Chinese people can sleep anywhere. There's the driver who strings up a hammock on his bus in the summertime. A different, but just as innovative driver, has a cot complete with blankets laid out in one of his charter bus' luggage bins. There are the plethora of groundskeepers, men and women, who stake out benches and shady patches of grass for their midday naps. Students carry mats around with them to spread across desks, cafeteria tables, and McDonald's booths for quick breaks between studying. This is not to mention those people seen sprawling from their cars' open doors and windows, or balanced on top of their motorcycles and bicycles that one can see on any given day on any given street. Chinese people can sleep anywhere.
I recently finished the book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. The author, Gavin Menzies, lays out his research proving that prior to all of the major European navigational discoveries, the Chinese had already charted the course and had left just enough behind to be followed by the Portugese and Spanish years later.
As I read this book many thoughts come to mind. Without dwelling on matters significantly larger than me for too long, I will just mention that overall I am disappointed to learn these things about China. The amazing technology and knowledge that had already been developed by the time they commenced their voyage, as well the later decision to destroy all record of the trip simultaneously points out China's greatest attribute and its biggest flaw. Such attitudes can still be seen today, in my opinion. Just look at the way English is propagated, studied, taught, and used. But again, I don't need to dwell.
The other thing that made a big impression on me from the book was the DNA evidence that has been found in places like the west coasts of the Americas and the east coast of Australia that shows Chinese people from the great voyages of 1421 settled and eventually intermingled with the locals. Some of these colonists had been shipwrecked, while others, probably for more practical reasons like raising crops, stayed on to build lives. Most likely, these people believed that they were the beginning of a new era of Chinese colonization whereby given some time, more ships and more people would be brought to the new lands, and those who wanted to return to China could go back with the new ships. When two years had brought the surviving ships back to Beijing, however, they found that their government had changed and that their discoveries had been made void. The new regime wanted nothing more to do with the outside. This left an unknowing and significant number of people on opposite ends of the earth waiting and wondering when they'd ever see their homeland again.
Let me rephrase my original thesis; Chinese people can live anywhere. The question is, can I? I've moved around a lot. My friends move around a lot. Just recently, one of my best friends left Changchun for good. At the same time, I am becoming better and better friends with someone who goes to a different university than me, meaning that I end up spending a lot of time away from "home." Sometimes it feels like because I let in a place or a person, I let go of some of my independence and forget where home is. So every day I have to find my center, my heart, and make sure it's there beating for the present moment, sending blood to the brain, signaling me to make a move and put down roots. This is a choice based on need, want, and self-awareness--in other words, a decision that only an independent entity could come to.
At the end of the day, the Chinese didn't stay on their ships forever. In the process, they changed the scope of our earth's environment. It wasn't a choice that all of them made willingly, I'm sure, but sometimes a person just needs what they need. If that's a nap on the sidewalk or under an overhead pass, then what should stop you? You'll wake up and keep working at the rest of the things you need for life. After all, the heart of the matter is you and the home you have inside yourself.
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