i soaked in these sights without much appreciation or thought: they were just part of ‘life at grandpas’. When i go back now, i can hardly find any trace of that lifestyle. The ancient foyer table for the lord and lady of the house had been disassembled, the cotton weave burned, the carpenter tools sold, various homemade straw hats, mats, baskets being replaced by their modern counterparts. I was even hard pressed to find candles about the house. I look at the next generation and wonder: will they know what it was like to be Chinese then? will they ever understand the easy, agrarian lifestyle passed down for countless generations on which i was weaned?

China is very much a country of culture, ancient traditions and sights still dominate our lives. Yet, with today’s modernism and focus on material wealth, much of the joys and guidance our past offers us is disappearing. Many relics of thought and identity are lost to make way for progress. I can’t help but wonder, a hundred, five hundred, years from now, will they still understand what it means to be Chinese? what it is that we value? that we strive for? Perhaps this is the way it’s meant to be, the future should cannibalize the past to grow. I wonder how many in similarly old cultures hold similar thoughts.

::EDIT::
I’ve decided to at least pull my weight in preserving the past. I’ll put up pictures and blog posts about the little i know of this lifestyle.