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Travel is not all bad.
Fortune Cookie: cute, huh?"I think maybe I will never go back to England, the country where I became an adult, where I grew into a woman, the country where I also got injured, the country where I had my most confusing days and my greatest passion and my brief happiness and my quiet sadness."
Travel changes people. This book is a prime example. Z arrived in England a sheltered girl from the East, and grew into a woman; learning the language, culture, and people of the West while still holding onto her own culture. Although she expressed a dependence on her lover immediately, she still managed to grow as an individual, often at his urging. Her forced journey across Europe elicited much loneliness, but by being forced out of her comfort zone, she was able to discover more about herself as an individual, a concept that was not welcomed in Communist China. She saw the West as an "old capitalism country" in which "'self' means everything," whereas in China, "the 'self' is the enemy of the Communist party."
This novel is a "coming of age" story because of the sexual awakening Z experiences. She admits to feeling ashamed about sex in the beginning because it is so taboo in China, but soon comes to "see clearly [her] desire." Her sexual intimacy with her lover is definitely a partial cause to her intense dependency on him; in addition to depending on him for knowledge, Z depends on him in her transition into womanhood. Her tour across Europe serves as a narrative of her sexual growth and confusion in the West. In Amsterdam she forms a strange, brief connection with a man whom she leaves at the train station after he has chased her there. In Berlin she takes care of Klaus while he is ill, and "feels close to him," even asking herself if she has fallen in love with him. She feels less of a connection to Andrea in Venice, whom she leaves after waking up to his kiss. In every city she visits she encounters another man, showing how deeply interconnected travel and sexuality are. While in Tariva, Z experiences a true sexual revelation; deciding that, "I can be on my own. I can. I can rely on myself, without depending on a man," even though it seems as if her dependence returns in full force once she is back in London.
It is not really made evident to Z or the reader exactly how much Z has grown over the course of the novel until her journey back to China. She admits that she is not the same Z from a year ago, and she will never look at the world the same way. She admits to feeling out of place in China; even Beijing is unrecognizable to her. It is full of new shopping centers with Dunkin Donuts and Nike and the skeletons of half-built skyscrapers. She realizes that she has become a woman in the time she was away, and has been deeply changed by her travel experiences, growing as both a citizen of the world and an individual.
See, travel doesn't always end in death or insanity.
I enjoyed what you had to say
I enjoyed what you had to say about Z's coming of age while in Europe. Though she is a grown woman upon her arrival, she still seems very naive and girlish. I think this stems from her sheltered upbringing in the Chinese countryside. When she leaves at the end of the novel she is no longer this same little girl. In the year she spends abroad she matures drastically. It made me wonder however about the root of this change. Do we as westerners view the book this way because she becomes more of what we're used to? I'd be interested to hear a Chinese perspective on her transformation during her stay to see if they too would see her as being bettered while abroad or just simply westernized. I also liked how you talked about the changes that she notices in her own country when she returns. I think it's interesting to note that these changes all have to do with westernization of her home, paralleling that of her self.
Sexuality in another culture
I like the way you approach the book using the coming of age theme. I also like your last sentence, it reassures me about my life. I was wondering though, don't you think that sexuality is always somewhat present when traveling to another country? Because specifically in America, where we care about PC, it is very important to know when to talk about certain things, and how to talk about them. I think it's one of the most important and yet hardest to understand thing about each culture. It's true though, that Z's story focuses much more on it than you or I might if we were traveling to France. I don't know, do you think it's a personal case or does everyone do it?