The ongoing talks about Mainland Chinese’s civic conscience and daily public behavior are mostly negative. But it is not always racially prejudicial nor finger pointing. All we have to do is to look at this guy Haison Jiang and listen to his friends. He defiantly sneaked through Newark’s Liberty Airport and caused a 6 hour delay and pain for several thousand people. Forget about what the US should do or do to that TSA guard who stepped away. They should improve, make changes and the guard should be reprimanded, etc, etc.. But the fingers should all point at Jiang. With people like this, what can we really do? Why he did it? Here is the interesting part:
Jiang’s friend said, “He didn’t mean anything malicious!”. That’s it! These are well educated graduate students. Not poor peasants from some rural villages. That showed how low and distorted their sense of right or wrong has become. As long as Jiang did not carry a bomb, what’s the big deal if he ignored the signs and rules? How clumsy and inefficient the Americans are.
Who said Jiang was malicious and did it have to be malicious? It all comes down to “pay no attention to the rules”, “pay no mind to other people” and “pay no mind to the signs”. I don’t think Jiang meant anything malicious. So are those who spit in front of you, talk loudly on subway trains, cutting in front of people who are waiting in line, taking pictures and videos where it is clearly prohibited, smoking where they shouldn’t ……. No wonder they said China has more freedom than the US.
My uncle spat on the rug in a restaurant in Guangzhou and said it was okay because the workers would clean the floor every night anyway. He didn’t mean to be malicious. I don’t even think that those who sold tainted baby milk meant to be malicious. They just wanted to make more money and couldn’t care less about anyone else. These are just characteristics of a people whose values had been distorted first by a brutal and destructive period of time and then by a materially rich but morally poor and intellectually stifling system. A political system that believes that by having control, censorship, a single voice, a single national ideology and a single life’s aspiration will lead to a safe and harmonious society.
At my age, I am not sad any more. China is still not free. It is a authoritative state. The crime is: it sweetens the bitterness by corrupting the mind of its people. Everyone becomes materialistic. The most rewarding and safest way to live in China is being materialistic. I don’t give a damn for the people who choose to ignore this part of China and just go for its wealth and opportunities. I don’t feel any part of this “rising great nation”. But the West is going to learn. It may not be China’s toys, drywall, tires, bogus CDs, or its money and military might that will bother and scare the West. It may well come down to someone who urinate in their streets. The latter is more realistic.
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