<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><span style="font-size: 13px;">Fo</span><font size="2">rwarding the next four submissions to Saipan Tribune as I leave Canada for China.</font>
<div><font size="2"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Jaime<br>
</font>
<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; color: black;"><br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_ac1611d2-8d3b-44b6-83db-4cbc4cfca087">
<font color="black" size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Coming Home</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The
Zhang Yimou-Gongli tandem that combined talents as director and actress in
films like <i><span style="color:#151515;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Red Sorghum</span></i><span style="color:#151515;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> </span><span style="color: #151515">and <i>Raise the Red
Lantern</i><i>, </i>joined forces
again in a film entitled <i>Coming Home. </i>The movie is set during China's Cultural
Revolution an era in Chinese history that still invites polarity in the
political divide. <i></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">The story of <i>Coming Home </i>is
adapted from a novel, <i>The Criminal Lu
Yanshi. </i>Lu Yanshi was a professor
sent to a labor camp, escaped and tried to rendezvous with his wife. Their daughter was a budding dancer who
cannot play the leading ballerina role due to her father's "outlaw"
status, so she betrays the details of her parents' plan, leading to her
father's capture and she getting the dancing role.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">Released after the Cultural Revolution, the father finds the daughter
as a mere textile factory worker, and the wife developed amnesia as a
consequence of the sexual harassment she suffered from an officer's misuse and
abuse of power. Unhappily, the wife mistakes
and identifies her returned husband as the officer. The husband continues to write his wife to
forgive their daughter's betrayal and to expect her husband's coming home. The movie ends with the wife waiting outside
the train station while the husband faithfully stands by her side as the taxi
driver.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">I am not suggesting that my coming home to <i>Dong Bei </i>is tragic. However,
I must say that it is difficult to remove certain bitter aftertastes of my
US-Canada experience of the last 50-yrs.
A recollection of two is enough.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">My primal wife and I, while still courting in Chicago in '67,
were walking by Madison Ave. on her way to the train took her to a suburban
home when a wino grabbed me by the cuff, pulled me against a wall, and asked:
"what are you doing with a white girl, boy?" The law has change much; the sentiment has
not!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">Not too long ago, a colleague in Edmonton came to Calgary for a
job interview. The appointment was made on
her married Caucasian name, but when the interviewer saw her, he declared that
his secretary made a double appointment and he was sorry he could not see her. He abruptly left his office while she was
left holding her application form stunned by what she felt was a blatant racial
prejudice in the encounter. Asians staff
menial jobs while the white collars stay white!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">The prejudice against Confucian teachers was clear during the
Cultural Revolution, for like the <i>illuminati
</i>of Bavaria and the <i>illustrado </i>of España,
the learned Confucian master tended to be aloof and powerful in ze control of the
learned elite. They held the coveted
gates of Party leadership. Mao in the
Cultural Revolution wanted to return to the raw energy of workers and farmhands
rather than the disciplined rationality of the motivated petite bourgeoisie and
confident national capitalists among the four groups identified in China's
revolution. A decisive move placed CPC
intellectuals closer to the proletarian Peoples Liberation Army.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">I saw as a University teacher how this structural haughtiness of
teachers and school administrators in China was displayed in our school dining
room where the first three floors were for students, tiered according to the
price of servings with the first floor being the cheapest; and then the fourth
floor exclusively for teachers and administrators with the price of lunch
heavily subsidized by the school, and the floor equipped with an elevator
exclusively for their use.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">I come home to China without much illusion. I am no Sinophile but I affirm without being patronizing
the clear trends that I live with. Here
are some:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">1. As the percentage of
High School graduates attending College (ten years ago, it was at 25 percent;
in 2010, 62 percent) increases, the China market is saturated with degreed
personal that cannot find the desired white-collar jobs. Parents are dismayed that their child can
only get factory-line work, while children who spent a fortune for their
education stay as far away as possible so they can be in denial, maintain a
proper "face" for themselves and their family, while doing piddly
labor elsewhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">2. A majority in China cuddles western consumerism and the
domestic market is measured by expenditure on non-essential consumer products, on
youth cosmetics and well-publicized but overpriced pharmaceuticals for weight
loss.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">3. Many Chinese see the
grass as always greener on the other side, so they deeply and extensively borrow
funds for the chance to permanently live in another country, a major source of
heartaches for those who fall prey to unscrupulous recruiters on false
promises. (There were plenty of these in
the Saipan textile industry.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:">4. Ostentatious lifestyle
maintains social standing. Prodigious
spending is not </span>unheard
of in the Chinatowns around the world, and many Chinese leaving the country
strive to join their tribe.<span style="color:#151515"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">My
challenge remains to be human in <i>globalis.
</i> A new <i>Zhongguoren</i> (Chinese) can choose to be culturally centered, balanced
and ever harmonious in a new planet strained by humanity's folly to
self-destruct in the trappings of fame and fortune that overcomes ze sense of
selfhood. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">China in
a new earth is where I make home.</div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
</div>
</font>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</font>