I don't know if you caught the speech of China's President Hu Jintao at Waseda University. The significance of Hu Jintao's 5-Day "Warm Springs" state visit to Japan, aside from signaling a major thaw in China-Japan relations, is a major watershed in East Asia.
I saw the nuanced and very meaningful message he delivered to Japan's youths and the "olive branch" he extended on behalf of the Chinese people to the Japanese people. It is pregnant with meaning and the reaching out to the youths of Japan and China to put the past behind and work together to face the challenges of globalization, in a spirit of friendship, unity, and harmony, is absolutely stunning.
Fundamentally, the message to Japanese youths and China's youth is this: "You don't need to be an Honorary White 名誉白人 Ming Yu Bai Ren to succeed and GO WEST, and APE WEST in order to achieve your fullest potential. GO EAST. STAY EAST. China's youth and Japanese youth can work together and face the challenges of globalization and apply the strengths of each society that can bear upon the strengths and weaknesses and deficiencies of each respective society -- China and Japan.
This is heady stuff for Japanese and Chinese youths. And they should know better by now. The Western Moon is not any rounder. Nor are Western farts any more fragrant. Bai Ren Pi Hao Xiang 百人屁好香.
The message is resonating loud and clear, " China and Japan are two economic and cultural complementary nations which can work synergistically to harness each society's potential human and capital resources for a strategically mutually beneficial bilateral relationship which can rock the world." Japan's technological prowess and strengths in innovation, packed with China's brawn and growing brain power, can work synergistically and be a "perfect fit."
I ask you to listen carefully to Hu Jintao's speech at Waseda University in its entirety; and think about what it means in this major techtonic shift not just in China-Japan relations but also vis a vis China-WEST relations.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/08/content_8130044.htm
Just envision and visualize the immense possibilities and potential if East Asia, including Japan, Korea, and China + Taiwan (One China) can muster their "brain power,""brawn power" and yes, "synergy" together to face the challenges of globalization.
"Yao is Coming !" "There are mor Yaos coming" The game of hoops translated in the game of human progress will be completely transformed if that synergy combined can used to work for all peoples in Asia.
After listening to Hu Jintao's very significant speech at Waseda University, and thoughtfully probe through what he is signaling to Japanese youth, I ask you to consider looking WEST to California and read the story about the University of California education system and its fast eroding infrastructures strapped by major problems from within.
Compare the rising cost of a California public education at the UC system, i.e. from US$ 7,500 to increase immediately this coming school year to US$ 10,000 and within three years to US$ 18,000 per year, excluding room and board.... just basic tuition.
Compare tuition and room and board in China's premier university, Peking University, now pegged at US$ 500 a year.
The difference is more than 20 times to attend the University of California system and Beida in Beijing, China.
There is no question that the EAST is the future. And I am completely mesmerized by the possibilities if two societies, i.e. China and Japan, can work synergistically to combine each society's strengths, especially with similar cultures, similar roots, and similar value-systems.
Japan's strengths in energy-savings technology and environmental sciences can burnish China's quest to achieve energy efficiency, and sustainable environmentally-sound growth, without paying a heavy price in pollution and foul water resources.
That's a win-win for both the Chinese and Japanese peoples. And it is time to seize the moment, folks.
My take: "GO EAST, Young Man," "STAY EAST, Young Man."
And just consider the morass that California UC system of education is stuck in, mired in fiscal mismanagement and a crumbling of its educational infrastructure, across California's crumbling school system; and California is the bellweather of a decling society we call America; click on to compare Waseda University and what President Hu Jintao is trying to say; and ask yourself, "why did Hu Jintao not deliver this same speech at the University of California campus ?"
Incidentally, they just had another drug-and-alcohol related killing at UC Berkeley last week, and this killing of a 21-year engineering student from the university is a metaphor of the utter collaspe of moral civil values in America's schools these days, where drugs and alcohol drive youth pursuits instead of the more creative productive endeavors that youths are supposed to be focused on.
Blame it to the parental abdication of the "boomer" Benjamin Spock generation of American post-Vietnam era "slackers;" they have bred a generation of "walking monsters," weaned on dope, drugs, alchohol binges.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/08/MN1510D554.DTL
Again, I say, "GO EAST YOUNG MAN; STAY EAST YOUNG MAN"
YOUR FUTURE IS THRRE; NOT IN THE WEST !
