死亡和税收，就像这句谚语所说的（译者注：出自Benjamin Franklin 1789年给Jean-Baptiste Leroy的信：“But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and tax.”除了死亡和税收，世上再无可以确定之事）但现在我想再加上第三件事，那就是你永远也不可能成为中国人，不论你曾经多么努力地尝试过，也不论你到底有多想成为中国人，抑或是你认为自己就应该成为中国人。我曾试图去成为一名中国人，这并不是说我想穿真丝外套或是棉拖鞋，又或是穿毛主席样式的西装并戴那样的帽子，我不想把头发染成黑色也不会认为用手帕擤鼻涕是一件令人厌恶的事情。我希望中国可以成为我发展事业并可以生活于此的地方，过去的16年中，它也的确曾这样过，但现在，我要走了。
而且我不会再回来，我已从对中国的爱中脱身，从我的中国梦中醒来：“但中国是一个经济奇迹、以创纪录的方式在短时间内将无数人带离了贫困、每年都保持10%的经济增长、出口、进口、基础设施建设、投资、以救世主般的表现在2008年金融危机时拯救了全世界。”这些飞速发生的奇迹都仍在继续，但我们知道的，仅仅是这些事实的表面罢了。
你难道不认为，这个坐拥如此之高的经济发展增速和如此之多的社会资源以及相伴而生的物质财富的国家，这个如007般孤身一人就可以挽世界经济于即倒的国家，应该会是一个非常幸福，非常健康的国家吗？最起码也要比1986年作为学生的我，第一次来后就深深爱上的那个，刚刚从数十年的严格政府控制中挣脱出来的国家要好上很多吧。但我并不这样认为。
当我离开伦敦大学的亚非研究学院（SOAS）来到北京继续我第二年的中文学位课程时，中国还是共产主义。比起那时的西方世界，它仍是十分落后的。人们在大街上很少能够见到汽车，取而代之的是数以千计的自行车充斥了车道。一条长街上都鲜有街灯，数不清的毛驴车以一个理想的速度慢慢地在街上行驶着，似乎这样可以好让学生们爬上它后面的车板，免费载他们回到学校的宿舍去。我的一位“很负责任”的老师（介于宿管与假释员），曾是一位坚定的红卫兵，绰号“侯龙”。每日的生活必需品有：食物、饮用水、衣服和自行车，以及一些零钱买的花生。我们生活得像皇帝一样，已经没有再多的可以用钱的地方了。哦对了，还有一个商店，一家开在市中心的友谊商店，那里会有罐装咖啡销售。
我曾有过如学生般自在的生活，但它并不是由我记忆中最愉快的恶作剧和最惊险的冒险组成的，也并不来自于我现在的观点。那是过去的七年，我住在上海市向西100英里外的莫干山（译者注：位于浙江省北部德清县，被誉为“江南第一山”）山顶的七年。
如果让我用一个词来形容19世纪80年代中期的中国的话，那就是“乐观”。丰富多彩的自由市场经济刚刚登上历史舞台，伴随而来的建国35年来的第一次通货膨胀也开始发生。人们对此都感到非常激动，认为这是一个进步的信号，是一个明天会更好的承诺。强调乐观是共产主义社会责任感的重要组成部分，而这样的乐观最后的结果也只有两个：建立一个人人都是无私社会生产者的乌托邦，或是人人都看起来表面团结，事实上却根本不是那么一回事的虚伪社会。
1949年，毛主席在北京1天1安|门城楼顶上庄严宣布：“中国人民站起来了。”而直到八十年代，中国人民才真正开始学习如何走路和讲话。
1987年1月的一个晚上，我看到了成群的人们一边唱歌一边吟诵着什么，行军般地沿着被大雪覆盖的大学街道走到了天|安1门广场，这是第一次如此大规模的学生游行活动，也证明这一切都将明确地指向198@9年6月那场“非著名意外流血事件”。
有一个人应该为那段令人欢欣鼓舞的乐观日子负主要责任，那就是邓-小平，那位被人们誉为中国社会主义现代化建设的总设计师的人，因为很大程度上是他决定了中国的今天。是他让Tan-k在198-9年开进了北京，同时也毫无疑问地为党未来的灭亡留下了把柄。“意外事件”，中国人只能这么称呼它，就像出现在我的期末考试卷子里的那样。党为了将它从人们的记忆中彻底抹去，做了数量庞大且细致缜密的工作，以至于现在这件事已经很少被人所提起了。于是我和我的同学都很想知道，我们花费了自己生命中宝贵的四年去学习的一门语言，到头来是不是根本毫无意义。
邓小平并没有花费很长时间就将他的国家重新拉回了原来他为它所选择的道路上去，他说服了世界，让所有人都相信原谅他，原谅六四，并跟中国保持良好的关系是非常有利的，而不是像对待一个贱民一样来对待中国。他还提出了一个计划，保证类似的事情，至少在他看来，不会再次发生。世界慷慨相助，中国人民也拿走了他提供给他们的东西，这时的双方都得到了实在的经济上的好处。
当我在1996年回到中国开始我梦寐以求的事业与生活时，我闻到了一股与“乐观”相近的气息，只有一些细微的区别，那就是社会上开始多了一些明显的商业气息。我对此感到无比激动，但这种激动更像是我签下了一笔利润丰厚的生意时的那种热烈期待，而不是真正有大事要发生前的那种震颤。
这笔交易最终还是流产了，邓小平向所有从未要求过政治改革的中国人民承诺他们一定会拥有几千年来都不曾见过的物质财富，于是党说：“相信党，一切都会好起来的。”
二十年过去了，显然一切都还没有好起来。
我必须强调我之所以这样说和我在中国的事业轨迹没有任何关系。我最初到中国时是做金属贸易的生意，后来发行了一本商业方面的销量上百万美元的杂志，但这本杂志不幸在2004年时被政府查封了。我不得不带着我的中国妻子隐居到了莫干山，然后开了一间以咖啡店为主还配有三间客房的小店。这样的生活给予了我足够的闲言碎语和民间轶事去撰写每月半页的《希冀》，并一直持续了好几年。但我现在的生意也将要遭受到和我杂志相同的命运了，如果当地政府不同意和我们继续签订短期的租赁协议的话（虽然我们已经向上面请求过很多次了），而这也就是促成我决定离开中国的原因。
在我经营我的杂志时，一位国营杂志的竞争对手（也许称他为敌人更为准确）告诉我，从私人的角度来讲，他们研究了每一篇我发表过的文章并从中学到了很多，他们非常感激我对中国传媒业做出的贡献。但他们最后还是用尽所有方法毁掉了我的杂志，莫干山政府的领导曾短信我说，他们很感谢我帮助了这个小镇的复兴，让这个小镇成为了一个新的旅游景点。但与此同时，领导也清楚地告诉我，在他们“不欢迎外国人住在这里，而且只可以在假期住在这里”的潜规则下，我是唯一的一个例外。
但这篇文章并不是一篇私人的文章，所以我想告诉你们一些我对于中国现状的意见。这些意见来自于我曾经住过的三座最大的城市和一座小山村，我想这些经历将足以解释我为什么想要离开它。
在当今中国大陆的社会上，人们只关注于一件事，那就是钱和其中所有的可获得物。用正确的中国政治术语来讲的话，就是“经济效益”。城市和它的居民们，平均上都远比25年前更为富裕。传统的家庭文化，在长达60年的自私自利的社会主义文化和随后30年的“独生子女”政策的侵蚀下，最终成为了一种“巨大的自我”的文化。除了人们可以看到的经济利益出现时，人们才会行动一致。比如当对污染进行平均经济补偿时，当以政府为后台进行不合法的掠地行动时，当孩子们被毒奶粉侵害时。社会地位，这个在中国文化中占有重要的一席之地的东西，被这60年来的共产主义重新定义为了财富的可炫耀程度。车、房、珠宝、衣服、宠物，所有的这些东西都必须是最新款的并且最好可以亮瞎别人的双眼，而且所有的这些都一定要来自于世界著名品牌。即使在莫干山的小山村，也没有人会询问我的健康，我的家庭的健康。相反，他们只会问我的店可以赚多少钱，或者是我的车、我的宠物是花多少钱买的。
对于钱这个东西而言，它最大的问题就是当你不停地炫耀你所拥有的东西时，那些穷人们会感到非常的沮丧。因此，党一直希望去推动建立一个“和谐社会”，这场运动在城市和乡村的美化工作上花费了大量的预算，而这些钱更多的也是来自于“土地使用权”的售卖，而不是个人所得税。
一旦当你买了些必需的小玩意时，你就会想把其余的钱都投入到安全的地方去，最好可以有一个正当可观的回报。而之所以这些事情非常重要就是因为总有一天你需要自己负担你的医疗费、退休金以及子女们去海外上学的费用。但除了把钱投入到房地产中去或者放在你的床垫底下，它们再无去处。股市在被某些人操控，银行都在以一种非商业的模式运行，人民币仍然被严格限制而不能在外汇市场上交易（译者注：不可以在外汇市场交易的货币意味着不可以自由兑换其他国家的货币，通常这一措施被政府用来限制国民自主进行世界间的贸易）。当那些拥有特权的人通过各种各样合法却可疑的方式将他们的财富转移到国外时，剩下的人们却只能买更多的房子或者是更厚的床垫。凡此种种直接导致了历史上最大的房地产泡沫，我想当它爆炸时产生的声音，将会比1000起烟花事故同时发生时的声音都还要响。
简单来讲，中国房产的价格已经以火箭般的速度上升到了一个令人难以置信的高度。年轻的城市工作者们根本无法承担一间房子的价格，但更多的开发商们依然在城市各个角落开发新的楼盘。虽然大部分的这些房子都被用于投资的目的，而没有成为购买者的家。在中国，如果你有一间房子，那你很可能有三套以上的房子，我很多的朋友都是这样。但如果你一间房子都没有，你将被卡在这个问题上很久很久。
当这个泡沫破裂时，或是在未来很长的时间内慢慢缩小，党给予人民的财富也将会缩水，曾经给过的承诺也将成为一场空。未来依然有医疗费、退休金和学费。人们希望能够要回他们的钱或者是政治上的话语权，而如果这些都被拒绝了，人们将很难继续保持“和谐”。
与此同时，对于少数民族和工人阶级来说，政府采用暴力镇压的处理方式将比慷慨地赠与他们福利要简单得多。而如果他们的不满和股市崩盘、毒奶粉丑闻以及动车事故揭露出来的高层腐败这些事件一齐爆发出来时，这个所谓的和谐社会就会立刻变成一场充斥着不满的大合唱。
党对此会做什么呢？它会如何领导人们呢？
但不幸的是党已经忘记了这些事了，党已经害怕人民到了不愿意去领导他们的地步。
在中国的农村，乡镇一级的决定将需要一级级地向上层汇报，有时甚至需要汇报到北京去，而最终只会得到一个“你们自己决定吧”的回复。党只会在他们的权利受到了直接的威胁时才会做出反应。这个国家正在被一栋大门紧闭的大楼里的人们管辖着，这栋大楼没有地址甚至没有电话号码，这栋大楼里的人不允许他们委派去领导国家的人真正行使领导者的权力。现任的国家总理，被人们亲切地成为“温爷爷”的温家宝就是这件事的证人，所以他只是一个傀儡或是一个虚张声势的发言人。虽然他真诚地想要去做些实事，他对于改革的倡议书（发布于2010年CNN的一个采访，在中国内地被禁）是很好的，但他永远也不可能实现这些改革，而更可悲的是，他自己也很清楚这一点。
想要升到最高的职位，你必须做一个灰色的人，不能有任何强烈的观点和想法。想要竞争领导权的人们都以为，等他们爬到了最高点时，就可以展现出他们真正的颜色了，而当他们意识到这是不可能的事时往往已经晚了。作为一个出版人，我曾接触过一些听从那栋大楼里的一个分支的官员们，他们总是说隔墙不仅有耳，而且有一个怪兽，一个不可名状的怪物。这个怪物可以是“他们”或者是“我们领导”，也曾有过一两次他们把它叫做“中国出版总署”，但事实上根本不存在这样的事情，我已经很努力地去找过了，它只是个奇美拉（译者注：据《赞诗荷马》记载Chimera狮身狮首，背生一首如羊，蟒尾）。
在那栋大楼里的人们，通过专家学者的嘴告诉我们，他们将会掌管这个属于中国的世纪，虽然是这一切都是他们自己定义的。“中国将是下一个超级大国，尽管接受这个事实吧。”但你如何让我接受一个连脸都看不清楚的领导人，一个在遇到国际大事决策时也只会递出一张写有“你们自己决定吧”纸条的领导人呢？
人们常拿中国曾经领导过世界这个事实来论证没有什么是值得我们畏惧的。就像中国人常说的，他们只是想要回曾经属于他们的在这个世界上正当的位置。是的，中国曾经是一个领导世界的超级大国，但在要回他们曾经的位置这个问题上，还存在着两个根本的问题。
中国曾成为超级大国的一个重要的原因就是他的国土面积。直到今天也一样，而且这种地域上的广阔会永远的大下去。（中国喜欢“大”，大的东西就是好的。如果有中国人问你对于中国的看法，你只要说“它很大”，他们就会感到非常高兴。）如果你是国土面积最大的国家，那么你很可能会在世界上具有统治地位，但这一切都只发生在微芯片被发明之前。就像中国也曾坐在那里作为宗主国接受属国和诸侯们的进贡，例如西藏。但当涉及到领土问题，或中国自身的安全和利益受到威胁时，双方之间的气氛就会立刻紧张起来，最后的结果不是剑拔弩张就是和谈赔款。
第二个关于要回曾经的正当位置的问题就是如果说中国是超级大国，那么美国、开明的欧洲社会和现代化的非洲国家难道不应该也包括在内吗？这个世界有多不想生活在一个“美国世纪”，它就有多不想生活在一个“中国世纪”，因为二者实质上没有什么分别。不论是中国的政治、文化还是它现在的社会，都仍是向内包容的。它们并不欢迎外来的布道者，除了偶然的军事入侵的成功才可以打破这点。例如历史上的元朝（1271-1368）和清朝（1644-1911），但最终这些入侵者都把他们自己变得比中国人还要中国人。蒙古人变成了元朝人，满族人变成了清朝人，这两个种族的命运给予了所有的人一种终极的震慑，那就是“入侵中国，然后被中国人从内部同化”，这一切甚至比《Alien》这部电影中所描述的景象都还要可怕。对于中国人来讲，所有不是中国人的人，都是外星人，虽然这样讲有些贬损其他民族的意思，但事实上中国就是有这么强大的魔力去同化所有妄图消灭他们的敌人。更客气点讲，中国人是“房子里边的人”，其他人都是“房子外边的人”，如果中国人不想知道外面在发生着什么，他们就可以将他们的大门紧闭起来，不论外边的天气的如何、是否发生了一场争吵又是否正遭受着一场自然灾难。或许他们还会在门上贴张便条，上面写着：“当你知道怎么做了的时候再敲门。”
领导者需要有感同身受的能力，需要可以将自己放在下属的位置上去思考他们真正的想法。与此同时领导者也需要有强烈的欲望去果断地承担起一切责任，并且认为自己是独一无二的人选，但强调这一点对于中国人来说几乎是不可能，因为他们信奉的永远是中庸。在管理人民时，经常会遇到本质上就对立的利益分配，而在这些国内的事务的处理上中国政府都总是优柔寡断，更别提在国际事务方面了。由于刚好碰上薄熙来的丑闻被公之于众，中共权利的移交也暂时推迟。所以在中国设计好的系统中，在一切重大决定做出之前，都一定会先把各方面的免责工作做好。（我知道这听起来很疯狂，但它就是这样，这是真的。）
一个领导者在拥有霸权的同时还需要能给其他人更多的东西。当今世界的领袖提供给了人们成为美国人并享受民主的机会，通常很多人是自愿的，但也有一些人是被强迫接受的。大不列颠帝国为奴隶们征得了自由并建立了一套完善的法律系统。罗马人从埃及人手中夺走了粮食，却将这些粮食重新分配给了整个欧洲地区。
但即使中国领导了世界，中国也不会提供给人们机会去成为中国人，因为你根本不可能成为中国人。表面上看来党是彻底反对奴隶制的，但看看这些在这个所谓的“世界工厂”里做工的工人们，他们每天不都一直像奴隶般地在工作着为西方生产产品，然后赚取外汇来喂养中国经济的腾飞吗？这样的奴隶越多，中国经济就腾飞得越快，中国老百姓们的生活却只会越苦。（想起党一直以来的“打倒西方殖民侵略者”的口号，就觉得这一切都非常得讽刺。）而且党也永远不会知道，许多人甚至可以在他们的眼皮底下随意玩弄司法系统。（我曾在北京最高人民法院作为原告，私下里被告知我已经赢得了官司。但我的律师却在去法院领取正式判决的途中接到了一个电话，然后这个官司的结果就颠倒了。）而被送到中国来的原材料，也都是从非洲榨取过来的。
而这也就是为什么世界不希望在二十一世界被中国领导的最终原因。党从成立的开始，就带有一种强烈的排外情绪，而狂热的爱国主义正是它的基石之一。党的宣传部门将从鸦片战争开始到建国的那段历史称为“百年屈辱”，虽然西方势力的确凌辱了孱弱的清政府。第二次世界大战被称为“抗日战争”。一切在公开场合指出中国不足的行为，不论是将诺贝尔奖颁给中国的知识分子还是会见达拉喇嘛，都被认为是在当众揭中国的短，是“干涉中国内政”的行为，“伤害了中国人民的感情”。中国人民一直以来都被告知外国人所做的一切事情都是在侵害他们自身的利益，而党发誓将为人民们赢回所有应该属于他们的东西。
另一个可能的画面就是，总是以“受害者”的姿态出现的中国真的主宰了这个世界并将其带向了一个极其灰暗的未来，这一切都可以用中国已经主宰的世界经济的现状来阐述。中国在未来近几年内发生动荡的可能性一直在持续增加，也许房地产泡沫的破裂会成为这场剧变的导火索。而当这场剧变突然发生时，也一定所有意外事件一样，就像1911年孙中山领导的辛亥革命也是由一起炸弹爆炸事件引发的一样。许多评论家都说这场剧变将引发革命或是国家的崩溃，这一切推断都有着非常坚实的事实基础。党所做的所有试图在短期内修复问题的尝试都将会以造成房地产价格再次上涨的方式在长时间内造成更为糟糕的结果。近期国家又再次调低了银行的利率以刺激内需，但此举将不会起到什么显著的效果直到党重新整理好医疗保障体制。政府之所以没有钱投入到这些利国利民的基础环节中去，就是因为投资了太多的美国国债，而这些国债又无法出售，因为出售后就会大大降低美元的汇率，提高人民币的汇率，对中国出口造成巨大的不良影响。而一旦出口受挫，随之而来的就是工厂倒闭，失业人数急剧增加，威胁社会的稳定。
我希望这场剧变可以和平地到来，而且党也不会再用攻打台湾或菲律宾来转移公众的注意力。但不论这场剧变会以怎样的方式到来，它都将会终止这次中国创纪录的经济增长并很可能重创整个世界的经济。因为从今天看来，中国仍是唯一一个有希望带领整个世界走出经济衰退的国家。
惧怕暴力革命和民主剧变，而且这些暴力中的很大一部分将直接指向外国人。但这也并不是促成我决定离开中国的重要原因，虽然我不否认这的确是原因之一。
抛开我希望成为中国人这个群体中的一部分，而不是永远被当做一个外来人看待；希望可以在一个规范的环境下运营我的公司，而不用每天都活在担心这些属于我的东西会被别人夺走的恐惧下；希望不用过度担心我和我的家人每天呼吸的空气，吃的食物是否会对身体有害等等这些的人类的基本欲望不谈。还有一个高于一切的促使我离开中国的理由，那就是我希望我的孩子们可以享受良好的教育。
中国内地的基础教育甚至不能称之为教育，它只是个考试中心罢了，学生们上的所有课程都只是在教学生们如何去通过这门课程。而在我们曾生活了七年的中国农村，那里也只是一个选拔机构而已，考试成绩优异的人将可以获得去大城市过更好的生活的通行证。学校没有多方面社会化的教育环境，也不允许青少年们按照他们的天赋和兴趣去选择他们的道路，更不能教会他们如何拥有一个充满质疑精神的头脑。这样的教育体制只生产胜利者和失败者，胜利者进入大学学习商业，失败者只能回到农村或当地的工场工作，而这些地方正是他们的父母希望他们的子女拼了命也要逃离的地方。
体育活动和课外活动是几乎看不到的，练体育的孩子们都被专门选拔了出来然后送到专业的体育学校去训练如何赢得奥运会金牌。有音乐天赋的孩子则被全部送进了音乐学院，在那里榨干他们最后一点对于音乐的热爱和音乐可以带给他们的欢愉。（我的妻子就曾是后者之一。）
还有就是思想上的宣传和教育。在我女儿上学的第一天，学校就将他们送去观看了一部名为《中国人民在伟大的中国共·产|党的正确领导下在英勇的中国人民解放军的帮助下成功抗击北川地震》的电影。道德标准完全来自于党最近的历史中神话了的几位英雄，例如雷锋。一位无私的军人，在他短暂的人生中尽可能地做了最多的好事，并把这一切都完整而有规律地记在他的日记本上，而且所有的这一切又都在他死后才奇迹般地被人们所发现。
这些巨大的压力让孩子们一直处于一种病态的生活之中。从我个人的经验来讲，考试在95分一下就是失败，考得不好是应该受到惩罚的。大部分家庭作业都是由练习试卷组成的，每周孩子们至少要花一整天在这些作业上。很多孩子在去学校后也一直都在班里写作业，在某个周日早上6点，我曾亲眼见过成群结队的孩子奔向学校去做功课。在寒暑假的时候，孩子们还要去参加各种各样的课外补习班，除此之外他们还需要在新学期开始前每天抽出好几个小时去完成数量庞大的假期作业。很多我的本地朋友都和我一样痛恨这样的教育体制，但他们别无选择。我想在这点上我是十分幸运的，因为我可以不让我的孩子们接受这样的教育，我真是太幸运了。
还有另一个选择就是搬回中国的大城市，然后将孩子们送入到昂贵的国际学校里去，虽然没有一所国际学校是寄宿制的。但我还是要担心污染，担心如何才能找到一份合适的工作，也许最合适的工作就是做与中国的对外贸易，但这样的工作会让我良心上过不去。
我很同情那些不能进入国际学校（学校也会限制他们招收的中国本地学生的名额）中学习的中国孩子们，和那些父母负担不起昂贵的费用所以无法出国留学的孩子们，以及那些因为父母没有特权所以不能把他们送到党特殊对待的学校里面去的孩子。中国并没有，甚至不想为他们的年轻人们提供一条可以成为未来的领导者、发明家、创造者的道路，而这其实才是教育本来的目的。党不需要那些可以解决他们问题的自由思想者的出现，他们仍然固执地相信他们自己可以解决所有问题，如果他们能先承认他们的确有问题的话。但讽刺的是其实已经有一个问题已经是众所周知的了，那就是腐败问题，因为它真的已经明显到无论如何都掩盖不了的地步了。
其实党内也不乏一些开明的官员，他们很清楚为了避免未来可能到来的危机现在已经到了必须做出行动的时刻了。我也曾见过一些这样的官员，如果中国想要避免未来的那场剧变的话，就要靠这些明智的官员们从内部开始改变一些现状了。但在前面等待着他们的，是一道深不见底的鸿沟，他们只有很短的时间去改变这一切，却有着一条长长的路要走。
我也曾遇见过很多博学多才的明智的中国人，他们都有着很好的对于现代世界的认识。这些人有能力，也有很强的意愿希望可以帮助他们的祖国去面对并度过未来可能发生的涉及国本的这些问题。但他们很可能得不到他们所想要的这个机会，我为这些为民请愿的人们而感到担心，就像198=9年我和我的同学在SOAS考试时为我们当时的朋友们担心一样。
我曾在微博上读到过一些关于艾未未，陈【光·诚和刘·晓}波的消息，虽然微博的审查力度不亚于Twitter和Facebook，但它仍然是一个发表一个消息就能让这个消息如病毒般传播开来的网站。在我的妻子开始使用微博之前，她甚至完全不知道这几个人的存在，因为再严格的审查制度也不可能删完所有的这些信息。（当我的妻子开始读微博的当天，她就告诉我说她已经克服了所有和我一起离开中国远赴英伦的心理障碍。）我知道在中国的这片土地上，还有着数以万计的人们在关注着他们，在追随着他们的行为，希望可以完成他们的梦想。也一定还有更多的人，虽然他们知道自己一个人的力量很小，但依然数十年如一日地在用他们自己的方式慢慢地改变着中国，改变着这片生养他们的土地，希望有朝一日它可以成为一个更好的地方。我相信总有一天他们会实现他们所有的愿望的。到了那时，就是一个成为中国人的好时代了，我知道这一切都是可能的，未来是有希望的，因为未来永远在我们自己手上。
=====================几经波折，终于找到英文原文。我估计也没什么人要看英文吧。其实我也看不完英文原文，感觉好长=========================================
有需要的可以比较一下中文翻译和英文原版的文笔 （我自己是没看完英文版的啦，作者是不是五毛，是不是文青，就各位自己判断了）
Death and taxes. You know how the saying goes. I’d like to add a third certainty: you’ll never become Chinese, no matter how hard you try, or want to, or think you ought to. I wanted to be Chinese, once. I don’t mean I wanted to wear a silk jacket and cotton slippers, or a Mao suit and cap and dye my hair black and proclaim that blowing your nose in a handkerchief is disgusting. I wanted China to be the place where I made a career and lived my life. For the past 16 years it has been precisely that. But now I will be leaving.
I won’t be rushing back either. I have fallen out of love, woken from my China Dream. “But China is an economic miracle: record number of people lifted out of poverty in record time… year on year ten per cent growth… exports… imports… infrastructure… investment…saved the world during the 2008 financial crisis…” The superlatives roll on. We all know them, roughly.
Don’t you think, with all the growth and infrastructure, the material wealth, let alone saving the world like some kind of financial whizz James Bond, that China would be a happier and healthier country? At least better than the country emerging from decades of stultifying state control that I met and fell in love with in 1986 when I first came here as a student? I don’t think it is.
When I arrived in Beijing for the second year of my Chinese degree course, from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), China was communist. Compared to the west, it was backward. There were few cars on the streets, thousands of bicycles, scant streetlights, and countless donkey carts that moved at the ideal speed for students to clamber on board for a ride back to our dormitories. My “responsible teacher” (a cross between a housemistress and a parole officer) was a fearsome former Red Guard nicknamed Dragon Hou. The basic necessities of daily life: food, drink, clothes and a bicycle, cost peanuts. We lived like kings—or we would have if there had been anything regal to spend our money on. But there wasn’t. One shop, the downtown Friendship Store, sold coffee in tins.
We had the time of our lives, as students do, but it isn’t the pranks and adventures I remember most fondly, not from my current viewpoint, the top of a mountain called Moganshan, 100 miles west of Shanghai, where I have lived for the past seven years.
If I had to choose one word to describe China in the mid-1980s it would be optimistic. A free market of sorts was in its early stages. With it came the first inflation China had experienced in 35 years. People were actually excited by that. It was a sign of progress, and a promise of more to come. Underscoring the optimism was a sense of social obligation for which communism was at least in part responsible, generating either the fantasy that one really could be a selfless socialist, or unity in the face of the reality that there was no such thing.
In 1949 Mao had declared from the top of Tiananmen gate in Beijing: “The Chinese people have stood up.” In the mid-1980s, at long last, they were learning to walk and talk.
One night in January 1987 I watched them, chanting and singing as they marched along snow-covered streets from the university quarter towards Tiananmen Square. It was the first of many student demonstrations that would lead to the infamous “incident” in June 1989.
One man was largely responsible for the optimism of those heady days: Deng Xiaoping, rightly known as the architect of modern China. Deng made China what it is today. He also ordered the tanks into Beijing in 1989, of course, and there left a legacy that will haunt the Chinese Communist Party to its dying day. That “incident,” as the Chinese call it—when they have to, which is seldom since the Party has done such a thorough job of deleting it from public memory—coincided with my final exams. My classmates and I wondered if we had spent four years of our lives learning a language for nothing.
It did not take long for Deng to put his country back on the road he had chosen. He persuaded the world that it would be beneficial to forgive him for the Tiananmen “incident” and engage with China, rather than treating her like a pariah. He also came up with a plan to ensure nothing similar happened again, at least on his watch. The world obliged and the Chinese people took what he offered. Both have benefited financially.
When I returned to China in 1996, to begin the life and career I had long dreamed about, I found the familiar air of optimism, but there was a subtle difference: a distinct whiff of commerce in place of community. The excitement was more like the eager anticipation I felt once I had signed a deal (I began my China career as a metals trader), sure that I was going to bank a profit, rather than the thrill that something truly big was about to happen.
A deal had been struck. Deng had promised the Chinese people material wealth they hadn’t known for centuries on the condition that they never again asked for political change. The Party said: “Trust us and everything will be all right.”
Twenty years later, everything is not all right.
I must stress that this indictment has nothing to do with the trajectory of my own China career, which went from metal trading to building a multi-million dollar magazine publishing business that was seized by the government in 2004, followed by retreat to this mountain hideaway of Moganshan where my Chinese wife and I have built a small business centred on a coffee shop and three guesthouses, which in turn has given me enough anecdotes and gossip to fill half a page of Prospect every month for several years. That our current business could suffer the same fate as my magazines if the local government decides not to renew our short-term leases (for which we have to beg every three years) does, however, contribute to my decision not to remain in China.
During the course of my magazine business, my state-owned competitor (enemy is more accurate) told me in private that they studied every issue I produced so they could learn from me. They appreciated my contribution to Chinese media. They proceeded to do everything in their power to destroy me. In Moganshan our local government masters send messages of private thanks for my contribution to the resurrection of the village as a tourist destination, but also clearly state that I am an exception to their unwritten rule that foreigners (who originally built the village in the early 1900s) are not welcome back to live in it, and are only allowed to stay for weekends.
But this article is not personal. I want to give you my opinion of the state of China, based on my time living here, in the three biggest cities and one tiny rural community, and explain why I am leaving it.
* * *
Modern day mainland Chinese society is focused on one object: money and the acquisition thereof. The politically correct term in China is “economic benefit.” The country and its people, on average, are far wealthier than they were 25 years ago. Traditional family culture, thanks to 60 years of self-serving socialism followed by another 30 of the “one child policy,” has become a “me” culture. Except where there is economic benefit to be had, communities do not act together, and when they do it is only to ensure equal financial compensation for the pollution, or the government-sponsored illegal land grab, or the poisoned children. Social status, so important in Chinese culture and more so thanks to those 60 years of communism, is defined by the display of wealth. Cars, apartments, personal jewellery, clothing, pets: all must be new and shiny, and carry a famous foreign brand name. In the small rural village where we live I am not asked about my health or that of my family, I am asked how much money our small business is making, how much our car cost, our dog.
The trouble with money of course, and showing off how much you have, is that you upset the people who have very little. Hence the Party’s campaign to promote a “harmonious society,” its vast spending on urban and rural beautification projects, and reliance on the sale of “land rights” more than personal taxes.
Once you’ve purchased the necessary baubles, you’ll want to invest the rest somewhere safe, preferably with a decent return—all the more important because one day you will have to pay your own medical bills and pension, besides overseas school and college fees. But there is nowhere to put it except into property or under the mattress. The stock markets are rigged, the banks operate in a way that is non-commercial, and the yuan is still strictly non-convertible. While the privileged, powerful and well-connected transfer their wealth overseas via legally questionable channels, the remainder can only buy yet more apartments or thicker mattresses. The result is the biggest property bubble in history, which when it pops will sound like a thousand firework accidents.
In brief, Chinese property prices have rocketed; owning a home has become unaffordable for the young urban workers; and vast residential developments continue to be built across the country whose units are primarily sold as investments, not homes. If you own a property you are more than likely to own at least three. Many of our friends do. If you don’t own a property, you are stuck.
When the bubble pops, or in the remote chance that it deflates gradually, the wealth the Party gave the people will deflate too. The promise will have been broken. And there’ll still be the medical bills, pensions and school fees. The people will want their money back, or a say in their future, which amounts to a political voice. If they are denied, they will cease to be harmonious.
Meanwhile, what of the ethnic minorities and the factory workers, the people on whom it is more convenient for the government to dispense overwhelming force rather than largesse? If an outburst of ethnic or labour discontent coincides with the collapse of the property market, and you throw in a scandal like the melamine tainted milk of 2008, or a fatal train crash that shows up massive, high level corruption, as in Wenzhou in 2011, and suddenly the harmonious society is likely to become a chorus of discontent.
How will the Party deal with that? How will it lead?
Unfortunately it has forgotten. The government is so scared of the people it prefers not to lead them.
In rural China, village level decisions that require higher authorisation are passed up the chain of command, sometimes all the way to Beijing, and returned with the note attached: “You decide.” The Party only steps to the fore where its power or personal wealth is under direct threat. The country is ruled from behind closed doors, a building without an address or a telephone number. The people in that building do not allow the leaders they appoint to actually lead. Witness Grandpa Wen, the nickname for the current, soon to be outgoing, prime minister. He is either a puppet and a clever bluff, or a man who genuinely wants to do the right thing. His proposals for reform (aired in a 2010 interview on CNN, censored within China) are good, but he will never be able to enact them, and he knows it.
To rise to the top you must be grey, with no strong views or ideas. Leadership contenders might think, and here I hypothesise, that once they are in position they can show their “true colours.” Too late they realise that will never be possible. As a publisher I used to deal with officials who listened to the people in one of the wings of that building. They always spoke as if there was a monster in the next room, one that cannot be named. It was “them” or “our leaders.” Once or twice they called it the “China Publishing Group.” No such thing exists. I searched hard for it. It is a chimera.
In that building are the people who, according to pundits, will be in charge of what they call the Chinese Century. “China is the next superpower,” we’re told. “Accept it. Deal with it.” How do you deal with a faceless leader, who when called upon to adjudicate in an international dispute sends the message: “You decide”?
It is often argued that China led the world once before, so we have nothing to fear. As the Chinese like to say, they only want to “regain their rightful position.” While there is no dispute that China was once the major world superpower, there are two fundamental problems with the idea that it should therefore regain that “rightful position.”
A key reason China achieved primacy was its size. As it is today, China was, and always will be, big. (China loves “big.” “Big” is good. If a Chinese person ever asks you what you think of China, just say “It’s big,” and they will be delighted.) If you are the biggest, and physical size matters as it did in the days before microchips, you tend to dominate. Once in charge the Chinese sat back and accepted tribute from their suzerain and vassal states, such as Tibet. If trouble was brewing beyond its borders that might threaten the security or interests of China itself, the troublemakers were set against each other or paid off.
The second reason the rightful position idea is misguided is that the world in which China was the superpower did not include the Americas, an enlightened Europe or a modern Africa. The world does not want to live in a Chinese century, just as much of it doesn’t like living in an American one. China, politically, culturally and as a society, is inward looking. It does not welcome intruders—unless they happen to be militarily superior and invade from the north, as did two imperial dynasties, the Yuan (1271-1368) and the Qing (1644-1911), who became more Chinese than the Chinese themselves. Moreover, the fates of the Mongols, who became the Yuan, and Manchu, who became the Qing, provide the ultimate deterrent: “Invade us and be consumed from the inside,” rather like the movie Alien. All non-Chinese are, to the Chinese, aliens, in a mildly derogatory sense. The polite word is “Outsider.” The Chinese are on “The Inside.” Like anyone who does not like what is going on outside—the weather, a loud argument, a natural disaster—the Chinese can shut the door on it. Maybe they’ll stick up a note: “Knock when you’ve decided how to deal with it.”
Leadership requires empathy, an ability to put yourself in your subordinate’s shoes. It also requires decisiveness and a willingness to accept responsibility. Believing themselves to be unique, the Chinese find it almost impossible to empathise. Controlled by people with conflicting interests, China’s government struggles to be decisive in domestic issues, let alone foreign ones. Witness the postponement of the leadership handover thanks to the Bo Xilai scandal. And the system is designed to make avoidance of responsibility a prerequisite before any major decision is taken. (I know that sounds crazy. It is meant to. It is true.)
A leader must also offer something more than supremacy. The current “world leader” offers the world the chance to be American and democratic, usually if they want to be, sometimes by force. The British empire offered freedom from slavery and a legal system, amongst other things. The Romans took grain from Egypt and redistributed it across Europe.
A China that leads the world will not offer the chance to be Chinese, because it is impossible to become Chinese. Nor is the Chinese Communist Party entirely averse to condoning slavery. It has encouraged its own people to work like slaves to produce goods for western companies, to earn the foreign currency that has fed its economic boom. (How ironic that the Party manifesto promised to kick the slave-driving foreigners out of China.) And the Party wouldn’t know a legal system if you swung the scales of justice under its metaphorical nose. (I was once a plaintiff in the Beijing High Court. I was told, off the record, that I had won my case. While my lawyer was on his way to collect the decision the judge received a telephone call. The decision was reversed.) As for resources extracted from Africa, they go to China.
There is one final reason why the world does not want to be led by China in the 21st century. The Communist Party of China has, from its very inception, encouraged strong anti-foreign sentiment. Fevered nationalism is one of its cornerstones. The Party’s propaganda arm created the term “one hundred years of humiliation” to define the period from the Opium Wars to the Liberation, when foreign powers did indeed abuse and coerce a weak imperial Qing government. The second world war is called the War of Resistance Against Japan. To speak ill of China in public, to award a Nobel prize to a Chinese intellectual, or for a public figure to have tea with the Dalai Lama, is to “interfere in China’s internal affairs” and “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” The Chinese are told on a regular basis to feel aggrieved at what foreigners have done to them, and the Party vows to exact vengeance on their behalf.
The alternative scenario to a world dominated by an aggrieved China is hardly less bleak and illustrates how China already dominates the world and its economy. That is the increasing likelihood that there will be upheaval in China within the next few years, sparked by that property crash. When it happens it will be sudden, like all such events. Sun Yat Sen’s 1911 revolution began when someone set off a bomb by accident. Some commentators say it will lead to revolution, or a collapse of the state. There are good grounds. Everything the Party does to fix things in the short term only makes matters worse in the long term by setting off property prices again. Take the recent cut in interest rates, which was done to boost domestic consumption, which won’t boost itself until the Party sorts out the healthcare system, which it hasn’t the money for because it has been invested in American debt, which it can’t sell without hurting the dollar, which would raise the value of the yuan and harm exports, which will shut factories and put people out of work and threaten social stability.
I hope the upheaval, when it comes, is peaceful, that the Party does not try to distract people by launching an attack on Taiwan or the Philippines. Whatever form it takes, it will bring to an end China’s record-breaking run of economic growth that has supposedly driven the world’s economy and today is seen as our only hope of salvation from recession.
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Fear of violent revolution or domestic upheaval, with a significant proportion of that violence sure to be directed at foreigners, is not the main reason I am leaving China, though I shan’t deny it is one of them.
Apart from what I hope is a justifiable human desire to be part of a community and no longer be treated as an outsider, to run my own business in a regulated environment and not live in fear of it being taken away from me, and not to concern myself unduly that the air my family breathes and the food we eat is doing us physical harm, there is one overriding reason I must leave China. I want to give my children a decent education.
The domestic Chinese lower education system does not educate. It is a test centre. The curriculum is designed to teach children how to pass them. In rural China, where we have lived for seven years, it is also an elevation system. Success in exams offers a passport to a better life in the big city. Schools do not produce well-rounded, sociable, self-reliant young people with inquiring minds. They produce winners and losers. Winners go on to college or university to take “business studies.” Losers go back to the farm or the local factory their parents were hoping they could escape.
There is little if any sport or extracurricular activity. Sporty children are extracted and sent to special schools to learn how to win Olympic gold medals. Musically gifted children are rammed into the conservatories and have all enthusiasm and joy in their talent drilled out of them. (My wife was one of the latter.)
And then there is the propaganda. Our daughter’s very first day at school was spent watching a movie called, roughly, “How the Chinese people, under the firm and correct leadership of the Party and with the help of the heroic People’s Liberation Army, successfully defeated the Beichuan Earthquake.” Moral guidance is provided by mythical heroes from communist China’s recent past, such as Lei Feng, the selfless soldier who achieved more in his short lifetime than humanly possible, and managed to write it all down in a diary that was miraculously “discovered” on his death.
The pressure makes children sick. I speak from personal experience. To score under 95 per cent is considered failure. Bad performance is punished. Homework, which consists mostly of practice test papers, takes up at least one day of every weekend. Many children go to school to do it in the classroom. I have seen them trooping in at 6am on Sundays. In the holidays they attend special schools for extra tuition, and must do their own school’s homework for at least a couple of hours every day to complete it before term starts again. Many of my local friends abhor the system as much as I do, but they have no choice. I do. I am lucky.
An option is to move back to a major Chinese city and send our children to an expensive international school—none of which offer boarding—but I would be worried about pollution, and have to get a proper job, most likely something to do with foreign business to China, which my conscience would find hard.
I pity the youth of China that cannot attend the international schools in the cities (which have to set limits on how many Chinese children they accept) and whose parents cannot afford to send them to school overseas, or do not have access to the special schools for the Party privileged. China does not nurture and educate its youth in a way that will allow them to become the leaders, inventors and innovators of tomorrow, but that is the intention. The Party does not want free thinkers who can solve its problems. It still believes it can solve them itself, if it ever admits it has a problem in the first place. The only one it openly acknowledges, ironically, is its corruption. To deny that would be impossible.
The Party does include millions of enlightened officials who understand that something must be done to avert a crisis. I have met some of them. If China is to avoid upheaval then it is up to them to change the Party from within, but they face a long uphill struggle, and time is short.
I have also encountered hundreds of well-rounded, wise Chinese people with a modern world view, people who could, and would willingly, help their motherland face the issues that are growing into state-shaking problems. It is unlikely they will be given the chance. I fear for some of them who might ask for it, just as my classmates and I feared for our Chinese friends while we took our final exams at SOAS in 1989.
I read about Ai Weiwei, Chen Guangchen and Liu Xiaobo on Weibo, the closely monitored Chinese equivalent of Twitter and Facebook, where a post only has to be up for a few minutes to go viral. My wife had never heard of them until she started using the site. The censors will never completely master it. (The day my wife began reading Weibo was also the day she told me she had overcome her concerns about leaving China for the UK.) There are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of mainland Chinese who “follow” such people too, and there must be countless more like them in person, trying in their small way to make China a better place. One day they will prevail. That’ll be a good time to become Chinese. It might even be possible.
[ 此帖被milkcr在2012-09-04 12:49重新编辑 ]
