访问中国后，你对中国的看法有改变吗?(二)

Harold Chia
I am from Malaysia and live in Malaysia.
I used to view China as a backwards country with a strong military.
My parents has a few apartments that they rented to Chinese students studying in nearby colleges and universities. The way they maintain the house is horrible and everytime they stop renting, we will need to fork out quite a lot of money to repair the house (especially cleaning the house, i have no idea how a porcelain bath tub/toilet seat can be black in color..)
My encounters with Chinese students on campus wasnt too good either. They are ill mannered and talk so loud you can hear them a mile away.
This is more than 20 years ago.

我来自马来西亚，住在马来西亚。
我以前将中国视为一个拥有强大军事但落后的国家。
我父母有几套公寓，租给在在附近大学学习的中国人。他们没有很好维护房子，每次停止租赁时候，我们都要花很多钱请人修缮房子（特别是清理房间，我不知道瓷器的浴盆和马桶座怎么会变成黑色）。
在校园里，与中国学生的相遇经历也不是很好。他们没有礼貌，讲话声太大，你可以在一英里之外听到。
这是20多年前的事情了。

My views changed slightly when i went to UK for my university education. The chinese students i met there is very generous, well behaved. When i was invited to their house for parties or to socialize, discuss things we learned in class, their residence is very clean. But then, i thought to myself back then, these students are children of the rich and powerful chinese compared to the chinese students i met in Malaysia. I thought to myself, this is probably the difference between upper class chinese and the middle class chinese.
This is 15 years ago.
My family decided to go over to China for vacation, mainly 江南 area, including Shanghai. The scenery is breathtaking. But still there is ill mannered chinese everywhere. litter on the floor.. People talking loudly etc.
This is 10 years ago.

当我去英国读大学时候，我的看法起了一些变化。我在那里遇到的中国学生非常慷慨，彬彬有礼。当我被邀请到他们家参加聚会或社交，讨论我们在课堂上学到的东西时，他们的住所非常干净。当时我心想，和我在马来西亚遇到的中国学生相比，这些学生是有钱有势的中国人的孩子。我心想，这大概就是中国上流社会和中产阶级的区别吧。
这是15年前的事情。
我们一家人决定去上海度假，主要是去包括上海在内的江南地区。景色美得让人惊叹。但是哪里都有没有礼貌的中国人，随地乱扔垃圾，人们大声说话等等。
这是10年前的事情。

Then here is where my views really changed. last year i was asked to go to China for a business trip, to Ningbo and Shanghai. And again this year to Changzhou and Hangzhou. I am very very surprised at how China progressed over the years. The roads got better, transportation improved. But most of all, how the people changed.
People is much better behaved. Well mannered and actually obeyed traffic laws. I see slogans everywhere saying “Be Civilized”. Civilized driving, civilized usage of elevators, civilized everything.
Thats where China did it, and i will say it worked. They started educating children to be civilized at schools and everywhere.
As time passes, i am genuinely sure China will continue to improve with the right policy and education.

然后就到了我的观点真正改变的时候，去年我应邀去中国出差，去了宁波和上海。今年又去了常州和杭州。我对中国这些年的进步感到非常非常惊讶。道路变得更好了，交通也改善了。但最重要的是，人们的变化。
人们的举止更加得体，遵守交通法规。我看到到处都是写着“要文明”的标语。文明驾驶，文明使用电梯，文明地做一切。
这就是中国所做的，我会说它起作用了。他们开始教育孩子们要文明，不仅在学校，也在任何地方
随着时间流逝，我真的确信中国将在正确的政策和教育下继续进步。

Chan
I am a Hong Kong-American, raised with your typical western values of generally casting suspicion on anything Chinese. As a child, I cast the same condescending attitude towards “Communist China” inherited from the peers around me. I was one of the kids who would say he was “from Hong Kong, not China.”
As a graduation gift, I was put on a charity trip to participate in a Hong Kong-funded cataract surgery drive in mainland China. I saw mainland Chinese cities, towns and villages, from the best to the poorest, from the connected eastern coast to the remote northwestern provinces, and the aggressive infrastructure drive in between all of them. This was at the turn of the millennium, and the positivity and hope really struck my impressionable teenage heart at the time.

我是一个来自香港的美国人，在典型的西方价值观下长大，通常对任何中国的一切事情都持怀疑态度。当我还是孩子时候，我对gc中国怀有一种优越感，这来自于周围同龄人的影响。（污蔑hk不是中国的。）
作为一个毕业礼物，我进行了一场慈善旅行去大陆参加由香港赞助的白内障手术活动。我看到了中国大陆的城市、乡镇和乡村，从最发达的到最穷的，从东部沿海到偏远的西北省份，还有在这些省份之间雄心勃勃的基础建设运动，那是在千禧年世纪之交，那种积极和希望冲击我那敏感少年的内心。

Yes, much of it was staged, as most large charity events tend to be. But it was very real.
Yes, I was relieved to be back in Hong Kong with my comforts, but the hardship that I saw in China was mostly optimistic. And the biggest city I went through on that trip, Guangzhou (Canton), was still developing (polluted and chaotic) but felt like a place that would come of age soon. Of course it’s very developed, clean and mature now as countless YouTubers have shown.
That visit more than 20 years ago was the turning point in how I viewed “Communist China” and my Chinese and Hong Kong identities. I began to recognise that China does things their way due to history and their own perception of it. Not because some fat cat at the top spends his days plotting how to make his subjects cry. Also evident all around me was that “Communism” is a part of China’s history preserved only in name.

正如大部分慈善活动一样，很多活动都是表演，但这个是真实的。我带着欣慰的感受回到了香港，我在中国看到很多困难，但大多数都是乐观的。在那次旅行中，经过的最大的城市广州仍在发展中(污染和混乱)，但感觉像一个很快就会“成熟”的地方。当然，现在它非常发达，正如无数油管博主所展示的那样。
对于我如何看待“gc中国”以及我的中国和香港身份认同，20多年前的那次访问是一个转折点。我开始意识到中国的方式做事，是出于它的历史和认知。而不是权势阶层整天密谋如何tz国民。gczy是中国历史的一部分，它只是名义上被保存下来。

Most importantly, it taught me that China is not a monolith—it is very varied and very human, a billion’s worth of them, each wanting a better life and looking to the government to provide the tools and environment to achieve it. I will never agree with all of its ways (nobody should fully agree with any country—that would be absurd), but I can now appreciate and respect our differences.
I also felt an element of safety, reassured that Hong Kong was not returned to a basket-case of a country in 1997. China gave the impression of an awakening giant, long broken but now determinedly on the mend. There are millions of layers of functionality and variability between the often stuffy-sounding leadership and the street level environment. It’s incredibly wrong to assume that everything around you in China is as “dictated” by someone like —in fact it would be absurd because they have so much on their plates running the world’s most populous country.
Does all this make me proud of China? ”Pride” would be an incorrect term to use, for I did not personally make any significant contributions to mainland China. I would say that I am very pleased and heartened with how far they have come, and I wish it continued success in growing its middle class and economic/STEM maturity.
Yes, I am also American but that identity is beyond the scope of this answer.

最重要的是，这次经历教会了我中国并不是一整块“巨石”，它是由各式各样的，有人性的十亿人组成，每个人都想要更好的生活，并希望政府提供工具和环境来实现这一目标。我不会同意它的所有行为方式(没有人应该完全同意任何国家，那将是荒谬的)，但我现在可以欣赏并尊重我们之间的不同。
香港不会在1997年回归一个毫无希望的国家，我对此感到安心了。中国给人的印象是一个正在觉醒的巨人，长期处于衰弱状态，但现在决心恢复。在领导层和街道之间有各种功能性和变化性的层级。要是以为中国的一切由几个领导人决定，这是非常错误的。也是很荒谬的，因为在一个世界上人口最多的国家，他们有这么多事情要做。
这一切让我对中国感到骄傲吗? “骄傲”这个词是不正确的，因为我个人对中国大陆没有任何重大贡献。我想说，我为他们取得的成就感到非常高兴和鼓舞，我希望它在中产阶级和经济/理工科等方面继续取得成功。
是的，我也是美国人，但是身份认同这个问题不在回答范围之内了。

Shane Rooney
I turned to my Chinese friend and asked. This is the conversation.
Me: When was the last time you lost electricity
Her: Lost electricity? I don’t understand.
Me: When was the last time that the government stop supplying electricity.
Her: When?
Me: yes.

我问了我的中国朋友，下面是我们的对话：
我:你上次停电是什么时候
她:没电了?我不明白。
我:上次政府停止供电是什么时候?
她:什么时候?
我:是的。

Her: The last time they need to fix something. They cut the electricity. Fix it.
Me: When was that?
Her: It is getting less and less. The last time it happened was when something burnt.
Me: Burnt? …
Her: [looks up on phone] short circuit. But this is very rare. Did you forget to pay the electricity? forget to pay for your light at home so now the lights don’t turn on.
Me: No. Nothing like that.
Her: Then why you ask.
Me: No reason.

她:上一次他们需要修理器械时。他们切断了电源，修理它。
我:那是什么时候?
她:越来越少了。上次是什么东西烧了。
我:烧了?
她:(抬头看手机)短路了。但这种情况很少。你忘记交电费了吗?忘了给家里的灯付钱，所以现在灯亮不起来了。
我:不是的。
她:那你为什么要问。
我:没有理由。

Her: I think the last time was in 2005. do you know why? Too many people turn on their Air-Con and there is not enough electrcity. So the government build more power plants. Do you know __________. It is very famous.
Me: (doesn’t reply. too busy typing up this answer)
Her: Three gorges hydro electric…
Me: Three gorges dam. In English it is just called “three gorges dam”
Not only do they have electricity supply 24 hours a day, but the last time my friend remembers there being a blackout WAS IN 2005. That is impressive.

她:我记得上次是在2005年。你知道为什么吗?用空调的太多了，没有足够的电力。所以建造更多的发电厂吧。你知道三峡吗?它非常有名。
我:(没有回答)忙着打这个答案
她:三峡水电……
我:三峡大坝。用英语来说就叫三峡大坝。
他们不仅有一天24小时的电力供应，而且上次停电时间是2005年，这真让人印象深刻

Wasut Pornpatcharapong
I went to China in 2008 joining my university’s summer program in Beijing. 2008 was also the year of Beijing Olympics.
Since I studied in an American university using English language and I barely spoke Chinese back then, most of the information about China I received was mainly through the English language mainstream media. Early 2008, most English language media seemed to be unanimously reporting on China’s human rights problems just like today, but back then it was all about Tibet. I remembered the news when a Tibetan monk self-immolated and this stirred the Tibetan community outside China to the point that many Westerners also joined forces. Then, I remembered seeing this image,
This was the news in 2008 when a pro-Tibetan independence protester tried to disrupt the Olympics torch relay in Paris. Similar scenes were also seen in other Western cities such as San Francisco. When I heard the news on some American entities tried to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, this picture came to my mind. How things doesn’t change after all these years!

2008年我去的中国，参加了大学在北京的暑期项目，2008年也是北京开奥运会的时候。因为我在使用英语的美国大学，我几乎不会说中文，所以我收到的关于中国的信息主要是通过英语主流媒体。2008年初，像今天一样，大多数英文媒体一致报道中国的人权问题，不过那时的报道都是关于xz的。我记得一个xz僧人自焚的新闻，这挑动了中国以外的xz社区，以至于许多西方人也加入了进来。然后，我想起看到过的这张照片（指的是有人抢夺奥运火炬的照片）。
这是2008年的新闻，当时一名zd分子试图扰乱在巴黎的奥运火炬传递。类似的场景也出现在旧金山等其他西方城市。当我听说美国一些机构试图抵制2022年北京冬奥会，我的脑海中出现了这样的画面。这么多年过去了，一切都没有改变!
当时我相信了西方那些谎言（污蔑中国的）。

However, back then I bought the narrative that China is a place where there is no personal freedom at all and the Chinese government is the Big Brother that watches over their populaces and rules with an iron fist.
This doesn’t sound like a place that I should go for a summer program, but I thought I should go to see with my own eyes how “oppressive” China is so that I have hands-on experiences to tell others about the Chinese oppression.
Out of curiosity, as soon as the plane landed in Beijing and I got a cab, I asked a cab driver in Chinese whether he felt oppressed under the communist regime. His reply shocked me as he said “It’s OK” without sounding worried in his tones at all. Really? But I was told that China is an oppressive place!

这听起来不像是一个我应该去的地方，但我想我应该去亲眼看看中国有多yp，这样我就能用亲身经历告诉别人中国的yp。
出于好奇，当飞机落到北京，我叫了一辆出租车，我用中文问出租车司机在gczy下是否感到yp。他的回答让我很震惊，因为他说“并没有”，语气里一点也不担心。真的吗?但我被告知中国是一个yp的地方!

Days went by and as a young avid adventurer, I ventured more and more in Beijing to make the most of my little time there. I started to change. The shopping streets were full of people eating and shopping without looking oppressed. People there just went on with their lives, trying to better themselves, as all of us do all over the World.
Let all these photos tell the story instead of my words. I took all those photos in 2008 in various places in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, and Hangzhou. The people in all those photo didn’t look like they live in a complete Orwellian society as lots of Western media like to portray.
The Chinese people also seemed to know a lot about my country, Thailand, as well, and when my broken Chinese back then started to give away that I wasn’t a Chinese and they asked me where I’m from, they all bombarded me with questions about Thailand. Chinese people are probably one of the most curious group of people I have ever met!
If you could, I would suggest you visit China once! I’m sure it will be such an eye-opening experience in a pleasantly surprised way!!

时间一天天过去，作为一个热衷冒险的人，我尽可能利用这段时间参观了越来越多的地方，购物街挤满了人，吃着东西，买着东西，一点也不显得被yp。像世界各地的其他人 一样，那里的人们只是继续他们的生活，努力使自己变得更好。
让这些照片来告诉你，而不是我的文字。2008年，我在北京、上海、桂林、杭州等中国各地拍摄了照片。这些照片里的人并不像西方媒体所描绘的那样生活在一个yp社会中。
中国人似乎也知道很多我们国家泰国的事情，那时我差劲的中文暴露了我是外国人，他们连珠炮般问我从哪里来，还有其他关于泰国的问题。中国人可能是我见过的最好奇的一群人了!
如果可以的话，我建议你拜访中国一次!我相信这将是一次令人大开眼界的惊喜之旅!

Allen Peyton
I came to China because I needed a job. I went through a messy divorce and I had to quit my job to take care of my mother who was dying. Then I was in my 50’s and couldn’t find work. A friend suggested I teach in China. So I interviewed with different schools and signed a 1 year contract. That was 5 years ago. I’m still here. The cost of living is cheap. The food is healthy. The infrastructure far surpasses America with high speed rail, modern highways and modern airports. And no one gets shot!

我来中国是因为需要一份工作，我经历了一场糟糕的离婚，我不得不辞职来照顾生命垂危的母亲。后来我50多岁了，找不到工作。一个朋友建议我去中国教书。所以我面试了几个学校，然后签了一年的合同。那是5年前的事了。我还在这里。生活费用很便宜。食物很健康。有现代高速铁路，高速公路和现代机场，基础设施远远超过美国。还有就是没人会被枪杀!