i cried so hard when watching the ‘moves china 2005’ on cctv. ten chinese were honored as the ones who ‘move china’ in the past year. among them are people whose stories i heard for thousand times, and people i don’t know but now i know and i feel so proud of. being a chinese, being an ordinary chinese, i feel proud of you, as ordinary as me, but unique to people you are serving. i thank you, and know the whole nation will too, when the first train pulls into the station in lhasa this year, we will think of you carrying oxygen can to build this railway, you are the greatest group of people to build the greatest railway linking us to the roof of the world.
dear haxi, so many things i wish we could talk about, would like to understand more. 我就是想给下一个什么什么说这件事,但是… …a few hours after i arrived, the taxi driver asked t-san to ask me what i think about japan, what do chinese people think about japan? nine days later, f-san, spiky grey hair and smoky new york toughness about her, says it must not be so bad; she has a japanese friend that has been living in china for ten years. yes, many japanese people live in china. but most things we do not say to one another. fuku-san says that nothing in japan is political. but a few sentences later she questions the importance of all of this to china; maybe the japanese are even more sensitive to it. things contradict one another. what do they see? we contradict one another. i don’t know. everything in china is political. it’s amazing. your eyes are red, you are strong, and i can believe everything you say. tell me, what do you see? [dear haxi, i wrote this the day after you posted and two minutes later deleted it. maybe you already know. provoked, questioning, then mistaken, then scared. but it’s days later now, and still wondering (my small and ‘western’ mind?). so…]