My Turn: Blackman’s experience in China
“I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien
I'm an Englishman in New York
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I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien
I'm an Englishman in New York,”
This is the chorus of a popular song by a British singer, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, popularly known as Sting. It sums up my sentiments when I stepped foot on Chinese soil in faraway Asia early last month. In my case, I was a Ghanaian (Blackman) in China.
Aside the change in climate and surroundings, I saw a difference in the way people behave and act around visitors.
In my homeland Ghana, it is very common for people to greet those they meet on the streets, whether one knows them or not. It is also considered disrespectful in Ghana to step into a room full of people and not bother to say hello to anyone.
I was amazed to see that in China people join a lift without taking a second glance at those in it, let alone say hello. They behave as if you don’t exist.
Throughout my three weeks sojourn in the People’s Republic of China, people I meet in the elevator turned their faces towards the exit door in their struggle to avoid me. Others looked at me with sneers, as if to ask: ‘what the heck is this black guy doing here?’
What I will describe as the most awkward experience happened at the biggest wholesale market in China, the Yiwu International Trade fair centre, in the Zhejiang Province. While having our lunch in a bus, a Chinese lady of middle age hopped in the bus offering some cheap and low quality items for sale.
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She cleared a chesty cough and, without warning, spat the mucus in the bus and continued selling her wares as if it was normal to spit in a bus full of people eating, aside it being very unhygienic and unsightly to do that in the bus.
We had to literally drag her out of the bus. But to her, it was just as normal as a Ghanaian greeting someone on the street.
I was astounded at the sight of well-dressed people spitting indiscriminately on the streets and even in hotel lobbies.
Our group visited one fibre optic manufacturing company and found the factory floor littered with spittle.
A colleague became our watch-dog and was always on the lookout for anything that looked like spittle to give us the warning signal.
She would go the extra mile to let anyone who spat anyhow know how despicable it was, especially when people were around.
Although she could not express her feelings in words, her facial expressions alone were enough to send the message home clear and loud.
It was evident that the cultural differences were million miles apart and this makes the visitor know that he or she is far away from home.
Initially, it looked a bit awkward and disturbing when you are in public places and some Chinese of all ages would look at you with weird faces and make comments that you could hardly understand.
But all in all, it was a nice experience that saw me through as many as four provinces of China, a country that is rivalling the super power, USA, in everything. China, however, claims that getting to the top is not her aim but rather ensuring the welfare of her people.