[转帖]中国简史，受益非浅（In english)0
For quite a long time Chinese truly believed that China was the center of the world.(Today they still call China Zhongguo which means central kingdom in English.)They were so proud of themselves and living peacefully.And for quite a long time their economy remained self-sufficient that they never needed to trade with anybody for anything.Their world was closed and so much isolated.But we also found some good reasons for this unique and interesting Chinese social pattern due to its special geographical location in the world.
Actually Chinese culture started from the middle reaches of the Yellow River,same as Egypt,India and Babylon originating from some big rivers or lakes as well.But China was bordered by the huge mountains like Himalayas in the south,the terrible deserts in the west,the forever frozen Siberia up in the north and the Pacific Ocean to the east.Obviously Chinese were not able to go beyond these barriers and to meet anybody easily, maybe once they wished and tried,but the fact was they had been living alone for so many years.So far no records could show China ever had any contacts of any kinds with India until 1st century AD though they were so close to each other like neighbors and their cultures began almost the same period of time,and the Himalayas stood between these two great countries keeping our people from meeting each other.
About 3000 years ago Mongols grew up and began to ply with Chinese from the north.This was the first time that Chinese had been made to rethink who they were and where these Mongols were from.Now we can imagine how difficult it was for Chinese to change for a new way of living and thinking and how hard it was for them to share their world with others.Their easy and peaceful life and their pride in being the only people in the world were challenged so much.They got lost completely.They once tried to rebuild their country and system,but we saw they failed the wars to Mongols continuously,they even became hostile toward their own neighbour states in the end.It caused a terrible confusion regarding the value of life and left such a social chaos.This lasted for almost 500 years.Somebody terms it the Warring States Period, others may use the word like the Spring and Autumn Period.Since then their pride and self-confidence were gone and they began to trust nobody and started to make the famous walls of China we see today,attempting to keep everybody away regardless of friends or enemies.And finaly they walled themselves in,like a snail in its shell.Higher the wall they built more isolated,reserved and ignorant they became.Eventually they rejected anything foreign.This was what we saw in the last 300 years.
In the Chinese history few dynasties really ruled outside these walls,but they fought wars with Mongols constantly.The 2nd dynasty,Han dynasty once attempted to make peace with Mongols.They used to send their emperors’daughters and concubines over to intermarry Mongols.But we know marriages are not dependable,cannot make peace last very long.For so many years it seemed that Chinese had never had time to seriously think of themselves and Mongols.It was very strange that sometimes Chinese appeared arrogant, superior when these foreign devils were outside these walls,but sometimes these foreign devils would become Chinese distinguished Foreign Quests being treated so deferentially when they finally got inside these Chinese walls.
Marco Polo was the first to come to China from Europe.It was even a bigger surprise now to see these red haired and blue eyed people while Mongols first came,but it didn’t surprise them that much because they brought a new culture,but we still looked alike .Soon they even saw some black people too.They finally understood they were actually living with so many strangers around them in the smae world.They became lost again.This psychological problem had been perplexing Chinese for centuries.Today it still is.
By the turn of the 19th century,over a dozen of cities were opened along the coast for free trade by foreign forces.Western products were brought into China.This meant Chinese had to change again.The fact was Chinese liked western powerful engines,new machines,beautiful clocks, colorful stained glasses and so on,but not foreign ideas.This is as ridiculous as buying eggs without their shells in the market.They didn’t understand all these together made this new and different culture from the west..So it resulted in two opium wars both in 1840 and 1860 and the boxer Rebellion in 1900.
Today few still remember as early as in 1870,some Chinese students once were sent overseas to study the western Culture hoping to find something in common for both Chinese and foreigners.
Some students came back with science and technology which they thought could make China a strong country and Chinese people stand up again.They opened some factories near the coast like in Shanghai and Tianjin.But it didn’t made China a strong country at all .China once boasted very advanced technology long time ago such as the four great inventions(gun powder,paper,printing and compass).Obviously it was not a matter of technology.
Others believed China needed to learn to practise the western election system of democracy,but it never really worked in China.The fact was we couldn’t have democracy alone.We need a big middle class to support it like in America.
Some students learnt about the communism in France and Germany.It was believed Communism was a better system in which everybody could get something he needed.The idea is great and wonderful.But it can never work in anywhere because it is surely against the human nature Family Privacy.
In 1911 Qing dynasty was overthrown,Manchu emperors were gone.But what really happened was since the industrial revolution started in England,it changed Europe and it changed the whole world. But Chinese were still proud of their old culture,still in fantasy of No.1 middle kingdom of the world.Now Europeans built their ships bigger and bigger,but we still farmed the same way our grand grand fathers farmed one thousand yeas ago.We were made to compete with the westerners unfairly.Our economy got crumbled gradually.The governers of those provinces surely felt Qing dynasty was going up to the end.They all chose to wait and see if they could get hold of some more government armies or local forces.They hoped they might get an upper hand in the next dynasty or a new government of some kind they were not quite sure about yet.At this moment Chinese communists were getting active and the Qing government was overthrown unexpectedly fast.Those big provinces became independent states.But when they finally discussed who was going to be the new leader, they found everybody had enough armies and was powerful enough to be this new leader.At the end they compromised and got an outsider to act as their new leader who actually had no power in his hand.This lucky and unlucky person was Dr.Sun yatsent.And this was our warlord period in the 1920s.
Since then China has never been really ruled and controlled by either Jiang Chaichiek or Chairman Mao,because today we are still one country but two different systems.
In the last 100 years we have had so many power struggles and revolutions in which our people suffered innocently.Every revolution left our people something different from what they were promised.Our people were cheated and made fools of.Today we have TVs,computers,some may even have cars and nice houses.but we still can not choose our leaders yet.In China you may still find much similarity of what was commonly practiced in Qing dynasty.Official may get certain treatment according to his rank.They are granted a power to enjoy and to abuse even to be forgiven.To some extents this government is no better than the old.Because there are too many emperor like officials today while there was only one emperor who could enslave our people in old China.No country,no system,no people in the world can afford these many emperor like officials.
Mao was a great man in deed.He was a man who really cared our people.He was born in a rich farmer family in Hunan.He had good traditional education in his hometown.If he were not becoming one of the most important Chinese communist leaders,he might be rememberd as a great poet,historian,strategist,philosopher and calligrapher.In his early poems he was found ambitious and outstanding.He had all necessary powers and abilities a Chinese emperor needed already.
In 1921 Chinese communist party was founded in Shanghai,soon they established a relation with Soviet Union.They swore to make China another communist.Eventually Soviet Union brought Dr.Sun’s nationalist and the communist together.And they cooperated for a few years.
In 1925,Dr Sun passed away.Mr.Jiang took his position quickly,He believed sooner or later Chinese coomunists were going to be his dangerous political enemies.So in 1927 Mr.Jiang killed hundreds of communists in the south near Canton,but those communist escapees got together again in deep mountains where no warlords cared.It was this event that taught Mao Spears and rifles bring a birth to a new government.They started from scraches again.And they set up a few Soviet governments very quickly there.When Mr Jiiang was aware of what happened there it was too late already.
In 1934 Mr.Jiang brought the troupes from 6 different provinces to try to wipe out Mao’s farmer forces.Mao led his farmers away and played Tom and Jerry with Mr.Jiang.Mao didn’t want to have war with Mr. Jiang now yet.He started the famous long march instead.They fought through 13 provinces and got up in the north to fight against the Japanese.He knew he could win the whole country by winning the minds of the poor.He was showing the public that he was fighting against the Japanese for China alone,on the contrary Mr Jiang was doing nothing but killing the Chinese communists. This may best answer Why with 8 million well armed soldiers and millions of dollars from US every year Mr.Jiang still lost the war to Mao later?
In 1949 new China was founded and we hoped we might live better by having a new country and system.,but we found those communist leaders move into emperors’beautiful palaces and take concubines of the old warlords and officials and do the same as the farmer rebels did in the past revolutions.Chairman Mao tried to correct it and he started several movements to remove those senior leaders.I understand this was also why he started the Cultural Revolution in 1965.Before he passed away he taught us We need a revolution every 7 to 8 years to clean out.Now we know we just need a second party to check them.but unfortunately we haven’t had the system yet.We see more and more corrupt officials today. it’s unfair to blame Mao, one dad man who couldn’t argue any more for all hardships we had before,because he couldn’t make the revolution happen himself..We should check and blame ourselves for all what we shouldn’t have done to each other.Our people have suffered enough.We all got hurt in these revolutions,didn’t we?
In 1976 Mao passed away.China was getting reopened and we were all wakening up from nightmares slowly.Chinese government sent some young people abroad to study same as what we did over 100 years ago,but most of these students chose to stay overseas.they enjoyed their western lives there instead.
Chinese had been worshipping Confucius for over 2000 years,and he emphasized the right relation of someone with others.Respect.He devoted his whole life to Chinese traditional education.He tried to rebuild our self-confidence and trust in our own people.For hundreds of years our people hoped their next generation could live better if they worked hard and saved enough to let their children go to school.They understand they can not choose their parents but they should be able to change themselves.But I am sorry to say today our government is trying to make money from these poor parents now.Schools are no longer free.I want to state here: Our people may have poor food and live in poor places but they should be granted the right to be educated because they are born with this right.I heard some poor parents couldn’t afford the school expenses, they took poison to kill themselves in some rural areas last year.
Actually we have never had true revolutions in China.All these revolutions were just nightmares,one revolution makes rich poor and another makes poor rich.Nobody can win and everybody becomes victim.Our history just repeats these hurtings and being hurts on and on.The post revolution impact remains for so long in our minds that we don’t trust each other any more.Now think of someone living with all he doesn’t trust.Let’s pray for our Chinese.
Once China was a great country boasting 5000 year long history.but today she needs to feed 20% of the whole world people with only 7% of arable land of the world.I dream Chinese stand up again.I dream Chinese be free thinkers and I dream China become a great country again.Most of our people can not understand human rights and freedom yet,because they need to servive first.
China is my home country.I am proud of my culture and proud to be a Chinese.I love my people in deed.And I am deeply rooted culturally and spiritually in China.I wish you become our messengers to tell the world that You are neither our foreign devils,nor our foreign guests,but our foreign friends.
Chinese want to know you,you come to know us,and the world needs to be understood.God wants men and women,old and young,black and white,weak and strong,poor and rich to be together in harmony in peace in God’s world.God bless China and his loved.
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Post By：2008-3-8 10:38:00
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