So, today I went to class, found out I was doing better in my grades, which was good, i tried to finish a certain paper that is due TOMORROW! and all in all it was pretty much a good day. :)
So the paper I am writing is on this book called "Wild Swans" By Jung Chang. it is an AMAZING book, 500 some odd pages which follow three generations of a chinese family, Grandmother, mother and daughter. It is a true story, and so beautiful!
It really shows how the change in china happened. Starting with the end of the old ways, to chaos, to rebirth.... It shows the oppression the chinese people were under the emperor, the mayhem and brutality of the japanese, then the with the Koumintang, finally we come to the communist rule.... I was surprised as I read, about how good communism sounded, it offered protection, order, and a way in which the o=underdog could get on top. It taught of equality, and unity. The people who supported Mao were genuine in their desires to build a new country, and a new life for the people. But the very basis of communism does not allow unity by choice, it is unity by force, and submission to the one ruler. It worked for a while.... but it became corrupted, people suffered just as bad as they had before, people got greedy, and when times got harder, they took it out on each other, all ideas were suppressed, and they had to submit, not only was this order encroaching on human rights, but it was also forcing people to die psychologically. They had Any thought against the communist party, or mao was punnishible, with unspeakable punnishments, the pressure, and the stress wore on the people of China, they began to break as they saw no way out, stresses became higher, times became worse, and the country was in complete Chaos... in the book she tells of how she would see wrong things happening, under the order of the Party, and would know they were wrong, but would train her mind not to think that, she had been taught that thoughts against the party were wrong, and a fault of her mind, and she must change her self to fit the party!
It really surprised me as I read about how many awful things these people endured, it is almost as if Mao did every thing that is ever possible to ruin a society, to ruin a culture, and to destroy human beings.... to psychologically obliterate any thing human or good.
In the end, things turn around, Mao dies, and the country sighs in relief, no one really wanted things to be they way they were... now they could change things for the better, it really was more in the people's hands now. They began to rebuild, to remember what it was like to interact with out being afraid of being accused of being anti-party, or anti-mao, they could trust, and they could love, they could put effort into personal interests and begin to grow.....
As i see it now, China has progressed a long way since all that chaos, When I was over there I remember thinking how can the chinese still hold such big grudges against the Koreans and Japanese? It just blew my mind, but now I see, their Grandparents, and great grandparents must have gone through this chaos! They must have witnessed, first hand, humanity dying..... I then thought back to my grandparents and my great grandparents... who had to go through hard times, like the depression.....but never a complete slaughter of culture, humanity, and society. Here in america we take for granted our relatively happy lives, our easy lives.... peaceful for the most part... i thought that if I knew my great grandmother had been tortured by a Japanese, though it was a long time ago, and I am sure the Japanese on a whole are not bad people, but if I had known that, I think it would be hard for me to forgive. I look at what happened on 9/11/01 here in the United states.. one terrorist act, just one, and people saw all arabs as bad guys.... every one was very biased, and some of that still lingers today! That was miniscule compared to what happened in China!
I now see the Chinese with more compassion, and things have been made clear to me about their culture. I have always loved them, and other asian countries, but now I see them so much clearer!
Any ways... my two cents on china! haha!
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