Beijing, Beijing
Hello guys, just came back from Hong Kong and Beijing. What a good holiday, though it went too fast, as usual. :) Now I’m back home, should pick up writing again.
Here are some photos I took of Beijing:
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| beijing 2009 |
First of all, I’d like to talk about my Beijing trip. This is the second time I visit Beijing, the first one in 1990, right after the Tiananmen Massacre. As everyone can imagine, Beijing has changed from head to toe. From futuristic buildings, rapid transit systems, to better, less stinky toilets etc etc, all are showcasing a China that has amazed the world.
I always admire Beijingers. I always think Beijingers have all the good qualities of the Chinese race. In my previous jobs in HK in the 90s, I’ve worked with people from Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Beijingers were different. They talked more about the bettering of the nation than that of themselves or making money.
In 1990, a taxi driver likely in his early 30s touched me deeply with his words. His car was driving by the Tiananmen Square. He dared to say: “This is the place where the government killed hundreds of students and civilians last year!”
I was shocked by his frankness. “You dare to say this to a stranger? A foreigner?”
“Well, that’s us the Beijingers! We are not afraid to speak our mind! We are not like the Shanghainess who only care about making money! The government cannot oppress our will! And, we want the world to know that a massacre did happen here in Beijing!” He said with pride.
This year in 2009, almost 20 years after the June 4th massacre, things have changed.
Our tour guide is a 29-year-old young man who works two jobs because he wants to give his “future wife a good life”. He’s a talented IT specialist who participated in the making of the world’s largest outdoor LCD “roof” or “sky dome” (天幕) in Beijing. He also loves his job as a tour guide. He reads a lot and he has a lot of stories about everything to tell us.
He too told us that Beijingers are enjoying freedom of speech, “we can say whatever we want now!” But when he took us to the Tiananmen Square one day, he was very very cautious — anxious to some extent — and asked us not to say “sensitive things”. And he agreed if we wanted talk about politics we could do that on our bus.
In all, I can describe him as a typical rational, energetic, talented young individual whom will be part of China’s bright future.
He was open to share with us his political opinions. Here I share with my readers:
One-party dictatorship is good for China. It’s the right political model for China. To us the ordinary people, as long as we eat well, live well under a stable environment, we’re happy (吃得好，住的好，社會穩定，老百姓就滿足了). We really don’t want a political system that may bring any turbulence to society.
If China wasn’t under one-party dictatorship, there would be no stability. China is too big, if mainlanders criticize the rulers like you Hong Kong people do (to Chief Executive Donald Tsang) and take everything to the streets easily, there’d be RIOTS in China! Democracy may be good, but it’s not a good fit for China.
This is a topic that I’ve been contemplating for some time in recent years, especially after the Tibet riot of 2008. How the western world portrayed the obvious race-targetted riot against Han Chinese dashed the last bit of my naive belief that the west was genuine about that bringing democracy to China was good for the Chinese. I slowly realized that the term “democracy” has become a weapon to control other countries and it has become a grandiose slogan used by westerners who in their blood are prone to colonizing other peoples. First it was their weaponry and “mercantilism ideal’ during the 17-18th centuries. Now they are just replacing “weaponry” with “democracy”.
Anyway, the Tibet riot helped me think through if China really needs western-style democracy. Well, maybe democracy is good for most western peoples, but it may not be the most comfortable system the Chinese love to live in. We have a long history of subordinating to authority. The Chinese didn’t riot unless their livelihood was threatened, that their families were in hunger, their children not able to live on. Rarely through history that the Chinese revoked over a single ideology or over religious causes. We used to hate the Manchus in 1644 and the years immediately afterwards. But when the Manchus showed that they could be both a tyranny AND a provider for stable lives, Qing dynasty managed to hang on to rule China for 400 years. Just as what maestro historian Ray Huang (黃仁宇) advocates that China should be analyzed through “macro history” and not be analyzed “micro-ly” like the western academia has been treating other histories, the situation of China nowadays would also be part of the long established pattern of history of 5000 years.
That’s the part I think I can agree with our tour guide and many other young generational Chinese. i.e. China = stability.
However, I cannot agree with him 100% on his second argument — that China is too big if people take every issue to the streets there will only be riots. I think this typical perception is a despise to the intelligence of the Chinese. I agree that the one-people-one-ballot democracy is not ready for the entire China right now only because I believe not every Chinese — especially in rural and mountainous areas where education is still a luxury — is ready to apprehend and appreciate the values of democracy. But I do not believe that if everyone is well educated about democracy the Chinese don’t deserve democracy. Look at Taiwan, Hong Kong. But I strongly believe that China needs not to copy the western style democracy. China should, including Taiwan and HK, experiment a political system that embraces both freedom and stability. And what should that be? Only the Chinese are entitled to find out themselves.
Look at India. Look at Japan. Are their democracy “real” democracy as defined by the west? Nope. In order to be in politics in these countries, you’d have to be part of the a handful of influential families. An ordinary boy from Chicago would not become the president/prime minister no matter how hard he works. The cultural aspect of any political system cannot be overlooked. As long as the people of that country are OK with that system, no matter how much the west don’t like it, they still don’t have any say. The future of a country should be determined by its own people.
I remember when I was in college, it’s amusing to see children from Beijing and Shanghai who came here for summer vacation and to learn English (I wonder why not Singapore?); polarize in two groups. They’re not friendly. Beijingers are proud and hangs their mobile phones on their chest while Shanghainese looks down on Beijingers and they’re more fashionable. Maybe they’re just young kids. But it’s funny to see them talk to each other.
On Tiananmen Incident, the action was wrong but justified. Not all those who died are innocent. Some are crooks and radicals who should be taken out. Lee Kuan Yew also think it’s justified. In fact, any responsible governments in the world would suppress destructive turbulence with force to bring back order and peace simply because stepping down and giving in to demands of radicals; and in China’s case, inexperience and clueless students, would not bring the nation back to peace and stability. Internal fighting between the students would ensue and chaotic situation remains until someone rise up and use force to put all the nonsense down.
In regards to China’s free speech, I believe many westerners do not know how free it is in China. Imagine: the people are allowed to criticise, shout and yell at government policies on live shows. They professor from Singapore, Republican and Democrat from the U.S….etc. to talk about DEMOCRACY. In fact, the government is now experimenting democracy at low-levels such as villages, universities…etc. And they’re watching the democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The Beijinger gentleman that you mention here probably has to elaborate more about his view on China’s political system’s long-term interest. He probably would agree with democracy in the future too because every Chinese knows China’s chronic corruption is due to the absence of competing political political force. All the corrupt ones are joining one political party and it’s like a cancer that is eating the party alive. With the presence of political opponents, each oppositions would bring up the bad and corrupt practises of the ruling-party to convince the people to vote for them.
Democracy is just an ideal. The original democracy in Greece wasn’t a good thing either. Every countries embrace democracy on their own terms. Democracy in Germany has German characteristics. Japan’s with Japanese characteristics. Surely, the democracy in China will have its own democracy with Chinese characteristics.
Who knows in 2011, the one hundred year anniversary of the fall of Qing Dynasty might see the CPC inviting the KMT back into the mainland politics…
my friends who work and live in beijing tell me that beijinger’s eloquence can rank with a greatest matchmaker.you can’t be serious about what they said.you just take anything they says at face then forget about it especially whenever you really need the help they mentioned to you!then you can keep long relationship with them happily without any expectation of real help:)unfortunately the beijingers i met in vancouver are the exact kind of people as my friends described.Hopefully i can meet a beijinger like sn mentioned above someday:)
Some mainlanders indeed talks big
by the way,nowadays we give a very fashionable and honorific title – “大忽悠” to this kind of people.hahahaha…..
i have two very good colleagues in our team who are from beijing. i’d say they are by far the best mainland colleagues we have ever. they are down to earth and they never boast about anything. on the other hand, we have very, very bad experiences with mainland boasters from other parts of china. we still have a large number of mainland colleagues, but the ones with best work attitude are still from beijing.
taikor: in restrospect, i agree that public order was needed to regathered in 1989. the rulers were wrong to let things spin out of hand to such an extent in the first place. there had been chances of dialogue that might have changed the course of things. the students should also take up a big part of the blame. and, of course there were thugs inside the demonstrators’ camp. but it’s the amount of force employed that needs to be criticized. can’t they use water canons? plastic bullets? or even pepper spray??
I’ve been on this discussion for many years. So I encountered this question before.
The scale of the protests and vandalisms suggests that the nation is plunging fast into anarchy. I’d not use water canons on millions of protesters which was rioting not only in Beijing. The authority had to send a very strong message to the public: the protesters and would-be protesters.
It’s a very wrong action but they are forced to do so. The end does not justify the means. Letting the nation to plunge into anarchy would entail many more tragedies. That’s a hundred times more unjustified. I know it’s hard for some people to accept this line of stance. It’s like telling people to not eat meat and be vegetarian. It’s hard for them to accept it but not when it’s happening to them.
“If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.” – Lee Kuan Yew, 2004. It basically means ‘killing’ a hundred troublemakers is far better than ‘causing’ tens of thousands and perhaps millions of unnecessary deaths due to political conflicts.
Having said that, it does not mean we have to completely forget the incident. Which is why I’ve predicated on this blog before that the annual commemoration of the event can be used to heap pressure on the CPC to be cautious in administering the nation
lee kuan yew isn’t always right.
so taikor you are justifying the use of massive force for china being plunged into an anarchy at the time. but was it really the case? was the situation really an anarchy? from what i gathered back in 1989 and 1990, witnesses couldn’t even describe it as a riot.
my perception of what happened on june 4th 1989 has changed a lot in the last couple of years. i begin to side with the idea that a crackdown was needed… and that the gov was too lame in the first place to let the situation rot for so long. i even began to side with the idea that the stability brought down by the massacre after 1989 let china focused on economic development and made the miracle we are witnessing today. however, i am still strongly against the amount of force that deng ordered to use in 1989.
LKY is just a reference to show many people are on the side of the wrong action. Not to mean that I follow what he says. Some areas were indeed just a mass demonstration. Some areas were like a war-zone