Yellow Dog [Part 3]

Donn,

Yes, you’re right. It’s NOT US against China, it’s our children against the world’s children and we already knew were behind the European Education system, and now I can tell you were way behind the Chinese educational system. I really don’t see how our children will be able to compete. I think we are setting up our fall from world dominance and, the truth is, I don’t see a way to fix that anymore. It's not the teachers and it’s not the system. It’s the children and their parents. It’s their feeling that somehow and for some reason, they don’t need to work hard. I told my class what I told you and their response was, who cares if they’re ahead of us, we want to be able to relax and have fun. Those kids will grow and we'll be poorer, and they'll teach their children the same lazy attitudes, and it will gradually inch down.

Mind you, yes, what you heard about China in 1989 and Tianamen Square was true but we had OUR Tianeman Square in Kent State in the 60's. The truth is that was turbulent time in China's history. If you read and talk to them about Tianamen, you get a different story than we got. The China of today is so far divorced from the China of 1989 that it’s almost two different countries. Now, if you think that’s because they’re embracing conservative ideology, you’re wrong. It's because they’re trying to find a workable mixture of political style and I think they’ve found something that truly works. They call in "Market Based Socialism". What does THAT mean? It means that the socialist structures are still in place, everyone that CAN work DOES work and that means there’s a lot of stupid jobs out there, the old man that operates the automatic elevator in an older building, the woman the sweeps the streets, the man that drives the airport shuttle bus from the airplane to the terminal 30 ft away, and jobs that are fairly useless to anyone but the guy or girl that has them.

Medical care is available to EVERYONE for what they can pay. I went to doctor in China a couple times and they fixed the problem for very reasonable costs and, apparently, they charged ME more than they would charge a Chinese construction worker. I was also amazed at HOW quickly they addressed the problems and fixed them. I sprained my ankle, severely the first year I was there. It got so bad I couldn’t walk, but I was afraid to go to a Chinese doctor because of all the stuff I'd heard from OUR medical system. I finally gave in when I couldn’t walk anymore and my ankle was the size of grapefruit and completely black and blue. The Chinese doctor looked at it, said something to my wife in Chinese (basically, she told her I was simply too fat and kept re-injuring it by walking...by Chinese standards I’m HUGE, I’m actually a little smaller than I was when you last saw me) wrapped it up in some evil smelling brown paste and hooked me up to an IV. I asked her how many weeks until I could walk again and she said "weeks??? You'll be healed in 3 days." I was shocked...3 days? No way, I’ve done this to my ankle many times and it takes about 6 weeks. She laughed and said come back here in three days and you'll see. I did, and guess what? Three days later, it was healed, completely. I was shocked and she told me "American doctors have no interest in "healing" anyone, they’re ONLY interested in getting you on some treatment or chronically hooked to some drug." She said: "American Doctors are nothing more than whores for the pharmaceutical industries. Here in China, if I don’t get you back to work as soon as I possibly can, I may not get paid." Remember, in China, Medical School is free. However, Art School costs money. They say, "we NEED a lot of doctors and not so many artists." Certain professions educational requirements are subsidized according to societies needs. American doctors are there because they want money. Who can blame them? They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars GETTING an education.

See, the conservative approach to education is costing us all way too much. They refuse to adequately fund education and we're paying for it on the back end. Just like insurance is a joke, too. Do you know how it works in China? I saw it and it amazed me. I saw a car accident: the two people got out of their cars and pleaded their case to the crowd on the side of the street. The crowd listened to both impassioned speeches, they conferred, and they, the crowd, decided who was at fault. THAT person accepted their fate and is responsible for paying ALL damages. No insurance needed and no one trying to game the system.

As for "no dissension," I’m telling you, they’re lying to you. I saw plenty of protests and PLENTY of people espousing they’re radical ideas. In fact, IN Tianamen Square is where protests ARE allowed and you see people there, standing on soapboxes, airing they’re views. They’re just a very ordered society and they do NOT like "personal attacks." You can say: "The government doesn’t work well" but you cannot say "Hu Jintao is a jerk." They’re also VERY proud of their version of Congress. They say that they have far more diversity in theirs than we have in ours. They have hard, hard right arguing passionately with those on the extreme left and every shade in between. They say OUR Congress has a lot of people that are all pretty much in the middle, they don’t think we have ANY true liberals or ANY true conservatives in our congress, just a lot of people with no firm convictions about anything.

As for you thinking you would be in prison in China, I have to say, not unless you broke the law. They NEVER restrict what I teach but they do plead that you present BOTH sides equally. If I say: "I think Barack Obama is the best," they would like me to also say "but SOME people disagree with me..." and list some reasons WHY they disagree. I personally think they’re VERY even handed about the whole thing. I HAVE, IN class, criticized Chairman Mao, but they also wanted time to rebut or they asked if I would present THIER side too. I was happy to do both, it only seems fair.

As for guns and violence? They go hand in hand. There is practically NO violent crime in China. You can walk down the street, in the worst ghetto, at 2 am on Friday night and the only thing that might happen is you might have a confidence man or a pickpocket. Try THAT in Overtown and see how far you get. Mind you, in Hong Kong, gun ownership is allowed and THEY have a violent crime problem and a HUGE gang problem with the Triads. I'll tell you a story. I went there my second summer and I got there around 12 am. I went to a restaurant to eat. I looked out the window and I saw my favorite student from the year before. Ika, a beautiful, talented, creative and musical 12-year-old girl. She was alone. I asked: "Ika, why are you out so late at night? Where are your parents?" She said: "I told them you would come tonight and they told me to come and say hello." -- "ALONE!!!???" on a Saturday night, in a big city like Shenzhen," and she said, "yes?" and "why not?" The next day I saw her dad and I asked him about it and he said: "Of course she can come alone. There is no danger." I was shocked and told him about all the things that could happen to a pretty 12-year-old in America in a situation like that. He said: "No one would hurt a child here. The government would find them very quickly and execute them also very quickly. I don’t know how you raise children in America,” he said, “there's so much fear. I would like to live in America for a while but, I wouldn’t raise a child there."

One last note: The first year I went, another teacher from my school came with, an ardent conservative. He was shocked and he told me he will never believe another thing the government tells him about other countries. He said he felt like he was totally lied to, that everything he had read or heard was wrong. He has tried to go back every summer but he hasn’t been as lucky as me. Fortunately, for me, they LOVE me there and practically beg me to stay every year. They liked him...just not as much as they loved me. He said, if he could get them to take his wife, he would go and, maybe, never come back. You'd be surprised that THAT’S the overwhelming opinion of almost every ex-pat I met there regardless of their political inclinations.

Finally, we'd better learn and realize that NO political ideology works by itself very well that, there's good in almost all the ideologies and the countries that move ahead in the new millennium will be the ones that adopt a "pastiche." We'd better learn to stop fear mongering and learn to look, objectively, at what each political system has to offer and take the best of ALL ideologies.


Marx