Today, Brett was contacted by someone in China. He used to judge national English language competitions there. Several. The big one is coming up again. It's about every six months. Last time the organizer (or foreigner liaison) contacted him, we had already moved to Vietnam and he said so. He deleted her from his contacts.
She sent a friend request today and he accepted and she asked if he could judge again.
Brett: I have moved to Vietnam. I no longer live in China and cannot judge this competition.
Liaison: When will you be back?
Brett: I won't. I have moved here permanently.
Liaison: Oh. You will never be coming back to China?
Brett. No.
People in China truly do not know how hard they have it. They think the entire world deals with things the way they do, or maybe - more probably - they think they have it good. They don't realize how much EASIER life could be. I wrote about this before, here.
This must be the 3rd or 4th time different people connected to our life in Beijing have approached us inquiring when we'd move back. NEVER! They truly seem baffled that, having experienced China, we would prefer a different country. Especially because we didn't return to our home country. People do that all the time but we didn't. We moved on. To a different, smaller, ALSO Communist country.
They don't get it.
The mental block is real.
"You were in China, you saw how amazingly phenomenal we are and moved... there? When will you come back?"
They understand moving from the Beijing pollution. But we could have just moved to a different city within China if we only wanted to avoid pollution. The fact that the bureaucracy there makes life 80% more difficult than it has to be doesn't even dawn on them.
Doesn't everyone have to wait in line ALL DAY at the embassy to try to apply for a visa to leave the country?
Doesn't everyone have to submit permit requests at three different offices before getting the permit you want?
We have friends in China - mixed race, one Chinese partner - who applied for a passport for their preschool-aged son LAST FALL and haven't received it yet. Before we, as American citizens, moved from the US, our passports took about a month. The visa to go to China was a nightmare.
They don't get it.
I don't have a question or a proposition here, just venting. Sorry about that.
I did wonder. One hears in the west how bad things are under communism. Considering the crazy we're dealing with in government, one wonders if we really have it all that good. Thanks for letting us know that things aren't really as bad as we think.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's all in what you're used to. They're just used to it.
DeleteThat said, having lived now under Chinese Communism and Vietnamese Communism, I don't think it's simply about Communism. I don't know a lot about the VN government, but I know life here is infinitely easier than in China.
I remember hearing as a kid that travel to and from the Soviet Union was so restricted because the government didn't want people there to know how bad they had it.
ReplyDeleteThen, in the waning days of the Soviet Union, I heard a Russian comedian joke that he'd been to France and was astounded to find over 100 varieties of yogurt. "Here," he went on, "we have two kinds of yogurt: yesterday's and the day before yesterday's."
It's kind of a weak joke by US standards but it still says a lot to me that just a few years before that same comedian couldn't have traveled to France, let alone been allowed to make that joke.
Definitely, the vast expanse of choices in an American grocery store are mind-boggling. The idea of going where we want when we want is a freedom I think most Americans don't even realize we have!
DeleteI think it is true that Americans don't know how good we have it. Yet some of the political problems we have here make me wonder if life in another country would really be so bad. I am so tired of what is going on in Washington D. C.
ReplyDeleteHey, at least you can voice your opinion. Our Chinese friends' minds were BLOWN when they heard that we can actually say our true feelings about our own politics. They have to support the Party, regardless.
DeleteUse your voice. Use your power. Don't let the freedom to do so be wasted.