From me all the best for the future! I really wish you a new (or no) government, human rights and a free media!

On the first of October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed that “the chinese People have stood up” and called out the new “People’s Republic of China”, another of the lot totalitarian communist states that spread out all over the world in these times. Now, 60 years later, the same party is still in power, even when the society they once tried to estasblish in the most populated nation never became true and China now is a hypercapitalised state, maybe by far worser than for example the western capitalist states. But of course, the anniversary 60 days later is a huge thing to celebrate and the whole country (maybe except the “few” minorities that are surpressed in this nation every day) prepares for a huge fest. Annika and me didn’t want to celebrate with them and decided to take a night train from Guilin to Kunming in the evening of the 30th September. The train arrived in Kunming around noon the next day and we directly headed forward to Dali by bus which took another 6-7 hours so we were just travelling at that awful day. But anyway, it was not possible to flee totally from the hysterical masses because the train and bus stations were crowded like hell (it was a national holiday of course) and the streets all were flagged with chinese flags, pennents and other patriotic bullshit. In Beijing the main military parade and a huge choreography (in what a lot of Beijing students had to take part and there semester holidays were just cancelled) was held and in the most other cities there were at least some other spectacles to glorify the great history of the last 60 years. In the main celebration which was repeated again and again on TV during the next days they gave great four minutes for the culture revolution and not a single second for “the big leap forward” afterwards a huge famine hit the country. Really a great self-reflexion.

Anyway, how to describe the chinese state of today? I guess it’s pretty modern, at least much more modern than I expected it to be (and that at least in the cities), but you still feel the pressure of a totalitarian state everywhere around you. The police present on the street is huge, on public places you find CCTV cameras everywhere and Mao is honoured all around in a totally ridiculous way. Some internet pages don’t open (maybe this blog after this critical words, either) and you see communist symbols etc. everywhere. The big contrast to that is that China seems to be not a communist state at all. It really seems to be a business state in worsest way you can imagine. It sometimes seems that it’s all about money here and without money you’re just a total loser. Not that it’s not the same in Germany or France but there you’ve got at least something like a social care system what is completely missing here and someway the people seem to be satisfied with the system they have and seem to like it. I see, at the moment the chinese maybe face so much “freedom” as they never had before and they feel like surfing on huge wave that is growing and growing but somehow someone has to notice that with this government this all is just nothing more than a big theatre. It’s obvious, for example, the government make you pay for EVERYTHING. You want to enter this park? Of course, you just have to pay 30Yuan! You want to take a picture? No deal, 5Yuan! You wanna climb this mountain? Have fun and give me 20Yuan before! Entering the old town? Just 80Yuan! Do some trekking through this gorge? It’s great, but pay the entrance fee of 50Yuan! I could list much more examples… That all doesn’t really fit together and makes China somehow a strange place.

That’s about the state and the political and social system in China, please don’t confuse it with the people’s attitude. The people really are very helpful, friendly and show a great hospitality and they are the ones who have to live under this strange government inside this strange state. They somehow have to deal with it and suffer most and I really hope that it won’t take another 60 years from now until everybody can say again “the chinese people have stood up!”