DannieG

From Sharon Stone to Tibet, as a Chinese living over seas I’ve never blogged or commented on these issues, and i’m not planning to start now.

Before I brush these issues aside, I’d like to make some things clear, it does mean I don’t have my opinions, I just think I’m not the right person to make them. Because I hadn’t experienced what the life was and is at China, how can I judge a country and it’s people when I myself haven’t even for once been in their shoes.

I came to the US at ‘95 that’s when I’m 13 so I could say I lived half of my life in China from age 1 - 13 - due to some complexity I don’t want to talk too much about my father’s family -

I’d like to share one of my most life defining personal experiences on this post. Time: a year Before I came to the us at 1995 my mom decided to take me off from school and spend some time traveling around all kind of cities in China visiting family and friends. And it’s the first time I’ve left the ‘modern life’ behind, back in Beijing I had grow up with everything there is, I never really knew how the rest of the county lived. When we started traveling more and more I had realized that I can’t relate my life with the life of the locals.

At our last stop we went to visit my grandfather’s grave and the city he had served as mayor, we stayed there for a while so I can stay with my grandma + hang out with some kids my own age. Playing with the local kids - I’ve realized my so called Chinese life style is totally different than the normal/regular Chinese life style. Back home I had my own big room filled with book cases of books, games + toys. when I talked to these local kids none of them have ever heard of Hans Christian Anderson while by the time I’ve read his complete series of books … it’s like whole 20 of them. Going to the movies at the time costs $1 a person and my mom used to love foreign films so we would go to the movies every night after her work, the local kids told me that going to the movies is a spurlge, watching foreign films is out of the question.

My biggest shock … and I’ll remember this for the rest of my life, is when I invited some of my new friends to have breakfast with me at grandmas. Growing up my mom is very strict about my diet so even when we are traveling I’m able to enjoy the same kind of breakfast as I did in Beijing, that in term made me think that’s what EVERYONE eats. when my friends came they were very shocked at what I had set up for breakfast, one of them yelled out “you drink milk, eat sausage + white bread for breakfast?” the other kid were shocked at the Cereals I had bought with me from Beijing. (I never knew at the time that cereals was imported and it costs about $10 a box) I’ll never forget what I said next, I simply replied “yeah! why? you eat something else for breakfast?”, and at the time I never figure out why they made a big fuzz about the whole breakfast, till later my mom told me that the locals usually eat rice soups with some pickled vegs for breakfast.

As the time passes, as i’m getting older, I know that the life I had was a great life, I’d wish that all the local kids in China had the same life style as I did, and I do wish that one day I would have the finical support to help out the poor and under privileged.

I do want for world peace, but protest isn’t the solution. Think about it! put yourself in their shoes, when you are eating your expensive food, wearing name brand labels standing at a side of the street with your pals waving those protesting signs thinking to yourself “wow, I look great I feel great I’m making a difference, it’s such a good karma!” NO IT’S NOT, it’s not going to solve anything. To these people words don’t matter, I guess when you are living in a country, trying to fight for job insecurities, food shortage and natural disasters you really don’t give a fuck about foreigners’s protests. If you put yourselves in their shoes, live a day of a regular Chinese, then you will see how privileged we are, and why they don’t give a shit of what you say, because you see, when you get tired/hungry during your protest you can take a break, but to these people the very same issue that you are protesting - they have to live it, there is no break time there is no going back to reality. To them these issues are reality.