I met a very interesting American this afternoon when I was reading my book in a bookstore. He is not funny guy, but can speak phases in many different languages. He asked me lots of questions about China and CPC. He sounds he knows something about China with many negative things.
He got all the downloading print in English with some Chinese characters for some important highlights. He even got some research about Chen DuXiu and Li DaZhao, of course I knew they were the founders of CPC.
He got confused by some of Chinese, which told me differently about the same Chinese pronunciation. So he is quite frustrated, he doesn't know who is right about the same pronunciation. Finally he decided to buy a beginner Chinese-English book with both phonetic pronunciations of Standard Chinese and Cantonese.
One of the challenging questions about China is about the riots in different places. By his saying, there are thousands of thousands riots in China every year. The other negative he mentioned is the corruption of Chinese government. As a Chinese I have the responsibility to educate him a little, to look China positively or fairly. So I told him directly my family members in China never told me there were riots. Corruption was universal, not the unique in China at all. Examples are current and easy to pick up, like Bill Clinton’s sex scandal and recently resigned New York mayor, Mr. Spritzer seeking prostitution services by using taxpayer’s money.
I am very friendly to exchange the story with him, which knew I wasn’t trying to humiliate him and he said he didn’t want argue and gave a business card of him and left with my contact information. He said he would call me and ask me more questions about China. Another question he asked is about the relationship of Chairman Hu and Vice-Chair Xi. Who knows? How do I know the relationship between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore? Directly again to him, don’t bother whose relationship, just take care of yourself. I also answered his concerns about China’s rapid development with an annual GDP growth rate of 12%. Sure again, China will keep the same momentum, because China is developing country, having tremendous construction work to be done in infrastructure. He told me China would catch up the U.S. in 50 years if it kept the same speed. Interesting! I didn’t argue, told him to follow the natural flow. American’s today was like China’s Tang dynasty of one thousand years ago.
Let’s see what going on next time. I am sure he will call me again.
