I was born in chemas-microsoft-com:office![Tongue Tied [:S]](/emoticons/emotion-7.gif)
marttags" />t="on">China and lived there for 24 years before moving to t="on">lace wt="on">Americalace>. Like most of the new migrants from mainland t="on">China, in the first few years, I could not bear any single criticism about t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> or the Chinese people. I did not mind people criticizing me, but if anyone says something "bad" about t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> (or the Chinese), I went crazy.
After 17 years living, studying and working in t="on">lace wt="on">Americalace>, having met people from all over the world, I finally realize that this world is full of people with different ideas. It is OK that there are people that do not agree with us. Those people are still "good people"!
Why do the majority of Chinese take criticism so offensive?
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Well, not my grandparents. My grandparents (and their schoolmates) are the best people I have ever met in this world. They put other people’s interest first. They are humble, caring, generous, forgiving. They only blame themselves whenever things go wrong.
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I can never be such a great person like them. When I was young, everyone (teachers, the books, TV) told us that our government is the greatest, most respected and correct (the only one) in the world. So we believed we never make mistakes. We believed that our country and our people are holy. If anyone ever dares to question that, he/she is in great trouble!
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Most likely we never question. We believed what we were told. We did not know that in other parts of the world, people think differently, and still live well!
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About 15 years ago in a dinner party, a few American friends asked me about my opinion on our government regarding a political issue. My first reaction was that they were expecting me to criticize “my” government. Unfortunate, I was not yet an “independent thinking individual” at that time. My instinct told me to stand on “my country’s” side so that they cannot make fun of me. I tried to say something good about our government, but found that I knew nothing about that issue at all. So I said: “No comment.”
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They were very surprised: “Why do you speak like that government?”
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Why? I ask myself for years.
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I didn’t even know which issue they were talking about. I didn’t know that I should ask them “What happened? Tell me more about it.” I never cared what people think about us. I just wanted to make sure they mention the good things. If they did not, I would argue. If they still didn’t, I would… I would do anything.
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Why?
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Because we were told that our government protects our country and our people. Because we were told that our government is the greatest, most respected and the only correct party on earth, later we think that we Chinese are the greatest, most respected and the only correct people in the world.
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We were told that there are “a few evil people” in overseas trying to take over the power of our government, to take us back to the miserable old days (those days we were invaded by the 8 western countries and the Japanese). These people are from the western countries and t="on">lace wt="on">Taiwanlace>. They do harms to our country by spreading the bad words of we Chinese, in that way they can isolate us from all other countries in the world. We should never let them do so.
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Doesn’t that sound funny?
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Well, we didn’t think so. We took them so seriously that we could fight for it, we could die for it.
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We believed our government’s enemies are our enemies. We believed the way we treat our enemies is to kill them without mercy (unless we can brainwash them then use them). We believed killing is wrong, but killing enemies is right.
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We were told not to listen to the enemies – because we could be influenced by our enemies. In fact, we should not listen to any different opinions at all, as anything other than what our government told us are false, and with evil intention. All we needed to keep in mind is: listen to our government, do what our government says, aware of enemies and their criticizing words.
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When we grow up, we cannot recall why we get mad when someone criticize “the Chinese”.
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The worst thing is, nearly no one realize we were brainwashed.
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And guess what most mainlanders from t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> think about this article?
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“Kill him!” “*#&%, you lose our face!” “Betrayer! You are not a Chinese!”
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I thought I was not a typical Chinese, until one day I found this website. It tells me that I am actually a REAL Chinese – one with traditional value, one believes in being a better person, one believes in “self-criticizing three times a day”.
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So where are the other traditional Chinese?
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Well, they hardly exist in mainland t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> any more. But you can still find some in Hong Kong, lace wt="on">t="on">Macau, t="on">Taiwanlace>, or even overseas, though they are significantly westernized.
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If you are not a Chinese but want to know more about t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace>, english.epochtimes.com might be a good point to start from.
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If you are a Chinese from mainland and hate me for “spreading the bad words around”, you are most likely under 30 years old, just left China for less than 3 years or never make close friends with people from other ethnic groups. You really should go to www.epochtime.com to see what had happened in t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> before you were born - something that nobody told you in the past. Please read at least 10 articles – you don’t have to agree to all of them. Just find out what other people think. It’s time to learn how to handle with criticism. Be mature. Learn to form your own judgment.
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If you are from mainland t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> between 40-65 years old, you know the history better than I do. If you did not kill anyone in those horrible years (of course you didn’t, or you wouldn’t have been able to read English), you might be the one nearly get killed. God bless you.
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If you are between 30-40 years old, left t="on">lace wt="on">Chinalace> for more than 10 years but still hate me, were you a member of the Communist party?