East meets West: More than Meets the Eye

A few years ago I took a class after a 6 week visit to China that further piqued my interest in the region: East Asian Politics. In a Westernized world, Asia is a bit of a conundrum. Drive through downtown Beijing and you'll find a McDonalds, TGIFridays, a mall with an iceskating rink and food court-all the glory and glamour of Western materialism proudly flaunted for all to see-, but then peel back the layers and you'll find something quite different. You will find a people who are very proud of their heritage, and thrive on local culture. You will find children playing in the streets until the very wee hours as their parents chat with friends, play board games in the middle of the sidewalk, and roast all kinds of fresh foods on grills and homemade "pits." The culture there is so rich, but you wouldn't know it from visiting your neighborhood "China Palace," or central Beijing for that matter.

During my time in China, I visited three regions, primarily living in one: Beijing, Kunming, and Dali. With the vast differences of these three regions, one would think they had entered a new country upon arrival at each new destination. Beijing sings the cry of Western glitz, but then just as easily you can drive a few blocks away from downtown and sense the vibrance of the people surrounding you. Downtown Kunming near the market is like a madhouse-they've got a Baskin Robbins, a multi-story market with everything from fresh seafood to Chinese fans, and scumbags hacking kids to the public for money. Drive a bit further out from downtown Kunming and you find beautiful hills, a diverse local population representing many of China's minorities and spanning most of the country's ethnicities. Dali, meanwhile, is like a rich oasis in the midst of cascading mountains.

China is perhaps one of the best examples of extreme depravity alongside extreme beauty and richness, and its often heartbreaking. One of the things that you quickly learn upon either visiting or learning about most Asian countries is that there is more than meets the eye. Consider if you will the 2008 Olympic Games: beautiful scenery serving as backdrop for competition among the world's greatest athletes; drive a few blocks from Olympic village and you'll find what was once the home of a poor family pushed out by Chinese government to clean up the riff raff prior to world travelers' entry. Things look good on the outside, but pull back the curtain and you often find something quite different. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's co-authored book "China Wakes" illustrates this point brilliantly. So does China's Three Gorges Dam project-massive power production at the cost of social upheaval and wetland destruction. I could go on.

As China makes its rush to keep up with, and surpass the Western world, it often bulldozes the interests of citizens, environment, and other nations. Chinese investment in many parts of Africa mirrors Europe and America's imperialization of the region in the early nineteen-hundreds, now considered a major blot on both regions' histories. China has so much to offer the world-a rich, diverse population that is extremely healthy, fit, and intelligent; great natural resources; amazing landscapes and local culture; but those wonders are getting lost in the gears of industrialization and development. This message, though, is rarely getting out to the global public at large. Development, but at what cost? More power, but who are the losers in this equation? Bigger cities, wider streets, a larger global footprint-but have we stopped to consider whether its necessary or even good?

As we see these stark realities, I often have to stop and ask if we Americans are living like we really care that these problems exist; or are we simply letting our own economic engine chug along to an eventual demise as well? As a lens on China quickly shows, massive disparities between good and evil still exist, and its not just the case in post-genocide Rwanda or the Middle East. Much of the world hangs in the balance-even the West, whose recent economic woes suggest even its model was unsustainable.

Kristof, who has worked extensively throughout both Asia and Africa as a foreign correspondent, can attest to the continued complexities of global development. And, I cannot help but quote him in light of the recent coverage of Michael Jackson's death:

The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. If we knew as much about Darfur as we do about Michael Jackson, we might be able to stop these things from continuing.

We've become a country more interested in what is happening in Hollywood than what is happening to our brothers and sisters overseas; and perhaps even in our own communities. This is not only culpable, but it is also extremely short-sighted-it simply will not work for our children or our childrens' children. Perhaps this piece bleeds of cynicism, but it is meant to inspire us all to take a harder look at the world around us, focusing not so much on the face value as the inner core. Even, and especially, within ourselves we need to look more closely. Our technologies don't encourage this, neither do our politics of blame-shifting. It's time for people like me and you to take a stand for these issues and make them a priority in our discussions, in the purchases we make, in the way we choose to engage the world. Turning a blind eye simply is not okay anymore.