China Segment

Yes, China has 5000 years of history… and it is still immature. From its leadership down to the average mother or child. How so? A warning, as I am about to generalize about a great many things. My examples:

• Hitting a person (be they child, husband, wife or friend) seems to be the conflict resolution measure of choice over, say, reasoning with a person. I had to walk across the street the other day to scold a woman who was pushing her son around in public, wagging her finger at him and sharply squawking. His offense? Who cares? He’s just a kid. But parents here, more than any other place I’ve been to, seem to think that punishment, rather than positive reinforcement, is the way to go. Actually, the problem is that there is no discussion about how to be a good parent. There is no debate about spanking kids. What happens in the home, stays in the home. Families are like the mob - outsiders surely can not meddle in your own clan’s business. But there is also the lack of understanding that kids have powers of reason, that they are not like dogs. And even when they are treated well, they are treated like silly, stupid kids. So they remain kids, not adolescents or young adults. The cycle, of course, continues generation after generation.
• This extends to the upper echelons of the Party leadership. The masses are treated like cattle. Barriers are built around roads instead of educating people not to jaywalk. The government rarely elicits public opinion, feeling, instead that those in the Party know best for the people. Its actions are always paternal, parochial, and condescending. Constructive criticism is not just unaccepted; it even carriers with it a fair bit of personal risk. But when 70% of the population are peasants with very low education levels, is this understandable? From one standpoint, yes. But human dignity says otherwise. All people have the ability for rational thought, only habit and circumstances prevent us from using it. A classic example of the paternal Party just came up a couple days ago when one particularly inept leader said that the central Party committee was the Buddha of the Tibetans, that they didn’t need the Dalai Lama anymore. Could any statement be more stupid? Lack more understanding? Have less tact? Here is where the Party fumbles: in crises management and public relations with the outside world. When they have time to craft their speeches and use the propaganda machine, they do a decent (though sometimes sinister) job. But ask someone off the record what they really think or catch them off guard and you here absolute nonsense. And many local communists do not understand spirituality in the slightest. They have no idea of its nature, power or use. They only believe in nationalism and the quest for material happiness.
• Companies do it too - the nanny system is in full force. All my tax records used to be kept by the companies I worked for instead of being given to me. The explanation? I might lose them, and getting new copies from the government tax office would involve headaches one can only imagine. I might lose them? They’re mine. Take off! The boss is the father of the company, but not the nice, caring type. He’s the one who tells you what to do, when to do it and how to do it, leaving the staff feeling unappreciated, underutilized and rather mechanical. The do not accept suggestions or criticism. Their command is law.
• Extended Incubation. Kids are kids. But in the West, by the time you hit your first year of university you can at least tie your own shoelaces: guys are shaving, sex is in the air, drugs and alcohol are flirted with, part time jobs are normal and most people would rather move away from home and be independent. In China, 18-year-olds are still kids. They have never seen a porn movie, tried drugs, kissed someone, snuck out of the house at night, swore at their parents, done something illegal or even thought about voting. In fact, they would wonder about why someone would do most of those things at all. Kids in China are protected and sheltered to the extreme. Some of that is just good old Chinese culture (survival until adulthood is still a strong instinct for parents), some is because of the education system here, which necessitates extra homework and tutoring from a young age in order to pass the university entrance exams (the key to the ‘good life’ in China) and some is due to the one-child policy putting extra pressure on those kids to pass the exams and provide for the older generations. You’d think that pressure would help them grow up faster. Not exactly. 25-year-old girls act like 15-year-olds. They were denied fun in their youth, so university is their time for having fun (though school laws prohibiting sex on campus have only just been lifted), and they seem to not want any responsibility until they get married in their late 20s. When they graduate saving money for their future (and their future child) is more important than moving out with friends and actually learning how to be independent. So they stay at home and mooch off of Mom and Dad. There’s no such thing as “when you’re 18, you’re out the door.” Ma and Pa pretty much cry the day their babies leave them and can’t wait for a grandchild to dote on. Actually men grow up a little faster. They are expected to provide a home to live in upon marriage, so as soon as they graduate from college their whole existence is based upon making money to buy an apartment - only when they have enough are they considered marriageable. A lot of twenty somethings play online games, listen to pop music so light it would make even Britney turn green and eat only what mommy cooks for them. Even some forty year-old women walk around in Hello Kitty outfits trying to remain cute and innocent. There are no pre-teen problems, 12-year old smokers or teenage moms. Young boys are girls all pretty much look the same in their rather homely school uniforms.
• China and the outside world. Oooh, yes, a minefield here. Think Germany, pre-WWI. A country on the rise, continually checked by stronger powers, criticized at every turn, fiercely proud and nationalistic. And China is still hurt by old war wounds of the past. But it’s not mature enough to accept criticism calmly. Instead, it reacts defensively, citing ‘hurt feelings’ when outsiders comment on human rights issues. Foreigners do not understand China, they say. We have 5000 years of history, you cannot even try. And China is a sovereign nation. You cannot interfere - it’s our business. Just as you can’t interfere in family affairs, the nation is immutable. They block their own people from reading and seeing news from the international community. Again, they think their own people (read: ’subjects’) are not capable of deciphering facts from opinion, truth from falsehood. Well, if you had taught them useful things in school like comparative analysis and critical thought than they could. Instead, locals are taught rote memorization of facts. Oh yeah, that’s useful. So again, I can see the Party’s viewpoint when they think that outside news not vetted by the censors could ‘upset’ the local populace. But again, they are underestimating the human mind, they are condescending and they are not allowing people to be fully functional adults.

When you treat someone as an adult, they will become so. That goes for how the government treats its people, parents treat their kids, and how employers treat their employees. It is also how the rest of us should treat China. It is a full member of the international community. But we should remember it is a bit of an immature, self-righteous kid at times. It is growing up, but needs both criticism and understanding. China deserves a peaceful rise (and the world cannot afford what would happen if it did not), but they also have to earn it. So grow up already, China.

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