I recently returned to the US for a brief visit after two straight years in China. There were changes – some people had more gray hair, or had graduated from college, a new president – and much was just as I'd left it.  I spent time in LA, Chicago, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in all three places was struck by two phenomenon.

Los Angeles's LAX is probably the major American airport most in need of a makeover. Replacing the old grey stubbly carpeting with a confused blue pattern has done little to diminish the aged feel of the airport. Having just flown out of Beijing's epic Terminal 3, LAX, one of the biggest airports in the world, seemed like a country cousin that had grown up malnourished and bore little resemblance to Beijing's new terminal – a sleek 3.8 billion USD sprawling building twice the size of the Pentagon. While taking the stairs down to customs a Chinese voice rumbled smoothly over the loudspeaker paging a passenger in Mandarin. I wasn't sure that we'd actually landed in the US at all.
 

Beijing Capital Airport, Terminal 3

The diversity of the United States is astonishing when coming from China. While not as homogeneous ethnically as Japan, China has a population over 1.2 billion and the biggest minority group tops out at 16 million. The stocky baggage stacking suitcases besides the short baggage carousel unable to hold even half the plane's luggage were all Hispanic or African American. The name tag pinned to the immigration officer's dark blue uniform read Chui, and the customs agent who hassled me with a series of irrelevant semi-private questions was named Nyugen.

Emerging from the airport we were stopped by a large black woman with dark fuchsia hair and matching lipstick soliciting donations for a group supposedly approved by the LA Police Charity Commission. Since she gave us funny accurate directions to the rental car shuttle and accepted foreign currency I added five yuan to a rumpled assortment of small bills from a handful of different countries

LAX

The shuttle driver was a lighter skinned black man with a wool cap and a Bluetooth earpiece peeking out from under it and the man behind the rental car counter was either Hispanic or Middle Eastern. The first white worker we saw was the young man with the trailer park mustache who checked our paperwork and let us out of the rental lot.

America's complicated racial and ethnic tensions show little signs of easing and the election of a mixed-race president is unlikely to have much immediate effect on African Americans living in America's inner cities. In forty more years Caucasians will be the minority in the United States as the Hispanic population skyrockets. The United States has always been a country of immigrants and while America's diversity offers a lot of cultural advantages, the racial, ethnic, and economic rifts still divide the country.
 

I'm not passing any kind of judgment good or bad on the state of America's melting pot, or tossed salad, or whatever the metaphor du jour is. Living in America you're always aware to varying degrees and in different ways of the situation. Coming back from China and seeing the contrasts in diversity served to heighten my awareness of the advantages and challenges posed by the diversity of our population.

 

Mr. Mustache okayed our paperwork, lifted the orange and white striped barrier, and as I made a left out onto the street I immediate became aware of the second major difference.

 

Because of it's relatively recent construction – LA was largely built in the 30s and 50s – and the way the now-dated art deco architecture has survived in the temperate climate, LA has always had, for me, a certain dated charm to it. Beijing – roughly as large as LA in terms of area but 4 times as populous – has been aggressively modernizing. Tall buildings are clustered around the city center and the new condo complexes are as tall and sprawling as LA's tiny downtown.

While the US has been pouring money into the Middle East, China has been pouring foundations, laying pavement, and railroad tracks for high speed trains. The shocks on our new rental car couldn't mitigate the bone jarring jigsaw puzzle asphalt patching that stretched from the streets to Route 405 and back to downtown LA without much respite.

Although Chicago certainly feels peppier than LA and has more of a big city feel to it, the physical infrastructure is no better. Roads are potholed and cracking and everywhere are patching jobs layered on top of each other until parts of the road resemble a patchwork quilt rendered with concrete, asphalt, and tar.

President Obama's stimulus plan devotes a big chunk of money to infrastructure projects, although still not as much as China's own stimulus plan promises. There are arguments over the actual benefit infrastructure spending has on the economy but it certainly has an effect on livability. If roads are a city's veins then America's are clotted and collapsing.

The infrastructure situation and the conversations I had with friends and family about China and the US also made me painfully aware of how little I know of China outside the major urban centers. I once drove through southern China and remember passing through depressing villages littered with boxy concrete structures lacking windows and mountain roads that had partially washed out during the rainy season. Once a friend who was already feeling ill was reduced to tears by the jackhammer bouncing of our van.

In the coming decades America and China both face significant challenges. It is my sincere hope that both countries thrive and quality of life improves all around. In certain areas, China and America are mirror images and much can be learned through academic study and strategic partnerships and cooperation that allow the complementary knowledge and experience that both countries possess to be shared for mutual benefit.

 

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