This is the best of times and the worst of times in China, especially in Beijing. Never has the country, or the capital, been so prosperous; yet never has the soul of China been so unsettled in the sixty year history of the PRC. I was about to write "...in the sixty year history of the country under communism," but that would be wrong. China is no longer communist, it has not been communist since Deng Xiaoping proclaimed "It is glorious to be rich."
No, no, China is not communist, nor is it socialist with Chinese characteristics. Nicholas D. Kristof got it right, it's fascist; China is fascist.
For Mr. Kristof, and for me, and for many others, that is an improvement. Fascism is less bad than communism, certainly Chinese fascism is less bad than Chinese communism was. But it's so hard on the soul.
There must be an unexplored Chinese part of the genome somewhere that explains why this vain, fearful, xenophobic people, for the only time in their history, chose to import wholesale a foreign idea and to choose the worst possible idea to import. And to fall in love with it. For fall in love is what the Chinese did with communism. The vast majority of Chinese supported communism, and Mao. They found inspiration in communism's ideals; I can only partly understand that because only when viewed in a complete existential vacuum could communism appear--in some ways--to have loftier goals than western democratic capitalism. But, but. But when there is, as there was, a concrete, real-life example of communism at work, in the Soviet Union, when there is that, and then to choose communism over democratic capitalism, I'm beat. I don't understand.
My outburst has ruined my friend's email.
I was greatly touched by it which is why I decided to print it before I decided to prefix the outburst to it. I do understand disappointment, and sadness, and sorrow. Loss, we all know the ache we feel when we lose something, or someone dear. And that is what my friend feels, all of that. There is no anger in her email just grief, for the ideal unrealized and the sacrifice unrewarded. And so I grieve with her:
"Thank you Benjamin, and Happy New Year to you and Carmen and your family. :)
I really wish a happy new year to the world, you know, the frustrated Copenhagen, and I am chilled by the real capitalism that my father and grandfather fought in their daydreams. Too many sad things in China this year, bad signs.
So I wish bright happinesses to those fragile families and hope those exhausted bodies awake and feel peace. Sorry I say too much...It's really good to share the festival with you."
-XYZ
Of course I can't print my friend's name because China's swine government might harass her, or worse.
