Young and Restless in China - Culture Shock

In recent years, China has become a "model nation". Economy and business in cities and city-states has increased since the late eighties, when China was experiencing the full force of bright minded students taking a disliking to the hush-hush policy of human rights and education.

June 3rd, 1989, Tienanmen Square, Beijing
Students from across China were upset with the current regime of authoritarianism and the Chinese Communist Party, and were calling for democratic reform within the corrupt government. Thousands of students marched upon Tienanmen Square in Beijing as a sign of protest to the strict government, and soon after, Communist Party military was dispatched to take care of the naysayers. After all was said and done, there were more than 800 casualties, which is and forever will be debatable due to the Chinese government's unwillingness to release an official number. Riots continued throughout the week, and soon after, martial law was declared and top members of student activist parties were either imprisoned, put on house arrest, or executed for their "treasonous" crimes against China.

Now, nearly twenty years later, society has taken a "so-called" turn for the better. The government has seen it fit to implement a new strategy to help boost China's image. Capitalism "zones" have been scattered throughout China to see how the social strategy would root itself in Chinese culture, and it has set off like wildfire. Young people everywhere from ages 12-25 are boosting China's economy, even if the country has such a high concentration of poverty and low income families. Whole cities are constructed on land that was, only until just recently, old fishing villages and rice towns. Big name companies from China and surrounding countries are putting their names into the hat to one day have a chance to build a sprawling new skyscraper in hopes of boosting profits in the global market. Even the U.S. is getting in on the action. Cell phone companies, electronics, retail stores, all building for the same purpose; cheap labor, high quality products, at no cost or risk to the investor.

The 2008 Olympic Games also gave China a chance to put on a good show for the world. But before even a single stadium was constructed, 1.4 million residents were forced to evacuate to make way for these new stadiums and field to be built. Paving over parks and demolishing buildings that had stood for centuries, China is more than willing to destroy it's ancient culture in exchange for a new, lively, hip image; even if it does violate human rights and individual freedoms in the process.

I think what is important to remember while talking about how "terrible" China is, we must remember that China is it's own country, not one of our states. Communism has worked for many countries in the past, even if we may see the harsher side of it. Regardless, we cannot force Democracy on a place that has only known Socialism and Communist rule for the past hundred years. And even before that, the Chinese people didn't have much place in their own government due to the Imperialist rule of the hundreds of years before.

I guess overall what I'm trying to get across is that China, although there are standards set by us as Americans that China does not meet, is a huge booming country. The culture is flourishing, even if it is losing touch with it's ancient roots, and who are we to criticize young people for liking American and Western culture. If China is concerned with the direction it is headed, the people will know what to do. The students, if they were just a bit more organized in the beginning, would have been semi-successful in at least changing some policies around for the greater good of China. This is not our fight, so we need to sit back and watch the show.