陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

哈哈玻璃与哈哈镜
China's Sense of Reality and Self - Perversion

价值一语： Words of Value:

Only truth can set you free. --- Jesus Christ

只有真实才能使你自由。 --- 耶稣

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By Kai Chen 陈凯 （Written 5/20/2006, Reprint 9/28/2011)

I have read an aricle in today's LA Times that any statistics coming out of China is suspect, for the authorities can just change it to reflect the need of the country and the party. Reality in their sense is only a brush with ink, as long as you put them on a piece of paper, that is their reality.

I realize more than that. Due to the ill effect of the Chinese image-based written language, what a Chinese sees in the world and about himself is totally distorted and warped. His image of himself is like he is looking into a "funny mirror" 哈哈镜，and his sense of world reality is like he is looking through a "funny glass" 哈哈玻璃，

The "funny wirror" is made to make himself look good. If anything ugly about him appears, he can simply adjust the mirror so he will look normal in the mirror. Self-deception is the sole purpose. The "funny glass" has the ill effect that anything a Chinese sees in the world is far away from the reality of the occurance. They cannot help it in many aspects, and the most important is the language they use. The image-based Chinese language cannot reflect the essence and substance of real occurance, usually happens with an intangible, abstract fashion. The Chinese reality is only skin deep. Many cannot interpret accurately some simple concept such as "Culture", for in their brain, abstract thinking and concepts just are too remote for them to comprehend. So they have to use concrete images to define Culture, or Moral values such as age, gender, class, race, foreign or native, rich or poor... They have to interpret culture as something in their dinner plate, or in their habit such as bondage of feet for Chinese women...

This phenomenon further explains what I have pointed out: The image-based syllabic Chinese language fundamentally damages people's perception of reality, rendering them helpless in thinking with abstract terms. When all essence and substance are absent, only superficial shells are left. This is what I call "the phenomenon of Chinese soullessness". Everybody is like a walking dead: They have eyes, but they don't see. They have ears, but they don't hear. They appear to have all the senses and the organs to carry them out. But somehow there is a tremendous disconnection between their perception and the objective reality.

I hope you guys can, from now on, pay attention to this phenomenon. Maybe you can also observe what I have seen. In that sense, we are all benefitted in the way we perceive reality, for we at least are aware of the impediments in the tools we use.