It has been a while. I have been uploading photos, but not writing my blog. This is because I have much to say, but need time to consider how to say it. So I will break it down into bits that are more manageable.
On the day I arrived in Beijing, I headed off to the hotel from my train. I was sharing a room with this fellow called Eliot. (and I appologise now for all the times I have misspelled it.) Eliot turned out to be a terrific fellow. We spent a few hours talking as he has the problem that people such as myself who travel on their own for a while in a country where they do not speak the language have. There is no one with whom you can hold a conversation.
I will digress for a moment for a story of a previous trip. When I traveled in Taiwan, I spent about 10 days wandering in a clockwise direction around the island. I think I was in Tai-Jung or Tai-Dung, I cannot remember which. I had visited a local Buddhist temple and had quite an interesting, but short conversation with one of the worshipers. The worshiper wanted to know if I thought it was OK for there to be multiple religions. I was stunned, and of course said yes. After that I was welcome in their temple. Later I discovered the reason for their wariness. I was approached by an American and some Taiwanese who were very friendly. They introduced themselves and invited me along to have lunch with them. It turned out to be at McDonald's. I gladly accepted the offer as I was desperate to be able to have a conversation. They turned out to be Mormons. They were very helpful, but I could only think that they must be the cause of the Buddhist's concern. Is it not sad that religions refuse to be able to get along.
Back to Eliot, He was a very patriotic American. He felt that America was misunderstood and that it was his role in life to help fix misconceptions that people like George Bush were creating about his country. He lived close to New York and then the events of 911 were quite close to his heart, and rightly so.
I have always had a problem with the statements that the Americans make, like, never happened before and everything has changed, and so on. To me it is just more of the same stupidity, people, often but not always, religious ones who want to change the world by killing everyone or making them follow their religion. You see, when I was little I lived in Singapore. We had many relatives who lived (and still do) in Malaysia. In Malaysia there were race riots. People would walk into places like cinemas and chop people up with machetes. People (in Singapore) would say that you should not go to Malaysia as it was a dangerous place, in the same was as we are advised these days not to visit dangerous places by our government.
I would suggest that some of these people committing violent acts, were from similar if not the same groups who preach violence that resulted in 911. However, I have not researched this, hence I cannot say this for certain. For all of my life I have been afraid of such actions. Up until recently I could not talk about such things without crying. I was very put out when the Americans (and Australians for that matter) reacted in such a was as to say that this was new. They have lived fortunately violence free lives, and this is something I would wish on all people (that is: to live a violence free life). But these things are not new and some of us have suffered with such violent behavior for a long time. And what I have been through is only mild and insignificant compared to what others suffered. What I think is that this is a new phase of violence. The techniques for the violence have certainly changed, and the targets are new, but the underlying causes are the same.
I am certain that my words are not as well crafted as they could be. I have never been good at the English language. I will probably come back and edit it to improve the wording and structure. I hope there are no glaring errors that will lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation, but I needed to write it down.
Anyway, I think most of my holiday had a lighter note to it, and was not concerned to such an extent to man's inhumanity.
On the day I arrived in Beijing, I headed off to the hotel from my train. I was sharing a room with this fellow called Eliot. (and I appologise now for all the times I have misspelled it.) Eliot turned out to be a terrific fellow. We spent a few hours talking as he has the problem that people such as myself who travel on their own for a while in a country where they do not speak the language have. There is no one with whom you can hold a conversation.
I will digress for a moment for a story of a previous trip. When I traveled in Taiwan, I spent about 10 days wandering in a clockwise direction around the island. I think I was in Tai-Jung or Tai-Dung, I cannot remember which. I had visited a local Buddhist temple and had quite an interesting, but short conversation with one of the worshipers. The worshiper wanted to know if I thought it was OK for there to be multiple religions. I was stunned, and of course said yes. After that I was welcome in their temple. Later I discovered the reason for their wariness. I was approached by an American and some Taiwanese who were very friendly. They introduced themselves and invited me along to have lunch with them. It turned out to be at McDonald's. I gladly accepted the offer as I was desperate to be able to have a conversation. They turned out to be Mormons. They were very helpful, but I could only think that they must be the cause of the Buddhist's concern. Is it not sad that religions refuse to be able to get along.
Back to Eliot, He was a very patriotic American. He felt that America was misunderstood and that it was his role in life to help fix misconceptions that people like George Bush were creating about his country. He lived close to New York and then the events of 911 were quite close to his heart, and rightly so.
I have always had a problem with the statements that the Americans make, like, never happened before and everything has changed, and so on. To me it is just more of the same stupidity, people, often but not always, religious ones who want to change the world by killing everyone or making them follow their religion. You see, when I was little I lived in Singapore. We had many relatives who lived (and still do) in Malaysia. In Malaysia there were race riots. People would walk into places like cinemas and chop people up with machetes. People (in Singapore) would say that you should not go to Malaysia as it was a dangerous place, in the same was as we are advised these days not to visit dangerous places by our government.
I would suggest that some of these people committing violent acts, were from similar if not the same groups who preach violence that resulted in 911. However, I have not researched this, hence I cannot say this for certain. For all of my life I have been afraid of such actions. Up until recently I could not talk about such things without crying. I was very put out when the Americans (and Australians for that matter) reacted in such a was as to say that this was new. They have lived fortunately violence free lives, and this is something I would wish on all people (that is: to live a violence free life). But these things are not new and some of us have suffered with such violent behavior for a long time. And what I have been through is only mild and insignificant compared to what others suffered. What I think is that this is a new phase of violence. The techniques for the violence have certainly changed, and the targets are new, but the underlying causes are the same.
I am certain that my words are not as well crafted as they could be. I have never been good at the English language. I will probably come back and edit it to improve the wording and structure. I hope there are no glaring errors that will lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation, but I needed to write it down.
Anyway, I think most of my holiday had a lighter note to it, and was not concerned to such an extent to man's inhumanity.
