After taking my physics final last friday, I went to the IC Public Library to get myself some not-required reading to celebrate. I came away with four Chinese movies (all of which I have yet to watch) and four books, three of which focus on China.
I immediately began reading The Opium Wars (and I'd like you to all to take a moment to appreciate how well I know how to relax and enjoy myself. Opium Wars). Personally, before going to China the first time I had heard of the Opium Wars but could not really say anything about them. This is not too surprising and should not, perhaps, cause despair for American educational institutions; my grasp on history has never been terribly strong. However, I have since realized that these are Wars which had and continue to have a huge impact on the way that China interacts with the (especially Western) world, and I would probably do well to have some kind of understanding of them.
I am about halfway through the three-hundred page tome and my overall learning so far can be summed up thus: "Foreign relations misadventure today can't hold a candle to the shit that went down two centuries ago." British merchants starting selling India-grown opium in China in the late eighteenth century because, basically, Great Britain had recently fallen in love with Chinese tea, and their government was losing vast sums of silver (the only form of payment China would accept) each year to keep their people in tea. They needed some way to lessen the debt, but were in possession of precisely nothing for which China was interested in trading. So, Parliament stifled its moral objectors and allowed the opium trade to explode.
To keep from writing my own three-hundred page retelling of what happened, here is a brief summary in dialogue-form:
A few people in England: Opium is addictive and does awful things to people! Selling it is very wrong!
The Majority of British merchants: If we don't sell it, someone else will.
Chinese bureaucrats to foreign merchants: Stop selling opium or we will confiscate it and kill you.
Chinese bureaucrats to Chinese: Stop using opium. We'll help you for 18 months and if you're still using, we'll kill you.
Chinese Emporer to Queen Victoria: Please stop this immoral trade. I hope you can appreciate, with your small barbarian mind, the horror you are wreaking on my country.
Queen Victoria: *never got the letter, as one copy was lost in the mail and the sailor who delivered the second was told by a member of Parliament the the Queen wouldn't be interested*
Chinese Bureaucracy/Army: *confiscates and destroys twenty thousand chests of British opium*
British Army: *begins invading China with vastly superior military and equipment, suffers almost no losses and massacres Chinese civilians as well as soldiers*
Chinese Bureaucracy to Chinese Emperor: You're the best! The British are running away!
Everyone: Why won't you all acknowledge my innate superiority and do what I say?!
I don't mean to belittle the events or people involved by saying I completely understand their motives or the way these wars affected lives, but that's what I've got so far. Diplomats and military leaders on both sides were repeatedly fired for not having produced the results their governments wanted, and were replaced by people with even less understanding of the foreign culture they were interacting with. Eventually China was forced to cede major ports and allow opium to be pumped into the country ad nauseum. The country broke down in a lot of ways, as millions and millions of people became addicted to opium. When Chinese thinkers/officials asked British government or merchants to please stop bringing in this devastating drug, the reply they received was to tell their people not to use it anymore. I am so glad we don't live in that world anymore, friends.
(The next book I get to read is called What Does China Think? (中国怎么想）and appears ready to give me much hope for the future...)
Showing posts with label injustice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injustice. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Egyptian reflections, part 2
So, my last couple of posts were kind of downers, eh? I spent a fair amount of time struggling in Egypt, but I have been spending a fair amount of time struggling with myself recently and Egypt is hardly to blame.
It is so incredible that I was able to spend two weeks in northern Africa this winter. The trip abroad was exactly what I needed to revitalize my outlook on life. It reminded me of how important it is to keep meeting new people, exploring new places, and letting myself grow. I was a bit disappointed that we spent so much of our time with the class, doing the tourism thing, and not discovering the Egypt that Egyptians experience. At the same time, we had a fantastic group. Despite horrid traffic and many uncomfortable hours spent traveling, illness and serious indigestion, unpredictable schedules and lost luggage, everyone was a joy to be around.
I am always amazed by how alive and awake I feel when traveling, despite the jetlag and unfamiliar schedules. It is incredible how meaningful the most everyday and normally tedious things become. I realized that because I have been feeling somewhat down, struggling for reasons that are perhaps understandable, I have been looking for justification for that feeling. Instead of finding ways to feel better about myself and the world. Which is not wise, I am aware. They're always there, though, aren't they? Reasons to be unhappy with myself or the world, the people around me or where I am. I often fool myself into believing that it is a sign of intelligence to see only bad in the world. We absolutely must recognize problems around us, yes, or nothing can every be done about them. But working to build an ever longer list of things that make me unhappy about the world isn't intelligence, just masochism.
I have to remember that recognizing injustice is worth something, and being willing to speak out about it something more. But my sights should be set on living an offered solution to the world's problems, even if sometimes all I can offer is a small joy in the face of hopelessness.
It is so incredible that I was able to spend two weeks in northern Africa this winter. The trip abroad was exactly what I needed to revitalize my outlook on life. It reminded me of how important it is to keep meeting new people, exploring new places, and letting myself grow. I was a bit disappointed that we spent so much of our time with the class, doing the tourism thing, and not discovering the Egypt that Egyptians experience. At the same time, we had a fantastic group. Despite horrid traffic and many uncomfortable hours spent traveling, illness and serious indigestion, unpredictable schedules and lost luggage, everyone was a joy to be around.
I am always amazed by how alive and awake I feel when traveling, despite the jetlag and unfamiliar schedules. It is incredible how meaningful the most everyday and normally tedious things become. I realized that because I have been feeling somewhat down, struggling for reasons that are perhaps understandable, I have been looking for justification for that feeling. Instead of finding ways to feel better about myself and the world. Which is not wise, I am aware. They're always there, though, aren't they? Reasons to be unhappy with myself or the world, the people around me or where I am. I often fool myself into believing that it is a sign of intelligence to see only bad in the world. We absolutely must recognize problems around us, yes, or nothing can every be done about them. But working to build an ever longer list of things that make me unhappy about the world isn't intelligence, just masochism.
I have to remember that recognizing injustice is worth something, and being willing to speak out about it something more. But my sights should be set on living an offered solution to the world's problems, even if sometimes all I can offer is a small joy in the face of hopelessness.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Streets of Cairo, the Streets of Beijing
A thoughtful friend asked me yesterday whether I experienced the "stress of our world's socio-economic injustice" differently in Egypt than I had during the summer I spent in China, and I think my response will be greater than comment-length.
I am sure I bored my classmates in Egypt by constantly comparing what we were seeing to what I had found in China and spouting anecdotes whenever I saw an opening, but my experience in China definitely colored and informed my views in Egypt.
There were many similarities. The gauntlets of bargaining vendors shouting at tourists to buy their wares, the smog-laden skies, and seemingly lawless (at least for someone used to the empty streets and respectful driving of the Midwest) traffic all make Big City Egypt feel a lot like Big City China. In both countries I know that I was sheltered from most of the poverty and did not really get a feel for how hard life can be in poor areas, but that's true of my experience in the United States as well, so perhaps my observations are worth something anyway.
I guess one perhaps foreseeable difference is the distribution of wealth in the two countries. In China, people in the cities are generally wealthier than people in rural areas, and there is definitely a disparity between officials and peasants in the countryside, and between various classes in urban areas, but overall the goal for the last sixty years has been economic equality (whether it has every actually worked is questionable, but it's been a goal). This is not true at all in Egypt. Thirty percent of the country is unemployed and living in absolute poverty, while many businesses working internationally are wealthy by any standards. Our trip to Al-Azhar Park, a gated park where one must pay a fee to enter and walk by fountains and look out at the rooftops of Cairo, took us on a highway through the City of the Dead. Massive poverty and two earthquakes in Cairo in the last decade have left many people without/unable to afford housing, so somewhere between 3 and 5 million (million!) people are living on their family gravesites. Tourists are not allowed anywhere near, not because Egyptians want to deprive foreigners of any experience, but because of the desperation of the residents and how obviously moneyed tourists are.
Another difference involves the countries' relationships to tourism. China has only very recently, really only slowly during the 1980s and increasingly since then, opened up its borders to foreigners, and while tourism is a lucrative venture, it is not the backbone of the Chinese economy. Tourism accounts for 60% of the Egyptian economy. Tour guides have to attend four years of school to become certified and vendors speak more languages than I fear many Americans realize still exist. I am not sure if this makes poverty more or less visible in Egypt relative to China, but it certainly made me doubt I was getting any kind of a grasp of real Egyptian life.
Hmmm, Sarah. As usual you have posed a thoughtful question and I have muttered around related thoughts and am not really sure I answered it at all. I have spent most of the day with this question in the back of my mind and will continue to poke at it. Thank you for keeping me thinking!
I am sure I bored my classmates in Egypt by constantly comparing what we were seeing to what I had found in China and spouting anecdotes whenever I saw an opening, but my experience in China definitely colored and informed my views in Egypt.
There were many similarities. The gauntlets of bargaining vendors shouting at tourists to buy their wares, the smog-laden skies, and seemingly lawless (at least for someone used to the empty streets and respectful driving of the Midwest) traffic all make Big City Egypt feel a lot like Big City China. In both countries I know that I was sheltered from most of the poverty and did not really get a feel for how hard life can be in poor areas, but that's true of my experience in the United States as well, so perhaps my observations are worth something anyway.
I guess one perhaps foreseeable difference is the distribution of wealth in the two countries. In China, people in the cities are generally wealthier than people in rural areas, and there is definitely a disparity between officials and peasants in the countryside, and between various classes in urban areas, but overall the goal for the last sixty years has been economic equality (whether it has every actually worked is questionable, but it's been a goal). This is not true at all in Egypt. Thirty percent of the country is unemployed and living in absolute poverty, while many businesses working internationally are wealthy by any standards. Our trip to Al-Azhar Park, a gated park where one must pay a fee to enter and walk by fountains and look out at the rooftops of Cairo, took us on a highway through the City of the Dead. Massive poverty and two earthquakes in Cairo in the last decade have left many people without/unable to afford housing, so somewhere between 3 and 5 million (million!) people are living on their family gravesites. Tourists are not allowed anywhere near, not because Egyptians want to deprive foreigners of any experience, but because of the desperation of the residents and how obviously moneyed tourists are.
Another difference involves the countries' relationships to tourism. China has only very recently, really only slowly during the 1980s and increasingly since then, opened up its borders to foreigners, and while tourism is a lucrative venture, it is not the backbone of the Chinese economy. Tourism accounts for 60% of the Egyptian economy. Tour guides have to attend four years of school to become certified and vendors speak more languages than I fear many Americans realize still exist. I am not sure if this makes poverty more or less visible in Egypt relative to China, but it certainly made me doubt I was getting any kind of a grasp of real Egyptian life.
Hmmm, Sarah. As usual you have posed a thoughtful question and I have muttered around related thoughts and am not really sure I answered it at all. I have spent most of the day with this question in the back of my mind and will continue to poke at it. Thank you for keeping me thinking!
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