We are the Middle Kingdom: China

On March 12, China commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake that proved to be a wake-up call not only on China as a country but also of the Chinese people as a worldwide community responding as one and in kind, and more importantly, of China as a grateful and accountable recipient of the care of an incipiently compassionate global community.

In a televised day-long festivity in Sichuan, a we-are-the-world like ambience and consciousness-raising fest that was phenomenologically religious in construct and tone (in Christian liturgy, confession-praise-and-dedication, or in secular dramaturgy, reality confrontation-situational challenge-ethical demand) saw familiar TV personalities leading a memorial of the innocent suffering inflicted by nature’s tremors on a region and a people, and the heroic responses of groups and individuals, civic, public and private, within and without the affected areas.

In a ritual reminiscent to this observer to the evangelistic fervor of Protestant Church revivals, the nation took stock of where it has been, where it is at, and where it is going, taking a solemn quarter day to resolve that henceforth, they would care for each other as they had done shortly after the awesome visitation of devastation, completion, finality, and death.

Of course, things Chinese had come to preoccupy this paper’s attention of late, and seemingly, this island’s awareness for this past few years. Saipan Tribune columnist Ed Stephens Jr. discovered China 24/7 in Shenzhen; intent in shifting some of that yuan to his side of the ledger though for all his practical concerns on language and culture, he would not cross the Hanzi line. Kristi Eaton magnetically floated along Shanghai’s high-tech environs and viewed the Great Wall, if I recall right. Most recently, Walt F. J. Goodridge, our Jamaican Saipanpreneur, found himself a novelty in Yuyuan’s garden and the watery surroundings of Suzhou of the moon-faced ladies, and Hangzhou of the tranquil lakes neighboring Shanghai.

Perry Tenorio, of course, is holding the assumption held by the previous Commonwealth administration and continuing with the current one, that the visitors’ industry could be served well with nurturing our relationships with China and Russia, and has brought the images of the relatively pristine condition of the island’s environment to the attention of travel agents up and down the eastern Asian continental corridor. Peripatetic Saipan Mayor Juan Tudela keeps establishing sister city relationships with many places including those in China. So we have not been short of imaginal chow mein on our mental diet lately.

Unspoken, though previously revealed in such bumper sticker as “I brake for garment factory worker,” is the underlying prejudice toward the enigma of the non-communicative children of the Manchu and the Han, the Qin and the Zhou, who live on our shores and shop in our mom-and-pop stores. More recently, they seem to be hanging out in limbo waiting for the judgment on their fate as island residents when the federalized administration of immigration takes effect.

I remember last year mid-July staying in a rundown, relatively inexpensive out-of-the-way hotel in rapidly modernized Po Dong across the river from historic Shanghai Po Xi (east of the river) unable to proceed with a planned trip to Chengdu and Chungking due to the restrictions on foreigners in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquakes. Add the sudden national interest then in the upcoming Beijing Olympics 2008 in August and all the rails that lead to Beijing were overly congested. Security-conscious Zhong Guo (China) clamped on local travel and though facial features make it easy for me to blend with the woodwork, my camera and laptop were an easy giveaway that I was a stranger in a foreign land, not a very welcome sight to ardent Zhang Fu (Communist Party government) apparatchiks!

This mid-May day past the revered and valued five-labor-day holidays in this land of Mao’s emancipated peasants, images of the aftermath of the tremors of May 2008 dominates the airwaves, digitized and otherwise. The proverbial sleeping giant astride like a chicken with its head abut the Chao Xian (Korean) peninsula, and its feathery hinds, the Himalayan range of Xizhang (Tibet), its peh peh (tail) on the famed Silk Road through the Gobi desert by Urumqi (pronounce, uh-rooh-ma-chee) in the far West, is realizing that it has become, next to its former nemesis the United States, the second largest economy in the world surpassing its trading partner and defense-reflexive neighbor, Japan.

Continuing a rather complicated but engaging personal “mission of mercy” that saw me a fortnight ago in New York City, I find myself watching this national interplay of song-dance-speeches, and more songs, in the Hanggu District of Shengyang, northeast province of Liaoning, in China’s fourth largest city behind Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. I am here to secure passage for a Chinese citizen to visit her Mei Guo (Gringo) husband confined in New York City.

Alighting from a Northwest flight from Tokyo in the midst of the swine flu scare that strained Mexican-Chinese relationship over the cancellation of flights to Mexico and the quarantine of Mexico-originating passengers in Beijing, I was looked at with some interest when I indicated that I was recently in the Big Apple within the last 10 days. Not exhibiting any symptoms other than the devilish malice of coughing to attract official attention so that one can be pulled off the long queue, I managed to exit the new Beijing terminal to the welcoming sight of a prominently neon-lighted penta-circles aloft the capital city’s skies.

Deciding to be on a retreat mode, given that I have time (got a window of opportunity to chat with a Consular officer in Shengyang for three minutes this coming Thursday between 4pm to 5pm), I become a traveler (as opposed to a gawking tourist), a participant observer in this Shaoling-steeped region of the country that is also a center of rapid industrialization and modernization that obviously is a rich fodder for further reflection by this writer from a little island currently struggling with its paradoxical affinity and disdain to things Chinese.

But for now, it is China in the limelight, on the other side of the Sichuan Basin earthquake tragedy, into a risen emergent new life from the grave, for indeed, from the ashes the fenghuang (Phoenix) will rise!

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[I] Vergara is a regular contributor to the[/I] Saipan Tribune’[I]s Opinion Section
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