My personal story about Chinese culture

Things begin to get serious:

The next thing I knew, I was 30 and companies in America were beginning to take part in China's great reform and opening up. There was a new effort afoot to out-source or “farm-out” a lot of the traditionally American manufacturing jobs to China or Mexico. By the time the 1980s and 90s rolled in, nearly every company had worked out some cost saving arrangement to have their products assembled in China. You could not be competitive with other companies unless you made a deal with a Chinese manufacturer. It wasn't long before the rush to move off-shore with manufacturing created a vacuum in the American job market. What started as an advantageous plan turned into what many called a threat to the American dream. There was a lot of noise about boycotting Chinese goods - to only buy American-made goods.

By 2008, I'm in my 50s and I see the spectacular Beijing Summer Olympic Games on 08/08/08. It was as if someone turned on a light and I woke up to the China that I know today. I wanted to see a schedule of Olympic events and it wasn't easy to find good detail locally, so I looked around on the internet and found a lot of Chinese websites and people talking about the Beijing Olympics. Wow!

I shared a few comments by translating my English and I could also translate the responses and it added a new dimension to the Olympics for me. Before I knew it, I met more people and kept in contact long after the Olympic torch was turned down. I went on to talk with Chinese people about China, America, the political differences, and I began to understand about Chinese ideology, Confucianism, Marxism, Maoism. Then I also saw accounts of world news that showed a different perspective and allowed me to view the U.S. and media trends with an enlightened awareness.

With a new awareness and perspective on world affairs, I learned about protectionism (the cause for people boycotting China), and that the domestic media I was seeing everyday was not the only source anymore. In fact the way China took a more global look at all nations allowed me to see a much bigger world beyond my own borders. I could understand conflicts and both sides of the issues, where I only had one side of the story before. People Forum, became my main channel for people-to-people interaction. I was not aware of the forum's affiliation to China's Communist Party, but any notion that was ingrained into me about the Communist threat was shattered. I found the most interesting and happy people there, sharing ideas and comments with me. I began to feel and think from a Chinese perspective and understand the socialist mind that I oddly felt from a young age.