Life and Travel in China

Just a month ago, the Chinese (Han) admired Uyghur dance performances during the Cultural Fair in Shenzhen... and now in the capital of XinJiang province, both nations are fighting each other. The riots began with the mysterious death of a Uighur in southern China, with people demanding justice and explanations. This is, of course, only one reason. Mostly, though, it's probably about mutual hatred. XinJiang is a completely different culture, religion - Islam, different language, different spelling, these people even have different names than typical Chinese. Of course, the version of the Chinese media is that it is about riots provoked from abroad by the World Uyghur Congress. It was the XinJiang people who started the attacks and tried to take revenge on the Han. From what I heard in the Polish media - today the Hans tried to take revenge on the Uighurs. I don't know what the truth is, but this confusion will definitely hurt China again (just like the fighting in Tibet). It is possible that the Uyghurs simply attacked the Han in a fit of hatred that was intensified by an outsider. By default, however, the world and all media will always be against China. It's hard to say who is right here, but still, someone killed 156 people. In China, these are just numbers, without much meaning as usual!

In Poland we have the concept of bureaucracy, but it is nothing compared to China! My friend transfers her registration (in China you cannot simply change your place of residence, or rather your place of birth, many people are enrolled in schools where they studied in childhood). In order to change her place of residence to the city where she has been working for over 7 years, she must prepare the following documents: insurance, two identity cards, school certificate, confirmation of higher education, confirmation that the higher education is real, documents from the company, a certificate of being unemployed from her hometown (absurd!), health certificate, confirmation that she is not pregnant, husband's passport and a few other documents that are difficult to name. Finally, one document was rejected because the stamp was not in the right place. The communist bureaucracy is sick! It all started with Mao, who pushed people from the cities to the countryside to work in collectives, and brought peasants to the cities to do the worst jobs. Now the cities are rich and they don't really want new citizens, there is a limit on accepting new registrations every year. This way, in a city of 12 million people, there are 2 million real, registered citizens. And recently I had to copy the visa form because my pen wasn't thick enough (it had to be black and it was, but not that thick). Millions of people work in Chinese offices, they usually deal with bullshit, they have two-hour lunch breaks, they get big bribes, and if they don't get them, they pick on stamps, pen colors and letter sizes.

The Chinese (Han) are already angry at the 'Western media', especially German newspapers and websites. It angers them that they are shown as the aggressors in the street fights in Urumqi. They don't like the fact that reporters present one side of the coin. From the photos I saw in AFP and Reuters, I also have the impression that the Han Chinese are now taking revenge on the Uyghurs. Angry groups of Han people, with clubs, axes, shovels, chain mail... I know how angry the Chinese can be, how angry they are at the whole world. In a few months, the fighting from their streets will move to a media war with the West. It's like separating arguing spouses. A stranger interferes and later both the wife and the husband attack the stranger. It's the same in China, first they fight among themselves, and then the attack moves to Japan, France, the USA or Germany... They will always find the culprit on the globe, but they themselves are fine, blameless. And the fact that they hacked several hundred people to death in the street, kicked someone to death because it's more fun in a group - this is an invention of the Western media! And the AFP and Reuters photos are probably taken in Adobe Photoshop CS2, because the Chinese are saints! Remember this! When will they grow up, admit their mistakes, apologize for their faults and get rid of their pettiness and racism? Probably never, unfortunately...

An unusual event took place at the large company FOXCONN (near Shenzhen), which produces original iPhones and famous game consoles. It turned out that the innovative sample, a new iPhone model, went missing after being shipped from the factory to the USA. The company conducted an investigation, as a result of which one person (25-year-old employee) committed suicide. This is the official version. Rumor has it that maybe he was beaten by security during some interrogation, maybe he was suspected of theft, industrial espionage... In a sense, Apple has its hands covered with this blood. Damn iShit. What surprises me the most are people who are willing to pay PLN 2,000 for crap made in China. Maybe the components are decent, but the cost of production? Is anyone thinking about this? We have an iPod (we won the lottery), it often hangs, not to mention the poor way of copying files. It amazes me how much people trust this brand, buy a Chinese MP4, the functions are the same and the price is 10x lower. Well, yes, but you can't mess around with no-name mp4. Must be the iShit logo.

More and more often I encounter situations in which Chinese families live in a sense broken. This applies to wealthier husbands and fathers. The Chinese try to have children immediately after marriage, it is a tradition. If there is no child, everyone immediately asks questions, jokes, interferes and rushes the young couple. So a child appears quickly, sometimes another one, usually one (one-child policy and financial penalties for subsequent ones, for example in Shenzhen about PLN 90,000). The problem is that men treat this child as if it belonged only to the mother and mother-in-law. It's the women who have to take care of him. During this time, the Chinese work in their companies, often in another city. Recently in a furniture factory - the owner told me that he has an apartment in Guangzhou (and his factory is 2 hours away from Guangzhou), he said that he visits his wife and child from time to time. Another person, even in the same city, has a company and a house, but due to business meetings and karaoke parties, he spends 3-4 nights a week at home. My friend's husband, who has an 8-month-old daughter, spends 60 days a year with them. He works outside the home practically all year round and is an electrical engineer. Maybe the problem with Chinese women is that they are very faithful and devoted to their husbands? They know perfectly well that they are in no danger, wives and concubines are used to waiting for their men even for years. Husbands, on the other hand, go out to dinner, to bars, to massage parlors - and there are many temptations to cheat. As you can see, it looks very chauvinistic and unfair to women! We're getting married, I'm having a baby for you - the baby is your problem, we don't have to sleep together too often, I have my job and other entertainment now. Of course, it is similar in Poland, but people still live together and try to be together. Here, the man always distances his wife.