http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/world/asia/30beijing.html?ref=world
Ahhhhh.... The wonderful world of China, Inc., rapid modernization, urbanization, high-speed rails, dazzling megamalls, trendy Italian fashions, private automobiles, and fancy condo high rises furnished with chic Ikea and Euro-chic furniture.
It is glorious to be rich. It is not so glorious to dump your parents and leave them isolated, lonely, and living a forlorn existence, worse than America's dogs unleashed in a pet-manic world where dogs are valued more than American children.
In Singapore, the obsessive pursuit of the Five (5) "C"s have just added a six "C" to the Singaporean hipster's modernistic, fast-paced lifestyle on the go.
Now it is: (1) Cash; (2) Car; (3) Condo; (4) Career; (5) Credit Card, and yes, a sixth one, (6) Casino gaming.
This obsessive mania to pursue the six "C's has resulted in Singaporeans dumping and flushing their elderly parents down their immaculately clean toilets. Who can argue that Singapore has the best loo in the world, perhaps somewhat better than the Swiss, in fastidiousness and prissyness?
Who can argue that if you are old, in Singapore, you are entitled, legally, to seek recourse against your children, seeking money support and restitution for the duration you had supported your own children when they were growing up? It is in the Singaporean "kiasu" blood --- everything needs to be calibrated in $$$$ terms, no more no less, precise, concise, and to the penny.
And so it will be, as the late Deng Xiaoping worshiped Singapore's "model" society and its pristine, squeaky clean society. Why not follow Singapore and empower China's elderly to sue their own children for money support? Zhung Guo Lao Ren Bu Gao Xing !
No wonder, Chinese officials are now exhuming Confucius from his Qifu grave, and prominently transferred this Chinese sage into Tiananmen, where together with the giant pantheon of China's grand communist egalitarian revolution launched by the helmsman, Mao Zedong, a stirring of some sort can at least salvage a sliver of caring, kindness, or what we Chinese call "jing" among China's new millenials.
ZHUNG GUO is wonderful. MEI GUO is beautiful.
In America, they eat their young. In China, they are beginning to eat their old.
In both societies, something within is dreadfully wrong, and went awry.
Are the Arab streets giving us a glimspe of our future as human society crumbles ? The rich keeps getting richer; well the poor, they can always protest, mau-mau, and riot in the means streets. Not that it makes much of a difference.
As Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen roils in "luan," China is blocking all reference to "Egypt" in its closely-monitored blogosphere.
"Luan" in China? Arab streets turn and shifts to Chinese streets and America's streets?
Get ready for the Year of Reckoning. 2011 will be a major watershed in world society.I feel the "luan."
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