Kay Commentary 2013-01-19

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The following is a KSCO commentary.  Here is Kay Zwerling:

          I wrote this in March 2005, eight years ago, and it is in my book.

This is about forgiveness and irony. 

I learned long ago that to forgive feels good.  If you can forgive unconditionally, it is like God is patting you on the head saying “That’s good.” 

And, now about irony.  For years, China was called The Sleeping Giant.  In 1979, The Sleeping Giant was awakened when the U.S. went to China to complete arrangements to initiate economic relations.  

My husband and I happened to be visiting there at that exact time.  We were part of a group of Americans permitted to visit that Communist country, and it was memorable.   As a result of the U.S.  visit, we saw the Chinese people dancing and rejoicing in the streets of the city that was then called Peking, now known as Beijing. 

Led by English-speaking tour guides, we observed people only on bicycles.  They all wore the same black cotton uniforms and they withstood the winter cold by wearing layers and layers of cotton.  

Wherever we were taken, people gathered intrigued by our white skin and especially by our Polaroid cameras. 

The tour guides were curious about us, and asked many questions, like, why are there so many divorces in America, and how come people have so many children.   Chinese couples were allowed only one child, preferably a boy.  And, that was 1979.  

Let’s fast forward now to 2013 – 34 years later.   China is a booming economy with Big Mac burgers and all the other trappings of capitalism.    

Now comes the irony. 

From China, the U.S. imports enormous quantities of manufactured goods including millions of artificial Christmas trees.   These trees are made to look more authentic with real wood trunks made from unclean Chinese wood which houses Chinese brown fir beetles. 

And now, Chinese mercury is polluting our environment.   The very pollution that our country sought to eliminate by sending most of our manufacturing industry to China and other countries because we wanted to focus more on clean service industries and electronic industries, has made us globally dependent and is polluting our own land in ways we never dreamed of. 

In other words, in order to meet our manufacturing needs, China now has over 6000 factories or more using coal burning furnaces. 

With her newfound prosperity, China is learning ways to obtain electronic information from us to compete with us in the world markets.  Have we helped to create a clever, maybe unbeatable monster?   

For KSCO, this is Kay Zwerling.

© copyright 2013

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