Chuck's Visit To China

52 Stories in 52 Weeks: ## 31 Chuck’s Visit To China (Based On My First Visit to China)

By: Mr. George D. Patnoe., Jr's Ambidextrous Brain + Spiritual Mind.

The moment arrived as a surprise from the sky, an offer he could not refuse; although he knew the moment would arrived one way or another. Chuck had learned that life’s surprises were sometimes like gifts from the wind, although some gifts were expected and others almost guaranteed; while other gifts were totally unexpected. Surprise and anticipation filled the mind of Chuck as he thought about his request to visit China. He had read about China’s history in American books hat were written by Americans authors; authors that wrote about the history of China, but not about their own personal experiences in the land of China. Chuck had hoped that one day someone would write a story about their personal visit to the communist country called China.

After he received his American passport, Chuck walked into the Chinese Embassy in America. He begin the process of obtaining his Chinese visa for his trip to China. The Chinese representative who accepted Chuck’s paperwork asked Chuck what Chuck did for a living. Chuck said, ‘I am a writer.’ The smiling representative winked at Chuck before he asked Chuck, ‘Do you promise not to write about your adventures in China?’ Chuck smile and he winked back, ‘Sure, I promise.’ They both knew that a lie in the Chinese culture was not the same as a lie in the American culture. If they did not want known writers writing about their visit to China, they would not have given Chuck a Chinese visa for a long visit. Somehow, the question did not make any sense to Chuck, that until he actually visited China. Then he understood more.

Chuck had met a few Americans who had traveled to Chuck, but those few individuals never discussed of their visits to China. That surprised Chuck; like it was a code of silence that no person who visited China would speak or write about their adventures in China. But, Chuck was no ordinary person. He knew that one day, he would write about his visit to China, so educated and uneducated Americans would know how lucky they were to be born into America, a country with true intellectual freedoms. Chuck knew that one day, he would write about his trip to China, even if the Chinese government did not like or approve of his true story. After all, he was an American and as an American, he was born with the rights of freedom of expression, the freedom of free speech, the freedom to write whatever he wanted. He did not live in fear of the Chinese government. Plus, he had a responsibility to write truthful about his visit to China, and not some made up story.

As Chuck sat in the small flying airplane, he looked out the airplane’s window as he had before; with a sense of awe that he could look out an airplane window to view the grand county of America. Chuck understood a few things about America’s landscape because he had driven around America a few times, but he had only read about China’s landscape, along with looking at pictures of the Chinese landscape. He had met many Asian people, including a few Chinese people. Chuck knew that by flying over the land of China, he would still not understand the real China. That would be like looking at a map to try to understand any country just by looking at the shape of the continent and memorizing names of all the towns and highways. Even reading about the history, economic, and political aspects of China would only provide a very limited concept of China and its true culture. Chuck needed to experience what he could not read in books or see in pictures.

Chuck fell asleep on the plane as it flew over the ocean for thirteen hours during the night hours. He slept like a baby before his visit to China. He did not realized how good it was to sleep on a safe airplane, to prepare him for his nonstop adventures in China. When he woke up, he had a five hours to rest before the airplane flew into the Canton Airport in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. (an hour south of the ocean, close to Hong Kong.) As the airplane approached China, Chuck could see the thick moisture in the air, as the plane began its descent onto the Canton airstrip in Guangzhou at approximately 7:00 am. The rising sun provided the steamy air with a dim yellow color. The yellow steamy air was with thick with moisture and fear; but Chuck was prepared for the thick warm moisture that would surround his body and the thick air of fear that would surround his mind as he walked in and through China. Moreover, he knew how to sweat without fear. So Chuck looked deep into his soul to remember who he really was a person before he faced one single Chinese official.

As Chuck walked up to the passport booth, he noticed the guards who were dressed in their green military uniforms and who wore there dead looking faces. Chuck thought back to America’s passport booths without the green military uniforms. Ok, he thought, we are off to a good start in the land of communism, where the Chinese government tries to install fear into foreigners and the returning Chinese by reminding them that green military uniforms would welcome everyone into China with the military threat which was always in the back of very one’s minds, especially after student demonstration at China’s Tiananmen Square

When Chuck looked into the eyes of the passport acceptor and guards, he perceived that they were more afraid of Chuck, after Chuck waved a long American smile at them. Even a Chinese tiger can sense a fearless American adversary. Chuck’s Chinese visa was accepted, so Chuck walked through the booth, into a different world. The airstrip’s warm moisture was thicker than the air on the other side of the airport, as if even the weather would sent a message to all newcomers to China. But once a person was allowed to walk through the first wall of green military uniforms, the air changed just as it would for a movie.

His first step onto a Chinese sidewalk was a strange experience indeed. Since he had to wait for his driver to arrive with the van, Chuck had enough time to stop, stand still, and to look around.. Chuck saw the Chinese people going about their normal daily routines without the awareness that a foreigner, a total stranger had stepped into their world. Chuck thought about the first Star Trek television series, where advanced cosmic creatures enter an old historical town to be met with fear and misunderstanding. But that did not happed to Chuck, although Chuck might as well have been an alien from a different planet, just as he was from a different country. A different mind with different skin and bones. Chuck noticed how no one noticed him, as if he was an invisible person. Maybe they were just to busy worrying about their lives to worry about Chuck. Maybe the street people were brainwashed to not question anything or anyone, so they did not question Chuck’s presence on their street. People were peddling old bicycles up and down the street.

After Chuck’s driver packed his bags into the white van, they rode through the highways and side streets of Guangzhou. Chuck was surprised at the chaos in the streets. People pulling rickshaws and riding bicycles were crossing the streets without even looking at the cars to dodge the cars and motorcycles. Chuck remembered New York’s Manhattan beeping traffic. Chuck asked his driver, ‘Why are not you beeping your horn?’ The driver responded with, ‘It is illegal to beep your horn here.’ After Chuck recalled New York’ Manhattan’s beeping taxis, Chuck named the city, ‘The City Of Silence.’ It also seemed silent because no one seemed to be talking.

After a short rest at a friend’s apartment, Chuck boarded the train for the 15 hour train ride into the middle of China. (The town’s name is not mentioned for very specific reasons. Chuck is not afraid, but there are people who still have to live in China.) Sitting in first class traveling sleeping room, Chuck felt as if he was in a real life movie. He felt like an American spy who was traveling in a communist country whose government would treat him as a spy under the correct political conditions. Chuck wondered how many Chinese people thought Charlie was an undercover CIA agent for America. Probably all of them who cared to think such thoughts, especially the Chinese governmental people. Chuck looked outside the train’s windows for extended moments at a time. There are long periods of silence on a fifteen hour train ride. China’s green countryside grass and fields were the same everywhere along the railroad tracks.

Chuck saw town sign after town sign for every small town during each train stop; signs that probably would not be on the Chinese maps in America. Chuck drank tea on the train as was everyone else. Eventually, fifteen hours later, the train stopped at a relativity small town in China. Chuck was very happy to see smiling faces on the Chinese people who met him at the train station, but he knew they knew nothing of him and that he knew nothing of them. They treated Chuck very well, serving him food and drink and letting him take a shower before he slept for the night.

Outside the building, Chinese men were wheelbarrowing cement up a ten story building. Even though some places used huge construction cranes to move building supplies, some places used men. Chuck felt sorry for them, until he realized that they were all earning a wage for their back breaking work employment. Maybe physical labor was all they could do to earn money for their families. In every town, new buildings were being constructed for everyone to live in. Chuck guessed that every Chinese person loved their new apartments. After resting for a couple of days, Chuck was invited to a huge party with five huge round tables.

The tables were surrounded with nice families, with educated people who held good jobs in China. There were also babies, and toddlers, and children. The mothers were taking care of their babies and toddlers and children, just like they would in America. The babies were sitting in their highchairs as the mothers were feeding them Chinese baby food. The toddlers were giggling while they ran around the tables just as they would in America, with their mothers trying to control them. The men were all smoking cigarettes as if they were fish drinking water.

The men were also drinking beer out of three inch glasses. Chuck tried to warn the smokers of the dangers that smoking causes to their lungs, but they just laugh at him. Inwardly, Chuck was laughing at their three inch tall glasses of beer because America’s men drank beer out of much taller glasses. American beer drinkers would laugh at the Chinese beer drinkers, because of the small glasses; but Chuck guessed that the Chinese beer drinkers did not get many DWI as the Americans.

In one quick moment of inspiration, Chuck blurted out in English, ‘What do you think of communism and socialism versus capitalism and democracy?’ Chuck observed a freeze frame of life. Every movement stopped, every sound was silenced. Even time froze in the room. Everyone froze as if Chuck had just asked a very terrible question. If it was a film editing room, it would have been a long pause of the film, while Chuck, the film’s director, was starring at the frozen hand with a cigarette that was froze in mid air. Only the smoke floated in the air. The mothers who were bent over as they cared for their children were frozen too, stuck in their bent over position. Chuck could not believe his eyes or his ears. The room had become absolutely still and silent.

So he asked again, ‘What do you think of communism and socialism versus capitalism and democracy?’ Not one person moved, except the children, who had no idea what was happening. Chuck turned around to a Chinese translator and he quickly said, ‘Repeat the question for me in Chinese.’ The Chinese translator repeated the question in Chinese, and the room remained completely silent as the Chinese people remained still and silent. Was this a joke on him or what? But no, they were serious about not talking. So Chuck raised his hands into the air and he said, ‘Well, so much for that question.’

‘Action!’ is what the director called out to the still life moment. Everyone returned to their normal actions that they were performing before the question was asked. Chuck starred into the realm of disbelief because he thought that no American would believe him if he told them the story of the freeze frame moment of Chinese fear. But hopefully they would believe it! After the party, Chuck left the party just as he would in America; expect for one big difference. The moisture of communism was lingering in the air.

Later in the week, Chuck took a nap for a hour. When he woke up, he was informed that he would be taking a fifteen hour train ride to Beijing. He smiled as he realized that he his unplanned adventure was being planned for him without any effort on his part at all. The train ride was identical to the first train ride; with a first class sleeping room, with green fields out the windows. Beijing is a modern city with lots of cars and some modern day malls. Chuck’s acquaintances wanted to visit a brand new nine story mall in the center of Beijing, so he was obliged to follow the Chinese crowd into the mall. Before Chuck entered the mall with his Chinese associates, he turned around to face the street. He stood still, pretending to be an American statue for freedom.

He blew a long conscious breath of America’s freedom into the city of Beijing. There, he observed the street’s activity. He watched two worlds pass each other like ghosts in the night. Brand new BMWs were passing old men who pulled the rickshaws as they ran down the street next to the BMWs. Two generations of Chinese people were passing each everyday in the land of moderation and transformation. The old and poor would die next to the rich and young. The old China was changing faster than ever because of America’s breath of capitalism.

Chuck knew that moderation and transformation were easier when people and their government wanted change, but he also knew that China’s transformation was being forced partly by America’s mass media blitz of global commercialism. The old timers in government had no choice but to open their minds to America’s breath of capitalism. Chuck could only imagine how China’s old dead leaders were turning over in their graves as they looked down on America’s capitalistic influence over the world. Some people went along with the change, while others watched it happen, like the old man with his rickshaw. Chuck also realized that that rickshaw man might never walk into the brand new nine story mall. But if he did, he probably would never be able to buy anything in the mall anyway. Nine mall floors of America styled clothes and electronics; everything except America’s freedom. America’s freedom can not be bought at a mall.

A few days later, Chuck and a Chinese acquaintance rode in a a brand new red VW taxi for a day, complete with a chauffeur. He was a nice chauffeur. The first visit was to the Great Wall of China; early in the morning, before the sun heated the air and before the crowds started to show up. The sun was waving over the land, just like the Chinese flags that waved in the wind, all along the brick walls of the Great Wall of China. Chuck liked the flags as a nice welcome to the Great Wall of China. As Chuck walked up to the first steps to the Great Wall of China, they were the normal size steps that anyone could step on, one step at a time. When Chuck approached the first section of the Great Wall of China, he noticed that it took more effort to use his legs muscles because the wall’s floors took many increases in its angle. It was like walking up angled ice, only this was stone and brick and cement. Walking on the Great Wall of China looked easier in pictures.

It felt as if the Great Wall of China was pushing up at Chuck’s legs. Could the Great Wall of China feel China’s transformation from the old to the new? Higher and higher along the steep incline stone floor, Chuck watched happy Chinese people visiting their pride and joy momument. Chuck looked at the modern day Chinese who walked the wall’s stone floor as he thought about the people who built the wall. How many people died while they were building this three thousand mile freaking huge wall compared to how many people died for American’s freedom for political and religious and scientific thought and ideas? Numbers did not matter, did they?

Did the modern day Chinese think about their dead ancestors who built the wall, or did they forget their past? Did Americans think about the men who died for their individual freedoms to think, read, write, and voice the truth. Chuck thought that most Chinese and Americans took for granted their individual histories, just as they took for granted their individual yet connected futures. Yet, both the smart Americans and smart Chinese secretly knew that the success to their individual and connected futures would be to overcome the great cultural walls that separated the Chinese from the Americans, and the Americans from the Chinese, without a war.

Chuck thought that most Chinese could care less about the meaning of the Great Wall, or even about America! But every Chinese person wanted a better job and a better life for their families, just like the Americans. The Great Wall of China was a huge symbol that there was a great wall that separated the Chinese people from the American people, but that invisible wall was being slowly broken down by the advancement in global communications. Global communications were allowing information about America’s capitalism and freedoms to pass through the wall of communism.

Chuck, the fearless lord of light, walked on the Great Wall with the enlighten spirit of America’s freedom in his soul. He knew it too. He carried America’s individual intellectual freedom and human rights as he walked on the floor of the Great Wall. He breathed America’s dream with every breath he took. In a moment of inspiration, he walked up to the wall’s edge and he looked out into the forest. The powerful wind was blowing the leaves on the trees as if they wanted a response from Chuck. Chuck blew a long breath of America’s freedom’s into the winds of China. He hoped that his one breath of freedom would change the course of China’s freedom faster than any computer. He hoped that the winds of China would take that breath of freedom into the lungs of very Chinese person until the every Chinese person breathed without fear from communism.

After walking up and down on the Great Wall of China for a couple of hours, Chuck and his Chinese acquaintance stepped back into the red VW getta taxi, and the they drove away from the Great Wall. The taxi started to enter the highway and immediately Chuck saw something weird. A Chinese cop car was on the side of the road with the radar gun upside down, pointed towards the mountain at a 45 angle away from highway. The two poorly and sloppy dressed cops waved their hands to signal Chuck’s driver to pull over. The driver stepped out of the car and he talked with the police. When the driver returned, he showed Chuck the speeding ticket.

Chuck’s said, ‘You were not ever going slow. How could they ticket you for speeding. And the radar detector was pointed in the wrong direction. Are you going to fight it in court? The driver responded, ‘What court. Even if I went to court, I would lose because the cops get a bonus for every ticket they give out.’ Chuck replied, ‘Wow, in America, we are allowed to go to court and fight unfair tickets.’ The driver said, ‘Because I was friendly with those two cops, I got off easy. The other taxi driver behind me received double the fines and double the points on his drivers license because he was angry and yelling at the cops.’ Even though China tried to copy America’s great malls, they had not yet copied America’s legal system.

After another fifteen hour train ride back to the middle of China, Chuck and his acquaintance visited their other acquaintances and said their good-byes. Chuck again boarded the train for another fifteen hour train ride back south to Guangzhou, where he had to board the airplane. After Chuck entered their first class room on the train, Chuck saw an older man do something strange. He turned his head to the side to look out the door and he slyly showed his police badge to Chuck. Chuck fearlessly thought to himself, ‘My oh my, this should be fun. But he will not get away with his intimidation. Let see what he does next. I guess it is show time; meaning a moment when the games of life became a bit more serious because the danger level had risen.’

Chuck watched the guy playing with his black leather wallet, with the gold badge waving from side to side, moving one way and then another. Chuck thought to himself, ‘Is he a moron cop or something?’ After a few hours of watching the undercover play with his gold cop badge, trying to intimidate Chuck, Chuck started to play his own game with the Chinese undercover cop. Chuck started to eat some American chocolate, but he did not want to be "rude" to the cop. So he yelled, ‘Hey, want some American chocolate?’ The undercover cop looked at Chuck like he though Chuck was a bit crazy. Actually, Chuck was feeling a little bit crazy because he knew that he was going to enjoy playing mind games with the Chinese undercover cop. Chuck ordered some tea for everyone because he knew the Chinese just loved their tea. The cop put his badge away so he could handle his tea. It was going to be a long train ride for the Chinese undercover cop.

Chuck’s acquaintance knew what he was up to, so she just smiled every time Chuck spoke to the cop; because the cop was getting anger and anger at Chuck’s fearless conversations with him. After a few hours on the train, Chuck sarcastically said to the silent cop, ‘Hey, you a cop or something?’ The cop looked at Chuck as if to say, ‘You must be a wise ass or something because only a blind man could not see that gold badge that I was waving at you for the first two hours on the train. Why are you not afraid of me?’ was the look in his eyes.

Chuck grabbed his mini-DVD recorder and he sat down next to the Chinese undercover cop. ‘Hey, do you want to see my brother and his family in America?’ Without waiting for an answer, Chuck turned on his mini-DVD player and the Chinese undercover cop started to watch the movie. He begin to be interested in the movie when he saw Chuck’s brother’s two story house in California, USA. And his kids, and the boats at the yacht club and that was only the beginning.

The undercover cop smiled and then giggled at the kids as they played with their American toys in the white painted living room, on the white leather sofas. When the DVD American movie was finished, Chuck quickly drew the undercover cop’s face as a portrait, when the cop was not looking. Just before the train stopped, Chuck handed the undercover cop the portrait. It was signed, ‘Americans live without fear. Chuck, the American.’ The cop smiled as he left the train.

Chuck’s last day were spent hanging out in a five star hotel on the edge of the ocean. Chuck recalled his trip to China. He had seen and experienced so much of China in one month that the Chinese people who helped him along the way could not believe it. They told Chuck that he had seen and experienced more of China than the Chinese people. Chuck had eaten authentic spicy foods in the North, West, and South of China, in its valleys and on top of its mountains. He had visited the Chinese temple (s) where he had met a very old Chinese monk. The old monk had written a saying for Chuck, but no modern day Chinese person could read it because the Chinese characters were so old. Chuck had visited Chinese parks; one with drug needles in a side forest. He had visited Tiananmen Square, where a student’s mini-revolt ended with military tanks surrounding defenseless students. He visited the Christmas lit town of Shenzhen, where it was also illegal to beep your car horn. Needless to state, Chuck had experienced so much of China, it would take a book to record it all. Maybe some day!

When Chuck entered the airport on that hot, muggy Sunday evening, he was hungry, tired, and a bit homesick; mostly for American coffee, ice cream, pizza, and books. But most of all, Chuck wanted to drink some clean water. Chuck did not see any book stores in China, not even at the airport. While standing in line at the Chinese airport, after he had checked in his bags, Chuck waited for his turn to go through the last checkpoint booth. He could see the airplane that was going to fly him to America. Chuck needed to fill out a green piece of paper to inform the Chinese government that he was going to America, even though he had the official plane ticket in his hand. He dropped a pencil and he said, ‘POOP!’ When he looked up at the booth, the old man that was sitting there before he dropped his pencil was not there. A young lady was sitting in the chair.

The old man entered the lobby from a side door, and he some something in Chinese. Chuck’s acquaintance told Chuck that the old man said that Chuck said a bad word. ‘Chuck looked that the old man and then he turned his head towards the airplane. Chuck’s mind raced to America as he turned his head towards the old man. Chuck spoke in the Chinese language, with a weird psychotic voice, with a funny tilted face; ‘I am sorry for saying a bad word.’ The old man was so surprised the Chuck could speak Chinese that he became speechless. The old man said the he was going to check Chuck’s record and Chuck said, ‘What record? For saying one word. I am an American and Americans do not live in free, especially from speaking the truth. In America, we have rights of freedom of speech and if you think that one bad word is a crime, then remember this!’ Chuck blew a long winded breathe onto the old Chinese man. The old Chinese man asked Chuck, ‘What was that for? Chuck responded with, ‘That was the breath of America’s freedom that all Americans live by; and that hopefully one day soon, so will the Chinese people!’

The old man was so mad that he turned around and he exited the lobby. Chuck looked around him and the other Chinese people were still standing at a soldiers attention. Chuck asked himself, ‘So, this is what all Chinese have to put up with every second of their lives? Living in fear from speaking a single word; knowing that if they speak one single wrong word that the government does not approve of, that it will go on their record as a crime. After a month of traveling up and down the land of China, after eating real Chinese foods and after meeting so many kinds of Chinese people, Chuck realized that the common Chinese people had many common traits as the American people. The had jobs and families and they had a love for their country, but they missed out on America’s freedoms. Instead, they lived in fear every second of their lives.

Before Chuck boarded the airplane for his long flight back to America, he looked back to the land of China as he thought to himself, ‘Thank God for America. Thank God Almighty you lucky Americans. Thank God everyday that you live in the land of freedom. Thank God.’ Before Chuck boarded the airplane, he turned around for one last time. He again blew one long breath of America’s freedom into the Chinese winds; but by now, China was becoming more Americanized than ever!