Being a Chinese is not my choice, but my responsibility.

I've read an article in New York Times saying that China has already lost its ideology as the economic reform succeeds. I guess it's simply a fact to accept that the foreign media always have plenty of things to judge about China, even on its National Day.

Here comes the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01china.html?_r=1

To summarize, this article is sending out a clear message arguing that nowadays in China, "What inspires loyalty today is not ideology, but the government's competence at raising China from poverty".

I respect New York Times, it's actually the only online news website that I will have a glimpse everyday. The message in this article is also worth thinking. However, making every effort to be objective and unbiased, as a Chinese, I just can't say I'm comfortable with the obvious judgmental attitude the author is showing in it.

From my perspective, first of all, the ideology of such a big country as China is impossible to be simplex, which means it's ridiculous to just go out and ask a Chinese citizen on street to name the ideology of the country and call it "a student called on in class to report on the book he forgot to read" when he could not. Furthermore, I'm curious that how many countries on the world are really 100% sure about their ideology, and how many people nowadays are completely conscious of who they are. To put it in another way, it's a universal fact that people lack ideology. Quoting from what Lily said in the latest episode of Gossip Girl when Serena was entangled with the whole finding-myself thing, " Do you think anyone really knows who they are? We don't. We just live."

As for China, the long winding history left us with not only tremendous cultural assets, but also plenty of problems. The transformation takes time. And before our new ideology is formed, we strengthen our economy first. As a generation benefits from it most, I believe this is a right step.

I can't say I've really been touched by the parade or huge-scale performance. After all, for a Chinese, that kind of scene is not supposed to be completely fresh. But it's the sharing of excitement among all Chinese that is way more important than the parade itself. And that's also why I'm happy to spend several hours on a big sunny morning sitting in the sofa with my parents, watching the TV channel broadcasting everything as it's planned to be.


That's a process we have to go through.
That's just the way it is.