1. You've been extremely exposed to the Chinese Culture, South American/Brazilian Culture, and the American Culture. Can you compare and contrast the 3 cultures? ....define your experience throughout all three of them... remember your age and the era you were there will influence how you feel about each place...
Also, tell me good things and bad things about each culture. Try not to be too bias, but be honest.The first part of the history about me and then I had to reflecting back to tell you in and about my "perception" of China. It is not easy for me to tell you only from the time of my birth till today. Nevertheless, at least, for now, I have cleared some of the path, a long and agonizing path for the Chinese and China as a nation with all the humiliation and degradation forced upon them by the "powers" of the West. And now we can move on with the rest of the development.
Yes, I was born multi-culturally , even in the context of a nation called China, but its people, its many dialects - some 200 dialects and the vastness of the country had made China often hard to govern. But ever since the revolution of 1948 - my birth year. Yes, Mao Tse-Tung, the so called Communist Revolution he had created by way of Marxism and Leninism, where he had borrowed from then the ideology of the Soviet Union, with their revolution in 1917 to have overthrown the inept and decadent Romanovs of the Czarist Russia and ended the imperial era of Russia. Mao had rally the workers, the farmers in all remote regions of China for his revolution, at first, he tried to emulate the Soviets in the use of the city workers of Shanghai to have their uprising and failed. Mao had retreated to the country side and this is where he had gathered the support of the farm workers, opposing the landowners and to have followed Mao. Thus, Mao had learned from the Soviets of the revolution, but he had modified that by rallying his forces from the country side and eventually have the corrupted regime of KMT, or the nationalist party defeated. In that long struggle between the two Chinese parties, there was also the invasion of China by Japan. The two parties then had united for a period of time to fight the Japanese and later on, when Japan was defeated , the two party had gone back onto their struggle with one and the other -- and ultimately, Mao's party had since taken over with the majority of the Chinese, mostly poor peasants and their backing had defeated, the nationalist, or the KMT of Chiang, with overwhelming funds and arms and the support of the US and due to corruption and incompetence --the KMT had finally retreated into the island of Fomosa -"famous" in Portuguese and remains there till today.
My father had his reason not to be with either party. He had gone to school with all these men who were then divided by the Chinese civil war. We were considered land owners, with the rise of the communists, by the turn of the events, our family could have been implicated or would have been purged or harassed by the low rank and files of the revolution. Often, made with peasants who were more into revenge or personal persecution. Father had never mentioned much about the rights or wrongs of either party. I can only interpret his neutrality is also in his own way -- his respect for both parties and he had accepted the fate and the change of China -- be that Mao or Chiang.
Yes, economically, he had lost his company and other trade offices in Shanghai and in 1949, the entire family were moving out of Shanghai, and into Hong Kong. However, because Hong Kong basically is also part of Canton (now Guandong in the proper way in the pronunciation of mandarin, or Putonghua) and since my paternal grandmother had found it difficult to the language, she wanted to move back to Shanghai -- and I then had followed back with my grandmother as an infant. Why? Because, Peter, his Christian name, was born a year ahead of me and on that account, my mother was having difficult time to have enough milk for both of us. By my grandmother's suggestion, they have sent me back to Shanghai where there was this "wet nurse". (Imagine that, this lady had to give up her own milk to her kid, instead to have her child being fed with animal milk or other substitute just so I can be fed). And then that was my fate, where I have remained in China till 1952, or at age four. My mother demanded to have me come to Hong Kong and to join the family. It was already a high order with tremendous hazard to have me brought from Shanghai first to Guandong province and later, to have me smuggled into Macao - the Portuguese colony, and at that juncture, even the borders were porous, with documents that were not complete, to have a child to be brought from China into Macao was no easy ordeal. Mother managed to have me brought to Macao. And I remember vividly that I was at an age where I was taught to sing the Chinese Communist song "The East is turning red ..and the sun is rising". Basically a song was create to praise Mao. And a song like that is a clear sign of a "commie youngster" . My mother had already managed the tough task to have me smuggled accross the Chinese/Macao border. Now the next task is to have me going over with her to HK, from the Portuguese enclave to now the English --- a three hour boat trip where like all youngster I continued on to sing the "East is red.." Then mother had a great idea, just to prevent me doing the same with such song, a clear sign that I will be notified by the border agents that I was raised from mainland China. Mother had stuffed my mouth continuously with chocolate upon the crossing of the custom inspection. By me, as always, in retrospect, I thought that was one of the many brilliant maneuvers of my mother. My mother had not much of schooling, but in her household, I later had found that, there are trainings and teachings that are beyond school. By my maternal grandfather's status as a magistrate -- in those days,the Chinese followed that Confucian code, where the statement had said " A woman without education is most virtuous". On that note, many women then were kept away from schooling, however, in order for them to be wed, many of them had their mentors and tutors in house. In other words, not many of them were illiterate or uneducated. They were educated in such a way to stay subservient to their husband - at least, in gesture. Yes, the richness of the Chinese culture is beyond any few words and lines -- because , the collective way to say about China and Chinese today is very, very broad and very very rich.
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