Kids are an occean away from me. I get teary when I see their old and new photos posted by Wendy. I’m glad they’re growing happily. When I look at these pictures from the China side of the Pacific, I see that children in middle-America (not geographically speaking) are in paradise.
Chinese children living in my apartment complex are pretty spoiled. They look smart but do not have the same innocence as American children, at least children from Davis, CA :-). The eyes of many Chinese urban children seems to reveal the collective defilements of the society – parents work too much; social relations are excessively dependent upon economics; the political system is top-heavy leaving little room for private moments. Modern China is not the ancient China that hippies, scholars, and philosophers have idealized in North America. The age of sagely innocence is long gone. I do not meet wise men on the streets of Beijing, playing with children.
Now, before I meet someone new, I prepare myself to be “scanned” by that person who may want to figure out if I’m a person of “value” to his or her interests. Here I’m making a broad generalization. I don’t want to be mean to the country where I had my childhood, but the fact is – I miss California; it’s my home where our children were born and are growing happily.
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