A renewed me: my renewed sense of China

Most importantly, the following people I am to mention are the ones I cherish and love the most! The majority of my stay in China revolved around them. They have enlightened me in many things about China since then because they have been exuding in them the characteristics of the Chinese that, for me, the world should know. They are Wu Quan who is my best friend, his family and friends.

Wu Quan made Shanghai University of Electric Power and the vicinity around Ping Liang Road my home. My dorm in Fudan foreign student dormitory building became secondary then. It was in his place that I experienced the warmth of middle aged people, his dormmates who have become my good friends too, and ordinary Chinese people who are so modest in their living in the community. Every day, after class in Fudan, I went straight to my home. It was the place where Wu Quan and I forged a very strong friendship and began sharing very pleasant memories. It was also there where I learned about the life of common Chinese people and to live like them. Indeed, it was there that I did in Rome as Rome does!

As they say, there’s an end in every start and there’s a fresh start in every end. June 29, 2010 came. Students both in Fudan and Shanghai University of Electric Power were wrapping up the semester and preparing to go to their hometowns. Wu Quan graduated, and I went to Hubei province. He hailed from Qianjiang, Hubei. We were fetched in Wuhan by his relatives. It was my first time to meet his relatives. I was touched by the way they treated me. Much more when I met his dad and mum! Never, in the whole time I was with them, did they make me feel like a foreigner. I was practically a stranger to them but they made me feel that I am not different from them. I will forever cherish that week in my life, in which I found a new family! Despite a tearful farewell on July 4, Wu Quan and I vowed that our friendship would not end from there. At that instance, I felt sad to leave my newly-found family but I also felt happy that it is not the end. Instead, it is the beginning of a new chapter of my life with my family in China. At the final moment of my visit, Wu Quan’s uncle living in Qianjian, forced his way to personally accompany me in the train to saw me off. I treated the act as very familial. Since then, I have promised myself that I will never forget them and attend to their needs as much as I can.

I am so grateful to these people who form the core of my appreciation of Chinese culture and my love for the Chinese people. Because of them, I have treated the Chinese as my big family and China as my home country since then. The attachment has been there. They have “touched” my life and left a deep imprint in me. It is this renewed sense of “touch”, which I didn’t have before going to China, that I treasure the most. It has changed not just my perceptions vis-a-vis the Chinese but also my sense of purpose when I came back to the Philippines after my Fudan study.

Renewed Sense of Being

My personal experience of Chinese culture has permeated my being as a social scientist by training, an educator by profession, a Filipino by citizenship, an Asian by identity, and a human being by nature.

As a social scientist, I realized that nothing can defeat the wisdom that we can learn from the over 5,000 old civilization. China is not just a country but also a civilization. Chinese culture provides ways towards the realization of such wisdom.

As an educator in a college for the underprivileged here in the Philippines, I continue to share through discussions and to disseminate through self-initiated researches my renewed sense of China. I was like my students before. I was so exposed to media dominated by Western discourses that alienate China to the minds of many Filipinos even now. In response to this, I feel a sense of responsibility to dispute biased thoughts against the Chinese. I have been there. I, myself, experienced the big difference between what the media has been preaching here in the Philippines and the realities there in China. It is high time for common Filipinos to renew their sense of China too.

As a Filipino, I can say that we must broaden our minds about China. There are a lot of things to do when it comes to fostering real understanding.

As an Asian, I am really proud of the Chinese. They have beaten the odds. In just 63 years of the People’s Republic, coupled with a very profound culture, China is at the forefront of gaining respect not just for the Chinese but also for other Asians.

And as a human being, I can undo, in my heart, the borders set by man. I can follow the Chinese example in their culture and will continue loving my Chinese family regardless of the borders and barriers.

As indicated, China was not on my radar before. After experiencing Chinese culture, it’s totally different. I sustain my renewed sense of China by action here in the Philippines which can hopefully contribute, little by little, to real understanding of other Filipinos about China. I continue to participate in activities of the Chinese Embassy like the 2011 Chinese New Year Celebration.