China versus the United States

Here is my (likely to be unpopular) opinion on this country’s liberal media’s inexplicable favorable comparison of China versus the United States: it makes no sense. Period.

I read the left-wing bastion of the US press, the New York Times, on a daily basis. I enjoy the intelligent, if incredibly biased, liberal opinion writers and their columns. In my reading recently, I’ve noticed a bizarre trend. The liberal media has taken to berating the supposed failings of the United States via their comparisons to Beijing and the Olympics.

My first area of annoyance is infrastructure. Again, and again, I’ve been hearing the comparison of Beijing’s airport to LaGuardia in New York. I will agree that the latter is a complete mess and a terrible, terrible place to be stuck for any amount of time; however, I think it’s expected that Beijing’s airport would look amazing for the Olympic Games. I mean, come on, of COURSE it did. It was hosting the Olympics. Salt Lake City’s airport looked amazing after the Winter Games. I know. I spent time there one month after the 2002 Olympics.

Furthermore and far more importantly, these same critics, have talked about the transportation in Beijing and the technological advances in the city, and then they complain that our top metropolitans can’t compete with Beijing. Now – I just want to point out that these exact same people would GO INTO RIOTING if the US government displaced anyone and everyone (like they did in Beijing leading up the games) that it felt made the cities look dirty. These people would be in fits of rage if the US government left vast areas unfunded to pump money in LA, NYC, and DC. There would be chaos in the streets. Can you imagine what people would do if the gap between OUR rich and poor was anything like the CHASM between the rural peasants (yes, actual peasants) and urban dwellers in China? The left is already up in arms about our own poor, but can you picture the uproar if the US still had PEASANTS? And yet, when China acts in these ways, we ooh-and-ahh about the pretty city, and complain that what we have is awful…

To add to this, look at the quality of Chinese goods. People's pets have been dying from bad pet food. Children's toys are being recalled because of lead. Why are we so impressed by an infrastructure that has not supported safe manufacturing practices? The poor quality doesn't even touch on the issue of child labor and fair labor practices. Did the media forget that just months ago it was crucifying the Chinese for its poorly made products?

My second area of annoyance is society. We smiled and sighed as we watched the opening ceremonies. We were amazed to see how thousands and thousands of people worked together on lavish dances and performances. We all loved the little girl in the red dress. Then we found out that she was swapped out because she was more “cute” than the actual singer (a 7-year old, I should mention) who was deemed not “cute enough.” And then we winced when we found out that the fireworks were fake. Yes fake.

Then, I thought to myself, why are we so enthralled with a society where people come together for the Games, but also EXECUTE top government leaders old-school style: on your knees with a gun to the back of the head. Yep, in the blinding light of the Olympic Games, we forgot that this society executed the head of its version of the FDA within the last year. Why are liberals who oppose the death penalty not mentioning this?

Beyond that, why are the liberals who scream about racism in the United States not pointing out that the “multi-cultural” performance at the opening ceremonies was 90% Han Chinese, and did not include an ethnically diverse group of performers? How is it that fake fireworks, dancing, and singing overrode our supposed belief in human rights? It seems that since the Games, we have all but silenced the debate on Tibet. How is it that the liberal media who has taken up the well-deserved cry for the oppressed people of Zimbawe (as has the US government itself) so enamored with a government who said that it’s not the purview of the UN to intervene? The same people in the US who loath Americans for their prejudices are more than willing to embrace the Chinese whose prejudices and human rights suppression is not being checked by their government and/or a free and open media.

To make matters worse, everyone is so impressed by the rise of Chinese athleticism, and I say, “Well, of course they were good! Their government pays to train athletes from birth!” If the American government went from community preschool-to-preschool and took away all the promising divers/gymnasts/runners, etc to train them, we would not only have more medals than China, but there would be more golds. And there would be a deafening outcry. Can you IMAGINE the horror, shock, and revulsion that we would immediately hurl at the US government if they ever tried to separate children from their parents for the good of the nation’s ATHLETIC program?! To me, the sheer concept of Chinese state run sports is horrifying, and I think it’s a shame and practically a crime that these children have no say in their own future. At least our athletes have chosen their sports (crazy-sports parents aside) and were not state selected to be there. Look at poor Guo JingJing. She wanted to quit and the Chinese SHAMED her into competing again. I don’t think I saw her smile once. Then there was Lauren Wilkerson. She was really too old and too broken down to be there but she LOVES her sport and chose to compete. Do we want to be a nation where ‘The Giver’ has been realized…?

In short, I see that the US has many flaws, but I do not want to live in a world controlled by the Chinese. I value human life, individual choice, and capitalism far more than shiny cities whose bright lights dim out poverty-stricken, rural wastelands.

When you realize you’re a caught in a loop

I realized the other day that I am a masochist. I thought to myself at my moment of realization, "well, at least, I’m only so in the emotional sense, not the physical," but then I realized that I might be worse off.

I was sitting alone when it dawned on me that if my ex, the damn artist, came back to me and said that he didn’t care about our problems, that he didn’t care about our issues, that he would always love me… I would jump right back into his skinny arms. Fuck me, I thought, I am a fucking masochist.

Why do I want the one thing that brought me as much pain as all other relationship pains combined? Why would I be with the ONE person who can and has hurt me more deeply and devastatingly than anyone else has come close to doing?

I left him! Why do I feel like he left me, and somewhere buried deep in my heart, I’m waiting for him to come back? Just this week, I sent him a text message to ask about an artist whose name I’d forgotten and when he called me back, my stomach was twisted into knots and was for the rest of the day. It kills me to think about him living with his steady-she-takes-care-of-me-and-loves-me girlfriend. I know he doesn’t like to think of me with other men, but where I would have thrown everything out to be together, he wouldn’t have.

And that’s why I left. And that’s why I feel like he left me. Because I knew that if I didn’t leave, one day he would have. And he wept in my arms about not being good enough for me, and yet, I didn’t want him to be good enough. I wanted to not be the second best option.

This isn’t love. This isn’t some movie romance where we end up together after it all. This is real life where we move on with our emotional bruises and scars, and I realize that I must be a masochist because those injuries draw me back time and again. There isn’t enough good in that relationship to pull me back so it has to be the agony.

Perhaps I should become an artist. Then I have an excuse for wanting to seek out my personal agony – to make great art. Yet, in the end, I simply wallow in the dark, alone.

Dreaming of men...

I don’t know what it is about my subconscious, but it seems to decide to conjure up the most bizarre scenarios involving men.

Last night, I had a dream that I was in a room, sitting on a couch, and opposite me was my college colleague/2-time fling, my ex-boyfriend artist, and another college colleague/one-time interest. I was uninterested in the artist who I’ve always considered to be the love of my life (who I’ve dreamed about many a time – and we’re always breaking up or moving apart when I do), but I was into my 2-time fling (who happens to have been pursuing sex with me this summer). I ended up kissing the fling in front of the third guy who is a mutual friend of ours who was understandably shocked and confused by the interaction.

It was all so real and bizarre. I’ve gone through a break up where my dreams were so realistic and heart-breaking that I would wake up irrevocably depressed. I’ve had vivid dreams about sex with friends who I’ve never looked at sexually. I’ve dreamed of being pregnant and going baby clothes shopping with someone that I was horrified to be pregnant by. And many other bizarre incarnations of men I know.

The thing is that these dreams are all the same variety – strikingly real, regarding men, and burning in my mind when I wake up. I don’t know what I dream about and don’t remember, but these visions of men dance through my brain in stark contrast to dreamlike sequences I’d prefer to experience in my sleep.

What strikes me about these dreams is the visceral experience that they leave with me. I am physically and emotionally drawn into their false world and I can’t shake the feelings when I stumble back to being awake. It’s beyond my ability to comprehend the implications of this particular facet of my brain, but I wish that I had some answer for the lingering feelings I have when I wake up…