Much has been said about our chinky-eyed brothers, the Chinese, especially outside of China. We look upon them as uncouth, selfish heathens who think only of money and money alone. Visiting Westerners who encounter the locals in their rawest behavior are often shocked at the way they carry themselves in public; yes they spit anywhere, slurp when they eat and can’t be bothered by the way they look. In a way they denigrate themselves in outsiders’ eyes.
To them however propriety is nothing, deception is everything. After generations of growing hand in hand with the Chinese in all parts of the world, we still refuse to believe that this is all part of an age-old stance. Haven’t we noticed that our Chinese neighbors (in the Philippines for instance) in their worn shirts driving their rustic vehicles actually keep 2 SUV’s and a sports car in their garage? Or that they own that humongous piece of vacant land across the road? They are really rich mc coys in plain clothes, the gatekeepers of our local economy, controllers of the prices on our most basic commodities, owners of the largest most progressive corporations. And we still cling to the idea that they are crude and ignorant. Or are they really? Someday when the curtains are drawn and the trick is revealed we might find ourselves with nothing.
The world is becoming more dependent on China on almost anything that can be produced by Chinese hands. And why not? They can fabricate any item cheaper than anywhere else at the same quality. In fact, over four hundred of the Fortune 500 companies now have operations in China. As an example, 80% of Wal-Mart’s grocery items now come from China. Everything we eat, drink or wear has something to do with the Chinese. China is one crazy continent (in itself) full of all sorts of factories that produce everything one can think of, from the minutest to the colossal. Fortunes are now measured in days instead of years and all that money is slowly shifting the weight over this side of the world.
Regardless of how they look, the Chinese psyche is unique – one of perseverance, dedication to family, ancestors and prosperity, and community spirit. In their own way, they are exceptionally studious - devouring every Chinese and English reading material they can get hold of. During weekends the gigantic libraries here are so full of people reading books (to the last square meter) they are literally “standing room only”. They are remarkably flexible in both body and mind – for them adversity is a path to prosperity, an acceptable fact of life. For them, poverty at the onset of a small starting business is a small price to pay. They will keep on pushing, run themselves to the ground if they have to, but never quitting until they master the trade, break the surface and expand in every direction. They are obsessed with role models – almost unashamed to say they just copied something from somebody else’s work. But that’s where they hope they can proceed from. Japan used to be a pirate nation too after WWII before they ever learned to create on their own. Reverse technology is very common among a population who had just come out of its shell, hungry for everything they haven’t tried before.
China also had its own dark age. There was a time in their “collective era” when everyone had to wear the same drab clothes and line up for basic commodities on family coupons in state-owned shops. All these are just whiffs remembered as a necessary past, a means to a goal which is the present. It is a past memorialized with great pride by living descendants of that age and worshipped by the young. Heroes are after all role models in their own right.
Although it may seem otherwise to the West, the China of today is a forward-looking, positive force based on the true element of its population: its entrepreneurial spirit. Its people revel at the thought of creating prosperity for themselves and their families. No amount of difficulty or inequity can ever stop them from being their true business-minded selves in or out of China. And nothing can be wiser for a country than to tap into this common strength that simply struggles to be unleashed. As the world converges into a global society without race, color and boundary, where vast distances are covered within minutes by transport and within seconds by phone or email, where only collective economies survive, where the individual ceases to be an island, this continent-country with almost 2 billion people united in singing the same communal song in the name of capitalism will hold undeniable power indeed.
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