Evil Empire
Apparently, as a foreigner in China it is one of my duties to listen to Chinese people’s opinions about my country, its government, and the various entanglements into which it gets its military. Fortunately, this can be interesting.
Back when the war in Iraq first started (and many Chinese people actually sort of cared), a lot of Chinese people would ask my opinion. I think some of them were looking for a debate, but they generally seemed pleased that I was mostly against the war. I talked about it with my classes, and a few of these discussions turned up some very interesting information. Did you know that some people in China are saying that after Iraq comes North Korea, and then China itself? Our military sure is ambitious. It’s funny, though, how we see our government as often reckless, and our military as high-tech but not 100% competent, but the Chinese see the whole package as a brooding viper, just seething treachery.
Then today I heard something else. I was on a taxi ride home from my night class. Attendance was low due to the SARS scare reaching town, and I was just tired altogether. The taxi driver seemed friendly enough and tried to make conversation, but I sort of brushed him off with minimal replies. As school drew nearer, though, I started to feel bad for not talking to the guy a little, so I asked him if he was scared about SARS. “Of course I’m afraid!” he replied. He then went on talk about the new cases popping up, and to tell me how there was speculation that SARS is an engineered virus created by the USA to attack China! That floored me. The paranoia knows no bounds.
He also asked about the Iraq war, and if I had friends over there fighting. I told him no (although I do have a cousin there). He asked if I would fight for my country. I told him I would certainly defend my country, but I wouldn’t be too keen to fight in a war I saw as unjust. But then the taxi stopped. I had arrived at the school gate. I paid and got out.
As I walked away from the taxi, he got in one last line before he drove away. He almost sounded as if he were asking me for a personal favor.
“Bu yao da zhongguo!”
Don’t attack China….