For My Friend Who Lives in the Same Country as Me, Except it’s Called Taiwan.

Hong Kong: The Identity Issue

“I think that’s how a lot of Chinese people see it, when we say “country” we mean nationality, race, culture, all mixed into one. Country States is a western idea, in Chinese that’s what “Kuo Ga” means, everything together, all related by decent. We are still one country if we are ruled by different people and that we have different kinds of governments. It’s the Chinese way of thinking.”

Actually, I am not going to be subtle. I wrote The Difference Between Blink & Wink and how it link to the idea of ONE COUNTRY…. Somehow… for my new friend Hailey, who lives in the same country as me, but she gets to vote for her government and I don’t and I guess also for our people in the mainland who don’t get to speak out and we can.

If certain people in this world stopped looking at the world from the Eurocentric ideal all the time, they might have heard what she was saying, and understand that English is her second language and maybe she didn’t know how to tell them before they shouted at her, and she could not fight back because she was half muted. And that my friends and I talk about stuff like this all the time and no one attacks as it’s not even that serious as its just part of the fabric of living in China.

I intrinsically knew what she was saying without reading what all that fuss was about, because we share a common background and because this is my main language, I know how to say it back. I even checked it with her, just to make sure.

When Chinese people say one Country, it means different things because we had the concept of country long before the idea of national borders was created in the western minds. I think too many people come to China and forget we had a long long history with a different world view completely, and maybe some words can be translated superficially and seem to have the same meaning. But unless they bother to learn the language, they could never co-opt what certain words mean. I can go on about the theory of linguistic anthropology but I would bore you.

And I totally am not explaining this so that the westerners can understand China better because I am Chinese and feel the need to tell the world it is how we think. As not only did I agree with her decision that it is not an obligation. I never had the intention of doing Glutter to explain China to “foreigners.”

I do Glutter because I want to write, so I can work ideas out for myself and because I think there are a lot of things wrong with the world and people need to wake up a little bit. I only know how to talk about it within the context of my life and in the language I am most fluent.

I guess I am also doing this because I think there is a lot of disrespect going on in China towards Chinese people and I hate it, and this is just one example. It’s an example I share personally. And now I know what it’s like, well, you know. Come with your meaness, immaturity, and pettiness, I don’t really care, I am home.

This is our place, you’re welcome to hang around, but unless you’re willing to make it yours in any real way, like learn the language at the very least and try to understand how we think. I really prefer visitors don’t shout so loudly at us.

Learning to Speak