Karma
Wednesday, 28. May 2008, 19:51:14
Asked by a friend what my take is on the Tibet issue. Now I’ve just regained the access to my blog and I’ll blurb a little about it.
Ms. Sharon Stone was just caught for her stupid “interesting karma” talk on the Sichuan earthquake, and she’s paying for the very karma from it. (BTW, I am tired of the word “interesting” being abusively used except for its true meaning) Maybe it just dawned on her that she’s confronting the largest internet mob in the world who’d do anything from catapulting the most malicious curses to turning her internet presence into a nightmare, and a government that would nail her as a villian-in-textbook because she so fell into the category of “western prejudices and ill wishes” against China. She called herself a friend of Dalai Lama but obviously her fashionable karma talk betrayed her friend’s wish and confessed she's just another Hollywood metaphysical bandwagon jumper. The death of her business opportunities on anything with the slightest relevance with China has been declared, no matter how she apologized. It’s not up to her now.
People love villains in drama and instant karma even more. It is much simpler than real politics and more dramatic. It went so natural for the vogue of political-correctness to catch on when it broke out in Lhasa in March. When wrath or extreme nationalism took over anybody could become a murderer and looter, and anybody could be murdered or looted, be it Han Chinese, Tibetan, or Muslim. But I do believe, the outbreak this time and the Tibetans' anger were undoubtedly rooted in the chronic humiliation and grievances, and the ban of free journalism in tibet was to blame for most of the loss of objectivity in reporting. Economist, the only foreign media group allowed presence in Tibet at that time, was the only one to call it a riot. The fabricators and garblers are wrong? Yes, but the information censor or monopolizer, or oppressor, or bread-giving teaser, was way way wronger. Everybody knows that, except some people in some country.
The victim mentality, developed and consolidated through decades of government education and shared by many Chinese domestic and abroad, feeds on a paranoid scouting of evidences that China is constantly being victimized in Western media and international politics, and spits out more fascist-bordering moves of these people, online and offline, bouncing back with an even uglier image for the Chinese. Yeah, the most fragile thing in the international relations is the feeling of the Chinese people. They constantly get so hurt that they need outlets in various forms, such as cracking a western software and inserting a "Tibet was, is, and will always be part of China" splash logo in it.
Victim mentality does not just belong to the nationalist Chinese, though. Actually the whole liberal scene in the world tends to bend toward it. Empathy for the weaker plus a little artistic talents well concocted with some conspiracy theory could make Mr. George Clooney pretty big, Michael Moore richer, and Barbara Streisand a godess. CNN and BBC need it and Der Spiegel needs it more. Interestingly (yeah, I hate this word), when the radical Chinese were launching rounds of attacks on western media, they obviously did not care it was the same media that’s been cursing the evil American and Israeli empires with them, from time to time. It was not until the Tibetan outbreak that some Chinese liberalists woke up to it :“Oh my gosh, the journalist utopia never existed!” No. Victim mentality is delicious to anyone.
A classmate banned me from his email because he got pissed for not being able to convince me about the “evil intentions of some Westerners”. Actually I annoyed him by saying this: The protesting Chinese students in Paris, those French (who are always self-righteous), the Tibetan rioters, the Chinese internet mob, and you, actually belong to the same bloc, which just don’t care to know more. I was seriously let down by a Chinese liberal scholar I know for accusing Tibetans for “crying grievances after taking advantages” , which was a reference to the yearly aids to Tibet from the Chinese government. Can the question be asked like this: Why are you so full of wrath and sadness even if I am giving you stuff after stuff year after year, my darling?
Could THEIR FEELINGS be included in the discourse in the first place?
I asked my classmate what took him so long to ban me. When he quoted my criticism on Chinese history textbook as a personal attack against him, or alleged that films like Ping Guo were the reason that China could not establish world-class brands (I was cracked up) thus hailing the government’s ban on the film, I tried to talk to him, and send him stuff to read, and introduce him to more films. Now I think I should’ve given up earlier on an addict to the type of BBS that belong to the younger-aged patriots and cynicists, who’d call me a “net spy”, a word later I found to describe those who disagree with them in those BBS. Imperialism is paper tiger, brain-washing is not.
There is karma, simply not interesting.
Ms. Sharon Stone was just caught for her stupid “interesting karma” talk on the Sichuan earthquake, and she’s paying for the very karma from it. (BTW, I am tired of the word “interesting” being abusively used except for its true meaning) Maybe it just dawned on her that she’s confronting the largest internet mob in the world who’d do anything from catapulting the most malicious curses to turning her internet presence into a nightmare, and a government that would nail her as a villian-in-textbook because she so fell into the category of “western prejudices and ill wishes” against China. She called herself a friend of Dalai Lama but obviously her fashionable karma talk betrayed her friend’s wish and confessed she's just another Hollywood metaphysical bandwagon jumper. The death of her business opportunities on anything with the slightest relevance with China has been declared, no matter how she apologized. It’s not up to her now.
People love villains in drama and instant karma even more. It is much simpler than real politics and more dramatic. It went so natural for the vogue of political-correctness to catch on when it broke out in Lhasa in March. When wrath or extreme nationalism took over anybody could become a murderer and looter, and anybody could be murdered or looted, be it Han Chinese, Tibetan, or Muslim. But I do believe, the outbreak this time and the Tibetans' anger were undoubtedly rooted in the chronic humiliation and grievances, and the ban of free journalism in tibet was to blame for most of the loss of objectivity in reporting. Economist, the only foreign media group allowed presence in Tibet at that time, was the only one to call it a riot. The fabricators and garblers are wrong? Yes, but the information censor or monopolizer, or oppressor, or bread-giving teaser, was way way wronger. Everybody knows that, except some people in some country.
The victim mentality, developed and consolidated through decades of government education and shared by many Chinese domestic and abroad, feeds on a paranoid scouting of evidences that China is constantly being victimized in Western media and international politics, and spits out more fascist-bordering moves of these people, online and offline, bouncing back with an even uglier image for the Chinese. Yeah, the most fragile thing in the international relations is the feeling of the Chinese people. They constantly get so hurt that they need outlets in various forms, such as cracking a western software and inserting a "Tibet was, is, and will always be part of China" splash logo in it.
Victim mentality does not just belong to the nationalist Chinese, though. Actually the whole liberal scene in the world tends to bend toward it. Empathy for the weaker plus a little artistic talents well concocted with some conspiracy theory could make Mr. George Clooney pretty big, Michael Moore richer, and Barbara Streisand a godess. CNN and BBC need it and Der Spiegel needs it more. Interestingly (yeah, I hate this word), when the radical Chinese were launching rounds of attacks on western media, they obviously did not care it was the same media that’s been cursing the evil American and Israeli empires with them, from time to time. It was not until the Tibetan outbreak that some Chinese liberalists woke up to it :“Oh my gosh, the journalist utopia never existed!” No. Victim mentality is delicious to anyone.
A classmate banned me from his email because he got pissed for not being able to convince me about the “evil intentions of some Westerners”. Actually I annoyed him by saying this: The protesting Chinese students in Paris, those French (who are always self-righteous), the Tibetan rioters, the Chinese internet mob, and you, actually belong to the same bloc, which just don’t care to know more. I was seriously let down by a Chinese liberal scholar I know for accusing Tibetans for “crying grievances after taking advantages” , which was a reference to the yearly aids to Tibet from the Chinese government. Can the question be asked like this: Why are you so full of wrath and sadness even if I am giving you stuff after stuff year after year, my darling?
Could THEIR FEELINGS be included in the discourse in the first place?
I asked my classmate what took him so long to ban me. When he quoted my criticism on Chinese history textbook as a personal attack against him, or alleged that films like Ping Guo were the reason that China could not establish world-class brands (I was cracked up) thus hailing the government’s ban on the film, I tried to talk to him, and send him stuff to read, and introduce him to more films. Now I think I should’ve given up earlier on an addict to the type of BBS that belong to the younger-aged patriots and cynicists, who’d call me a “net spy”, a word later I found to describe those who disagree with them in those BBS. Imperialism is paper tiger, brain-washing is not.
There is karma, simply not interesting.
