Funny, but
Check out
Stuff White People like, it is exploding. Some people hate it, but most people love it. But looking at the list, shouldn't it be more appropriately named "Stuff Middle-Class Yuppies like?"
#90 Dinner Parties
#89 St. Patrick’s Day
#88 Having Gay Friends
#87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
#86 Shorts
#85 The Wire
#84 T-Shirts
#83 Bad Memories of High School
#82 Hating Corporations
#81 Graduate School
Forced hands.
Dalai Lama accused Chinese agents behind some of the violence in Tibet. That is questionable. But the point that there are people with divergent motives is a good one. This unrest has brought the Sino-Tibetan relation one step backward. I would argue that the riots do not benefit the Dalai Lama, which is why he denounced it. However slim the chance of reconciliation between him and the Chinese just got slimmer. Deep down in his heart he must want to return to the land of his people and his ancestry, especially in his old age. The alternative is to continue the status quo and to allow the "cultural genocide" until it is the defacto reality in another generation. He may also be the last chance for the Chinese. Once he has passed on, his reincarnate, the 15th Dalai Lama, will not be guaranteed to be in the Chinese control, and will likely to be much more militant than the 14th. Is that what they want? Of course, perhaps the Chinese would like the repeat of the Panchen Lama fiasco, and render the two highest ranked spiritual leaders of Tibetan Buddhism meaningless and powerless. In some ways, the riots have forced the hands of the Chinese and the Dalai Lama, not too surprisingly since the younger, more international Tibetan generation is far more militant than his holiness.
Empire building.
Anne Applebaum had a piece on
Slate today about the Tibetan unrest. A journalist/Eastern European scholar, she drew comparisons between China of today and the European empires from the last two centuries. She is optimistic for the Tibetans, however,
And if they aren't worried, they should be. After all, the history of the last two centuries is filled with tales of strong, stable empires brought down by their subjects, undermined by their client states, overwhelmed by the national aspirations of small, subordinate countries. Why should the 21st century be any different? Watching the tear gas roll over the streets of Lhasa yesterday on a blurry, cell-phone video, I couldn't help but wonder when—maybe not in this decade, this generation, or even this century—Tibet and its monks will have their revenge.
She makes a familiar argument, correct or not, that often only annoys the Chinese. In their eyes, the comparisons are invalid because things are in fact different. They would laugh at the comparison between China and the imperial Western Europe. Those empires were based on technological advantages while China relies on its shear size, population and land mass (even minus its western region).
The Chinese if nothing but students of history know time is on their side. The French had their Algeria. But Algeria was more than twice of France's size. England and India, please. Notice the Dali Lama was most concerned about "culture genocide" not Ms Applebaum's "political manipulation, secret police repression and military force." Because in truth, the Han Chinese do not need those. Tibetans are already minorities in their own land. The parts of Lhasa that are burning are inconsequential because they are new, use by the Hans, have no real cultural value and can be rebuilt quickly. As long as the monasteries and palaces remain standing for tourists, and yes, some monks inside would be nice, all is well.
It is curious why Ms. Applebaum, who is American, fails to see the similarity between China and the U.S. Many Chinese will happily point out that today's U.S. owns much of its geography to expansion, sometimes by brute force but often less blunt, often by the mean of population migration. This is a sad time for someone like myself who hopes one day to visit Tibet. Let us hope the Lhasa of tomorrow will not be consisted of wide boulevards, ancient monasteries and gleaming casinos.
Cars.
Driving in China is a dangerous endeavor. The life behind an automobile in Shanghai is entirely different from that of one in the U.S. or Europe. After being driven around the city for the last three weeks, I have come to appreciate the irony of the Chinese drivers. Politeness is out of the question. Defensive driving rules the day. Using Chinese idioms, one has to look in four directions, and listens in eight more. One reads into every slight deviation by his neighbors. Ones has to tailgate in China. One becomes suspicious when the adjacent car in the next lane does not tailgate. The chances are the car is looking to change lanes, and it inevitably does. Ultimately I have come to the realization that people in China drive their cars like they ride their bikes. Bicycles are nimble and harmless. The chances are every driver in China have ridden bicycles for the majority of their lives before they ever stepped behind a steering wheel. There is no lane change signals in biking. No lane period. Every crack is daylight to freedom. The damages done by an accident on a bike can be remedied by a quick apology. somehow that mentality has been transferred to the auto culture in China.
Yet the Chinese love their cars. The internet is full of stories of Chinese jumping into their cars, SUVs, or vans, racing toward the western frontier. Journeys to the West. They thirst for wild open space, for adventures, for an authentic experience of becoming singular with the sky, the land and one's own destiny. Much like the Wild West of the U.S, there are so much of China yet to be explored and experienced. Perhaps all of us hunger for a place to call our own, where 1.3 billion is but a number, and one's life path is not limited by the concrete jungle of steel highrises and narrow highways.
