realitybites
making lemonade
Should we applaud a culture that stopped being in touch with modern life and that celebrates new year when no one else does just cause their communist past demands it?
Chinese New Year has NOTHING to do with a Communist past. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led the People's Republic of China under a one-party system since the country's establishment in 1949. And have been active in the country for perhaps 20-30 years prior to that time. Chinese New Year originated centuries earlier when China was a dynasty. And either way, this holiday doesn't celebrate any political or economic system making your point, pointless.
I was really angry at the news reporting on this as I see what the chinese do as a result of turning away from modern life and living in the past and they have no way of thinking for themselves. The day when years become animal symbols around here is when I will ask the last swede to turn out the lights.
Actually, China has done the opposite--embracing modernity and technology with open arms. They are experiencing the fastest economic growth out of any nation on the planet today. Albeit not without suffering some negative consequences for this rapid development in the form of horrible air and water pollution from the massive manufacturing industry now in place there... which, btw, Sweden, and every other country has reaped the benefits from in the last few decades in the form of cheap goods.
China is evil and will be the downfall for us all and it is sad and scary that an educated american sees anything cute in it at all.
China will not be the downfall of us all. China has no intentions to take over the world and impose its political system upon the rest of us. If we let it become the greatest economic superpower out there, well then that is because we are slaves to materialism and prefer to consume cheap goods in massive quantities rather than a few high quality ones that could easily be, and used to be, manufactured locally. We have become consumers rather than producers. China is not a consumer society--yet. If they do become one, this will level the playing field. And I think that this is what is going to happen.