She arrives in Beijing knowing little of Chinese politics, culture or language aside from the stereotypes. Because of this – and because she is not above self-deprecating humor – she puts a new and very human spin on the issue of China’s runaway development.
Her profession give her first chance to interact with brightest minds but what she find is zero feeling of anti-establishment,as she described this,”To be in a university with some of the brightest minds of a country and to detect virtually zero anti-establishment feeling is a deadening feeling.”
Aiyar searches and writes about the younger generation of Chinese youths who are happy with the material wealth which they have but their parents don’t have.They look happy but under the surface don’t have idea about other things around them.Even they don’t know that Dalia Lama had won Nobel Price for peace.
In one of several telling personal tales, Aiyar describes shopping with a young student when they see a beggar. While Aiyar looks for change, “Grace” angrily whacks the old woman in the face with her purse. She is not disturbed or ashamed that such poverty exists in her country, only that a foreigner had the misfortune to see it. In China, the poor are kept out of sight, largely by a system of residency permits that restricts emigration into the cities. In India, beggars are all over the place. One system is more honest; but the other looks a lot better.
She is frank when she says the Chinese look down on the “rat and monkey worshipping society” of India, while the Indians regard the rapid growth of their “atheist” and frightening pragmatic neighbors with no small sense of apprehension.
A great book about the smoke and mirrors of China’s shiny new metropolises.
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