The way to Shaoxing

February 20, 2010

Mr. Zhao - This was about the time I was interrogating him about the Cultural Revolution. You can see the Shaoxing wine surrounding him.

For Chinese New Year I went to Shaoxing with my friend Tong from high school. I spent 5 days with him and his family, mainly eating and drinking. Shaoxing is a smallish city about 2.5 hours away from Shanghai. It is home of Shaoxing wine (huang jiu), which I came to know very well in those 5 days.

On Friday, January 12, Tong’s dad, Mr. Zhao, picked us up to drive to Shaoxing. On the car ride there, Mr. Zhao, translated by Tong because my Chinese is still too poor, asked me what I studied in college. I told him political science. He then said, “Lindsay, I want to talk politics with you.” At this point, I realized how much Mr. Zhao’s haircut resembled Mao Ze Dong’s. A little scared, I said “Ok.”

Tong had prefaced the conversation by telling me that there is tension between the U.S. and China right now because the U.S. has just sold a ton of weapons to Taiwan, a ‘province’ of China that sometimes wants to secede. I personally think of Taiwan as its own country, which is not something I usually tell Chinese people. It just seems too different from mainland China. I might think like this because I spent a year with a Taiwanese nationalist roommate. Another cause of tension is that President Obama is meeting with the Dalai Lama, who is seen as an enemy of the state here in China. Tong told me that when the Dalai Lama was in power in Tibet, they basically had slavery there. I found that hard to believe. He seems like a very gentle person. I later asked my friend, Colin, who I ask any worldly question I don’t know the answer to, if this was true. Colin said no. In some parts of Tibet there might have been a feudal system, but China mainly used this “slavery” in Tibet as an excuse to invade. And now, with religion suppression, an exiled leader, and occupation by China, is Tibet really better off?

I digress.

Mr. Zhao told me that despite the fact that sometimes China and America do not agree politically, on a whole, Chinese people like Americans. He believes we have the same or very similar value systems. We believe the same things are right and the same things are wrong. I asked him what he thinks of Obama. He said he likes him. He believes Obama must have faced much adversity, and it must have been very difficult for a man like him to get where he is today. He believes that American people are very tolerant and open-minded for electing a president like Obama. He thinks Americans, on a whole, are very open-minded, nice, generous, and tolerant people. I told him that the sample of Americans he has come in contact with in China are probably these things because they are world travelers, but I think the majority of Americans are not so tolerant of others.

I told Tong that yes, we both might have very similar value systems, but the way we see the world is also shaped by politics, history, and economics. We sold weapons to Taiwan because we have no money right now. China views this move as wrong. We view it as right. We need money. If Taiwan really is part of China, then why does it matter if we sell weapons to them? Maybe we should have gone through Beijing, but somehow I don’t think Beijing would have let us sell weapons to Taiwan. I compared this to when China was selling weapons to Sudan in exchange for oil. China has a huge population that needs oil. They got it from a country that was harboring genocide, and in doing so, supplied weapons directly to the people committing the genocide. China needed oil. They viewed this move as right. We viewed it as wrong. I know these two examples might not be on the same playing field, but it illustrates how the way we think is influenced by more than what is right and wrong; politics, history, economics, and national security play a huge part.

During the car ride, I found out that Mr. and Mrs. Zhao’s grandpas were both generals in the military. Mr. Zhao’s father even fought in the Korean War, on the North Korean side. Both men were transferred to Xinjiang province during the Cultural Revolution. Since universities were closed, Mr. and Mrs. Zhao also decided to join the military, which is where they met in 1968. The Cultural Revolution is one of the most fascinating subjects in Chinese history. When I was intoxicated at dinner later that day, I asked Mr. Zhao what that time was like and whether he was mad that he couldn’t go to school. He wasn’t mad. He is a Communist Party member. But he said that the Cultural Revolution is something that he and other Chinese people are ashamed of. I wish I could remember more of that conversation.