My friend Lei told me today that two Koreans in his lab told him, face to face, that Confucius was Korean and that it was Koreans who invented Chinese characters (Hanzi). I remember that I saw online news about this. But this came out from the mouth of two well educated Korean young men who are Ph.D. candidates, it’s pretty shocking. One of them, according to Lei even said to Lei that the three provinces in Northeast China was their territory and then he went: “Give them back to Korea!” I thought that Lei was kidding when he told me this but he said it’s true. I asked Lei how he replied. The answer he gave was: “Ok, if you want, take them tomorrow.” How funny was the situation, but of course the Korean Ph.D. candidate took it very seriously?

 scoundrel1972  wrote an ariticle about China's development and how the economic achievements we obtained made us better off. The following is my comments and I used that as today's article for my blog:

And then you talked about China’s fast economic development, concluding that in China everyone’s life has been improved during this development. You mentioned food and housing as two main indicators. I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts and concerns about this “economic prosperity” in our country.

When Deng promoted his reform and opening up policy, he said: "Socialism is not the same as shared poverty." and "Some must get rich first!" His idea was that some people and regions would be encouraged to get rich first and others would be brought along. However, what's happening now is not what he exactly expected to see when he implemented the policy. Some did get very rich but what they are doing now is simply try to get richer and they seem to forget the essence of Deng’s policy from which they greatly benefited. The gap between the rich and the poor, in China, is huge and I do not think that the government is doing enough to reduce the difference.

Talking about the housing price, let’s do some numbers. On the list of China top 10 richest people in the year 2007, I found the name of three whose business is in real estate.  The top one on that list is a 26-year old young lady who is running her family real estate business, valued at RMB 130 billon. It’s important to mention that none of these three were on the list of China top 10 richest people in the previous two years, 2005 and 2006. So people in real estate they were able to grow their wealth at an astonishing speed during the years 2005, 2006 and 2007. From 2004 to 2006, in Beijing, newly built apartments average price increased by 42% and reached at RMB 7,825 by the third quarter of 2006. However by the end of Nov. 2007, people had to pay an average of RMB 15,267 per square meter to buy apartments in the city. Price has been going up at higher speed in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

But when the Real Estate folks are busy counting their revenues, what’s happening to common people who need to buy an apartment to live in? I’ve heard that in Beijing new graduates from college are competing for job with a monthly salary of RMB 1,500.00 or 2,000.00. They live on that salary, payroll to payroll. So when are they gonna be able to save enough money to buy even one square meter??? On top of that, the prices of eggs, pork, other kind of meat, gas etc in China rose dramatically in China during 2007. The rich won’t care. But how about the poor and common people? Compared to the apartment price of RMB 7,825 per square meter in 2006, common people were and are less possible to be able to afford an apartment in 2007 and 2008. This “prosperity” did not eliminate the “shared poverty”, rather if we cheat on ourselves and let this situation continue, we won’t  have any chance to see the wealth to be shared. So instead of saying good things about this prosperity, we need to urge our government to work hard on reducing the gap between the poor and the rich.

Maybe I shall correct myself. New graduates from college, with the monthly salary they earn, do not fall in the category of “the poor” in China.  What about the 70-80% of our population who live in rural areas? Those who work their land and when there is no many things to do at home, they go to big cities to work as temporary construction workers, those called by many people living in cities as “peasant workers” ? And those who are also in rural areas but did not have even a chance to see the outside world? They may be living the very same way that their fathers and grandfathers lived. What does this prosperity and stability mean to them?

 Many people in China say that it’s natural for the development to go gradually. Maybe that is right in theory. But what is wrong here is their indifference and their taking it for granted. People who got rich first (those real rich guys) and those who are also enjoying the so called “prosperity” (people who live in cities), most of them, only think about how to get richer themselves. And they ignore the true realities in our society and the bad situations in which many other Chinese are suffering.

 In China when people get together, they ask each other how much money they earn, how many apartments they purchased, what car they drive. They are making economic comparisons. So if they have more money than others, they’d feel very proud and happy; if others have more fortune than they do, they will be sad and immediately try other ways to make more fortune.  Have you ever seen in China that people get together to talk about our education, what the government shall balance the gap between the poor and the rich, issues that do not have to do about how one can get improved economically, but are important for our society in which we are all members and will suffer if bad things happen to the economic or whatever system in it? If there are such people, others will see them as blockheads. They would think that these people are wasting their time and instead of talking about this nonsense, they’d rather go and try to earn more money.

So now in China we have these three groups of people, the rich, the poor and the in between. The third group is divided into two subgroups, one calls themselves “white collar” to distinguish themselves from the “peasant workers” and low income groups with sense of superiority and the other labels themselves with “little capitalists”, they think they are the elite of the society, with money and fine tastes. People are so excited to mark social class and the benchmark is money. The group in between dislike the poor and look down on them while they envy the rich, the richer and will try whatever to get richer and upgrade their social class. People are selfish, only think about money and one’s own development/benefits. They do not care about the poor and/or the poorer, they do not think about others.

So we do have economic prosperity, but came along with it, a moral disorder, a spiritual emptiness and lack of basic human concern.

Maybe we shall think about why this moral disorder?  China started to change with Deng’s idea of reform and opening up. Deng said:’ No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” Maybe he was right by saying so at his time when any attempt to develop national economy would be accused as capitalism tendencies. But the spreading of this saying definitely started to erode our country’s moral foundation, which had been already very weak after the Cultural Revolution during which religious beliefs and Confucian moral concepts were all beaten down.  The whole nation begun to aim at economic development and achievements, at national and personal level and we suddenly had nothing to fear or worry about since white and black are all at our use, with justification.

So we have everything pirate, that’s ok; the mines’ owners send the workers underground without proper protection, that’s happening everywhere; citizens and companies do tax dodging, that’s understandable and who cares about the poor and the disadvantaged group? Scoundrel1972 said that we Chinese are no longer “the Patient of East Asia”. Where is the future of a nation full of people who are physically well formed but morally ill, “calloused” and “numb” as described by Mr. Lu Xun decades ago?

That’s another reason why when I hear any foreigner saying that China needs democracy, I would get bothered. They do not know a thing about Chinese people. If a foreigner read this, s/he may argue that education will help. But they do not know what kind of education we have in China. Education now is seen by many as a way to get rich quicker: good preliminary school, good middle and high school then to a top 10 university, and you will have your ticket to be “white collar” or “little capitalists”. At school, they do not teach you how to respect others (only respect to the authority), they do not help you to think independently so that you will not be comfortable to challenge authorities, your opinions and point of view are not important as long as you give RIGHT answers. Doing that you are a good student and will have your degree to get out there on to the society and make your money. This kind of education is not good to prepare people for democracy.