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Seventeen years on the streets, living and working with the people of China, Jeff
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Our related, recent thread
EXPANDED informative thread with China Writers Eric Arnow and Jeff J. Brown on cannibalism and one’s search for spiritual enlightenment. Radio Sinoland 260227
Eric has graced the pages of Radio Sinoland many times. We’ve had some great interviews…
Thanks to my good friend and comrade, China Writer Eric Arnow (https://bumblebuddhist.com/) for his comments.
Hi Jeff,
Here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at the suggestion and encouragement of several people, long time Buddhist students, I started giving simple introductory meditation classes in Zen method.
Chinese visitors and tourists are frequent attendees. What I am getting is a contradictory narrative of modern China. On the surface, it’s a modern technological marvel.
However, maybe it’s just misfits like myself, but many are here, basically burned out. So yesterday, a woman who teaches Chinese quit her job and came here.
- Many Chinese like her older sister have good jobs and stable life and family
- But many young Chinese can’t find work
- They’ve given up on buying a house
- The 9 am to 9 pm 6 day a week job, while considered illegal, still exists
- As a teacher, she was expected to be on call to parents any time of day
- Another lady, also a college teacher told me the same thing
- China nowadays is preoccupied with making money and showing ‘face’–symbols of success, while traditional Chinese cultural values are discouraged by official policy
- Another guy, now a PhD engineer studying in Singapore, says he is in a constant state of anxiety, he couldn’t sit still for 10 minutes of meditation
- Psychological problems in his relationship with his girlfriend
On the other hand, the lady I met says that lots of Chinese are satisfied with their lives but don’t really think about much other than day to day. She feels lost. Her grandparents see their role as taking care of the grandkids while the parents work. They have no vision beyond that.
The PhD guy as well as other Chinese I meet here say that the government is essentially discouraging or ‘soft suppressing’ Buddhism.
Then again, I used to attend a temple here, the abbot is Taiwanese. Anti Beijing. I detected some gaps in his understanding which I corroborated with my US teacher, an acknowledged Zen authority “Zen master”. The Chinese teacher actively discouraged my interaction with the Chinese students. I pointed out famous texts crucial to study of Zen which he didn’t know about!
Finally he showed me the door. My sense is that institutional Buddhism is just substituting people’s skepticism of the government with another form of social control.
My point being that while China has experienced phenomenal success in creating a well designed society, my experience with dozens of expat Chinese is that the psychological health of the population is not uniformly healthy.
Then again, as I discussed with an American friend who lives in Russia, Western censorship is offensive, that is, it blocks out objective truth from its adversaries, notably China. On the other hand, the info war against China (and Russia, Iran, etc etc) compels those countries to engage in ‘Defensive censorship’, to keep out corrosive false narratives that undermine social cohesion in target countries.
China’s top priority is to fend off and ultimately eliminate the centuries long Western imperialist threat. But at the same time, there are internal issues, notably overworked stressed out population, social pressure to succeed, as well as corruption and capitalist influences.
That’s how I see it, but this may not be great material for a show.
Eric
Jeff’s reply
Eric, it’s hard for us to criticize the disaffected, Chinese nationals you have met in Thailand, since we too are disaffected American nationals who have left our home country, and then me, also being French, giving up on France.
There are 330 million Americans who are not leaving, there are not 65 million French who are abandoning their motherland, and there are 1.4 billion Chinese who are doing OK.
There will always be a tiny percentage of émigrés who leave home, and like us, you know they have their personal or professional reasons for getting the hell out.
Evelyne and I have spent many months in Mainland China in the last 2-3 years and everywhere we go, life is humming, the people are prosperous, healthy and at least publicly, they are happy and in good spirits.
I always tell them they are spoiled rotten, have no idea what a great lifestyle they have and should be thankful that they are Chinese and living in China.
Still, there will always be disgruntled citizens, like us, who take the radical step of leaving.
Jeff
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Praise for The China Trilogy:
Why and How China works: With a Mirror to Our Own History
JEFF J. BROWN, Editor, China Rising, and Senior Editor & China Correspondent, Dispatch from Beijing, The Greanville Post
Jeff J. Brown is a geopolitical analyst, journalist, lecturer and the author of The China Trilogy. It consists of 44 Days Backpacking in China – The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013); Punto Press released China Rising – Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and BIG Red Book on China (2020). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing and is a Global Opinion Leader at 21st Century. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff writes, interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on YouTube, Stitcher Radio, iTunes, Ivoox and RUvid. Guests have included Ramsey Clark, James Bradley, Moti Nissani, Godfree Roberts, Hiroyuki Hamada, The Saker and many others. [/su_spoiler]
Jeff can be reached at China Rising, [email protected], Facebook, Twitter, Wechat (+86-19806711824/Mr_Professor_Brown, and Line/Telegram/Whatsapp: +33-612458821.
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