“Remember, none of them have been overseas,” the teacher mentioned, in reference to the rest of the class.

We had been discussing whether Australians found it strange that despite my Chinese appearance I didn’t speak any Chinese languages, and had an Australian accent. I replied that such a thing wasn’t so uncommon in Australia, but when I traveled the locals of places like Europe and South America, which have relatively small, Chinese populations, found it a little strange.

Her comment – that none of the Chinese students had been overseas (well except for one, who was ethnically Korean and had been to Korea) – or perhaps it was mine, was yet another reminder of how I differed to the rest of the students in the class.

Let’s imagine six villages.

The five villages are all interconnected: they communicate with one another, trade and share goods, news, information, ideas, and culture. There is a movement of people between the villages: be they short visits, work related or migration. So even though in each village the majority of the population stay in their own village and never set foot in the other villages – almost all of them know someone who has.

The sixth village, however, is isolated from the rest. It has little communication or trading and sharing of ideas with the other five, and there is almost no movement of people – either in or out. In this case, not only is there an even greater majority of the population who has never seen another village – hardly any of them know anyone who has.

Now, this sixth village is very, very big. So perhaps there is enough dynamicism within the village to rival the five villages put together. The thing is, there’s also a very powerful organisation in charge of this village, that attempted to eradicate many differences between families and put into place a culture of heavy conformity. This makes the sixth village an even more remarkably different place to the five other villages.

This may be an extreme analogy for China, but still, I am constantly struck anew by how “closed” China was, still is – although it’s changing, and wonder what the implications are. When I talk to a Chinese, it’s not just a case of realising they’ve never been overseas, but also that they’ve grown up in a world where no one they know has been overseas either.

Remember this girl I had lunch with, and who said I was the first foreigner she’d ever met? Many other Chinese students I’ve talked to said the first foreigner they’d ever met was their language teacher. Which Sydney-sider born and raised could ever even remember meeting their first “foreigner”? Sydney is packed full of them! They’re called … Sydney-siders.

And this is just the general experience for Chinese students attending a top tier Beijing university. Many of them may not have been overseas, but most of them will likely, at some point, have the opportunity to. It’s not the same story, however, for the nation’s majority countryside peasant population.

For more on how and why China is an island, head to this fascinating post by Kevin Kelly (via. Strange Maps, via. John Maudlin’s Outside the Box.)

Interesting fact: here, a “migrant worker” isn’t someone who’s migrated from overseas, but someone who’s moved from one province to another, within China. Imagine if you had to ask for – and it was difficult to get – permission to move from Victoria to NSW? But it makes more sense when you remember that China (1.3 billion) has a greater population than all of Europe (0.5 billion), and a greater land mass (9.6 million km2, 4.3 million km2 respectively).

This new documentary ‘Last Train Home‘ looks like a fascinating and moving treatise on the migrant worker experience here: