Last train home

Between Vietnam and China, around this week, close to 1 Billion people get on trains, planes and automobiles, trying to go home on the country side. Catchy label for them would be ” Confucian Consumers”. They will be scrambling on any transport, whether they are black or white (to para-phase Deng’s dictum), as long as it gets them home. Home to the green fields, flat earth, and the traditional order (but they would be wearing Nike and carrying fake I phone).

KFC does a little better in China, where old mores still rule, at  least on Chinese New Year (whose parade this month in San Francisco is the largest of its kind outside of Mainland).

Neighboring Cambodia observed its New Year a few months back, this time, no major stampede has been reported.

Chinese cities will look eerily empty.

Conversely, grave yards get more visitors (Mothers Day, Fathers Day all in one).

I still remember the incense burning and the crowd around the fortune teller’s table of my childhood in Vietnam.

Imagine yourself Chinese, securing a seat on the Last Train home : longing and anticipating  the whole time on the winding country road that leads home, annual bonus in the pocket, and an apprehension of being robbed while napping.

Hard-earned position at work stays at work. Back to the village, you are known as so-and-so’s son or daughter. Don’t get smart with me, city boy!

So you start mentally with a self-stripping process, dumbing down and dressing down.

Once born in that context, you are trapped in a cycle of birth and rebirth (their version of social network, but extended inter-generationally, as opposed to globally).

Past is future in a continuous loop. Time is cyclical not linear (as in Alpha and Omega – which explains the Rapture motif).

The Economist ran a graph, which spans for a thousand years, to show India, China, and the West as three major powers, not just back then, but also on track to reemerge by 2041 (as if history had its own muscle memory).

Chinese leadership is learning the way of Japan and Korea before them: strong-handed economy. Growth at all costs (7.7 in 2013).

Build and they will come. Well, except for these two weeks, they say “thanks, but no thanks” to the overtime pay. (as of this edit, housing crunch border-lines collapse).

Like the French in August, nothing gets done.

I can see the Chinese counterparts of John Candy and Steve Martin on ” planes, trains and automobiles”.

I hear also the Chinese version of “White Christmas”. The journey of a thousand miles, in this case, begins with a single seat. Chinese this week are not “Confucian consumers” or world-factory workers. They are just sons and daughters trying to get home. Filial reverence and respect are the highest virtue. Years ago, even the then visiting Chinese President observed this. He tried to get out of Washington as soon as he could, like everyone else. Except in his case, he did not need to secure a seat on the Last Train home.