No, no, CHINA, not Mexico...

This is going to be a bit of whining, so bear with me.
I just found out that we will be staying at a particular hotel in DongGuan when I am there for work in a few weeks. I am on the edge of seriously wishing I wasn't going on account of these accommodations! Why? Is the hotel so bad? Is it dirty? Is it in a bad location? Well, no, no and yes. But not in the way you might think. this is a 4 or 5 star hotel- beautiful, lovely, and set in a resort type setting right smack in the middle of a giant golf course. I've stayed there before and as the website promises, it has "Elegance, superb service and refined atmosphere." In other words, it looks like a western style resort. It has great western style food and even an Argentinian bbq and a beautiful pool. So why am I complaining?

Because when I go to China, I want to GO TO CHINA. I don't want to go to a resort that could be in Nevada or Mexico or Tahiti and look exactly the same- I want to go to CHINA. "MY China" as Maddie calls it. And I like to think, a little tiny tiny bit My China too. The China I love is loud and busy, it's dusty and continually being swept, it has stray dogs and street vendors, mini altars in backs of stores and children in their school clothes walking hand in hand down the street. It has all sorts of smells but mostly a thick, humid, slightly oil-like, slightly incense like smell of CHINA. It has elderly people playing mahjong on the street and kids doing homework in their parents shops, shopkeepers smoking in doorways, moms chatting in the street and tea merchants pouring tea for friends and customers- cars racing around corners and people of all kinds crossing carefully between cars. The China I love is also quiet and peaceful and made of small villages where generations have raised their children into adulthood- where the mountain raises up behind the temple wall and you can see an ox being butchered in the market and fresh potatoes frying in a wok, and the candly apple man walking with his mini candy apples on a stick. Where you walk by a loud and smoky internet cafe and past a little restaurant with just a single person eating a bowl of spicy noodles and onto the market that is bustling with people and eggs of all colors for sale and vegetables of all varieities and chinese medicine of all kinds. The China I love is all of these things- but in no way is it a completely westernized golf course with a luxury hotel set in the middle of it, behind a big gate, far from the real city and the real people.

So why am I complaining? Because this, this hotel that we will be in all week, to me, is not China. It symbolizes all things western. When I tell my daughter about China, I don't tell her "Hey there's a McDonald's!" I tell her "There is a beautiful temple with a pagoda so tall it looks like it reaches to the heavens." and "you can't believe how sweet the fruit is in china!" - I don't tell her "it's just like here!" because it's not- it's it's own special place and to not acknowledge that would be to diminish what is special about it.

Do I think China is perfect? No. But I also don't think the US is perfect. We all have our flaws. China could put a little more empahasis on environmental controls. Why is the birth defect rate so high? Because Americans want things cheap for our disposable economy. "Cheap" often means "poor quality" and "poor quality materials" and often "polluting"- but that is another post entirely. Americans could put more emphasis on family and less on TV watching & video games and the whole idea of entitlement. The fact is, there are a lot of things that can change about both countries. But that's not what this is about. This is about "where am I going?" And unfortunately, I might as well say "Mexico", because this "resort" is little different than a 5 star resort you'd find in Mexico. I would stay in a lower quality hotel in a heartbeat, as long as it meant I was "IN" China.

I might be in the minority here, but THAT is the China I like to visit.