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My 9 perceptions before landing in China

By Abduel Elinaza: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, August 18, 2014

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My childhood memories and perceptions of China struck me immediately after I was told that I will represent my newspaper in Beijing, China, for one year.

During my childhood in major towns and cities in Tanzania, my understanding of Chinese people was limited to films and railway workers working with TAZARA—the Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority.

And occasionally, we received magazines, at the national library and primary schools, with nice colour pictures showing various Chinese workers and some ethnic groups in their colorful traditional attires.

I also learnt about '"zhongguo" from my late father's tales after he visited China in the late 1960s. He climbed the Great Wall and brought a number of artefacts back home, plus some pictures—though at that time they were in black and white and books. He was a civil servant.

All of this, however, increased my perception and confused me even further. As they say, to know a place well, it is better to travel 10,000 kilometres than reading 10,000 books.

Kung fu

My first perception was that every Chinese knows kung fu. Thus we told each other to not play or joke with a Chinese man or woman; they will flatten you down with their fighting techniques. This perception followed Bruce Lee movies—Enter the Dragon, The Return of the Dragon, Fist Fury and the like. In some of the movies, Bruce acted with Angela Mao. This perception has now been elevated by Jacky Chan and Jet Li. But I came to realize that it is not true. Kung fu is a highly disciplined doctrine, which not all Chinese are engaged in.