By Lucia Jervis
China holds many differences from western countries, including its lack of freedoms and its communist government. Semester at Sea voyagers from these western cultures curious about these dissimilarities turned to their native Chinese classmates to get better educated about Chinese culture.
Chinese student Athena Wang struggled with finding the answers to the complex questions students have approached her with.
“I’m not mentally prepared when people ask me about China because I don’t know how to respond. My opinion is really unique and different from the mainstream thoughts. All the Chinese people are nationalists and hate when people disrespect China, but I am not so patriotic,” Wang said.
Maggie Klawunn, a Semester at Sea student that is from the United States, tackled the idea of imagining a life living with the kind restrictions that China imposes on their people.
“I’m definitely not used to being constantly monitored, or at least being told I’m being constantly monitored where there’s any validity in that or not,” Klawunn said. “I think I was definitely a lot more on edge than I usually am, I had that sense of just being more uneasy than usual and I watched what I was saying.”
Klawunn participated in a Semester at Sea-led field program where she got the opportunity to have lunch with a local family in China. Before meeting the family, her tour guide asked all students to refrain from asking political questions, especially to women, since they are not really allowed to discuss about politics.
“It was just so hard to think that a huge part of my identity and the culture that I come from is like: ‘I am a woman, I’m gonna have my power and I’m gonna vote,’” Klawunn said. “I just can’t imagine being from day one told: ‘no you don’t have that, you can’t have that and it is very dangerous for you to even desire to have that.’”
Her program also included a tour to Tiananmen Square, where someone who was on the tour with her asked the tour guide to give her opinion about Mao’s dictatorship. When her classmate asked this question, Klawunn thought that they were going to be detained immediately since they were in an important historical site that has a lot of security.
The difference between Wang and Klawunn is that Klawunn can go back to the United States once the trip is over and discuss the insecurities and lack of freedoms she felt while she was in China. On the other hand, Wang will go back to China, where what was an adventure and learning experience for Klawunn is a reality and the day-to-day life of Wang.
According to Wang most Chinese people don’t really discuss politics or their government, not because they don’t care, but because it’s dangerous and they don’t know who they can trust.
“China is very different from the United States. I am a little bit of a radical progressive person so I really do not like the political atmosphere in China because don’t have too much democracy, freedom of speech or freedom of media,” Wang said.
Her parents are government officials and five years ago, Wang and her father had a dispute about human rights.
“My father said all the human and political rights are given by the government to the people, but my argument was that all these rights are gained by our effort, no one gives us our rights, we have our rights,” Wang said.
“Five years later, my father regrets his opinion, because five years ago we could’ve fought for our rights,” Wang said. “Now, it is much harder to fight because the government now is pushing forward and we are stepping back. We are so accustomed to stepping back and they have us in a corner.”
Regardless of how Wang or her parents feel, according to her, they cannot say no to their leader and in order to remain safe, they have to follow every law and rule, even if they secretly don’t agree with it. Wang says that the government gives her parents too much pressure and that sometimes they feel guilty.
“My father was asked to demolish all the old buildings in Beijing,” Wang said. “My father said that there are people that have lived in those buildings for more than 50 years and that they couldn’t just demolish their homes, but his boss asked him: are you going to take action against the party? And my father just had to accept and lead his men to destroy the buildings. My dad is tired, he just wants to retire.”
Even though she is not happy with the situation nowadays, Wang and many other Chinese citizens are optimistic for the future.
“In China, we believe our country will be better and that all the pain that we are living through now are only steps leading to a better future,” Wang said.