Sep. 7th
Picking up my children from rock school music class, the coaches walked them out so I went ahead asked one of the coaches some general questions. A green-eyed white guy, children call him "Mr. Ian".
After the chat, I said "thank you", he replied with a standard namaste hand gesture and said "Thank you!"... for a second there I didn't know how to respond, although feeling a bit awkward, out with respect I also showed him my hands together and said "thank you" again....
Usually, I switch to Namaste Gesture Mode altogether when I'm in India, or there are elders in Indian friends' house, you do namaste with hands together to greet them with respect. I mean in California sometimes you really have no idea what kind of mixed family/cultural background people have, and ya, it's super fun.
Sep. 10th
About the thoughts "there is absolutely no hope for Chinese people to have democracy", "Chinese people are just not suitable for democracy", "Chinese are born slaves and only colonization would save them"... No, I Disagree.
Taiwan got through it, South Korea got through it, their main drive both came from within, no? Taiwan in the late 80th, South Korea almost the exact same time... Both of them Chinese traditional culture, no?
The thing is, you give people freedom of the press, freedom of criticism, freedom of information, people's minds will change fast enough.
I grew up in China but I read and learned about freedom, democracy, and people's rights, and that resonated with my basic human innate nature, so I turned. Am I special? No, any human being could be taught about freedom and basic rights, it's just in our blood, like how animal enjoys freedom. You don't need to rule over them to impose "foreign ideals", but just open some windows for them, let in some fresh air and light, then watch how fast they will turn.
Afghanistan, should be a counterpoint, no? --> The change has to come from within, if the people there are not ready, no matter how much you force them, they are not gonna change.
How to ready the people? Free press, free flow of information, free debate, free criticism, investment in the education, not brainwashing type of "education" (this applies to all organizations and groups with different ideologies, races, religions or sexual orientations, people for their own interest and propagation of their own kind that they think it's the best, can't get over their idiot sense of superiority) but Education that Enlightens.
Sep. 12th
Typical Brainwashing Logic, people using this logic to rationalize their brutal and brainless behavior towards me: "she is not grateful for the education she received in China, so we can spit on her, slap her, call her a whore and ya, burn her house and kick her out!"
I have never replied to such commonly existed evil, that nowadays a majority of Chinese have become (or they always have been under the current regime for 70+ years?).
So today here are my questions:
1. If you are Grateful, like Grateful to your Dear Leaders and Dictators, would you be able to get into the same rank of a university as I did? What I achieved in China (getting into a top university), it's because of the existence of the current regime but nothing to do with my own efforts and support from my own family? So all the refugees from evil regimes should feel nothing but grateful to their oppressors?
2. How do you know I "ENJOYed" the 22 years of education in China? Where all I received was Brainwashing and Brainwashing and Brainwashing, so I had to Waste another 15 years to rebuild myself from ashes.
22+15, that's basically my whole life till now, I am so Fucked Up, so Fucked Up, my youth so Wasted in mugging up your propaganda and Fabricated Facts about the world.
Today, I mean today, I still look like an Ignorant Idiot when people are talking about what's happening and happened in the world. Because I have never built up that structure of knowledge, I might be out of the evil claws of propaganda logic, but the construction of knowledge takes decades. Normal people start from 3 years old, I start from 30+ years old...
You call that "ENJOY"? Well, Fuck you!
Go worship your fucking dictators and let me be pissed with whatever I want to be pissed with, that's my fundamental right and I finally have that rights now. Well, Fuck you!
Sep. 12th
Was telling Raj about my experience in New Oriental (New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.). Around 2006, my third year in Xia Men U, I started preparing for application to foreign universities, my family also sent me to Shanghai New Oriental for TOEFL training.
I am from a small town, before college I never met a foreign English teacher who actually speaks English, but TOEFL has an oral test. Students like me who don't grow up in big cities where they can have summer camps and exchange programs with international schools, or private training sections, rely on facilities like New Oriental.
Because New Oriental provides 2-week, 1-month, and so on intense English test tutoring sections, with dormitory and food. It's expensive, 2 weeks of training with a dormitory and food cost a few thousand dollars. But the norm was if you ever wanted to have enough scores for TOEFL, you got to have the New Oriental training...
I ended up going to New Oriental 2 times before taking my TOEFL, one time in summer one time in winter. Made some friends in the dormitory, also got to meet all those "Legendary" star tutors who spoke perfect English, lived abroad, and understood how different systems work. They would give a lot of very useful advice on test-taking, as well as living abroad. Each one of them was like a comedian, a superstar among our youth.
I think one of the most significant things about them was that they shone a lot of light on how the democratic system work, in terms of the election, voting, independent judiciary, state and federal laws etc. The trainers believed the students got to understand the basics to succeed in the test.
New Oriental was the hope for normal middle-class Chinese to find the path to the outside world.
How dramatically, just within a few week's time, they got wiped out, the whole freaking industry got wiped out, millions of teachers lost jobs overnight, which means a death sentence for a better future for the entire family. New Oriental's stock only has some one-digit % left, which also means millions of investors' money evaporated.
Millions of normal Chinese family's dreams shattered, future altered, yet, you don't hear any complaints or crying, no protests or disagreement.
Just like in Great Leap Forward, Three-anti/Five-anti Campaigns, 60s Famine, Cultural Revolution, One Child, and uncountable other terrors, you would never know how people suffered in silence and how families quietly got wiped out...
This is the story of China.
Sep. 13th
People are the same everywhere, but systems are different. The reason a democratic system is, for now, the best for humans is that first of all, it keeps an individual's power under check, and most importantly, it heals itself.
Democratic societies are always noisy, messy, and seem divided, and always, there are people who feel it's "in the decline", it's "hopeless", it's "the end of the world". Why? Because people are free to speak out their minds.
When you have all the people speaking up, it will look crazy, messy, and sounds like the end of the world, but that's also the top-secret about self-healing. Only because people are allowed to argue, allowed to have different opinions, a society could correct itself and make better choices.
I'm definitely not a fan of Trump supporters online, and I realized a lot of communist regime refugees automatically become one. A lot of things I don't agree with them, A Lot, but I do think they should be allowed to speak out and it's their fundamental right.
The only thing to watch for is the Personality Worship of any leader, in any society.
