Being Chinese

I think this is a damn good article.

In China, Temblor Accomplishes What the Olympics Couldn’t

My thoughts below:

Ostentation will never earn as much admiration as when you keep it real.

China, in its rapid rise to the top, is like many of its innumeral self-made m/billionaires: it has become complacent, it is spinning off-tangent. It indulges in a newfound purchasing power, buying luxuries in the form of avant garde constructions and architectural icons to show off its status as the host of the Olympics.

Elsewhere in the world, China is increasingly seen as a threat by its economic and political competitors who can hardly wait to see this upwardly sprinting giant crumble under its own weight: the higher (and faster) you climb, the harder you fall. Among its developing world cousins, China is scorned for being the show-off who became rich overnight and forgot his humble beginnings.

What an irony, it takes a destructive earthquake that tears towns and cities apart to jolt all the disjointed pieces back into place: China's own complacency brought the nation to its humble knees, but it is now one that is truly unified by a common cause that digs deep into every citizen's soul, and not simply the pride and joy of a privileged few in Olympic host cities.

It has earned considerable admiration from the "big brothers" abroad which once saw China as an insidious, formidable opponent, and the allegiance of the "small brothers" who are eagerly reaching out their helping hands to 扶大哥一把 in dire times like this.

It has made me proud to be Chinese by blood - an overseas Chinese but a Chinese nonetheless.