My Chinese Is Worse

There are few experiences one faces which are life altering in positive or negative ways. My trip to China has changed me forever. Never have I met and seen such a wonderful glorious people who are in tune with self. My trip to Shanghai exposed me to a city and country our nation can well learn from right now. To see and hear the sneering, bickering, ranting, raving and anger from another continent sickened and disgusted me. For all of the opportunities America offers, we have become a nation of enablers and glad handlers.

I was taken out to dinner by two young gentleman and afterward we retired to my hotel room for more than two hours of discussion. Everything was on the table, politics, religion, beliefs and how we felt about each other. These two men did not see me as a black or African-American, they saw me as a human being and I saw them the same. The frank discussion we had could not have taken place in previous years, in fact, all of us would have been hauled off to jail, with me being thrown out of the country.

But this is a testament to the fact of how far China has come as a nation and a people. Yes, the nation is not entirely free and yes it still is a communist country, but the people have not let that deter them from living their lives. The people I met this week are far from the meek, weak or desperate for freedom souls our media portrays and others perpetuate for political gain. What these two gentlemen made me understand was that most Chinese don't want the kind of freedom we have in America. Self control is built into their DNA and having the kind of freedom we have here would scare them to death. That does not mean however that they want their government pushing them around. What they want from their government is to let them live their lives in peace, prosperity and harmony.

I saw no armed guards with tanks, hoses or dogs. I saw no protesters or dissents marching in the streets wanting anarchy. What I saw was a prosperous people living out their dreams, just like us. They care about friends and family, just like us and they are intrigued with us as much as we are intrigued with them. Police and security? Yes, they were around, but from what I saw, we're much more armed and hunkered down as a society as they are.

We Americans need to grow up. The China I saw now isn't the militant one of decades ago. The government has figured out a way to let the average Chinese citizen live their lives and will continue to let them do so. The China we need to worry about is the economic giant that has awaken, not the militaristic one portrayed by the media in America.

The China of today has come to terms with it's past and moved on. This version of China wants to become the economic power of the 21st century, like America became in the 20th century.

China, like America had an economic downturn around the same time and initiated a stimulus package to shore up it's economy. The stimulus worked and now the nation is implementing steps to control inflation through more conservative monetary policies. Economic for the nation last year was +5% GDP, which disappointed them. America also had a stimulus program, but bickering and back fighting has all but rendered the positive effects of our stimulus program moot.

The people of China backed the stimulus and did everything to make it work while we're still stuck on stupid. Maybe it's time we start listening to that communist, socialist nation.