Yellow Dog [Part 6]

Donn,

What I’m saying is that the old quote "believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear or read" is probably the most accurate thing I’ve ever read. Now, if you DON’T think that news reports, stats and the sort of information that you’re receiving second, third or even further down the list isn’t colored by what people want to see or what they want it to say, then I really don’t know what to say. I think it was Churchill that once said that "history is written by the victors."

China was hurt so badly at the turn of the century and during the Opium Wars and the imperialism of European countries that they have rarely been on the side of the "victors" and so have never been able to "write their own version of history." I never said that everyone is in cahoots with the United States, but I can say, unequivocally, that ALL the news we get is Euro-centric or Ameri-centric, and we get NO news from China that hasn’t been colored with that filter. And no, I was not in one place. I’ve been going there for four summers, one solid year. I’ve been to Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Fengjie (a small city and my wife's hometown), Xian, Yangshuo, Guilen, Guangzhou, Wangzhou and whole host of outlying small neighboring towns, and yes, I have been to Tibet. It isn’t NEARLY as bad as you've been told. I have seen farmers, been on the road, and basically have gone anywhere I want and no one has ever told me "no." On the Tibet issue, I'll tell you my wife’s point of view, which is probably the Chinese overall viewpoint. She says Tibet is as much a part of China as Texas or Alaska is part of the United States. How would WE feel if the Chinese started to demand WE free Texas? They also have poured BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars INTO Tibet building infrastructure and schools that did NOT get built during that brief time they were "independent but still part of China." They have videos and my wife’s brother was a soldier that served in Tibet, and he'll tell you that the majority of Tibetans are very happy the Chinese are more of visible source than they used to be. He will tell you about slavery and torture that were routinely being used during that brief time the Dalai Lama ruled Tibet. He will tell you there are really TWO types of Buddhists in Tibet and that, before the Chinese came, one subjugated the other. So, in their mind, they came to Tibet and freed the slaves. How would you like it if France told Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation "you must give the south back to Jefferson Davis and re-instate slavery." Would that be OK? They also do not believe that the Dalai Lama is the peaceful man that his image suggests. They say HE started the problems in Tibet before the Olympics to embarrass the Chinese government. Is it true? Who knows? But I look at western media with the same jaundiced eye. EVERYONE has an agenda and everyone has something they want to say and facts can be bent, twisted, altered and made to fit whatever it is you want to say...us, them, everyone. If you don’t believe me, simply watch any Michael Moore film and see the way he takes "facts" and uses them to say whatever he wants to say. The Chinese do it and so do we. Conservatives do it. Liberals do it. PETA people do it. Greenpeace, the CIA, the FBI, EVERYONE does it. Is European news better? A little but still biased and still with an agenda. Textbooks? The stuff you’re reading from and teaching from? What do YOU think? According to Chinese textbooks, Chairman Mao was their George Washington, a great man and the man that helped take China from a backward, third world country and put it on the path to explode to where it is now? Do YOU agree? I bet not, I bet you’re turning all shades of purple and livid at the very idea of what they’re teaching. Are they wrong? Who knows, history is biased accounts being reported by biased people. I look at historical records like I look at the bible, basically. Who knows what was really happening or what they were trying to say when it was written?

Don’t rely on me, Donn. If you think I’m wrong, go work in China a couple summers and you tell me what you think then. THEN, you'll be telling me what you saw and what YOU got from it. Here... go to http://www.englishfirst.com/trt/index.html and sign up. They have schools ALL over China. Next year, they’re sending me to Urumqi, an extremely remote city, but they have been accommodating and willing to send me anywhere I want to go. Be brave, go see, develop your own ideas and don’t rely on someone telling you something and then hoping that maybe, just maybe, there’s a kernel of truth in their words.

Marx