POLITICS IS EVERYWHERE!

During the dinner in Cienfuegos, two of our travel mates asked me and Diana about the feeling and insights of Cuba. Both of us considered the country as a normal Caribbean island country that was economically restricted by the United States for many years and at most a destination that had not been developed much. However, this was only from two Chinese students. For the rest of the Americans in our group, Cuba was a different story.

I still remember the first day we were led by our tour guide to visit the Revolution Museum in Havana. Four previous presidents of the United States were painted on the wall in a funny way. I looked at it, took a picture and left nothing in my mind. However, this picture raised a heated discussion at that night when we were doing the mystery shopping evaluation. Some of my American mates viewed this as offensive. Also, the tour guide was always careful talking about the relationship between the States and Cuba on the bus. He constantly mentioned that what he said was nothing about politics.

At first, I felt kind of strange why my American mates are so politically sensitive. However, once I connected it with the relationship between China and Taiwan, everything made sense.

I was born in a country where almost everything is tightly connected with politics, so people are more intended and interested to talk about politics on the table instead of sports and entertainment. I innocently thought other democratic countries in the world care little about politics when I was a teenager. But the reality proved me wrong. People there are still politically sensitive.