I read some book by a lady with a name too long to pronounce and hard-coded with far too many consonants to remember, but that book is a primer on China. In a while I will dig up her name but lets talk about the PRC first.
I never wanted to go to China, Asia was not my thing. My uni had a few China-philes but we didn’t run together. My preference was for all things Spanish. Their zest for life, the colors, the language, music, their inner being.
It was with not a little sadness that I flew the coop on a supposed one-year stint in China, which was to be capped off with a thorough body wash and then return to all things civil. One thing lead to another and Days turned to weeks and suddenly the calendar was replacing ‘0’s with 1’s and my 365 year gig had septupled.
The words ‘love’ and ‘passion’ were not associated with my stay there. In fact, ‘morbid curiosity’ and ‘masochism’ are more likely candidates for anything I felt. The simple fact is that China has a tar black hole in its inner-most being which most people associate with the complete and utter absence of good and humanity. Perhaps I should explain…
Headings go here..
To keep myself from wandering, I will slap headings before my rant. These will also let you keep track of which path my ADD enhanced mind currently rambles down.
Chinese are soulless
Referring back to the book whose name I cannot recall, I would like to say that Chinese are cruel. No, not in that ‘fat school kid who always got picked on’ way, but that deep down cruelty exposing an excess of depravity that only thousands of years of hatred and grief could create. The People in China are the most soulless i have ever met.
Lets reflect on that sentiment for a moment.
My job has taken me to some pretty rough places and my natural charm and endearing way has put me in the path of some very strange people. I’ve guns pulled on me by Mexican cops, been robbed by the law in Brazil too. Those men were tender compared to the Rio mulatto who tried to separate my internal organs for me just to get at the coin in my pocket.
What all those people had in commom, for the most part, was a sense of humanity. Sure that guy in Rio did not look like a saint as he gashed at my innards so I would stop pummeling him with blows, but before it all went down, his eyes flashed human. He was merely a homeless person with friends and family to feed. Had I given him cash he would have had no reason to attack me. I did not and he did. Lucky for me it ended in a draw. He and his buddies got the equivalent of $0.50 and I got away unharmed. But as I said, inside he was human
Chinese are cruel
It may sound a little less than politically correct to say this, but Chinese are inhumanly cruel. As you may have figured out, ‘trouble’ and ‘your humble author’ are pretty good friends. It does not follow me, but for some reason I pursue it with a vigor. My day job taxes my boredom bone which leaves me empty. Chasing danger fills a need which sitting on my ass for eight hours at a time cannot. The benefit of this hobby is that it has enabled me to peer into the souls of the most depraved people one could meet. But almost without exception, in all that depravity I saw a spark, a smidgeon of goodness. That quick glimpse of humanity quickly covered over by grief, greed or madness. Nonetheless, inside there was something human with which I could relate.
And then came China
China is famous for its ‘kill all but one child’ policy, but to those people it is nothing new. In fact, baby killing or infanticide is as old as China. A couple thousand years ago some pig-faced emperor declared that starving families could dine on their child, as long as it was a girl.
When these people were not noshing on female femurs, they were tossing them off cliffs. The Chinese had a custom of discarding unwanted baby girls into a pile on the outskirts of town. This started before China proper itself, and is still happening today.
The Chinese are inhumanly cruel
But what does this have to do with working in China?
Dragging my liberated brain back to the subject matter, I contend that thousands of years of inhumanity have deformed the mainland DNA. Sure, there are great people in China, but that layer of sickness pervades. You see it in the way they treat each other, their kids, animals and especially you. The Chinese are inhumanly cruel.
The book written by the woman whose name has too many consonants spoke about this, tangentially at least. She writes about a Canadian woman who came to China not long after I did. That woman was looking to be a model and lit in Shanghai. After doing bar gigs she found herself on the wrong end of some steel and was filleted by some local. The poor woman never even saw it coming.
Chinese will lie
This woman, like most of us, probably thought China was no different than anyplace else. Of course it may be rough, but the Chinese were human, right?
Her innocence lead her into the steaming bowels of inhumanity that typifies Chinese business today. In a country which predicates the permitted murder of infants on their perceived ability to generate wealth, civility is stuffed in the trunk. China is to society what ‘Oz’ was to prisons, a perfect storm of neurosis, predation and opportunity which lead to the dehumanization of everyone. In China it is truly a dog-eat-dog world.
Just the facts sir
Back to the woman and the book with a name. I now recall, ‘the City Swallowed Them’. The author describes this poor Canadian who was brought to China under false pretenses, which aptly describes just about anyone who has worked there.
Jobs in China and people pimping them abound, and they all share one common theme. If you work in China, you are going to get fuked. It is the nature of the beast.
Chinese worship cash
Perhaps its the thousand year history of monetizing the suffering of others or some latent gene sprung to the fore by a controlled gene pool, but the Chinese often lack that which the rest of the world would call humanity. They think nothing of twisting truths and luring people from 6000 miles away and then abusing them as if they were chattle. Lies, treachery, manipulation, the grease enabling China’s economic rise.
In my life I have never been cheated out of a day’s wage, with the exception of China. In that country I have never not been cheated, with the exception of helping friends, there were no exceptions.
The difference between the Canadian woman who was killed in Shanghai and so many gullible westerners and me is that I came prepared. I’ve danced with the darkness, and knew what to expect. In China its every man for himself, a thing which is readily apparent. You pick up quickly on that and up your game, or you bitch and leave. China leaves no middle ground, you either attack or become tomorrow’s lunch.
This trait seemed to be common in the foreigners I met there. They were either ‘deer in headlights’ townies whose frustration had them calling daddy within months or those who merely rode the wave. They sealed themselves off from the subhuman vacuum and minimized contact with China. They stuck to their clique, worked gigs recommended by friends and saw China for what it is.
China is a swamp
Which brings me to the conclusion of this rant. China’s spiritual pestilence has a stultifying effect on one’s soul. In a country where random acts of ‘kindness’ are replaced with ‘treachery’ hardens one’s heart. Like I said above, this means you either get with it or get out, the thing to remember is that in China nothing is for free. Think about it like this…
If you are truly thinking of going to China, read a book or two. Try anything from the mid 19th century and you will have a good idea of what the. PRC is all about. Any country which condones the consumption of its children is not a good place. Remember I said that this was a holdover from antiquity, well I failed to state that it is still alive and well. In fact, there are still Chinese padding the streets with infant blood on their hands, during the late 1950’s and up the the late 60’s, Mao’s madness threw China into chaos and famine. In order to survive, the Chinese literally ate their youth. Jasper Becker can tell you all about it, just run an Amazon search on his name.
Now consider, if a people will go so far as to feast on the flesh of their own, what will they do to you?
Think about that as you consider that fantastic Teaching job in China or guided tour there. The Chinese are inhumanly cruel. Why else would the face of the world’s most prolific murderer adorn each and every banknote they have?
China should be treated with the same pestilence that it treats its youth and its livestock. Consider it the Ebola of humanity and cordon it off from your life.
Understanding China, One Blog at a Time 