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Later, I found myself on a pedestrian square. Above me loomed the towers of New Qingdao. I had settled on a bench in front of a large JumboTron screen that displayed an NBA playoff game. As I watched Steve Nash feed the ball to Amare Stoudemire, I was approached by three little boys in filthy torn clothes who inquired whether I had any money, and would I perhaps like to give it to them. Perhaps they were three, six, and eight years old. Perhaps they were older. They were all smaller than my four-year-old son, and as I regarded them, dusty and hungry, I wished that one day they’d grow to be giants, tall and soaring, as big as Yao Ming.

8

One of the interesting things about living in the United States is that you know, just know, can feel it in your bones, that you inhabit the beating heart of the world. This isn’t true, of course. (It’s actually in Tuvalu.) Nevertheless, we take it for granted that when we have our Super Bowls, 3 billion people around the world upend their work schedules and forgo sleep so that they, too, can watch. We assume that as we view the colossal fuck-up that is the life and times of Britney Spears, people abroad care as much as we do when the sad, bloated Mouseketeer decides to shave her head. We are told that when our economy sneezes, Canada, Europe, Asia, wherever, catches a cold. When we screw up, it’s the rest of the world we screw up. And when we triumph, the rest of the world stops to admire the great shining city on the hill. We are, we believe, the prime movers and the rest of the planet just rolls along on the ride that is America.

Which is why it’s so very interesting to be in China. Here, too, is a place that feels, knows in its bones, that it is the beating heart of the world. Indeed, there’s nothing subtle about its self-assurance. The Chinese word for China is Zhongguo, or Middle Kingdom, a name that implies that there is China and then there are the sticks. The great emperors of China spent much of their time ensuring that other countries kowtowed toward them, and when these dynastic emperors periodically retreated behind their walls, it certainly wasn’t because they were humbled by the outside world. Instead, it was because they couldn’t deign to be concerned about the unlucky barbarians living beyond their borders. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that most Chinese regard the incursions and interventions of Western powers in the nineteenth century, and the chaos unleashed by the opium trade, as profoundly humiliating. Indeed, modern Chinese history can often be read as the story of its reaction to the West.

The Chinese, of course, as a people are immensely proud. As well they should be. Theirs is an ancient culture, and for much of the past 5,000 years, few civilizations could claim to be as advanced as the people living behind the Great Wall. In science, art, literature, and astronomy, and culminating in the wonder that is the steamed dumpling, the Chinese have contributed much to the betterment of humanity—at least when they felt like sharing, which, apparently, wasn’t very often. For many Chinese, who despite Mao’s best efforts to smash the old culture remain steeped in history, the tribulations of the past two hundred years, when Europe humbled it with its drug trade and Japan bloodied it with its occupation, are regarded as an anomaly. But now that the tumult of those years is behind them, and China is emerging to what many Chinese would regard as its rightful place atop the economic and geopolitical food chain, I’d begun to wonder how this pride, this nationalism, would manifest itself.

If you spend any time on an Internet message board frequented by Chinese, you’d know that this nationalism can often come across, to put it kindly, as a little prickly. Type in something relatively innocuous like I’d like to find some dog food that isn’t flavored with pesticides. Any suggestions, gang? And be prepared to be viciously flamed. Do not criticize great country China!!!! China development