Wednesday, October 30, 1996
DIALOGUE:
Student abroad at Beijing University finds no one speaks out
against government By Linus Enriquez
Well, gee, here I am messing with Lynx since all I have is an
amber terminal in a cold hole in the wall next to Beijing
University and what do I find? The Daily Bruin Online inviting me
to delve back into a campus I haven’t seen since I arrived in
Beijing, China four months ago.
And while I study here, with nigh two months left to go before
my return to sunny, sunny California, I find that the issues I left
behind continue to fester and cause reactionary forces to clash and
apathetic lumps of clay to shrug as usual.
It’s funny, that. The elections close in, the propositions are
listed, the people (15 percent of them) get ready to vote. The
issues are addressed, both loudly in debate and in protest, and
regardless of what my own political stance is this time, I can’t
help but smile.
Would you like to know what I’ve seen here, on a foreign campus
in a foreign world?
Recall that the last time anyone tried to criticize was in 1989,
and Beijing University is still today a pain in the ass to enter,
even if but for a visit. But even without that, even when you try
to talk one on one to a citizen, even if that citizen were an
"informed" university student, you will get nothing but the
government’s plans and successes.
It’s as if they have all been taught the same lines, the same
responses.
Even when they tell you it’s OK to ask any questions, you will
get nothing but the runaround.
It is frustrating.
Even an apathetic slug of a student who only goes to school to
get a degree and nothing else would at least have the courtesy to
say, "I don’t care, it’s not my problem."
The love-hate relationship of China’s people with the United
States is interesting. We’re shafted at the stores, thinking we
have all the money and telling us so to our faces. "You are
Americans. You are rich, why should you pay the same price as us
poor Chinese?"
And yet they fall before America’s sick and twisted consumerism.
I never knew Michael Bolton was so popular. Right up there with
Madonna and Michael Jackson.
Many students want to come to study on our soil, yet even they
will not deign to you their own opinion of their country.
Government line, period. It’s as if I’m in a place that is slowly
becoming George Orwell’s "1984." Not yet there, but coming from my
view, it really feels as if BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.
And back there in sunny, sunny California, people complain about
the ways in which people protest. The issues are bounced back and
forth with words and actions. The USAC government is criticized as
always for whatever it does. Where your fees go and should they go
there … Wonderful. All forms of interaction in an effort to
educate the masses is wonderful.
Those who do not read, do not know of debates and talks, see the
actions on the streets. The surge of human emotion is always best
seen in a crowd.
And there are these talks in paper and in an auditorium or even
at a party or living room discussion with friends … here the
emotions are toned down and reasoning is evoked.
But who talks when they don’t know?
The two go hand in hand. One sometimes needs to see an open
protest to be reminded of the issues … otherwise they remain
ignorant.
No one noticed China, no one realized what was going on, ’til
1989.
Sometimes you have to stand up and yell to get someone’s
attention.
Everyone’s attention.
I don’t care what issue is at stake. I only care that it is
voiced and voiced with the loud cries of protest and the soft, even
tones of discussion. That is what is important. To inform, to
educate, to take notice, to formulate an opinion of your own upon
analyzing the events of the past and the present and to act upon it
accordingly.
Educate.
Did you know that three out of 10 Chinese do not believe I am
from America simply because I am not white? It becomes eight out of
10 when I leave the city.
Inform.
The United States, considered to be a happy place where everyone
is rich, owns two cars and two homes and frolic about all day.
Whatever it takes to open their eyes, do it. Protest, clang
bells in the streets or whisper to each other as you watch
television in the bedroom.
I was once asked, "Do they have tofu in America?" They were
genuinely surprised when I said, "Yes."
There is something to it, this country of ours. This forever
striving to give everyone the right to be who they want, the right
to be informed, the right to criticize and fight for their beliefs.
This ceaseless struggle for freedom without encroaching on
another’s freedom … there’s something to it.
Just as there is tofu in America.
Linus Enriquez is a fifth-year student of Anthropology, who is
currently residing in Beijing, China and trying not to lose his
fingers to the cold.