Friday, July 18, 2008

Letter from China

If you want to know what is happening in China, don't trust media reports too much. Their authors are blinded by the enormous proportions of China, by its superpower status and its fast economic progress (though the latter is perceived on the basis of official Chinese statistics, which reminds the alleged economic prosperity of USSR and is likely to be about as authentic).
The quote below is from a letter written in April by a guest worker in China. I prefer not to give more details about the author and where I found the text; let me just mention that I am not the blogger to whom the letter was addressed.

"Unfortunately, I have no access to your blog. I suppose that, similarly to many other Web pages, it is made unaccessible from China. I am very angry at the whole situation here. Frankly, I am quite afraid by the thought that China is the new superpower... I see you are aware of the events happening here, but let me add several interesting facts from the last few days:
1. The Party sent a mass text message to all Chinese, "advising" them not to buy anything from Carrefour (the largest hypermarket here, it is French btw). And guess what - after May 1 no one Chinese will shop there. Let me clarify the reason. I talked about this with a colleague from Singapore and he said, "My girlfriend is against this Party initiative, but she also isn't going to shop at Carrefour, because if she does and some of her colleagues hear about it, they will begin to hate her." There are some very malicious people here, hating those who don't march with the majority and ready to expose their hate. You get the situation, don't you? Chinese are so brainwashed that it is hard to believe!
2. The Party sent a mass e-mail message to the Chinese, explaning how malicious Western European people are. There were attached photos (ultra manipulated) of Chinese in Paris weeping because of what happened there with the Olympic fire. Quote: "See our HEROES"... To me, these things just suck! My boss commented the situation, ”We are the strongest and most powerful nation in the world, nobody has the right to stand against us”. Can you imagine this coming from the mouth of an educated Chinese citizen, with much international experience. Imagine then the "thoughts" of an ordinary Chinese who has had the great luck to graduate 3rd grade... And this is the nation coming forward - scary, isn't it?
...I am a complicated personality. And despite being "material", I am much tormented by the things I described and therefore I decided that China isn't for me, at least not at the moment... I am going to leave soon. I may return when this nation becomes a little more mature, but during the last 6 months I realized that if Chinese mentality is to grow up at all, it will require a loooooong time... I intend to seek a job in South Africa or in some pretty corner of Europe... I need a more normal place, these Chinese exhausted me too much..."

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