I haven't written anything for a while but am finding myself presently intrigued by a biography about Pu Yi, The Last Emperor of China. I never managed to see the movie version of this book which came out in 1987 (I was 11 years old then and watching historical dramas was not a high priority) but it is now on my list of "Must See" films.
I knew so little of this part of the world but through historic films, the Internet, chatting with my new friends here in Daqing and this book, I am finding that this part of the world as a long and deeply interesting history.
My time here in Daqing has been intoxicating. Some of my local friends may say that this statement is a literal description based on my recent altercations with Chinese wine (baijiu). But my meaning is rather that of learning, flooding my mind with a 'newness' that I was both looking for and had yet been unfathomable to me until I immersed myself in a new culture. Crazy though it may seem to take oneself out of the regular (and admittedly comfortable) life, and dropping oneself into a world where everything screams 'difference', my life here in Daqing has been harrowing and humbling.
Similar to the few months that I lived in Guyana, South America, I feel that I have had a chance to grow, to give water to my roots, to spread my branches a little further out and to reach a little higher into the sky providing myself with a broader view of the world. If others cannot find it in themselves or find the opportunity (no fault of their own) to do something similar maybe I can at least tell them a story or three so that they too can find the world a slightly larger place than it was yesterday.
Pu Yi's world was made small by his limited existence within the confines of his various 'prisons' but the story of his tribulations now widens mine. How recent the tumultuous past of this region. How, now, I am able to better understand the conflicting emotions (or as the case maybe, so straight forwardly decided the emotions remain) displayed towards foreigners in this part of the world. What must live on in the minds of the population over 50 here in Heilongjiang of the relations between the Chinese and those who adamantly fought for what should have belonged to the people of the Chinese Northeast. Russia's and Japan's greed for this prosperous land and its hardy inhabitants. The discovery of the all-important oil wells and the power struggles for governance. I'm impressed by the calm and the progress. I can only sit back and try to display some reverence of my own for such a land.
What the future holds will be revealed in time.
ganbei (Cheers!) to the Chinese New Year!
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