Snowday

Today was special. It is Friday, and both of my classes for today were cancelled, giving me a surprise freeday. The sky was cloudy today, portending snow, but the upside is that on the rare days when moisture content is high enough to warrant clouds, the temperature is also higher, making today a perfect day to go explore. I've discovered that I haven't yet been to all the areas in Harbin worth going to; last week my translation teacher took me out for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant near what is probably Harbin's biggest Buddhist temple (hence the selection of vegetarian restaurants in an otherwise carnivorous city). I was charmed by the area, but had no time that day, so today I knew exactly where I wanted to go.
I decided to walk half the way there-got off near Da Shijie and the department stores, and walked for about forty minutes to the temple complex. Snow started falling in little feathery puffs on the way there, and my face was numb by the time I reached the restaurant where I planned to have lunch. I warmed up for a bit in there, then headed out to the park-like area in front of the temple walls. The snow was coming down in earnest by then, and because of the intense cold, it was fine and sparkled like glitter as it was falling. There were very few people willing to brave the elements, so the scene was very picturesque with only the smell of incense and the sounds of Buddhist music coming from the shops lining the broad walkway.
I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to actually go into the temple at first-after all, I went to several in Xian and, you know, a temple is a temple. But this one was big. From outside the clay-tiled wall, I could see the pagodas hung with bells that chimed in the wind to keep the birds off, and the fluted ceilings of the various small temples inside. So I decided I'd go in and have a look. I think that perhaps the snow influenced my thinking, but this temple complex was the prettiest and most peaceful I'd seen. There were actually monks in this one, unlike in the heavily touristed ones in Xian (I think the monks hide there, with good reason!), and hundreds of extremely vocal little birds filled the frozen trees (presumably because the bells on the pagodas, besides being decorative, were actually effective scare-sparrows!).
I got a very tranquil feeling from this temple. There were people praying, incense sticks burning, add to that the light snow and the middling tones of brass bells. I wandered in and out of the temples to various bodhisattvas and to the Buddha himself, contemplating to myself what spirituality means to these people. China's lost a lot of its spiritual heritage; I've only met one young person who was religious at all; she is Buddhist, though she says that she rarely goes to the temple. People often say to me that religion is for old people; young people must work and raise families. When they are old, they say, they, too, will go to the temple and pray.
I think that the Cultural Revolution and Communism seriously wounded the soul of China. That's obvious, of course, anyone who's been here any length of time can tell you that. But what I think is even more serious now is that the pace at which Chinese people are forced to work in order, on the personal level, to survive, and on a national level, to support China's race towards development, has kept it from recovering. Young people often work ten to twelve hours a day, with maybe two or four days off per month. When they're in school, they attend classes from seven in the morning to five PM, and if their parents are ambitious, in addition to crushing homework burdens, they also may study music, dance, or other extracurriculars. I used to try and set up times to meet with people I met outside of school, only to find that on their few days off, they would understandably far rather spend time with their families and other friends that wouldn't be leaving in a few months. At first I thought they were just uninterested, but the more I get to know them-these are the people at my gym, my coffee shop, spa, etc-the more I realize that it's an issue of time preventing them from deviating from their normal routines. I'm pretty selfish with my time myself, and I realize that I have far, far more of it than the average working Chinese person here.
It's a terrible shame. China has shown a tremendous ability economically to recover from the upheaval and terror of just a few decades ago, but the young people on whom the future depends are unable to rebuild the culture that was all but shredded during a hundred years of turbulence. They have no time to spend exploring their heritage, or creating a robust and socially well-rounded China that conforms to their own images of modernity; they have no time to develop hobbies or think about spirituality. The result is a mass of tired citizens, who push you to get on the bus not because they hate you, but because they honestly don't have the extra time and energy to put into thinking about other people. As odd as it seems, it takes a lot of effort to yield and be the last of ten people to get on the bus. It's also a heritage, of course, from when buses were far and few between, but now...well, if I had to ride the bus every day, twice, never getting a rest, with little chance of ever getting a seat because they're packed by the time I get off of work-well, I begin to see why they are tired enough to have little patience for the little things like waiting in line.
It took me four and a half months and a lot of pain before I even started to figure out why China is the way it is. I still constantly feel like I'm on the outside looking in, I still feel like people only see "foreigner" when they look at me, and I'm still really glad I'm going home soon-this has been such a draining exchange!-but I'm more at peace with China than I used to be. I feel like I've worked out an important piece of the puzzle, and I think that it was worth coming here just to really understand firsthand the pressures work on Chinese society.
Perhaps when China has reached an acceptable level of development, life will slow down and the people will have their burdens lifted, giving them time to open up and dream up new possibilities and reinfuse their culture with the vibrant beauty that inspired me to study Chinese back when I was taking Asian history classes. Thirty years can't solve everything, I suppose; when you think about it, they've really made huge sacrifices to come this far. I'd like to see China in another thirty years-who knows what it could be like?