Countryside Capitalism

A weekend trip to Yangshuo, in the Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (the province south of Hunan), brought me first-hand exposure with the much sought-out culture of the Chinese countryside. Specifically, it's ancient Taoist villages and the culture of the Zhuang people, China's largest minority group, for which the province is named after.

Bathed in diversity both socially and geographically, China is a land of spectacular views and enriching experiences. There is enough hidden treasures and mystery here to keep a traveler occupied for several years, if not a lifetime.

Traveling by night train to Guilin, a city of 670,000 in the north of Guanxi, you are met by the colorful cast of characters that make up this huge and assorted country. With dialects as far flung as the nation's numerous ethnic origins, China's train system, specifically the hard seats, are one of the most up-front ways to experience daily life in China.

Crammed with sunflower seed-spitting Grandmas and cigarette puffing farmers, the trains are crowded and noisy. Cabin lights relentlessly beckon your mind to stay awake until well after 1 a.m. The child sitting on his mother's lap next to you, stares with a constant case of wonderment and surprise. Knee-buckling brakes and faulty air-conditioning, remind you of how far China still has to go.

As with anywhere in China, speak a little of the local language and you are met with accolades of smiles and a favorable reply of "Your Chinese is very good."/Ni de Zhongwen hen hao in Pinyin. Even when it is obvious it is not.

However, it is the Chinese countryside, it's villages, farmers and livestock, that have for centuries grown the products that have fed and clothed the world. The rice fields of Yangshuo and such ancient villages such as Yima, XingLong, JiuXian and ChaoYang are filled with crops such as oranges, cotton and rice. The latter occupying most of the land.

Century-old irrigation ditches quench the soil of this humid and steaming farmland. The karst limestone scenery of Yangshuo's physical delights, inspires photographers of both the foreign and domestic kind.

The bamboo raft rides, come with pit-stops for food vendors and local photographers, each trying to sell you something. In a way, this sort of eco-Splash Mountain, these rides, like other experiences in the countryside, are indicative of the reach of China's capitalist mentality.

In the village of Moon Hill, a tourist trap about 25 kilometers from Yangshuo, we are charged not only for our rice at dinner (which is pretty much a free staple given in every meal in China) but also for the plastic-wrapped plates that we used to eat off of. It seems that in China, a price can be put on everything and anything can be put up for sale.

It is this sense of capitalism, this sense that even the most rural of farmers can make a buck getting you to take a picture of their doorway or livestock, that is alarming and questionable about China's quest for economic dominance. It seems that there is no limit to the extent of what can be bought and sold here, which creates an ethical and personal paradox.

With that sort of national mentality, it is no wonder that human trafficking, organ harvesting and illegal animal trading, have gone unmonitored. Most people in China seem to not blink an eye at the hundreds of exhaust fuming tourist buses rushing people from scene A to scene B.

There is a cost to all of this consumption. It will be most noticeable years from now, in the long-term effects China's industrial revolution is having on our planet. For now, it seems that no part of the country is safe from the long arm of capitalism. While this creates and stimulates, given money to people that would never have dreamed of it before, it also deteriorates and demoralizes. Thousand year-old customs and traditions are now just another tourist opportunity. New roads and construction, to see once isolated villages, wreak havoc on fragile ecosystems in some of the world's most beautiful sites.

Still China churns on, seemingly unaware and unapologetic. It's natural wonders, too numerous to capture, invite investment, tourism and pollution. All of it is done in a quest to keep with the wishes of the dragon's people. All is done, as the Chinese unwrap their new possibilities and adventures, like a child at Christmas.