My temper flared at the bank today where I went on an errand for a small non-profit organization I belong to. In spite of all their advertising that they were a local bank interested in the surrounding community, the bottom line was that their bottom line expectations weren't being met by the paltry sum and use of our organization's checking account. Their interest in the people of the community was actually in the money of the people in the community. Somehow, this perfectly obvious fact managed to surprise me. I'm sure my anger was not only at the rude clerk, but at how money has managed to become the end all and be all of so much of life today, as well as the yardstick for measuring a person or organization's value.
I've never had a good relationship with money. Mostly during my life, I haven't thought of it much at all. Escaping the United States long ago, where money has long been King, aided my not thinking about money. At the age of 40, with a pack on my back, and holding a bag in one hand, I started more than 16 years of wandering the world. I wasn't penniless, but how I managed to visit so much of the world on the little money I had and the small money I managed to earn along the way, will forever remain a mystery. I'm sure some of the travelers I met had more money than I did, but we were all somehow economically equals in the rooms of youth hostels. Our most interesting conversations were about our travel adventures, not money. When we did talk about money, it was how to stretch our travel dollars.
When I went to China in 1988, I entered a world where just about everyone was poor. There was an underlying capitalistic spirit, but it was muted at that time of China's history. Being poor was okay there, and $5 a night could buy me poor, but decent lodging.
When I went to Bali in 1989, and then again in 1995, I was in a magical place of nature's kindness and beauty. Balinese people lived very modestly. Their joy was a lifestyle of being intertwined with nature. Yes, there was a place where you could pay $100 a night for a luxurious room, but I never stayed in such places. I was happy in simple homestays, sometimes with a cold shower on the roof looking out upon the terraced rice fields and mountains.
China has changed greatly as money became accessible beyond most people's wildest dreams. Bali has changed too, but I hope not too much. The U.S. remains obsessed with money -- making it, saving it, spending it, preserving it. It's hard trying to get through a day in the U.S. when money doesn't come up in some way. I sometimes feel more lost in my native country than I did walking through small villages in China and Bali.
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Good that you saw China when you did because it will never be the same. Not that most people don't seem happier now than they did before. But it was fascinating to be in a place without private cars, where everyone got around on bicycles. On my first and only visit to Beijing a few years back, I was told that the city had been transformed by the "Three M's": the Ming Dynasty, Mao, and money.
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