Comments

So far, there are a lot of discussions and comments on current Tibet and Olympic issue. I can roughly get a common public image of China from those comments. It is very interesting for me, a Chinese to think about the public or international image of China. Who is China in your eyes (or Hu is China??? Sorry, a small joke!)?

We have dominant or only communism party. Our economic development is extremely fast. These two features definitely cause a lot of social problems. However, we are learning and trying to improve government function, legal system (if you can consider other possible forms of social system than democracy). I believe we can do better if other countries can share their experience on environmental and social issues.

Please do come for the Olympics 2008 in Beijing. You can experience China with your own eyes and tell Chinese people what we should improve our society. It is great to have your opinions. You can give us a fresh idea from a different view angle. It would be more positive and more constructive than simply boycotting Olympics.

Here I would like to quote from George Clark. "...But you judge a nation by the direction in which it is traveling, not by the road bumps. And China is clearly moving in a direction of very considerable promise to us all. The Olympics, like ping-pong diplomacy, will push China further in that direction."

About Tibet, I have never been there. All my knowledge is from the textbook. So I would not comment on this point. There is a BBC documentary “One Year in Tibet”. It is interesting to watch.

Brainwashing in China. I am a Chinese. I grow up in mainland China and my mom joined the communism party. My father does not. He thinks it is stupid. He always makes fun of my mom on this point. I did not join the party for the same reason as well. Indeed, it is stupid to meet, read, and discuss about ideas of communism which I would only consider one theory of possible social systems (by the way, it is really interesting to read “animal farm”.). So you see, not everyone gets brainwashed. Do you think, we (normal chinese people) do have brains to think by ourselves???

Idea of evil communists in China. Most people mentioned the cruel control of communism party in China. To my view, it is really rather out-of-date. There are several decades past after cultural revolution. So...do you think it is, in fact, fair to take a new look at China with a open mind???

Religion issue. Ok, I would say it again! Please take a fresh look! My personal experience is that China is very very tolerant for religion belief. Oh...how dare you say that!!! Of course, it is just my personal experience. My university has special muslim cafeteria. My mom’s company has muslim cafeteria. Once I did want to convert to muslim since muslim can get extra beef supply during that short-of-material-supply period. You can only get a certain amount of food for the family during that period. I admit my motive for religion is really not that pure. One of my friend wanted to attend the mass in latin. The church only has the mass in latin in the early morning session. Unfortunately she was a college student and getting up at 5 or 6 was quite difficult for her.

Yes, I do not have any religion as most Chinese. Religion is more a philosophy or way of life for Chinese. You can choose whatever you want to believe. There is no religion tradition in my family as well. My grand grand grand...parents did not have religion as well. So you see, it is not evil communism party’s fault. I am open-mind with religion. You can believe in whatever you want. Good spirits may have many different names. I think the idea of religion in China in fact is great if you think about 9-11 and conflict between Christian and Muslim. The idea of tolerant is to accept other people may have different religion or no religion. However, all of us breathe, eat and worry about job, relationship...

Short comments on Falungong. Anyone wants to talk about this issue. Please do read their books. I did before it was forbidden in China. It is nonsense for me as I do have proper education and knowledge of the world. Of course, it is against free speech idea to forbid their activities in China. However, wrong government execution, specially from the evil communism party, still does not make them more valuable than...(I do not want to use certain words.)

The cost of economic development. A lot of people consider we totally ignore the cost of economic development on environment or on human right. Again, please take a look at China with a fresh mind. We DO. However, it takes time for people or our government to learn how to deal with all those problems. The economic development is just too fast for us!!! How long did it take to realize the cost of economic development in Europe and in USA???