The Milk Scandal and the Rice Scandal

It rained like Glasgow this morning. The wind was so strong but I still had to travel to teach. I did a reading and oral practice with my students based on an article about "what makes a good marriage" from the Daily Mail. We have a lady in the office who collects articles from newspapers and adds exercises and lists of questions for us to use in lessons. We call them "Instant Ideas". The articles are mainly from the BBC News and the Daily Mail.

Two of my students, one married, the other not, gave very different opinions about how to run a happy marriage. I asked them "How many times a day should a couple cuddle to maintain a happy partnership?" The unmarried one said "ten or twenty times a day", the married one laughed and said "there's no time to cuddle when you have children". I laughed and wondered if this was true. On the way back from teaching, the wind was even stronger. I saw a broken umbrella on the pavement dancing in the wind. It was bright orange. Mine almost got broken too. The rain and wind definitely reminded me of Britain.

Back into the Metro, which is much more modern here. There's a huge screen in the middle of the rails broadcasting news. I sat down and watched some of it. I realised everyone who was interviewed seemed to be have a local face, and I wondered about the population of minorities and immigrants here in Madrid - I saw their faces all around me on the Metro - but why didn't I see them on the news? I suddenly remembered a theatre director friend from London who once told me that the cultural diversity in Germany was ten years behind Britain after working there. I guess it could be similar in Spain.

God knows why, but while watching news, the milk scandal in China popped into my mind. Couldn't believe those companies did what they did, but yes, I have to believe it because it's true. Dreadful! Around the same time as the milk scandal in China, there was a rice scandal in Japan. "Tainted rice fed to hospital patients and schoolchildren". I read in a Chinese newspaper that some of the poisonous wine made from the tainted rice sold to restaurants in Shanghai had to be taken back to Japan. I wonder why the milk scandal in China makes headlines on BBC News but the rice scandal in Japan doesn't? I Google searched the reports about the Rice Scandal in Japan. Apart from Japantimes, Japantoday and some other Japanese news websites, you can only find the story on the websites of the Guardian, Youtube, CNN and the Telegraph, whereas the milk scandal in China you can find everywhere - on time.com, bbc.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, independent.co.uk, cnn.com, msnbc.msn.com, usatoday.com, www.csmonitor.com, en.wikipedia.org, atimes.com, ft.com, news.yahoo.com, smh.com.au, abc.net.au, globalvoicesonline.org etc, too long to list.

The People Are Angry

28/04/2008

“Carrefour has a ninety percent discount in Shanghai!” a Chinese waitress said after overhearing my discussion with a friend while in a Chinese restaurant yesterday. The waitress spoke while cutting fresh chillies on a table near us. She said that she was originally from Shanghai.

Another waitress, who was from Fujian province, added, “Carrefour has already closed in my hometown.”

“Carrefour in Xuzhou is also closed.” My friend added. Xuzhou is where she went to college.

The Shanghai lady laughed. “I say let’s all go buy the discounted stuff in Carrefour so that it can shut down too.”

I hadn’t heard the news about Carrefour but I was very interested. Carrefour is a French supermarket chain that is as common in China as Tesco is in Britain. Its goods are priced somewhere between that of Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.

The lady from Shanghai continued. “This whole thing is a conspiracy. The central government’s policy towards the minorities is so soft - there’s never been any violence in Tibet before these reports, and now this. The Lamas (reported in the Western media) aren’t real. Real Lamas are calm and peaceful, those ’Lamas’ in the news are just people dressed up to pose as Lamas.”

Could this be? Along with my friends and acquaintances who are also from China and living and working in the West, I am of the opinion that the recent media spin of ‘unrest’ in Tibet is supported by a Western political bias against China in order to rain on China’s parade during the 2008 Olympics. However, I never thought that this would go so far as to the planting of fake Lamas as victims to facilitate Western media reports. How could this happen?

“There are many unemployed from Xinjiang who can be hired for the right price, including those ready to disturb the Beijing Olympics” said Shanghai lady, implying a shady connection between fake Lamas and those looking for a story to shame China.

This sparked a discussion on our actual experiences of the treatment of ethnic minorities in China and I mentioned my own experience. At the teachers’ training college in my home province, I knew of a girl from a minority who, each month, received more money from the government than the local ethnic Chinese. And whenever a fight broke out between local Shanghainese and knife-wielding Xinjiang minorities, the local police always let the latter off the hook and advised locals to be tolerant of them.

The friend that I was having lunch with added that in the canteen of the college where she studied, there is a ‘minority only’ window. This reminded me of my time at the Beijing Dance Academy, where the Halal canteen on the first floor is as big as the non-Halal canteen on the ground floor – despite the fact that there are only a handful of Muslim students.

“The central government has been so careful with Tibet. They are trying so hard to develop this region. They pay you more money if you go to work there, but who wants to go? Nobody. Who wants to go to a place lacking in adequate shower and toilet facilities?” said Shanghai lady.

I know how hard the Chinese government has been trying to develop Western China in recent years. They encourage the educated to go to work in these parts where there is much less development compared to that of Eastern China.

“The Chinese government is trying its hardest to prevent Westerners from knowing how angry everyone is in China.” The Shanghai lady continued.

Yet from the Chinese that I speak to it is difficult not to notice this. Everyone from China is angry with Western attempts at hegemony and the ‘Free Tibet’ supporters – especially those in Paris who tried to physically liberate Jin Jing, the Para-Olympian torch bearer, from her wheelchair. The people are reflecting this anger through their actions as consumers and Carrefour is no longer in business in China. But if Western news reports are to be believed, why is there so much disenchantment?

I can see why. After the turmoil created by “Free Tibet’ in central London on 6 April, where 37 ‘liberators’ were arrested, the Chinese national news reported to the Chinese people that the Olympic torch was delivered smoothly. Of course, they don’t want the Chinese people to know about China-bashing from the West, but the people are already aware of it. Almost everyone I know in China has access to internet. We are not the brain-washed drones that the Western media would have you believe. It might come as a surprise that Chinese people get their information from all sides and do their own thinking. To safeguard future international relations, the French prime Minister has made a formal apology to China and the Chinese government has followed suit by discouraging ill-feeling in the Chinese people. Yet despite this, the Chinese people are simply refusing to shop in the French-owned supermarkets. Perhaps this is the people taking action against hypocrisy – where the West is usually the last to support Chinese policies yet always first in the queue to court money from economic development and growing spending power.

“Everything else is negotiable but not this” said Shanghai lady. “The French went over the top, worse than the British, and they have annoyed the people. We pay such a big price to supply the Western world with cheap products made in China – putting up with the pollution, long hours and extremely hard working conditions. Westerners don’t thank us for that. Instead, they blame China for every thing – human rights, global warming, unemployment…” She continued, “The UK has the highest drinking and teenage pregnancy problem in Europe, and they blame China for ‘taking away their jobs’. And I heard on Radio 4 that there are families in Britain where no member has worked for three generations in a row - these people live on benefit - and they have the nerve to blame China for the decline in the British economy!”

So the question is, if a bully picks on you, should you remain silent and back down? Many would say if the bully is more powerful than you it could be seen as a wise move. But what if the bully takes this as a sign of weakness and continues to pick on you again and again? With China-bashers jumping on the Olympic bandwagon to jeopardise China’s achievement on the world stage, it seems apparent that the Chinese people have had enough. They have made a noise and fought back both peacefully and strategically - by keeping their money in their wallets.

What’s going on 6 – All is business, we want peace!

26/04/2008

As soon as I receive emails that ask me to “Boycott Made in China Goods”, I know exactly what’s going on. It’s all about economics. If only China is smaller or weaker, then they wouldn’t need to do all this.

Is China bad? Where were all of you seven years ago when they first announced to have the 2008 Olympics in China? Did anyone want to boycott the Beijing Olympics then? How all of a sudden has China became so bad in the last one or two months?! Of course the economic growth in China in recent years is unforgivable to some out side powers. They have worked hard to create a bad image of China all these years. The US has been picking on China’s human rights for years. Well, shall we have a close look at the US’s human right records? Why are there so few Native Americans in North America now? Because the whites killed almost all of them while taking over their land. Who attacked Iraq for oil and has made it a land no-one can live in? The US broke over sixty international war laws while attacking Iraq (I heard this on television while on holiday in Italy). How are black Americans treated? And were those communist thinkers allow any jobs? Terrorists are sent to Guantanamo Bay with or without evidence, and many are tortured even through the US tells everyone they’re not. And Abu Ghraib in Iraq? Last year’s racist events in Jena? So hypocritical, unbelievable!

And there eventually was an incident in Tibet. What a surprise! How did it start? Of course, there just had to be something before the Olympics. There is no better moment than now. So they can use the media to influence their people to be anti-China! To boycott the Olympics and Made in China goods. As far as I can see, the media worked very well this time, as well as almost three years ago when it could make its people swear at Muslims on London streets and buses.

Do you really think the Dalai Lama represents the Tibetan people? If you do, I am afraid to tell you that you are wrong. He does indeed represent the ex-rulers of Tibet - that five percent of the Tibetan population who owned all the land while the rest of the ninety-five percent of the population who were slaves. Such a society, whether in China’s hand, or Western hands, should be changed. I understand that the Dalai Lama was of course unhappy with the Chinese government after he lost the life style of being served by servants around him in his silver palace. And if I was him, I would look for a shoulder to lean on after 1959. But the shoulder happened to be American. What a surprise! And we know that relationship between the US and UK…whatever the US says, the UK says “yes, Sir.”

I know the problems in China, the hardship of the workers and the corruption. I write about them, don’t I? But mind you every government I know is corrupted. My heart feels pain when I see the hard lives of migrant workers in Beijing and how many women have to work as prostitutes to support their families. But who is to blame? The Chinese government? No, the capitalist system that they have introduced. Remember that the West welcomed China into the capitalist team, and enjoys cheap Made in China goods. All these problems we have in China are problems all capitalist countries would go through (Remember Charlie Chaplin’s films?) which are supported by the more mature capitalist power in the West. The capitalist system needs slave workers, that’s why the Chinese labouring workers have to work extremely, unbelievably hard and still own nothing. If it’s not the Chinese, it will be the Africans or Bangladeshis. It doesn’t matter. This system needs slave workers.

Why do we work so hard for years and still don’t own a house, why do Chinese workers work extremely hard but still don’t have enough money to put their kids through higher education? Why are we born with nothing and if we want a house to live in, we have to work a hard boring job for thirty of fourty years?

There are no nations but only business in this world. We are all the same; we are at one side, the side that the majority of the world’s population are at. From the day we are born, we are controlled, from the day we open our bank account, and we became the slaves of the minority. We work hard our whole life to make the amount in our bank account from minus to plus if we want a house to live in, and the very few of them often don’t even work at all but have more than everything they need and want.

So my friends, please think again who to blame and who to blame for the problems you were protesting against. I appreciate your sympathy for the Tibetans and the Chinese peasants’ lives. But boycott Beijing Olympics and made in China goods will not solve the problems at all. It will do the opposite. What is worse is that, your names are used by the power which wants to make China the next Africa or Yugoslavia. Is that what you want?

Please don’t think I am trying to speak for the Chinese government. I am permanently based here, to be honest, the better the British government do, the more I benefit. But I am not that kind of person who can just shut up and be selfish. I speak for fairness and peace.

The economy is going down, we need somebody to blame. When it went well, Gordon Brown gets all the credit, now it’s not going well, he blames “external” reasons. What external? People automatically blame China and the Made in China goods. That’s exactly how the Germans started to oppose the Jews. The US’s economy has been going down for the last few years too. I am not surprised they are blaming the Chinese. And they will do so more as the world’s economy is going down at the moment. So I will not be surprised to see more and more people anti-Chinese.

“Being anti Chinese will only get worse especially in countries like the US and the UK…” this is what my mum told two weeks ago on the phone. I agree. If you disagree because you haven’t seen it or realised it I think, sometimes, when you realise and see it, it will be too late. “You must come back.” My mum said. I am seriously thinking about it, before it’s too late. And this is the last thing I am trying. Writing to wake people up. I believe most people here are educated. I believe most people here don’t want the tragedy of the second world war to take place again.

I want to finish by showing this video clip that was made by a silent Chinese who asks for peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApn09pRZCk

What’s going on 5 – There are stories we never hear.

25/04/2008

Most importantly, while we are trying to work out which side of the story is more truthful, are we aware that there are stories we will never hear? For an example –

Here we hear a lot about how dreadful the Cultural Revolution was. I have read books while living in this country which give the picture that everyone was suffering, and I thought it must be the worst ten years ever in Chinese history. Then I talked to my mum, my granny, my uncles and other relatives, they didn’t say anything very bad about that ten years at all. The worst they said was that my uncles couldn’t continue to go to university because of the cultural revolution, and they know one family whose son and father were arguing because they were pro different sides politically, they said what a shame that the father and the son weren’t speaking to each other for ages. So nothing very bad happened in my Granny’s village and the villages surrounding them at all. But why do we keep hearing extreme things about the Cultural Revolution? Because the intellectuals suffered and those are the ones who can read and write, or let’s say the urban stories have to be told a lot more. I once interviewed Dr TONG Shengxiao and his wife XUE Hong who are now based in Edinburgh, who were both from urban areas and experienced the last two years of the Cultural Revolution farming in the countryside. They said “Things were very good for us, people who were five or six years older than us who experienced the beginning of the Culture Revolution, they were not as lucky, they were sent to live with peasants families and there were some problems, but by the time we went, they (the government) had worked out a good way of doing it, instead of living in peasants families, we had our own houses to live and own farm to practice farming, we learnt a lot and we enjoyed it, and two years later, we returned to our own city and continued higher education…”

About eighty percent of the Chinese population were living in the countryside during the cultural revolution, and those are the stories we don’t hear. And there are stories like Dr Tong and his wife’s from urban areas that we do not hear too. Why? Because they are not sad stories, for some reason westerners only need to hear tragedies from China. Have you ever thought about why you only hear bad things about China?

Back to Tibet in the 1959, after the PLA went into Tibet, ninety-five percent of the slaves were given their own land to till, for the first time in history, the majority of Tibetans were able to take control of their lives and decide their own destiny. Isn’t that remarkable!? But of course, we don’t get to hear their voices. The ones from the five percent who originally owned all the land and people who went to India, we of course hear every word they say. Not only because India was British so the words get here easier, more obviously, it is a political choice, the Western capitalist governments need their people to hear as many bad things the communist government did as possible. That’s why we hardly ever hear any good things any communists governments did through our media here. The US’s number one worry after the end of the second world war was the communist power in the East, they chopped Korea in two, occupied Japan and lay a foot on Taiwan all because of this. And China of course has been the US’s long term enemy. They hated China being socialist, then they worried about China’s economic growth and the possibility of it becoming the next superpower. The US worries that if that was the case, they might not be able to bomb other countries and steal resources so easily. What can they do? They must try to stop China’s economic growth because China is too big to just bomb and put a puppet government there. So what can they do then? Create internal problems. That was exactly what they did to Africa. Make one group start to fight another group inside China, in Tibet or in Xinjiang, as long as China become political unstable. That is the best way to stop China’s economic growth at the moment. It’s called “use someone else’s hand and knife to kill the person/people you want to kill”, it’s written in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. The so called demonstrators in Tibet, those who attacked the local Chinese, attacked banks, burned shops and No.2 middle school, those who killed over a hundred local innocents including local Tibetans, do you know that you are used???... The powers behind the Dalai Lama are so pleased for what you did, you know?

If you film a hundred operations that a doctor did, and when you edit the film, you cut all the successful ones, and only keep the failed ones and show it to people, even if there were only 10 failed operations out of a hundred, that doctor still will look like the worst doctor ever. This is what the US and some other Western media in general have been doing to the Chinese government for all these years. Years of hard work, this is the moment to use it. My friends who boycott the Beijing Olympics and Made in China goods, do you know that your names are used not for the benefit of the Tibetans but to stop China’s economic growth? I agree with your sympathy for the Tibetans’ religion and culture, but did the Chinese change the Tibetans’ religion? No they didn’t. Who did? Let’s find out -

Sunday the 30^th of March, I saw “Delamu” in the ICA, “a new documentary by fifth generation film director Tian Zhuangzhuang, showing the lives and culture of people living on the remote border of Yunnan and Tibet…The film was jointly produced by companies in the People’s Republic of China and Japan. It had its American premier at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival”. Let me tell you what I saw in the documentary. The film started with a Tibetan family in a mainly Tibetan village, the mother of the family in typical Tibetan clothes was speaking about her life. But something caught my eyes, the family hand in hand prayed before the meal and the mother herself was doing this head, chest, left shoulder and right shoulder, this typical Christian sign, all the time. Then I saw she opened the village church for the camera man. Later on I saw a big room full of men, women, and children from that village and surrounding villages practising Catholicism and singing Catholic hymns together with their quality Tibetan voices, in comparison with a Lama temple near by where there was only one boy learning how to do Tibetan Buddhist chants with his very aged master. The old retired church minister talked about the American minister before him with a big grin on his face “he is very white, like a foreigner. My whole family were converted by the time I got married and then I became the minister…” Then another old woman talked about her French minister.

Wait a minute, aren’t we talking about our sympathy for the Tibetan culture? I have had sympathy for the Tibetan culture for years too, and the only difference now is that I used to only blame the PLA and the Chinese government for disturbing the Tibetans' religion and culture, and now I have learnt that –

Long before the communists entered Tibet, western missionaries had converted many Tibetans into Catholicism. What do you think of this? Come on, your sympathy to the Tibetan religion please!

These are the stories we don’t hear. So calm down, my friends. Step a few steps back, like when you try to see what’s on impressionist paintings. Step back and look at the whole picture.

What’s going on 4 – Study history, not the Media.

24/04/2008

Many friends said many respectful words about my previous articles criticising some Chinese officials and how they don’t take care of the peasants very well. And since yesterday after I sent out Chris Nebe’s video clip, the same friends have written back writing things like “I am so surprised that you are sending this…”

I am not so surprised that I was popular when I tell you about the corruption of the Chinese government and other problems in China and now I am unpopular as I am criticising the general western media. And I shall continue to write whether you like or not. It’s the same MeiMei, the same MeiMei that can not stand unfairness, the same MeiMei that almost three years ago wrote an article criticising the British media after the London bombing, after seeing people swear and spit at Muslims on London streets, which offended many of you.

I have to say I was a little bit brainwashed after living in this country for 6 years, after only hearing the British media for six years. But since the 6^th of April, I have been doing my research on Tibet and China, and the more I do, the angrier I am. Reading history (mainly in English) and trying to hear both sides of the story before make a judgement, I have realised that the general Western media have been doing very one sided report, as a result, they have influenced many of their citizens to believe or to assume things in a very untruthful way.

Yes, I am Chinese but I didn’t feel like taking sides when people or the media criticise the Chinese government here. If you have read my previous articles, you know I do too on certain issues. And for many things in general, I believe the less we take sides, the less problems there will be in this world. However, some people here already forced me to a side because of my Chinese face, otherwise, why did they swear at me, what have I done wrong to deserve that? And why do some people need to be pro-Tibet and anti-Chinese at the same time? I got sworn at when I wanted to remain silent about what’s going on. Now, I shall speak, I am still not taking sides, I just want to share some information and history with you.

Chinese and non-Chinese, of course we are all allowed to criticise the Chinese government, just like we are all allowed to criticise the US, the UK and other governments. In summer 2005, more than one British friend wrote back after reading my article and said things like “look at what your government does to Tibet, sort out your own business before you criticise others.” I personally disagree. Should I now say “look at what your government did to Iraq before you criticise the Chinese government” to the people here? No, I shouldn't. We are all free to criticise. I am Chinese, it doesn’t mean I am not allowed to criticise the British government on certain things, and you are British, that doesn’t mean you are not allowed to criticise the Chinese government on certain things.

However, before we make a judgement, especially for those who are planning to boycott the Beijing Olympics, let’s be fair and go through a few things together.

First of all, some people say China invaded Tibet in the 1950s, have we looked at history a bit further back? How many times did the Tibetans invade China in history? For instance, during the Tang dynasty, didn’t they fight all the way to China’s capital Chang’an? The thing is, we are neighbours, you invaded me, I was defeated, and later on I invaded you, and you are defeated. You have controlled part of my land and I have occupied part of your land. Like all other neighbouring countries, Tibet had asked for help from China to fight other enemies too and Tibet has been part of China since the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368AD).

While doing research recently, I found the relationship between China and Tibet is quite similar to the relationship between England and Scotland. From what I know, some Scottish want Scotland to be independent too, and I can see thousands of people shouting “Free Tibet” here, and I haven’t seen any Chinese in China trying to “Free Scotland.” Why? The Chinese government always says – no interference in other country’s internal affairs please. Are you aware that since the Han Dynasty (206BC – 220 AD), the Chinese government has been using mainly Confucius thinking to rule the country? And may we please honour the wisdom of Confucius? – “Don't do to others what you do not want them to do to you”.

However, let’s pay closer attention to modern history.

China’s modern history starts from the first Opium War. This whole thing started with British smuggling opium to China from India. The amount smuggled in 1839 was ten times as much as the amount in 1821, until the Chinese government realised how serious that was, they said “no, no more opium”. Britain, after a so called democratic vote, decided to use its famous navy to change the Chinese government’s mind in 1840. They fought over two years and China eventually lost. Unfair treaties were signed, China was forced to give Hong Kong to Britain for a hundred years and forced to open five harbour cities including Shanghai for the British to live and trade in. That was only the fist war. Later on, the British hand in hand with the French together fought China again and again, China kept losing, and every time China lost, China was forced to pay a lot of money and open more harbour cities for the British, French and other Westerners to enjoy being first class citizens over the local Chinese while trading.

In the history of the world, it is arguable that no greater injustice has been recorded than the racist, criminal and barbarian treatment of China by the colonial imperialistic power led by Great Britain in the so called Opium Wars in the 19^th century (Chris Nebe).

Because the oppressive colonial western powers and imperial Japan, since 1840, Chinese, this old and civilised race was bombed and raped for over a century, the Japanese used to put “no dogs and Chinese are allowed” signs in parks in China. The Chinese totally lost their confidence and self-respect after been bombed and raped for over a century. Not only that, there was extreme poverty as we saw in the film “Song of the Fisherman” (made in 1934) in the Linbury Theatre of the Royal Opera House last week for example. Most people cried during the film, and who was to blame? Who started all this? The British; who took it to an extreme? The Japanese. And who kicked out those foreigners eventually? The communists! And if you are Chinese, are you grateful for Mao and his army? And if you are British, should you really blame the Chinese being resentful towards the westerners and the Japanese after all this?

May I share what I found online of Tibetan history in English with you please? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tibet#British_invasions_of_Tibet_.281904-1911.29 (all the quoted parts were just copied and pasted from the above web site) -

In 1904, the British invaded Tibet and occupied Lhasa. “A demand from Britain that Lhasa had to pay 2.5 million rupees as indemnity and not to enter into relations with any foreign power without British approval”. Because “the Chinese foreign ministry asserted that China was sovereign over Tibet”. “Beijing agreed to pay London 2.5 million rupees which Lhasa was forced to agree upon in the Anglo-Tibetan treaty of 1904”. Later on “in 1907, Britain and Russia agreed that in ‘conformity with the admitted principle of the suzerainty of China over Tibet’ both nations ‘engage not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government.’" In 1913, with British support and encouragement, Tibet declared independence from China. This claim of independence was never acknowledged by China as it had much greater problems to deal with at that time. And since then, the westerners says Tibet “had been de facto independent of Chinese control” except Tibet itself “had indicated its willingness to accept subordinate status as a part of China provided that Tibetan internal systems were left untouched and provided China relinquished control over a number of important ethnic Tibetan areas in Kham and Amdo.”

It makes me angry to read modern history. Might is right, there is no fairness. What was signed on paper was only to get the money, get Hong Kong, continue to sell opium to China, steal antiques from the palaces in Beijing and burn the palaces afterwards. After all these, Britain turned its head and told its people that Tibet shouldn’t be part of China. Can you imagine a better bully?? Actually, I can think of a younger one. I know a government who did nothing but spending the last century bombing little countries that were not on the same side and putting puppet governments in those countries afterwards, one after another, whoever doesn’t serve its system. It’s the same country whose CIA was funding the Dalai Lama.

Okay, coming back to our discussion about boycotting the Beijing Olympics because of China’s “invasion” towards a land that had been sovereign by China since the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368AD), sure we should Boycott the London Olympic first, as Britain has invaded way more countries and those who never had anything to do with Britain.

Let me share something I have found online in Chinese with you too (the next paragraph is my translation) –

On May the 21^st 1943, at the May 1943 Trident Conference in the US, Churchill ask SONG Ziwen - Chiang Kai-sek’s government’s representative “I heard that China is sending troops into Tibet, that nation’s people are panicking”. And Song Ziwen said “Tibet is not a ‘nation’, all the treaties that China and Britain have signed so far admit the principle of the suzerainty of China over Tibet.”

There I read the exact words on the telegrams of SONG Ziwen’s report and Chiang Kai-sek’s reply. Chiang Kai-sek showed his anger and disagreement towards Churchill’s interference in China’s internal affairs. Therefore, based on all these treaties signed, back to the 1950s, may the communist Chinese government remind the world the suzerainty of China over Tibet just like the way Chiang Kai-sek’s government did? And in this case, the way that the Chinese government uses “liberate” rather than “invade” for what they did to Tibet night not be totally unfair?

You may say there are more problems in Tibet, the Han Chinese, they are rolling over the Tibetans, the Tibetans are second class in their own land. Sure, it sounds like a problem. But how big of a problem it is? As big as some people make it sound like? As far as I know, the 25% Han Chinese population in Tibet mainly live in urban areas, and most Tibetans actually live in rural areas. And has this only happened in Tibet? Hasn’t this been the case all over the world? Did the Native Americans remain first class after the whites got there? Did anyone boycott the Atlanta Olympics because of this? Might is right, I didn’t see anyone brave enough to.

Those who think people from a different country are “brain washed”, normally strongly believe in what they hear and read are so called “free press”. Those westerners who think people from/in Mainland China are “brain washed” normally believe what they are told is the truth and what the Mainland Chinese are told is not. Does this already sound very stupid to you? Well, it does to me.

If you only read and watch television and read newspapers, and believe everything you hear/read is true, then could you please stop calling Chinese “brain washed”? Do you check who owns the newspaper before you read it? Are you aware what we read from newspapers are just the things the owners of the newspaper want us to know? Are we aware that the so called “free press” is not really free? Governments are all the same, they only allow their media to tell their people what they want their people to know. So, stop calling others from a different country/culture/religion “brain washed”. Hypocritical is not a positive word.

I told a friend last week what happened to me on the 6^th of April. I said people were throwing things at the Chinese performers in Chinatown. He straight away turned his head to me and said “that doesn’t sound true!”

It worries me when my personal experience doesn’t sound as true as what the national media says to some people here.

Study history, not the Media. The truth is not to be found in a Television broadcast.

What's Going On 3 – Study both sides of the story before you make a judgement!

22/4/2008

As we have been hearing the British side of the story every day, I think it is necessary to hear the Chinese side of the story too. Please watch these three video clips, the last two are documentaries. It is very important to study both sides of the story before make a judgement!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9QNKB34cJo&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z_prFMROC8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiVunJBIGoM&feature=related

If you agree that it's necessary to hear both sides of the story before make a judgement, please forward this to everyone who can understand English, information needs to be passed around.

Babylon English-Arabic

judgement

أ. حكم, قرار, محكمة, إصدار حكم, دين, محاكمة, بصيرة, رأي

English 2 Arabic

JUDGEMENT

ألاسم

حكم; قرار; محكمة; إصدار حكم; دين; محاكمة; بصيرة; رأي

ethar1@yahoo.com

English 2 Arabic Glossary

judgement

حكم جـ أحكام ، قرار تمييز ، قوة التمييز بصيرة ، حصافة رأى جـ أراء

A Concise English-Arabic Dictionary

judgement

اسْم : قضاء . إصدار حكم . حكم . قرار محّكمة . محاكمة عقلية . ملكة التمييز . رأي

Wadan English-Arabic Auditing Terms

The court upheld the judgement of another court

أيدت المحكمة حكم أصدرته محكمة أخرى

What's Going On 2 – For peace, let's hear the truth!

21/04/2008

"We should honour the wisdom of Confucius – 'Don't do to others what you do not want them to do to you.' Study history, not the media, the truth is not to be found in a television broadcast."

Let's hear this intelligent white man's words, and please forward it to everyone who can understand English. For peace, let's hear the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsoc4-QnplY&NR=1