On the surface, Chinese culture appears as different as can be from American culture. When I moved to China in 2012, I had no idea what to expect. I anticipated some faceless collective, almost like a hive mind between all Chinese citizens, because of all the ‘collectivist culture’ insistence from my Sociology studies. How wrong I was.

I happened to look back at some photos from my time there the other day. It was easy to slip into reminiscence of my old life, now more than 10 years ago. How I lived in the city center’s hutongs, without a toilet or microwave. How I commuted via the Beijing subway, often with my longboard. How I lived young and free, sometimes staying up all night, walking back home in the early hours of dawn, when the locals were getting up and starting their days.

Looking down on Hong Kong from the highest bar in the world on Christmas Day, 2019

Dawn was always my favorite time of day in Beijing, because the city was quiet, and you sensed the history of civilization in the crisp morning air. Before the all the megacity sound erupted midmorning and you were lost in Beijing busyness. In that still dawn, it was possible to feel connected to thousands of years of culture.

Instead of faceless, collectivist communism, I learned that Chinese culture strongly values family. Everyone leaves Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to return home during Chinese New Year and all the other important festivals like Tomb-Sweeping, Dragon Boat, and Mid-Autumn (my favorite) festival. Gathering with family and feasting are important pastimes. For much of its history, China was a poor, agrarian economy. Farmers now flock to the aforementioned Tier 1 cities for more opportunities and a better life, and the prospect and accumulation of wealth is challenging the country's traditional values. At least, that collision was occurring 10 years ago, when I lived there. I fell in love with the beautiful parts of Chinese culture, namely the significance of family.

How different is that from small-town America's values of faith and family?

Table Mountain from my office in downtown Cape Town, January 2012

South Africa would appear to be as different as can be from the Far East of China. Yet many South Africans primarily identify with their tribes over less significant affiliations like region or country. Cape Town is the most grimy cosmopolitan city I've ever visited, where you hear all sorts of languages while walking down the somewhat rundown roads. Tribes share a language, a culture, a history and genealogy, and that takes precedence in the modern world's politics. In a way, it is the same valuation of family and community that one experiences in China. I did experience it in both places, and am a better person for it.

In fact I am better for visiting all the places I've been to around the world, because they've shown me the diversity of cultures across the globe, and yet reinforced the uniformity. We may live differently, but we share the same desire: peace and prosperity for our families, however we structure them. Cultural diversity is beautiful and fascinating. So is the universal value of family. Our next step: seeing all of humanity as one family, inhabiting this rollicking blue orb.