Another View Of The Torch Runs
This is an interesting post in response to the Australian who described his experience in Canberra with the passing of the torch (read below.) This writer was born in China and has lived in China, Mexico and now France. She is well educated and speaks several languages.
After our discussion, I checked several big forums and found that almost all internet surfers are proud and encouraged by the passage [of the torch] in Australia. And Chinese who had taken part in the passage in Canberra (includes some of my friends who live in Aus) felt honorable. Today I read also some news about the torch in Korea. I just have no words and am really worry about the nationalist state [of mind] of many Chinese!
To explain the difference of Chinese value to the west is a bit long and complicated I think. I try to give you some examples. Chinese [were] educated by Confucion thoughts since more than 2500 years which [are] totally different from the west thought – freedom, equality, personally value, etc. For example, [the word] “Country” in Chinese is “Guo (state) Jia (family). Chinese also used to compare country as mother. That means for Chinese there first have country then family, the country’s (mother’s) interest is much more important than self interest. People could even forget or modify their own interest to adapt [to] the group or the country. For Chinese, though mother (country) has many faults, this has to be keeping [kept] inside. That means this is a family case, the others should better not criticize on.
Since last later of the 19’s century, china invaded by west countries and had been in a chaos. That’s the reason why
whenPRC was founded; china stopped almost all communications with the world. Later 70’s, Chinese understood that they have to reopen the country to make up for lost time, then Chinese try to learn as much as possible on other developed (democracy) countries. So there is a kind of complex feeling on Chinese, as I said in my last posting when we talked about the Tibet issue, which confused by pride, inferiority, curiosity and fear.I have awareness about the problems, but I don’t think it works to simply complain and support one side. That’s why I suggested “less critical” and tried to explain about China and Chinese. Personally I feel there have big inner difference between two values. There are a lot problems in China, some can be treated and changed by exterior influence, some have to be changed from inside. Such as Tibet issue or any other human rights, culture reserve etc. This is just like a person who has many problems, people around him can give him suggestions but finally it’s himself who have to recognize and to change. If we criticize too much on him and forced him to follow our ideas, he would never listen and accept at all. Things would turn contrary as we would like to see. This just identifies the recent reactions from Chinese, no? Combined [with] the bad experience in the past, Chinese people feel one more time the “west control” on China and then the nationalism comes back more than ever this time. This is very dangerous and worries me a lot.
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Tags: Australia, China, Olympics, Torch Run, World Watching And Politics
Zoe
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