Unexpected black skinned in china

by seyram Amedede (Ghana)

I didn't expect to find China

My first trip on an airplane was a journey to China, Hunan province, a place with few people with black skin. The journey from Ghana to China took almost 16 hours. I didn’t expect a trip on a plane to be so smooth and comfortable. Sitting in an airplane with different people, from various countries with variety of skin color was really fascinating and exciting, I took the opportunity to make friends with few whites and I didn’t expect our interactions to be so mutual. On arrival at the Guangzhou city, I was amazed at the shaping and height of sky clippers at the city. I didn’t expect to see a city so beautiful and layout of building so perfect, Looking around the airport I can only black-skinned people I saw was the group I went with. I felt a bit uncomfortable in my skin. Every single person, apart from the group I went with was white or so I thought and I was later corrected that the Chinese see themselves as yellow instead of white-skinned. From the airport, to our pick up point was a walking journey where all eyes were on our group. From afar some Chinese take pictures whiles others came close to ask us questions of or origin and ask to take pictures with us. To my unconsciousness a lady about 20 years old came to me to ask me some questions; where do you come from, how I got to understand Chinese and so one, then the most unexpected question and action came out: are you black because you don’t bath? The action was accompanied by rubbing my skin to see if the will reveal a complexion similar to hers. The next face of the journey was the railway station that will transport us to the Hunan province. The view of the city was amazing and nothing has seen before. The majority of the building was sky clippers and they look gigantic my point of few. I didn’t expect to find a build shaped in a circular form; however to my utmost surprise I saw a few of them at Guangzhou and a few other shapes not in a way am familiar to in Ghana. On our way to the railway station, our director keeps mentioning how were are going to take the fastest train in the world, although I was a bit skeptic about the fact that a train can run faster than the one we have in Ghana yet still I was looking forward to the experience. After the check-out at the railway station which was very neat and nothing compared to the railway station in Ghana. Inside the train, the environment feels just the same as sitting in an airplane. A few minutes after, and the train moved, the speed was moving at 432 km/h as announced by the train driver. The speed was unspeakable but felt so safe. This type of speed was not what I expected, the train moves like a bullet and I immediately understood why it is called a bullet. A journey that would have lasted for more than 7 hours by car was reduced to about 2 to 3 hours by the bullet train. This was a fascinating journey. On arrival at Hunan, I didn’t expect to find a place in Asia hotter than Ghana. The weather was unexpectedly hot and that moment I wish I was in my home country, however, the warmed welcome received from the host of the summer camp changed my mind- it wasn’t as if I can just go back if I wanted to- The people were friendly, the food and learning new culture was very captivating. I enjoyed every bit of the 21 days spent on this journey. And since then I have much looked forward to finding the unexpected around the world.