You might be interested in knowing that I have a new mainland born Chinese girl friend (46). In fact when she was 9, her family was sent out into the countryside by the Red Guard to live in a shed for three years as part of the "cultural revolution". She imports wood products (was a scientist, extremely bright) from Manchuria, and has been here for 15 years, US citizen, etc, but goes back regularly. I'm taking a trip with her to Shanghai and Peking, and the Li River, on March 26-April 9. As you can imagine, I will be observing things closely.
Although I promise to be open minded, so far my contact with this lady hasn't changed my view and opinion on "China, the pirate ship" one iota, kind of reinforced it actually. She calls it a pyramid ruling class, and very corrupt. There is limited, rather token freedom of speech, which few exercise for fear of "rocking the boat". It sounds like a conformist culture mixed with high levels of greed and crony capitalism, and extremely powerful top down social controls and suasion. |
