Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Editor's Note: This is the second part of a three-part series on the travels of Warsaw Community High School Graduate Chad McKenzie. Today's story gives his impressions of China and Tibet.
*****
"I had been to China for one week on our summer vacation when I first arrived to Korea and really had a fantastic time seeing some of the historical sites in Beijing, and I talked to some other friends in South Korea who had loved China, traveled throughout China, so I decided to check it out."
At first he was skeptical of going because it was right around the time of the SARS epidemic. He held off from going to wait and see what the World Health Organization was saying about China. Two weeks before he left, WHO released most of the cities from the SARS list.
He said he wasn't afraid of the Chinese government.
"I wasn't treated badly when I was there the first time. Again, I knew going into it, the people, the locals, will try to rip you off any way they can because you are a foreigner and relatively you are very, very wealthy, compared to the Chinese, the majority of the Chinese. So I expected that. Even though I was prepared for it, after a little while, it kind of set in on the nerves. You weren't looked at as a person, you were looked at as a dollar sign to most of the Chinese doing business or selling petty things."
For a communist country, McKenzie said, he saw a lot of capitalism there.
In total, he was in China and Tibet three months.
In the small southwestern Chinese village of Dali in the Yunnan Province, McKenzie and a friend were walking down a street when they heard traditional Chinese music being played. They saw about 15 men and women playing traditional Chinese music during a religious ceremony.
"I found it amazing because during the Cultural Revolution in China, a lot of these instruments I'm sure had to be well-hidden to avoid being destroyed by the Red Guard, the Communist officials. It meant a lot to me but I can't even imagine how much it meant to the guys playing this kind of music that was probably considered burgeoise 20-30 years ago. That was a great experience."
They had tea with them and were taken out to lunch. "They were very, very accepting, took us in. Had no problem with us sitting there, watching them."
TIBET
"Definitely, the biggest highlight was getting to Tibet. I've been dreaming about going for so long, to finally to get the opportunity to go and be there was so unbelievable.
"The Chinese have so much influence over the country, it's really hard for tourists to go to Tibet. I think the government does that for a reason. They don't want tourists to see how Tibetans are being treated. You have to go through a lot of red tape to get to Tibet. Anywhere you go ... you need to have either a guide or some kind of tourist permit. They keep a tight control over Tibet. I was surprised at all the urban development going on in Tibet. I noticed a lot of segregation between the Chinese and the Tibetans. I don't blame any of the Chinese living there, I just think the government has a lot to do with what's going on, how they're being treated.
"I talked to some Tibetans who were saying, 'This is our story, we need the whole world to understand that we are being eradicated and oppressed here.' No one sees that because no one is getting in."
The Chinese came in around 1949 to Tibet after gaining control, and progressively, after moving in, the Chinese are the ones with most of the jobs. The Tibetans can't find work.
"It's a harder way of life for them. They're just slowly being purged out of the urban cities, the big cities. You still have nomadic life in Tibet. You have Tibetans living on the land with a couple of horses, living out of a tent. Self-sufficient way of life."
