The Whole World Is Watching

I check Google News from the new hotel we’re at in Hangzhou. The top story -- the protests (over China’s human rights violations) in major European cities where the Olympic torch is making its way across the world.
I conduct an experiment here in the hotel internet cafe. I click on several of the news articles on the protest -- almost all of them come up. A few, however, give me what looks like a Page Not Found error. I Google "Tiananmen Square Massacre," and every single link comes up Page Not Found.
I can’t read Chinese, and I actually think the page reads an explanation of why I cannot view it.
The truth is, except for today’s village, the square has been my favorite part.
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I woke up sick this morning. Sore throat, body aches, fever. We made our usual frantic dash throughout the factories and took a nice canal ride. Today was actually the best day in spite of a hacking cough. We were allowed to roam for the tiniest bit of time in a small canal village. I walked through narrow streets and managed even, by pointing to the phrase "I’m sick" in my Chinese phrase book and coughing to prove it, to buy some inported cold medicine.
The village was beautiful and smelly and had little storefronts of fresh vegetables, little rooms that might have been houses or might have been restaurants, or more likely, a combination of both. I walked through the narrow alleyways, stepping aside to allow for the traffic of speeding bicycles. An old woman smiled to me and waved. "Ni hao," I said, returning her grin.
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I am not the only one breaking down from the crazy pace, the 141-thick group. Another man on our bus freaked out today, covering his ears with his hands to drown out the sound of everyone and skipping dinner, going directly to bed.
We’ve all had our moments. We muse about the fact that as a government-sponsored trip, we’re here only to see what the government wants us to see. We wonder if it is just the nature of organized trips to begin with. We talk about the consumerist quality of the trip even as we buy little hats from street vendors and silk scarves from the largest silk factory in China. ********************
I’m sweating; I have chills; my throat is raw.
The smog, the stress, the lack of sleep; the smog; the muggy weather; the night of semi-hard partying on our last night in Beijing and finally the intense, hard Chinese massage all pushed me over the edge. I didn’t think I’d be the one to get sick on this trip.
Didn’t think I’d be the one to turn down a night of exploring the neon-light streaked city outside.
I barely know what day it is, and I don’t know what city we’ll be in tomorrow. We are dragged or prodded onto bus after bus, hotel after hotel, shoved in round tables for meals, herded like cattle into factories and then marched back onto the bus.
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We’re so tired; we’d give anything to sleep till noon, wander for a few hours until we find tea, get lost and have to ask directions from a policeman, have strangers run up to us because they want to practice English.
We want to walk where no tourist goes and eat hot soup or find a dumpling stand. We want to go to a garden where there is not hundreds of Americans.
My friend Sarah’s dad said to me yesterday, "This entire restaurant is filled with white people. This is seriously the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen."
Me too.