Many Americans believe that people who grow up in China have been brainwashed. There were many times during the torch relay event that the phrase “because you are brainwashed” caused a conversation to end abruptly. Back when I was a college student in China, I disliked the government as much as any of you here do, probably more. The same is true for many other students. If the government intended to brainwash the students, then I can assure you it wasn’t very successful. I was thoroughly disgusted by many things, and I used to organize protests against the school authority. Then I came to the US, both because the US has some of the world’s best universities and because I disliked the Chinese government. I studied for 5 years in a PhD program here and have worked for less than one year. During these 6 years, my attitude toward the Chinese government has been gradually changed and I started to understand why things are that way in China and found many of the things I hated become understandable, not because the Chinese government can remotely brain-wash me from the other side of the ocean but because there is comparison. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that China is better than or anywhere close to the US. But I do see many of the things I disliked in China happening here, sometimes in more subtle ways, sometimes to a lesser extent. Seeing that with the abundance of wealth and resource, a relatively small population, the strongest military force, and strong international influence, the US still have so many problems, it seemed to me that the Chinese government had been doing a decent job managing the country. There are plenty of Chinese people who support the government on many issues and policies, and believe it or not it is most likely because their lives are improved rapidly, not because of government propaganda. Sure there are a lot of propaganda on the Chinese medias, but they are so superficial and obvious that they largely get ignored or made fun of. From this aspect, I would argue that the US has a more powerful propaganda machine to serve its interests and ideology (it probably started influencing me back when I was in China).

Many people I know have similar feelings. Many of those who went to San Francisco to protect the torch were also on the Tian’an Men Square in 1989.

I think it is unfair and impractical to expect China to do the same things that the US does now w.r.t. to issues like human rights, freedom of speech, etc. China has a long cultural history, but as a modern country, it has less than 60 years of history, while the social, governmental, and legal systems in the US have evolved for hundreds of years, not to mention China’s huge population and relatively small farmable land. Whenever a problem about China is discussed, there is always someone who comes out and say “Simple. Why not just let people vote for a decision?” It’s not that simple. Our laws have huge holes; Different ethnic groups can have serious conflicts because of religion and cultural differences; Our government is immature and afraid of uncertainty; Our whole social system is too fragile and don’t have enough buffer to survive instability. Fixing these problems takes time, and we’ve come a long way. Voting is not a trivial process, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many debates in the US about the procedure and machinery of voting. Other governments can easily point fingers at China only because they don’t have to solve China’s problems. One example comes to mind — the one-child policy. It had been criticized for a long time by westerners for human rights violation. Reagan questioned that policy when he visited China, but the conversation ended when Deng said the restriction could be lifted if the US could help by accepting 10 million Chinese immigrants per year. In the city where I grew up, I know a number of families who had two or more kids. They paid a fine, and did not get the monthly single-child stipend from the government. It’s simple. But it does not surprise me if there are government officials in certain places who enforced this policy in ways that violated human rights and created tragedies. In the 80s and 90s, even now, the low-level government officials in some rural areas didn’t get chance to receive much education due to the cultural revolution. It’s a tragedy of that whole generation, a tragedy for both the victims and wrong-doers. In the same way, I don’t doubt there are many Tibetans whose families suffered great pain and loss in certain periods, just like many people in other parts of China. They have my greatest sympathy. However, such tragedies are usually exaggerated to sound like systematically planned crime in order to serve political goals.

I grew up in the Yunnan province (next to Tibet), where many Tibetans live, so I’ve visited some Tibetan monasteries. My wife travelled a large region in Tibet – from Lasa all the way to the Everest, talked to many Tibetans, lived in Tibetan homes. I don’t want to bring up too much opinion. Let me just say that from our experience we do not think the government is against the Tibetan culture or has any plan to reduce the Tibetan population — Tibetans don’t have to pay tax (although many of them still choose to contribute much of their wealth to the monasteries); Large amounts of money is spent maintaining the monasteries; Tibetans receive enough stipend so that they can have a decent live without working (such social benefit doesn’t exist in other parts of China); Tibetans can have 3 children (or more for a small fee) instead of one. My wife also got warned when entering Tibet that if she got involved in any kind of conflict with Tibetans, most likely the local government and police will not help her, to avoid stirring up the tension between different ethnic groups.

We all agree that China has problems: human rights, freedom of speech, etc. But I don’t believe there is such a thing that one country or government helps to improve human rights in another country. A country only helps itself. The US government only supports freedom and self-determination when it serves its national interest. I’m not accusing the US, this probably applies to all governments. I have a pessimistic view of international politics, so when a government is paying money for something happening elsewhere, I always doubt its intention. From unclassified US government documents, the Dalai Lama had been on CIA payroll until the mid 70s when the US and China establishes foreign relationship, then he got transfered to another organization with the phrase “human rights” in it. The same set of documents also show that the US had been training a Tibetan army in Colorado and dropping them back to Tibet as gorilla fighters. “Human rights” sounds so good and is so widely applicable that it is the most convenient phrase to use when a government needs to explain to tax payers why their money is used to help overthrow another government. Yes, there are problems in the Chinese government, we all acknowledge that. There is no incentive for a Chinese to hide the government’s shortcomings, after all, a better government means a better China and better lives for Chinese. However, I believe the Chinese people have enough wisdom and courage to solve their own problems. We know the US government’s capability of “introducing” democracy into another country — there are plenty of examples to look at. Thanks, but no, thanks. China is unique, and there is more than one way to democracy.

I hope people from different nations don’t accuse each other of “brain-washed” simply because they have different opinions or they are not expressing their opinions clearly due to language/cultural barriers.

I believe most Americans who support “Free Tibet” have good intentions and have very good reasons for their attitude. But be sure to do enough research to make sure your good will is not misused by others. (Note that this is a suggestion, not an assertion.) I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinion, just want to let others know what people with similar backgrounds with me might think.

I went to San Francisco from Beijing to attend an academic conference this June. I was travelling with only a backpack, which somehow made me a suspecious target. At the SFO airport an officer demanded to check my backpack. I was carrying a digital camera. Without asking for my permission, and even before I realized what he wanted to do, he already browsed through tens of the photos stored in the camera. I was shocked. Although there was nothing really private there, that was simply unacceptable.

A few days after I went back to China. A very good friend wanted to buy a new DC, so she played with my camera for a while. She politely asked me if it was okay for her to look at the pictures before switching to playback mode.

So much for “respecting other people’s privacy” in US.

以前在武汉大学读本科的时候，每次假期离开昆明回学校，火车缓缓启动的时候广播里面一般都会放《远方的客人请你留下来》这首歌。一方面它是云南最有名的民歌之一，另外一方面也很应景。我一直很喜欢这首歌，现在还可以清晰地回想起那个时候听到这首歌的心情，只是用语言难以描述而已。

《月光下的凤尾竹》是很有名的一首葫芦笙曲。在列车快要驶进昆明站的时候，广播总是以它为背景音乐介绍云南的自然风光和人文风情，那时的心情当然是轻松和欢愉的。

不知道为什么突然想起写这些，大概是想念家乡了吧。

说到超女，想起前几天的新闻。《时代周刊》还真幽默，或许是觉得中国总算有一样东西比较有美国风格，把超女放上封面，说中国开始受到民主的影响。那我们高中时所有班委都是以全班无记名投票－真正的民主方式－产生的，似乎也没有看到我们班长上时代周刊。大家以为在学习美国的好东西、好文化，殊不知很多有识的美国人现在担心的是若干年以后或许美国唯一向世界输出的就是 reality show 和垃圾文化了，因为别的东西都 outsource 出去了。其实中国最不需要向美国学习的，或许就是文化了。美国的历史只有中国的十分之一，比文化底蕴？

说起买车，我爸在国内，本来也要买车的，订金都付了，最后被我说服，不买了。第一比较担心他的安全；第二，我在美国开了两年车，深知多一辆车就多一个累赘，维护起来麻烦；第三点听起来比较冠冕堂皇，保护环境，再说现在中国多数城市的路况已经够那个了，就不要再在骆驼背上加根草了吧。原来在中国的时候，近点的地方走路，远一些就骑车，再远一点就坐公共车，也没有觉得有什么不便。不是自己开车，一路上还不需要费神，只管听音乐，看风景，或者睡觉。到了美国却不得不买车了。首先是因为美国的大超市通常离住的地方很远，不可能象国内一样吃完饭出去散步顺便在超市买点东西，街边 Gourmet Heaven 一类的零售店价格又比大超市高很多倍，所以只好每星期去超市一次，买一大车东西带回家。另外美国的电影院什么的离住的地方一般也远，而且美国的公共车就是给穷人上班坐的，周末还不运行，我就没听说过有人乘公共车去看电影。有一次去开会，导师开车，我路上就在和他聊这个问题。在美国因为汽车发展得比较早，加上福特公司早期的市场策略，使得私人汽车很快普及。因为大家都有私车，所以政府也没有什么动力去发展公共交通。一个城市仅有的几条公共汽车线路就是给开不起车的穷人上班用的，所以周末不运行。而公共交通的不便更加促使大家去买小车，一个恶性循环。在这里的人都知道现在美国由于私车过多造成的问题－每天上下班时间都到处堵车，特别是高速公路上；其次是车祸的数量；然后就是污染－美国的CO₂排放量是世界上其他国家的总和。另外一个副产品就是美国大众的肥胖身材。希望中国的将来不是美国的现在。我现在已经不再开车了，反正再努力一年就可以毕业回国了，就忍一忍多花些钱在零售店买东西吧。

很多朋友说我到了美国以后更“中国”了，我不知道是不是真的。不过我确实可以感受到一点，当你离中国的传统文化比较远的时候，会比较容易体会到它的魅力。