At the children's horse riding place, this girl N, we talked several times, she's 90% blind but loves music and horse riding. Today her grandpa companied her, she used to have a paid assistant who brought her here and took her home by car.
Today after she finished riding, on the way to find her grandpa I led her to the barn. I thought she was of foreign origin too, like all the people in the barn that I know: coach from New Zealand, J from France, students from Germany, Austria, South Korea, Saudi etc. Everyone has an accent.
So I asked N: "Where were you originally from?"
She replied: "Belarus."
"What?! Bang!!" My mind shouted.
I continued my inquiry: "What do you think...."
"American news media is all propaganda you know!"
"What?! Bang!!" My mind shouted again.
"Those videos and news about bombing civilians, they are all fake, made by the American propaganda machine. The Ukrainian army is Nazi, they are bombing their own people. Normal Ukrainians want to come back to Russia, normal Ukrainians welcome the liberation of the Russian army!"
"Bang Bang Bang..." I was hesitating, should I reply or should I go.
But I replied: "If the Ukrainian army is controlled by Nazis, then why the president is a jew, his grandfather's three brothers were killed by Nazis you know?"
"Oh I'm not saying Ukraine's president is a Nazi, but Ukraine's army is Nazi."
"Then why there is no coup to overthrow the president? Why is he leading this 'Nazi' army? I saw a lot of videos showing how Ukrainian apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, freedom squares were bombed. And I saw uncountable videos of people becoming refugees, fleeing into neighboring countries."
"Oh the Ukrainian army bombed their own houses. You need to have the critical thinking, don't trust any news!"
"If they are Nazis, why not bomb Russian civilian houses and cities? What kind of Nazis bomb their own streets but not occupy the neighboring country? What do they get from bombing their own houses?"
.....
Raining hard outside, my mood elevating fast, my children riding on horses in the rain. So I just suddenly cut to a "bye" and ran away.
With Coach and J in the outdoor arena, J didn't want to talk politics at all. Sometimes you never know what French men want.
Coach was as usual, "Luckily America got rid of Trump, can you imagine right now how fucked we would be if Trump was still there? Well, at the end of the day, all are evil, depending on which soil you stand on. Putin miscalculated, NATO has been aggressive, all those countries were part of USSR and Russian people are entitled to it. Europe goes way back in history. Well, all are evil, all are killing machines. COVID is the master plan made by China to take over the whole world, and China is extremely evil and dangerous. Russia has always been an ally, WWII was ended by the Russians you know. American children are so brainwashed to think the Americans ended WWII, but no, it was the Russians. They led the Nazis to Siberia and let Nazis' tanks freeze. USSR and America, two superpowers, they needed each other, if one was gone, the other would be gone too. So they preferred to co-exist, they relied on each other. But China? Oh no, China wants to be the superpower, but no, Russia is much safer than China. I wish Ukraine stay strong, but I also wish Russia continue to be the superpower. The world needs Russia to be the superpower, so China will be in check."
".......ya right....."
With the Ukraine war, it's just so bizarre that all kinds of sayings popped up from the people around you. When online, you only take comfort and stay together with accounts that express similar views. But you can't filter people in your life by their political views.
No wonder in normal life, politics is never really a hot topic among acquaintances but only within tight-knit. And in social media that connects random associates and distant relatives, most people stay quiet when it comes to politics, so as not to "make mistakes" or offend someone.
Also the more I see, the more I realize, everybody, well, especially the ones with less correct facts, does turn to think she/he is the smartest and most knowledgeable in the world, and what she/he believes is the most correct. Somewhat logical or all over the places, brainwashed with limited access to information or utterly free in the information junkyard. Not much difference.
Humans.
Partial to truth and knowledge is human's no.2 defect. As the result, we will never live without large-scale wars.
At least in democratic societies, people are free to believe in whatever shit they want. As long as a critical mass of intellectuals whose individual knowledge reservoir is high enough to build up the ability to apprehend multiple sides, as well as to recognize fundamentals that lie underneath twisted roots and intertwined joints are allowed to exist, there's always hope.
China? If today China terminated its GFW and allowed information flow in and out freely, the number of such intellectuals might fast ascent to reach the critical mass in months or a short few years.
Humans, the thirst for knowledge and truth is human's no.2 merit. As the result, we will always recover from wars, for a certain period of time.
When my children were done with their horse riding today, we ran to our car in rain. All that time after I abruptly ran away from N till then, I was feeling guilty.
"She's blind you know, how can she use Twitter and social media like you do? You can get whatever information you want, see whatever videos you want, but that could be 1000 times harder for her. If her grandpa lives under the Belarusian and Russian dictator's spell, how could she possibly get out of it? If people like my dad who could freely drive and shop in any store in America, who could speak some English and deal with normal situations, couldn't get out of his brainwashing, how can her grandpa who couldn't speak even a word of English, couldn't drive, barely have eyesight get out of his brainwashing?"
Then suddenly I saw them, N and her grandpa, waiting under the roof, waiting for Uber.
"Is your Uber coming? Where do you live?"
She used voice to order Uber with her phone, but her car was still 22 minutes away.
"Hey, let me drop you home, it's only 30 minutes from here, and 25 minutes for me to go back home. It's raining, it's cold, it's late, let me drop you home. Luckily I drove my big car today, my husband went to SF for work."
So I helped her cancel the trip in Uber, my children helped me put up the back seats for grandpa.
On the way to her home, we talked about music and piano, we talked about studies and schools, we talked about my love stories. In the last five minutes, I talked about how modern China was founded and all that suffering it went through, I did express my resentment for communism. Only because she kept asking about the Nanjing massacre, the Japanese invasion, and the comfort women in the war. Really no way to stop me from going there.
On the way back to my home, I felt so guilty for getting angry at my mom for "being an inhumane Nazi" who "supported the war". I think I just assumed, no? She didn't dare to say anything in front of me or my children, no? And deep down, could you even believe my mom would not cry for the bombed and dead if she truly knows? No, she would definitely cry.
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