RAINBOW GLASS

“剑与菊花，贵国二宝。”这是电视剧《走向共和》里李鸿章同伊藤博文就《马关条约》谈判时说的一句话。美国在二战同日本宣战前就组织学者对日进行研究。研究报告在战后出版成书，名为《菊与刀》。离开UIUC时幸得程韩同学赠与此书的中文版，于是一路坐飞机读到丹麦。读完后最大的收获就是对日本的“变态”能有所理解；一切都是基于整个社会的结构和秩序。还有就是引起对社会模式的兴趣。为什么现在大家都以西方社会为模板呢？中国这样一个不讲法制讲人情的国家，难道就没有出路了吗？

BBC关于人的测试：

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/index_surveys.shtml

from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jamesreynolds/

Here's one of the stronger comments posted on this blog...

"It doesn't matter how much you hate China and Chinese, we are destined to be stronger and stronger, we will disappoint you, I feel sorry for you again..." (fairreport)

And this is an email I received from someone in the UK after reading comments like the one above...

"One cannot help, upon reading such comments, perceiving that the Chinese feel an immense patriotism which we in the West have often tended to underestimate. Any critical reporting on the part of the foreign media is immediately met with charges of bias - and this, presumably, from fairly ordinary citizens. What I, and no doubt many other foreign observers, find hard to understand, is the source of all this national pride."

I want to try to answer this.

In some ways, Chinese national pride is easy to explain. The first thing you learn about the country is that China calls itself by the ancient name of "Zhong Guo" - or Middle Kingdom - a reference to the time when China was at the centre of the world. Many Chinese contributors have written on this blog of their pride in 5000 years of civilisation (for around a thousand years - c.500AD-c.1500AD - this country was the world's leading power.) China also gave the world inventions such as paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing. So, there's a lot to be proud of.

When things are going well, this sense of national pride lives alongside a desire to make friends with the West. I know many people here who download western music onto their iPods, who complained bitterly when a local cable company made it too expensive to watch Premiership football, who learn English, and who want to go and study abroad. I've been to events where people politely ask if they can have their picture taken with me - because they want to show off the fact that they've met and made friends with a foreigner.

But, this national pride takes on a much sharper edge when China feels under attack from the West. This year, this sharper edge was sparked in by protests in Tibet in March and by disruptions to the Olympic torch relay a few weeks later.

Whenever China feels under attack, the country thinks back to a period that everyone is taught at school: the Century of Humiliation. This is an age from 1842-1949 in which China suffered successive, humiliating defeats to Western powers and to Japan. During this time, chunks of the Middle Kingdom were handed out as prizes to conquering nations. I would argue that if you get the Century of Humiliation, you get how China often sees the West.

These are some of the events of that every Chinese pupil is made to learn (students are tested on these facts throughout their school years.)

1) 1842 - Treaty of Nanjing
The Treaty that marks Britain's defeat of China in the First Opium War. Britain forces China to open up several ports to foreign trade, to allow Christians to come in to start missionary work, and to exempt foreigners from Chinese law. China also has to give up Hong Kong for Britain to use as a harbour. Over the next few decades the Treaty of Nanjing is followed by more than a dozen more treaties signed with other Western countries. Collectively they are known as the Unequal Treaties.

2) 1860 - Destruction of the Summer Palace
At the end of the Second Opium War, Britain and France destroy the Old Summer Palace in Beijing as a way of punishing the Emperor. This is seen one of the most potent symbols of China's humiliation.

3) Japanese Occupation 1931 - 1945
Japan invades Manchuria in 1931. The subsequent 14-year occupation includes the Nanjing Massacre in 1937 in which China says that more than 200,000 people are killed by the Japanese army.

The ordinary person in the West hardly learns any of this (even if they learn the facts, they're certainly not taught the Chinese perspective.)

This narrative of humiliation - a series of western tricks, massacres, and defeats designed to keep a once-great power down - often defines how China interprets the West's actions. It leads to an acute sensitivity and suspicion of the West's real motives...

"Please keep your hands of our motherland, because it is our own family problems. We would love to talk to you if you try to understand us a bit more in a fairly way. We like to make friends with you as we did never truly hated you, even you destroyed our country and cut our land in pieces many years ago (read the Chinese history in 1899 and during the 20's - 30's" (GoonerCow)

Some recent events as seen through the lens of the Century of Humiliation...

1) 1999 - Belgrade Embassy Bombing
US warplanes bomb the Chinese embassy in Belgrade - killing three Chinese diplomats. The US apologises and says the bombing is a tragic accident - its forces had been using out-of-date maps. But many in China don't believe the explanation. Thousands demonstrate outside the American Embassy in Beijing. Many here believe the US bombing was deliberate - another western attempt to keep China down.

2) Climate change
The West urges China to cut down its carbon emissions - as part of a worldwide attempt to stop global warming. But China sees this as an attempt to stop this country's development - a co-ordinated Western plot to keep China weak...

"Oh yes everything is on us, milk price gone up cause the Chinese started drinking milk; fiscal deficit, cause China's weak currency; soaring unemployment, cause Chinese cheap stuff; anything else?...Don't you need worry about China's going to skip the responsibilities. This world got to be a fair world, the new China is never to be anyone's' scapegoat." (ronnieji)

3) Dalai Lama & Tibet
Many in the West see Tibet's spiritual leader as a moral leader who preaches non-violence and campaigns only for better human rights for his people. But in China, the West's support of the Dalai Lama is seen as a conspiracy to support a violent secessionist who wants to achieve the long-standing western aim of dismembering China in order to keep it weak. China also argues that the West's romantic view of Tibet is false. Under the Dalai Lama, China says that Tibet was a brutal, feudal society. China says that Communist rule has brought development and better rights for poorer Tibetans.

4) Taiwan
This is the self-governing island off the coast of China - seen by China as an integral piece of the Middle Kingdom. In China, Taiwan's separation from the motherland is seen as the last, and greatest, symbol of China's historic losses. Much of China's sense of humiliation is built on the loss of territory. Therefore, getting land back - and keeping the land the country's already got - is vital. It's why Britain's handover of Hong Kong in 1997 was so important, it's also why so many people email this blog to insist that Tibet will always be a part of China. Some even argue that the Century of Humiliation won't fully be over until China regains Taiwan.

5) The Beijing Olympics
China looks forward to the event as a chance to prove to itself and to the world that it's ready to retake its rightful place on the world stage. But pro-Tibet campaigners disrupt the Olympic torch relay as it goes through London, Paris, and San Francisco. In the West this is seen as part a democratic right to protest. In China it's seen as part of a deliberate, coordinated attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics - because the West can't bear to see China take to the stage and resurrect itself as an important power...

"No matter Bush comes or not, Olympic will continue, business between China and American will continue, Tibetan's remain in the Chinese family will continue and so will the Communitist party's rule." (zickyyy)

When it comes to reporting on China (ie - what I do) the same suspicions arise ...

"BBC continues to publish distortion about China. Why don't you just add up all the emission by developed countries in the last century and then compared will all the emission by China. Then there will be no argument about who are the real contributors to the Global warming. Why BBC do not do that is baffling. Unless BBC has a hidden agenda to smeared China's good name." (TheMiddlePath)

"The reason why west media can dare to demonize China is that Chinese people are too nice when they face west." (YiXin921)

It's the job of a reporter to be critical - to investigate, to challenge, to shed light on the stories that a government doesn't want to tell. The BBC does this in every country - and gets accused of bias wherever it reports from (I know this, in particular, after spending more than five years reporting from the Middle East.) No one - including people in Britain - likes foreigners to criticise what their country does. The particular problem when it comes to China is this: when the western media reports on difficult subjects, many people here accuse us of being out to demonise and humiliate their country.

In many ways, then, Chinese national pride goes together with suspicion of the West's real motives. Each feeds the other.

Much of this is hard for the West to understand. Many in the West simply don't know much about China's history and genuinely don't feel they are trying to tear chunks out of the country and repeat what happened in the 19th Century. The West sees that China has the world's largest army, its own nuclear weapons, a UN Security Council veto, and ambitions to send a rocket to Mars - and finds it hard to understand why such a powerful country should feel so sensitive and so victimised.

Back, then, to the original question: what is the source of China's national pride?

It's a belief that China should be allowed to retake its proper place as a major world power. When China feels under attack, this pride turns into a frustration and anger that the West is still trying to hold it back and humiliate it. Does that answer it?

一个朋友能相重多久？

现在艺术照好像是很流行的样子，
每个人拿出来都是靓妹倩仔；但街
上走的人们精神状态差的咋那么多
哪！！

顿悟--要是在一张照片中把一个人
拍漂亮了并不是难事！！脑袋基本
上能被抽象成一个球体，有4pi的立
体角，自由度很大。找任何一个人，
总能选出个最佳的角度；咔嚓--这就
是一张美人照了。要说这人是本千年
的奇迹，五官错位，零件残损；那照
后脑勺总成了吧！！还能留给人无限
的遐想之美。这一招的高明之处就是
把所有的缺点都掩盖了，可谓发挥到
极致。别的一照美人也都一样，与其
说诗选最佳的角度，还不如说是把别
的差劲的都躲过了。

这样看来雕塑作品要难多了。观者能
绕着转，上看看，下看看，左看看，
右看看。从各个角度看了以后，还能
觉得是佳作，就实属不易了。这恐怕
也是为什么T台上的模特要比杂志报
纸上的平面模特卖得贵吧。

劝君王饮酒听虞歌，解君愁舞婆娑。赢秦无道把江山破，英雄四路起干戈。自古常言不欺我，成败兴亡一刹(so)那(no)。。。

2008年1月6日晚，在芜湖一五星级宾馆的一楼宴会厅里，李奇和康席静站在台上。今晚是他们的婚典。我作为司仪站在台边。有一到场嘉宾提议让新郎新娘互诉 此时此刻最想说的一句话。

李奇接过话筒：“老婆，我爱你，用我的一生。”
康席静拿着话筒，脸上的肌肉像是不自然的痉挛，欲言又止。。。一刹那就如同玩杀人游戏时崩溃的样子。要是合着康席静的脸一起抽搐，谁的心都会涌出泪来。

用这样个英文题目实在是因为想不好一个确切的中文翻译。回报应该是“pay backward”了；那“pay forward”就成了“前报”--显然不是人话！“Pay forward”这个说法是从电视上一美国电影看来的。小男主角就是演《the sixth sense》的那个颇有灵气的男童。说的是他用微薄之力帮助身边的人。当他人提出要回报他时，他让他们“pay forward”，去帮助别人。这样如果每个人都“pay forward”，很快受益的人将变得很多很多，且不停的增长！结局是这小男孩被误杀了。有些突然吧。想想像耶稣，甘地这样的不都死了？

这次去参加李奇和康席静的婚礼，我同新人们坐火车是1月5日早从上海到芜湖的。下午新人要折腾打扮，毕竟第二天有婚典，就把我托付给了康席静的fa xiao--肥鸟小姐。要说肥鸟还真是本地人，一路领着我直奔市中心。我们主要目标是芜湖的小吃。打的到了步行街，这儿的架势和上海的五角场有一拼。两边是大商场，我们压了压马路就转进了一条小巷。嘿！小吃摊贩都给赶这儿来了。肥鸟给我点了梅花糕（发糕包着赤豆），迷你生煎（用的是发面），韭菜饼，酒酿赤豆糯米丸子汤。。。我们吃一路扔一半，太多了吃不了。我口中念佛：善哉善哉。付账时她硬是全包了，抢不过来。她说她做事能放长线钓大鱼：现在施以“小恩小惠”，要是有一日到了上海再让我作东。这个女人不简单那！绕着镜湖转了一圈，回头再压步行街。这时有个四五岁的小女孩拿着一搪瓷杯上来要钱。我不给，她就抱我的双腿不让走。肥鸟好心拿出个钢贝儿来。突然要冲上来一小女孩。肥鸟连呼：“我知道错了。”又拿了一钢贝儿。我看见远处有个妇女正瞅着我们。可怜的孩子啊。我们快步离开，怕还有大部队。肥鸟又带我打的去了“团结路”。我在那儿吃了酸辣粉和烤鱿鱼。

我们又回到了步行街，正找了个馆子准备喝鸽子汤，李奇康席静还有康席静的三个fa xiao赶来了。席间康席静和fa xiao们狂聊旧时的趣闻轶事。李奇还能搭上些话，毕竟当年摸底过。我在一傍听着，也能感受到他们的三分欢笑。我似乎觉得人生有趣的事儿十有八九都在童年了，人越大谈论的事儿越无聊了。肥鸟的导游我是十分满意的：讲解周到，还管吃管喝。我无以回报了。

1月6日婚礼后，黄洁和她的fa xiao鲁黎要在凌晨回上海，我也就草草告别，搭了一顺风车。黄洁1月7日下午要去办财产证明，1月8日下午去签证，不能陪她从武汉而来的朋友鲁黎了（其实谁陪谁还说不定呢）。我就冲出来，自愿当导游。其实上海人一般不会这么热情，不是所有的上海人都去过芜湖。如有上海人如此热情，要小心了！8日我和鲁黎看了上海美术馆和博物馆。这女孩子头回来上海，不要看高楼大厦，少见。她背一个超级无敌完全制霸的大相机，颇有艺术家成名前的样样。中午我带她去了“乔家栅”点了牛肉汤（全被我喝了），鲜肉小馄饨，蟹粉汤包，三丝春卷，排骨年糕。客人称赞了一下馄饨和汤包。不管是真是假，先自我安慰一下喽。还好这回浪费的不多。晚饭是黄洁管的，请大家到上海小资腐败一条街--淮海路上的多利川菜馆。之前她还请我和鲁黎吃“许留山”，是港式甜品。我只知道上海有佘山。鲁黎是慕名已久。点了四样，味道不见奇，价不菲。随后转战多利，也没能打个翻身仗。

鲁黎是22：00从上海南站到武昌的火车。我们（包括席间后来的朱小姐）坐地铁送她去。走到地铁口突然前面有点混乱。走过时一看，是位大叔摔地上，眉骨的皮磕破流了血。旁边有两位热心的女士问他要不要去医院，可没有一位是男士。这一点不奇怪。BBC在《人类本性》的专题节目里做了一个实验：一个小女孩孤坐在街角；在数小时里多数只有女性上前询问女孩是不是走失了，父母在那儿。我这境遇又不同了：旁边有三位美女看着，而且已有两位女士在那儿打了头阵。（我记得有一次高中回家路上看见一盲人过马路走进了路边的一块施工地段，我停顿的两秒钟后上前把他引导出了那儿；心蹦蹦直跳，跟做了坏事似的。）要落平时我十有八九就走过去了。向陌生人示善是要有勇气的。推而广之，做我们平时不常做的事是需要勇气的。我上前再三问了问，大叔自称无事。我们走开了。我看人在做很多事时外人都不知道他们是怎么想的；有时他们自己都未必知道自己是怎么想的。这时再看看两位女士，其中一位打扮甚是入时。我再一次体会了人不可貌相。

上海铁路南站修的远胜于上海站，比浦东机场还强！鲁黎是上铺的硬卧，看了让人憋屈死了。我，黄洁还有朱小姐送完人往回赶。我们在地铁2号线上占了一溜三个座位，我坐在最右。三人侃大山。列车停了一站，在启动；我头向右一转，突然看见一妇女手扶一男子：男子眼戴墨镜，脸颊好像是因为烫伤什么的完全变形了，手臂也只有到肘下面一点。我腾的窜起来，说：“你们坐吧。”可他们不动，妇女只是一个劲的说谢谢。这是我才看见妇女手里拿了一一次性塑料杯，里面塞了几张十块的钞票。我不作声了，又坐了回来。妇女扶着男子走了过去。我无意识的说了一句：“完了，是要钱的。”妇女回头看了我一眼。我不知所措。我遇人要钱一般是不给的。曼不说有些人把骗钱当了职业，即使确有不幸，也得归咎于这糟糕的社会。个人只能施善一时，帮不了他们一世。帮得了一个，救不了全部。不过现今再想想，何必计较的这么清楚呢？口念佛陀，但求心安。