China Rising

Recently, a China Writers Group* member encountered some Chinese expats in Thailand and became distraught because these relatively well-to-do and well-educated Chinese were almost universally anti-China and pro-America. Other members in our correspondence group, including those who grew up in China and now work as professors in Western countries, joined the conversation and rained vituperative on those Chinese ingrates. My comment tries to put things in the proper perspective. 

* China Writers Group, of which I'm a proud member, was founded by an Oklahoma revolutionary named Jeff Brown, who has recently decided to move from his home in Normandy to live permanently in China. The group includes many well-known authors, journalists, educators, scientists, economists, political pundits, bloggers, website operators, political activists, etc. The group now has a website: "Seektruthfromfacts.org" and a forum: chinawritersfaculty.boards.net

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In 1997, I returned from Toronto to my hometown, Hong Kong, and decided to check out Shenzhen. My last memory of China was from a short trip in 1985 when the country was considered backward by comparison. I visited Yunnan's provincial capital, Kunming, which only had one direct flight per week with Guangzhou, and the plane was a Russian jalopy with leaky, whistling windows. Economy class passengers took geese and other live animals on board. No shit! In those days, the PLAAF shared the Kunming Airport with civilian aviation. As our plane landed on the runway, I could espy an endless row of MIG-like fighters (probably J-5s), each loaded with a huge bomb attached to the underbelly (probably one-thousand-pound MFckers) parked on each side. Only a few years before, Kunming was the western headquarters for China's brief border war with Vietnam. The dining room at the hotel next to Green Lake (翠湖 said to be the best one for foreigners in those days) was staffed by female servers clad in a modest, featureless uniform of white shirts and blue pants. They were ravishing Xinjiang beauties, one and all. I expressed my appreciation in glowing terms to the hostess arrayed in a flowery silk qipao (the traditional dress otherwise known as cheongsam by the British Taipans), who was also from Xinjiang. She said they were the ugliest of the lot and relegated to Kunming, a backwater hick town in those days. The prettier ones had better things to do and went to nicer places (I'm sure she was joking). While people wanted to do business, Yunnan had little connections to the outside world. Everything exuded the beauty of untouched innocence.

As I entered Shenzhen in 1997, a farrago of smells, sights and sounds immediately overwhelmed my senses. Scammers and pickpockets abound. Child beggars, some carrying month-old babies, congregated at my feet. Every walkway, watering hole and massage parlor overflowed with pimps and prostitutes. Wujings (Armed Police of the Military tasked with protecting the security of infrastructure and borders) and soldiers masquerading as businessmen ran riot. They owned the largest and most incredible dance hall in town, known as House. They hired a Hong Kong manager, a friend of a friend, because Hong Kongers knew something about decadence under British colonial rule. 

Unfettered by transient moral concerns and armed with the new standard of "To be rich is glorious," an attractive girl could make more paper promises in one night than a factory worker could earn in months, working overtime every day. What's your choice if you want to retire early, say, before turning thirty? With the help of the Wujing and Customs officials, entire towns with a port became smugglers' havens. Gangs ruled the streets after dark. Corruption among government officials was rampant. I know people in Guangzhou who work for various departments. They used to spend exorbitant amounts on Karaokes every night, covering all expenses as long as you deign to attend. Those days have long gone. I once complained to a bank manager who obviously knew about the shady loans they were doling out. He replied, "Fish don't grow in clear water." The Central government was dispensing incentives to encourage local technology development. However, a not insignificant portion went to scammers who knew nothing about technology and did not even try. They got the money because they knew someone who knew someone. While the average worker survived on five-yuan box lunches, students in Guangzhou flooded McDonalds, waving hundred-yuan Mao-adorned bills and jostling through unwieldy queues with Chinese characteristics for their twenty-five-yuan Big Mac Meals. I visited Shenzhen with a friend from Canada. His first impression was, "Chinese people may have money but no culture." He never returned.

Suffice it to say, many people who sacrificed their youth working for the socialist cause were disgusted, my wife's father included. My father-in-law, who recently passed away, left his big-city hometown of Jinan, Shandong's capital, after finishing school to spend his entire life working at a remote coal mine in Shaanxi. My wife holds negative sentiments toward the Chinese government even to this day. She came from a small county with less than four hundred thousand residents. According to her, if you want regular service from an official of any rank, be prepared to seek help from connections (guanxi), buy presents and set up meals or be ignored. Reforms may take longer to infiltrate smaller places.

These are my real experiences in China. I say it as I saw things without wearing rose-tinted glasses. Why did I stay rather than walk away? Although I worked in a lucrative business, I decided not to get involved in bribery. Everyone, including my wife, thought I was either crazy or stupid, but it was my bottom line. I noticed how people in China seemed to be doing short-term, cut-throat, quick-return-on-capital businesses. I went in the opposite direction and worked in expensive, long-term technology development (thanks to the generous support of friend and boss Michael Pang who passed away recently and, of course, everyone in my family). The technical staff I trained would later become tech leaders of their organizations. Even my secretary became the top executive of an international dollar store known as Miniso. I was disgusted with the unwieldy mobs in the McDonald I frequented. After taking the manager to task, halting service and wreaking havoc at the place for ten minutes, it became one of the most orderly McDonalds in Guangzhou. Nowadays, proper crowd management and orderly queues in China are the rule rather than the exception.

In 1979, when China's average per-capita income was less than one-third that of sub-Saharan African countries, three hundred thousand Chinese risked their lives swimming to Hong Kong. No one knew how many did not succeed and slept with the fishes. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, a young man characterized as a local, not one recently imported with the Republic of China but whose family came to Taiwan from the mainland several hundred years ago, swam in the opposite direction. This young man was at the top of the class wherever he went and a student leader. He despaired when the U.S. wrested Diaoyu Island from Taiwan and passed it to Japan. He grew up in Yilan and knew Diaoyu Island was a part of Yilan County even during the Japanese occupation. How did it become a part of Japan? Hence he entered the military academy to fight for Taiwan's, if not China's, sovereign right over Diaoyu Island. Upon graduating at the top of the class again, he became a poster boy for the Taiwan military because of his "local" background. But he would not be fighting for Diaoyu Island. The young soldier was appointed the commander of the prestigious and sensitive military post at Kinmen Island, approximately one to two kilometers from the Fujian coast depending on the tide. Life was looking up for him. He already had a son, and his wife was pregnant with their second child. His future was bright, rosy and full of promise. What made him risk his life and everything he had to jump into the sea and swim in the opposite direction?

If we read a little history of the Chinese Communists, we can notice recent social changes in China did not come about because everyone believed in Communism. Most people care about their own survival and prefer to submit to the allure of the Hegemon's paper promises. I always wondered what convinced Professor Yifu Lin to take that fateful plunge. He explained in an article written for his seventieth birthday. He said he learned from Chinese history during times of existential threat, Chinese heroes, some of whom we may know but many are unwept, unhonored and unsung, would sacrifice everything to save the country. It did not matter if he were the only one from Taiwan; he would do his share. He would go on to become the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, an esteemed professor and dean of economics at Peking University, a prolific writer, and the Vice Director of the CPPCC's Economics Committee, providing consultation to the Chinese government. I told Prof. Lin I knew a few friends who had worked quietly and tirelessly to rejuvenate China. He assured me many dedicated people are doing the same, but we don't hear about them.

I have witnessed China's changes with my own eyes. Changes unseen in a hundred years are upon us because of deliberate policies developed and executed by intelligent, dedicated people who don't care too much about their personal profits. Revolution is not for everyone because "Dying is easy; revolution is hard." 
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