A Chicana in China

Two things happened in the past two weeks that inspired me to write this post. Firstly, I accompanied my grandmother on a 9-day trip to China. Secondly, I finally found a recording of this song for which I have been searching for years.

(Photo: La Cumbiambera looking out over the Great Wall of China.)

La Maldición de Malinche – Amparo Ochoa y Gabino Palomares

The China trip was an organized tour which basically consisted of visits to historic sites and an array of state-owned shops specializing in jade, peal, silk, tea, etc. Since we didn’t have much opportunity to wander about on our own or interact with the public, I returned with a feeling that I maybe I hadn’t actually been to China after all. Except, of course, I had been, and even through the windows of a tour bus, there were many things I had the opportunity to observe and reflect on. (Photo: Monday morning rush hour in Beijng)

We began our itinerary at the “Forbidden City,” which is known in Chinese as the “Palace Museum.” This, the old home of the Ming and Qing dynasty emperors, is the largest surviving palace complex in the world and consists of 9,999 rooms. It is 600 years old. Over the next nine days we visited historical sites ranging from a renovated portion of the Great Wall, to the Lingyin Buddhist Temple, which is nearly 1,700 years old and still in active use as a place of prayer. It is most famous for the adjacent mountain into which were originally carved 600 Buddhas (see photo). 300 of these still survive.

As we visited these sites, I was impressed to see how in tact they were. These sites have survived centuries of wars, invasions, and revolution. In the past, most of my travel had been within Latin America. I have been to the stripped-down and now colorless remains of Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, and Monte Albán in México. I have been to similar sites at Machu Picchu and Saqsayhuaman in Perú. I have even been to Spain—to Granada and Sevilla and Madrid—and have seen where a lot of the splendor of our ancient sites has ended up. I have been to the very port on the Río Gualdaquivir where the stolen gold, jewelry, headdresses, etc. were unloaded. (Photo: Gold from the ancient Americas on display in Granda, Spain in 2007) As I toured China, I reflected on that amazing nation which, throughout the turmoil of history, has never lost control of its own people, of it’s own land. Whether governed by an emperor or the Kuomintang or the Communist Party, China has always been in the hands of the Chinese. Whereas Latin America, as we all know, has suffered the consequences of a brutal invasion, an invasion during which our ancient palaces and places of prayer were deliberately destroyed and torn apart by the colonizers.

I say this not to induce nostalgia nor regret nor any other sentiment that might be accompanied by sighs of “if-only”. What I took away from seeing China’s national treasures still in tact was not a sense of self-pity or sadness for my own people, but rather a sense of pride. Because what I realized was that, even though in this day and age we can only imagine the splendor of our ancestor’s creations, our historical sites at one time were as detailed and breathtaking as China’s. But more important than aesthetics is the fact that our sites also held as much symbolism and meaning and were constructed with the same degree of science and thoughtfulness and intent as were those of the Chinese. (Photo: roof detail from the Palace Museum)

I do not, however, intend to glorify indigenous imperial powers or systems of class stratification be they Mexica (Aztec) or Inca or Ming or otherwise. There is something to be said, however, for having one’s national history in tact, for being able to look back on the past and claim it and learn from it, for being able to build on it or change it's trajectory as the people see fit. As indigenous people of the Americas, it goes without saying that much of our past was stolen from us over centuries of intentional suppression and destruction. But this, too, is part of our story. As a Chicana, I feel grateful to have been to China and to have seen the way the Chinese people have cared for their history. I am inspired by their tenacity and by their ability to move forward with new visions of what their future history might be.

Chinese tourist taking a photo of the 600-yr old Temple of Heaven in Beijing