Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (1)

A while ago I came across some beautiful pictures of China on flickr.com. The photographer's nickname is flypig. I followed the link to his Weblog, and found a new world opening up in front of me. It is the world of a 20-year-old university student in modern-day China. Equipped with all kinds of modern digital divices and Internet connection, flypig is gifted with advanced knowledge of the computer and of Web programming, on top of digital photography and design skills. He writes in Chinese but he also has an English-language Weblog called China Tunes. His understanding and ability to write English is excellent.

I have not visited mainland China since 1996 or 97 when I paid my last business trip there, so my understanding of the current social developments of my home country is rather limited. Being very curious, I asked flypig a couple of questions about life in China. I will post his answers in a series here to give you a glimpse of how a modern young Chinese thinks about his own society and the world around him.

Here is flypig's first answer to my general inquiry of recent developments in China (translated from Chinese by me):

"There have been enormous changes in mainland China in recent years--not only has the economy been growing rapidly, people's thinking pattern has also been evolving in tremendous speed. As the country opens up more and more, communication methods have developed very quickly, and this in turn ushers in a new, heterogeneous culture. Through the Internet, young people's way of thinking and ability to pick up new trends can be comparable to that of their counterparts overseas. In some cases, the special wisdom possessed by Asians has allowed us to excel in certain innovation areas.

However, there is a great man-made obstacle to stop the flow of information into China. An example is the "Great Firewall," set up to block Web sites deemed to hold different opinions from the Chinese government. On one hand, the concept of democracy and the rule of law is something that is lacking in mainland China. On the other hand, Premier Wen Jiabao has said, "steadily we construct, whole-heartedly we aim at development." Indeed, "stability above all else," a good social and economical environment is very important for today's China. Without a good economic foundation, polical diversity does not have enough persuasive power.

From the perspective of Chinese university students, we are enjoying a level of economic abundance and excellent study conditions that have never been witnessed in previous generations. But because of the fundamental changes in global politics and economy, we are faced with the challenge of diciphering all kinds of different opinions and standpoints.

With all kinds of ideas and concepts meeting in our minds, we are uncertain of what to adopt and what to discard. This is the summary of a typical Chinese university student's thinking pattern today.

Well, I have randomly chosen this subject; I don't know if it is too boring to you. But I feel that the world has a certain understanding of our modernization process, but not much of what is going on in our heads."