Thank you, China!

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Armed with a wave of changes under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s, China has come a long way to assert its dominance as one of the greatest powers in the modern world. It's been a truly remarkable experience for a foreigner like me (who had got the opportunities to interact and work with many cultures around the world) to feel one of the world's oldest civilizations.

Vineeth Purushothaman [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

I am pleasantly impressed by the scale and the pace of growth in urban China. I visited China for the first time in 2007 and my last visit was in 2011. Even though the time frame is quite small (4 years cannot be labeled as a period of change), the vision and the direction towards a progressive China is quite laudable.

During my visits to China, I see that China is evolving continuously and on the move for more glory. Most of the countries around the world are grappling with economic and political mayhems. The notion of "standing on one's own foot" is a herculean task in this uncertain world for most of the countries; China is breaking the barriers by gearing towards a new era.

The rapid advancements in technology & space, and the well articulated plan towards eco-friendly homes are vintage China. Infrastructure is the backbone of any country and in China, there is no dearth of high speed rails, wide roads, flyovers, skyscrapers and so on. I don't recall many of the buildings that I saw in 2007; its been mesmerizing and can be equated to a simple process: pluck and place (May be Olympics is one reason).

The metro system, even though crowded, is still a good option for the masses. A country with 1.35 billion people doesn't create the kind of traffic jams one normally associates it with and the meticulous planning behind the smooth flow is well founded. Traffic laws are followed on most of the occasions and prominence is given more for social policing. Another thing that caught my eye is the tranquility that exists in the cities. No flashing police cars, no sirens, no ambulances and I hardly remember seeing armed police men in very crowded areas.

The variety of products one can feast upon in China is mind boggling and consumers are spoilt with options. The pearl market and Qianmen markets in Beijing, Nanjing Road in Shanghai are some of the places that will elevate a shop hopper to cloud nine. One floor will have 20 odd shops selling different brands of ladies shoes while the second floor will be selling 25 varieties of multi-branded leather bags. It will indeed take days for one to travel through one of the shopping streets in Shanghai and consider yourself a giant if you managed to do so!!!

The plate of options mentioned above can be further extended to culinary dishes as well. Being a vegetarian is quite perplexing here unless you know Chinese or has a good Chinese friend who can help explain the dishes that you want. Luckily I am an omnivorous person and can just point my fingers at the shrimp decorated with honey. Even though I had been informed about some very weird dishes, I didn't believe many of the folklores till I was forced to pop my eyeballs out. Some of the exotic dishes include deep fried snake, octopus, frog leg and dog meat!!! It is quite difficult for an Indian to digest some of these dishes but was quite an eye opener for me and a further testimony on how different the world is. Indeed a world of variety!

Back in 2007,I could hardly communicate with majority of the shop vendors and had to rely on our ancestral version of gestures. Fast forward to 2011; 1 out of 5 stores will have someone who can talk with me in English, a bit. And this is another pivotal change sweeping China for the good. Even cab drivers can say Thank You which was an alien word before. Almost all roads, streets, shops and buildings have names in English along with their Chinese counterparts. Most of the children are learning English from a very early age (3 years onwards) and China is leaving no stones unturned to ensure that its citizens get a fair pie at the world forums. Allow me to be a spoil sport for a moment; they have still a long way to go as I really struggled to go to places without the name of my source\destination addresses written in Chinese script or get lost in the sea of people. Flip again and back in 2015, I might be able to travel around China like a free bird.

Being an Indian & fuelled by the many TV documentaries & books, I was always fascinated by the stature of Dragon. I made some good friends and in generally, I find the Chinese a happy bunch. But all is not glittering; the gap between haves and have-nots is still widening. Inflation, ageing population and too much reliance on US dollar is indeed worrying for this great nation. Arguments apart, banning the world social forums (Twitters and the You-Tubes) or providing non-affordable legal\health system does not look like the right step towards a progressive nation. Such stance has left many of its citizens in a real quagmire.

All said and done, Thank You China for showing rest of the world how to tame an untrodden path, for leapfrogging barricades (cultural & political) and for zooming towards the unforeseen era while the rest of the world is playing a hard time catching up!!!

The author is working as IT Manager for an American based MNC in Bangalore, India.

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