Last week when we chatted, I decided to let go beforehand, didn't want to say a word about how bad China is going to be. I decided to finally respect people's choices. So I only talked about how my life here is about bringing up the kids, and pretended that I was not aware of the falling of house prices and the bleak outlook of the economics. We had fun talking, she opened up more because she didn't feel that I was imposing anything on her, I assumed.
Yesterday she called me, that never happened before. Usually, I am the one who is worried about them, and urging them to prepare for passports, visas, cash, and things like that. And most of the time they thought I was an alien who betrayed the motherland. Tonight we finally got to talk, she was not saying anything for the first five minutes, and I asked "Tell me, what do you want to discuss? You have something in your mind?" "No no, you are tired, you should go to sleep." "No, I can talk for some time, don't worry about me, tell me, let me know what you think." Then she started talking about how bad the situation has become, and whose fault was it.
She was like, "So that economist was hinting that if a company is not going on well, it's the fault of the top management. Isn't it that clear? What's the difference between information inside and outside of the GFW?" She has circumvented the wall for years due to her work but never cared to keep an eye on politics.
"What's the difference?! Inside GFW there is nothing that can be discussed, absolutely nothing! You think such a 'hinting' is good enough? So do you know exactly what happened or what he did that led to today's tragedy? Can you give me a timeline of events? How did he step by step broke the relationship with all major countries? Or broke the relation with America, once Deng Xiaoping said 'China's foreign relation is all about China's relation to America', what actions he took at what time that led to this? Do you know any of it? This is called information censorship inside GFW, people don't know anything! Now people like you finally started to feel the impact and figured out your main enemy. But people like us have been shouting and trying everything to prevent this for tens of years! I had known my personal risk for 14 years but I fought nevertheless, I fought hard. The ending was tragic because my parents got so scared when I was Cultural Revolutioned, they went through a lot because of me. Oh, you were wondering why I stopped talking about things for the past two years, what rock were you living under? All of my accounts were deleted!!! Gone, disappeared, I have absolutely no access to them! Do you still think what you hear inside is all to it? When you talked with me last time, I pretended that I was not aware just to make you feel better, truth is I know everything. Everything you mentioned, I know exactly how bad the situation is in numbers and statistics and the cause of it, direct, indirect, and root reasons. I have been knowing this for years and tried to warn you guys for years. You said 'Maybe the downfall was only temporary', no, let me tell you this, we saw it coming for ten years, he has been doing the damage for over ten years now. 2019 was the best for the next 10, 20 years to come, at least 10. The downfall just started, it will continue to fall, fall off the cliff, and there is no way back. Now your window of running away is shrinking drastically, last time I checked, there were 2 or 3 years left, as of today, I would say only a good year left for you to sell your apartment, prepare documents, apply for visas and leave, before the iron curtain is completely sealed for most Chinese. For Gods' sake, I have been urging you to apply for Ph.D. or work abroad for ten years now. Ten years!"
Now finally and suddenly, she is serious about it, we went through several feasible paths, Ph.D., immigrant work expansion in Canada etc, hopefully she is real this time and eventually gets somewhere. If she ever gets to run to Canada, I'm gonna be visiting her often! Yay, I am happy.
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