EAST VS WEST
Had I not been called a running dog at an early age of 11, I would
probably never be able to open my mind to an Eastern perspective of the
current world condition. This happened when I returned to Taiwan
from Japan and was asked to give a speech to my elementary
school. It was around 1954, when in Japan, America, after nuked
its
student Japan to submission, had just picked up and continued the
education of westernization at full speed, while Chiangkaishit in
Taiwan only used the money he stole from China in military buildup and
buying out such anti-communistic lobbyists as Joseph McCarthy and
Douglas MacArthur, rather than for economic development as did his
son. Here, I like to point out that unlike the Eastern tradition
of once a teacher, always a father, the Western view is once a
student, always to be protected. This is where a lot of
misunderstanding come from of the role America played in negatiating a
treaty between China and Japan when the war ended.
So in the speech, naturally I contrast the great progress of Japan to
the
backwardness of
China. And after this incident I went through the same struggle
as most of my conscientious fellow Chinese. Initially we all want
China to be strong, inevitably also through westernization. Then
finally we want to surpass the West and Japan in term of economic and
military powers. This is what is happening in China in the
Change/Open policy. The last 20 years is only the beginning in
China. But such policy has been going on in the West for couple
hundred years. And America has carried it to where we could
almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Being in the
forefront of science and military technology, I truly feel that I have
seen the coming of the end. The picture is not good.
I decided to gather my thoughts and put it into a rap song. Since
it's something mostly for my Chinese relatives and friends to see, I
have to relearn how to write Chinese to put it into Chinese. The
debate on this forum has prompted me to post it here.(the actual rap
song/picture/bad singing can be downloaded from www.ping-pong.net)
But before I do that, let me first lay some ground work based on some
last minute crash browsing on comtemporary histories of the various
Asian
countries. It seems most these countries, like Singapore,
Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Phillipine all have similar history in
the last 200 years. It started with Western colonization,
followed by
a brief but disruptive intervention by the Japanese, then the
imposing threat of
communism finally dispel West's whim of imperialism. But of
course, the local politicians got all the credits for the independence
struggles. And to uphold the status quo and their powers, they hold
onto
the 200 years of tradition of the West and abandon the 5000 years of
culture and sacrifice of their ancesters. Such are what I called
the Eastward Jouneyers in the following rap.