China scares me

Let me tell you why...

Besides the fact that millions of American stocks and bonds are now owned by the Chinese government, besides the fact that their population has now been estimated at 1,313,973,713 as of July 2006, and despite the fact that it is now the fastest growing economy in the world—China has insurpassible nationalistic and communist linked robotic citizens who don't seem to care how hard they work to get ahead, nor how their success benefits anyone else but their government.

I admire and fear their work ethic, their ability to work 14 hour days in the fields, sacrifice their entire lives towards a goal of olympic proportions, even their dedication to a culture which has been fostered from a civilization which is now the longest lasting in the history of the world.

Babylon fell, Rome fell, Ancient Greece is only remembered in classical tragedies, but China has remained a mystery to outsiders for centuries and only now do we seem to understand a little bit more into the personalities of the people who have built a country on the sweat of it's citizens and the spirit of their ancient culture.

If you haven't seen Discovery Atlas: China Revealed on the Discovery channel, then you are truly missing out on a beautifully done (maybe overkill on the special effects and over voiced narration, but overall well done) documentary that covers the expanse of china's land and the different groups of people—from northern mongolia, the eastern capital of Beijing, southern rice patties in PingAn and desolate western deserts—from its richest entrepreneurs to it's poorest laborers—it truly captures the heart and soul of China.

The part most frightening was when they showed thousands of boys from ages 4 to 18 practicing syncronised Kung Fu (or WuShu) training at WuShu village. What was a 2000-year-old practice developed by monks for defense and spiritual enlightenment is now used to as training for the army and police. Cut to: hundreds of chinese children in primary school singing the national anthem:

Arise,
Ye who refuse to be slaves!
With our very flesh and blood,
Let us build our new Great Wall!
The peoples of China are in the most critical time,
Everybody must roar his defiance.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Millions of hearts with one mind,
Brave the enemy's gunfire, March on!
Brave the enemy's gunfire, March on!
March on! March on! On!


Just a tad bit frightening no? Every minute 34 new chinese children are being born, which is 7 million in one year. They say that if the chinese continue to mulitply and consume natural resources that at the rate they are going we would need an entire new planet earth just to support china in 30 years. Which adds to the recent article in New Scientist which stated that if the earth's population does not curb it's consumption of natural resources and continues to over-populate the world, we will need two additional earths to support the population by 2050.

It is just astonishing to me how hard working they are, how self-less they can be and maybe that is what is scary. They have a spirit and national pride unhindered by communist control and unparalleled by any other country on earth.

It is hard to look past these things and see the beautiful side of China, because it truly is astonishing. I hope that with all their progress their ever-increasing influence on the world stage will be beneficial to western nations.



Otherwise I guess we better start learning Chinese. Ni Hao Ma.