China vs. America && a lump of coal
During my first few weeks as an intern here, i became friends with a Chinese fellow named Haidong. We occasionally chat about things such as politics and the sort. Since he's quit Chinese, having grown up in Beijing most of his life and only spent a few years in the US for graduate school, and now work, a lot of his conversations focus on the differences between China and America.
This is pretty cool. It's not too often i get to hear about someone else's view towards Chinese politics, especially in a time such as now, with the Tibetan protests and all. One of the interesting things he said is paraphrased as thus "The current chinese government isn't all that bad, they more or less want what is good for the people, and the surrounding area. But a large part of the problem right now is that the previous regime, that which included Mao, made a lot of really bad decisions, ie. invading Tibet and driving out the Dalai llama, and today's CCP is really just trying to do what they can to make up for past mistakes, and sadly doing a bad job with these attempts." The goodness of today's Current political group in China may or may not be true, but this is not my focus.
My point right now is that the situation China seems to be in right now, seems a lot like a situation the current president has gotten us into, and the next president may very likely keep us in. It is a bit of a stretch to compare our invasion of Iraq with China's take over of Tibet, since America doesn't need Iraq as a physical barrier against the rest of the world, and there has never been a question of "is this ethnic population a subgroup of ours, and did we ever own this land previously?" since iraq is quite obviously far away.
But still, it's a worrisome situation, and i hope that 20 years from now, America isn't hosting the world Olympics and suffering from "free Iraq" protests. Instead i hope that this situation is cleanly taken care of in the next few years. Even more, i hope that Tibetans at least get a standard set of human rights, if not full fledged independence, which might or might not be good for them since China is experiencing a healthy economy.
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In other news, Now that i have been here 3 months, I've realized that this strange, heavy feeling has been persisting withing my chest. Previously i would experience it when i had roommates, and at times i thought it was because i would be annoyed at them, not usually due to anything specific they had done, but just because i felt i needed privacy and a noticeable amount of space. And since my time here would be the first chance I've had for an extended period of massive "Keith time" in about 4 or 5 years, i felt this feeling of weight would go away. Alas, it has not gone away. For a month or so it wasn't very heavy, but now it's most certainty back in full force, and i have no explanation as to why it exists. Perhaps this is just a peculiar thing that happens to me, since i am not under any real stress at home or at work. Nor do i really interact with my roommate. I don't even spend much time with people outside of work. I hypothesize it could be due to a lack of exercise, or a lack of focus. Or maybe i am subconsciously worried about something, but wouldn't that be fucked up?
In any case, that is all
This is pretty cool. It's not too often i get to hear about someone else's view towards Chinese politics, especially in a time such as now, with the Tibetan protests and all. One of the interesting things he said is paraphrased as thus "The current chinese government isn't all that bad, they more or less want what is good for the people, and the surrounding area. But a large part of the problem right now is that the previous regime, that which included Mao, made a lot of really bad decisions, ie. invading Tibet and driving out the Dalai llama, and today's CCP is really just trying to do what they can to make up for past mistakes, and sadly doing a bad job with these attempts." The goodness of today's Current political group in China may or may not be true, but this is not my focus.
My point right now is that the situation China seems to be in right now, seems a lot like a situation the current president has gotten us into, and the next president may very likely keep us in. It is a bit of a stretch to compare our invasion of Iraq with China's take over of Tibet, since America doesn't need Iraq as a physical barrier against the rest of the world, and there has never been a question of "is this ethnic population a subgroup of ours, and did we ever own this land previously?" since iraq is quite obviously far away.
But still, it's a worrisome situation, and i hope that 20 years from now, America isn't hosting the world Olympics and suffering from "free Iraq" protests. Instead i hope that this situation is cleanly taken care of in the next few years. Even more, i hope that Tibetans at least get a standard set of human rights, if not full fledged independence, which might or might not be good for them since China is experiencing a healthy economy.
...
In other news, Now that i have been here 3 months, I've realized that this strange, heavy feeling has been persisting withing my chest. Previously i would experience it when i had roommates, and at times i thought it was because i would be annoyed at them, not usually due to anything specific they had done, but just because i felt i needed privacy and a noticeable amount of space. And since my time here would be the first chance I've had for an extended period of massive "Keith time" in about 4 or 5 years, i felt this feeling of weight would go away. Alas, it has not gone away. For a month or so it wasn't very heavy, but now it's most certainty back in full force, and i have no explanation as to why it exists. Perhaps this is just a peculiar thing that happens to me, since i am not under any real stress at home or at work. Nor do i really interact with my roommate. I don't even spend much time with people outside of work. I hypothesize it could be due to a lack of exercise, or a lack of focus. Or maybe i am subconsciously worried about something, but wouldn't that be fucked up?
In any case, that is all