They are everywhere. Like the ubiquitous NRI Keralites, you can find Chinese tailors, cooks, restaurateurs, shoemakers, physicists and salesmen just about anywhere on the globe. All my life I have run into them in different parts of the world and to be honest, more often than not, the encounter was not memorable. From an emotional point of view they seemed stiff, cold, sharp and hostile to Indians. How wrong I was? Let me put it this way: the Chinese in China are so different. So warm, gracious and helpful. I was bowled over when I visited China for two weeks last month. They are no different from us in their hospitality and concern to make guests feel welcome. And communism has not made a difference in these basic but very civilised emotions. Or perhaps communism is the difference between these Chinese and the successful Chinese you find elsewhere. Perhaps, hardship, like in India, refines the emotions. I travelled to Shanghai, Beijing and on River Li, via Guilin, with my two young children. The youngest is just 10 months. And because of her we got a wonderful reception. Folks everywhere welcomed this little brat with open arms. If I parked her for even five minutes in her pram on a Bejing sidewalk or the Shanghai waterfront, people gathered around. Mothers followed us across the Forbidden City in Beijing blowing kisses. In government emporiums salesladies took her over while I browsed. Grandmothers cooed, young men re-tucked her blanket. Everybody and anybody volunteered to take her carriage up the stairs or scoop her up in their arms and give her a koocheekoo. I was touched. And the brat played to the gallery, rewarding folks with brilliant ear-splitting smiles. The elder too got her fair share of attention. Cameras were thrust in my hands and Kshamaya and Nadisha were obliged to share a frame with many a toddler in the People's Republic of China. So on my first trip to China, mid-journey, I found I had to take a deep breath and guiltily rearrange the impressions and biases I had formed over 25 years. Another overriding emotion I felt on this trip was anger. Deep anger. The moment I landed in Guilin, and subsequently Bejing and Shanghai, I began to feel so angry at the Indian government. Infrastructure in the places I visited in China is well above average and nearly comparable to that in First World countries. Shanghai and Beijing airports were absolutely world class. Better than a Charles de Gaulle or a JFK, I would say. Squeaky clean, ultramodern and very efficient. Highways flowed out of the airport with six or eight lanes. Beijing and Shanghai have impressive beltways/freeways. Skyscrapers in the commercial districts were as striking as those found in New York City or Chicago. Department stores were chic, apartment buildings well maintained and whitewashed. And things worked! Airports did not take two hours to exit. Custom and immigration officials, though cautious, were mostly efficient. Taxis were readily available and cab drivers did not charge extra or insist on tips. Nor did they brandish stupid cards showing an 'adjustment' to the meter as they do in Bombay. Traffic jams were not uncommon but city roads were divided into special lanes for bicycles and scooters. The public followed the rules and did not break queues, litter or cheat. The domestic airlines operated sleek planes. Services were punctual. Three-star hotels offered better service than our five-star ones. Bathrooms were clean. Cars did not mow down pedestrians, nor did herds of pedestrians mow down cars. Everyone utilised overhead bridges or underpasses. An Indian businessman told me that in factories work was done in pin-drop silence. If a visitor enters he is hardly afforded a glance. Most impressive were China's class of sweepers. Be it at the airport or on the streets, these labourers, usually women, worked tirelessly round the clock, picking up even tiny specks from the middle of road or wiping away at airport walls and garbage cans. Unlike our own bone-lazy breed, who turn off municipal taps when they don't get whopping Rs 5,000 bonuses, these people are responsible for presenting a clean China. And so I travelled through China, admiring everything. The thought on top of my mind was, Why can't India do this? Why can't we achieve such progress at least in our metropolises? When our top politicians visit this country don't they feel even an iota of shame? Can we always blame all our ills on the System. Why is it that other countries in Asia -- be they a democracy or under dictatorship or a communist nation -- have leapfrogged ahead? Are we too quick to believe that we have problems that cannot be solved, problems that other nations solve effortlessly? What will happen eventually to India? There were moments when the infrastructure did not deliver. In Guilin the electricity was out for a couple of hours. We got a US $20 discount on our bill. In Beijing traffic can get kind of messy. In Shanghai I am almost certain the cab driver bribed a cop. In some tourist offices, a few officials were less than helpful. At the Forbidden City they charged 30 yuan for the use of toilets that stank. But by and large, at least in the bigger towns, the system works. In India it is the reverse, the occasions when the system delivers are memorable. I remembered so many foreign businessmen telling me in the course of interviews back in India -- off the record, of course -- how in China you had to pay officials and politicians and the work got done but in India you pay and still the work never gets done. And when I touched down at the awful Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport (honourable Shivaji must be rolling over in his grave) after a brief stint at Bangkok's fancy international airport, where even the bright lawns around the runway were neatly manicured, I felt sad peering out of the window at that disgusting, smelly hut we call airport. The grass around the runways had not been cut and was two feet high. Will there ever be a day when I return home and say: "Wow, India is doing better!" Vaihayasi P Daniel hopes so. Meanwhile, watch out for her adventures on River Li. Tell us what you think of this diary
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