Yes, I think the westerners, especially ordinary people, are not realizing that their action from the good will to improve human right is actually tricked by the government. I don't believe the media when I was in China, so I tried to listen to VOA. Now I am here and I realized that no media is to be believed. They are not lying. But part of the truth and the way to tell the story can distort the whole picture and lead to totally different conclusion. It sounds sad but I have to judge the thing I see and hear myself.
It is a very sensitive time and actually there are no much we can do except help the communication. I think it is one thing the Chinese media did very bad that they don't help the communication. They tell the Chinese all the good things going on in the country but don't tell others what is China. Not only media I guess. For international communication, there is much stronger connection in economy but very few in the level of culture.
From my own feeling, I think most American around me are friendly but the lack of communication and understanding is obvious. They also don't care much about what is going on in China. Actually it is normal because the countries are so far away and it almost have nothing to do with daily life except that you have special interest in other's culture or economic connection. Media is their only way to look out and they form their opinion on it. What I am a bit worried about is the education. I didn't feel it here personally, but I hear that some are trying to make Chinese appear evil in their historical textbooks. That will be a bad impact. I will not care if you say China is poor and it is true in most part of China, but if someone say Chinese are evil, or like what Jack said, and make it a stereotype to the whole generation, that will be a big problem.
There are some very interesting experience after I went abroad. I used to discuss with many international students in my trip to Canada, basically Europeans and they always say China is a "sleeping giant". I told them China is not that big and strong as they thought and there are too many problems during the development and most people are still quite poor. And I still remember a German answered me that "That's why we call you sleeping, because you don't realize how powerful you can be." I can only laugh and tell them if you have a chance to go to China, you will see what I mean. But now, I tell people you should visit China because it is not as bad as you think.
Totally different attitude and I think behind it is the biased information we get. The media either exaggerate the improvement in China or go to an extreme to defame China and Chinese using political topics. Anyway, there is no "free media" even though they can criticize the government, they will not really violate it as long as the profit are the same and they want to survive.
The current affair is a good lesson for many Chinese I think. Chinese are very humble and the western world used to be the dream of millions of people because there is better life, more freedom, friendly people, etc. But now they see it is not a perfect world. I hope it can also be a signal for the westerns, that China is changing, but it's a shame that maybe most people cannot see this from the media. We are more conservative but we learn to open in the past 30 years. We want to keep open and the Olympic Game is a good chance. It is the westerners who keep to the stereotype and refuse to open to us. And some are even trying to force us to close the door.
When thinking about this, I feel like to cry that since more then 150 years ago, the nation struggled to survive the war, to keep the land, to drag itself through starvation, to gradually open up and develop relationship with other countries with totally different social system and values, to improve the life for its people. Every step is very difficult and we worked so hard to make it. But now those who used to appear so friendly are trying to exclude us out. We are still trying, that's why so many Chinese are protesting but the government take no action at all. Even though the people feel hurt and sometimes the anger also goes against the government because they don't speak out for us, we can understand their difficulty and the determination to keep open to the outside world. We can be emotional but they cannot. If the government is irritated and takes actions against the western world, it means peace is ended, or at least, development is ended. Actually the current trend is already pretty bad in terms of the international environment for China. Thanks to the media. It is a personal point of view but I think most Chinese will agree, that we are not ambitious, we have no interest to tell others what to do, all what we want is just a better life. And all what I can say is, it is so hard.
[ Last edited by kateS at 23-4-2008 03:28 ]
