Below is an essay from our niece in New Jersey who is in her last year of high school and was just admitted to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The essay was submitted as part of her college application. You may find it interesting how a CBC (Canada-Born-Chinese) views China …
Quote:
Too many times people have widened their eyes and gasped in disbelief when I use the pronoun “we” to describe my intimate relationship with China, my parents’ ancestral homeland. Unlike so many of my oriental classmates who cannot conceive of a China without human rights violations and taboos, I recognize the potential of this amazing country to fulfill a destiny of freedom and civil enfranchisements for all. The latest violation occurred in my AP government class, in which I was engaged in a lively conversation with my instructor who, like me, was frustrated over the issue of birth control laws.
“What right does China have,” he asked bitterly, “to force each family to have only one child?”
My teacher’s harsh accusation plunged like a dagger deep into my heart as I quickly fired back at him. “If we hadn’t taken that action, there would have been widespread poverty in China. Pollution would have at least doubled. Foreign countries should be thankful that we took the initiative to stop this from happening.”
The classroom became virtually silent as my teacher incredulously repeated, “We, did you just say, we? How could you associate yourself with the Chinese?”
Although I was born in Canada and grew up in the United States, the roots of my thinking originate from my ancestral homeland, China. My grandmother had instilled in me the importance of my ethnicity and is also to be credited with my fluency of Mandarin. Demonstrating extreme patriotism in my early years, I journeyed to Beijing every summer to investigate traditions and cultures that have shaped the values of my people. In hopes of unlocking the mysteries of Chinese beliefs, I interned at the China Central Television Station, but the tight censorship ended up brainwashing my mind rather than helping me to develop any understanding of the people. In the end, it took several hundred hours of volunteering and working with rural children before I began to recognize the virtues and vices of the Chinese government. The weeks we spent together were filled with shocking revelations as each side was unaccustomed to the behaviors of the other. There was such yearning in the eyes of the children when I spoke of the simple freedoms that Americans experience on a daily basis such as the right to publish the opinions of students in school newspapers and to engage in debates about presidential candidates. To Chinese students, the greatest freedom that schools offered was permission to have their hair longer than shoulder length. However, as controlling as China has been in determining what can and cannot be published, each child still showed stalwart and admirable loyalty toward their nation. The children passionately recalled the government’s sincere involvement with the rebuilding of the economy in the 1970’s. They vividly described the sweat, blood, and tears the country suffered with them during the Sichuan Earthquake and the billions of relief dollars donated by the government. They loved their country unconditionally, and I found myself feeling much the same way about China.
The contagious fervor the children cast upon me was much like an unbreakable spell that forever tied my future with China. After returning to the United States, I made my support for China clear by participating in rallies organized by my hometown’s Asian American mayor and by submitting many articles to the school’s magazine, in which I sided with China against Taiwan’s zest for independence. The fame I reaped in my town for being pro-Chinese was equal to the fame I achieved in China for being pro-American. Never having been shy in expressing disapproval where it is befitting to do so, I did not fall short of my disapprobation of China’s censorship of Tibetan independence or Darfur related information. In fact, during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I went so far as to question China’s pollution crisis during an interview with the Vice-President of the Beijing Olympic Committee. I felt like I was fighting a two front war.
It is undoubtedly true that China still needs to undergo massive changes before the nation can assume the position of a world leader. Recent cases like the melamine scandal regarding the contamination of powdered milk for babies underscore one of many fraudulent atrocities that must end for China’s image to change. And considering that China fifty years ago was similar in many ways to the North Korea of today, I have hope that China will someday respect human rights. I shall stand by my parents’ homeland until the day that widespread poverty is terminated, the rights of all people are respected, and until the day that China finally is able to take its place and reach its destiny as one of the greatest nations in the world.
End of Quote
