**********************************************

拧脖向后vs.昂首向前-祖宗vs.后代-昨天vs.明天
China vs. America




每日一语：

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday, and I love today. --- Unknown

我不惧怕明天，因我曾经历过昨天，我因而热爱今天。 --- 无名者

The Chinese have a pathological yearning for yesterday, for they are afraid of tomorrow, and they live in desperation and cowardice today.

I never understand why the Chinese value their dead ancestors more than their own living children, why they create a culture that suppresses their own people with their own imaginary past, why they have never believed that tomorrow can be better than yesterday. They have never realized that by their own beliefs, they have created their own reality -- a self-fulfilled prophecy (a vicious cycle) of hopelessness and helplessness. --- Kai Chen

中国人对昨天的病态向往来自他们对明天的无名恐惧，他们也因而生活在今天的绝望与怯懦之中。

我从来就不懂得为什么中国人从来就把他们死去的祖先看得比他们活着的后代更重要，为什么他们会创造一个用想象中的过去的辉煌压迫今天的活人的无耻文化，为什么他们从不相信明天会比昨天今天更好。 他们从不意识到他们正在用他们自己的迷恋与恐惧制造他们的现实 -- 一个恶性循环的，自己验证的绝望，无奈，残忍与痛苦的现实。 --- 陈凯

**********************************************

Dear Visitors:

Most of the time, if not all the time, the Chinese will profess their own guilt -- a guilt they claim to have toward their own dead ancestors for not following their teachings and traditions. They often profusely apologize, not to their own offended fellow human beings, not to their own helpless children, but to their own ancestors -- dead ancestors generations ago. Their own obsession to their own primitive language shows how they'd rather be enslaved by their own past than be free to walk toward future.

I often said that America is not just a geographical location with borders, not just a government or a collection of peoples. America is an ideal that everyone should be free from others' intrusion and oppression. America is a belief that good will triumph over evil, justice will triumph over injustice, truth will triumph over falsehood, human dignity will triumph over human degradation. America is a faith that in it we believe tomorrow will always be better than today. Therefore each and everyone of us will never shed our own individual responsibilities to fulfill our own lives and our own destinies. By our own free will and our own effort today, we will make sure tomorrow will be better for our own kids. And our own kids, by doing the same will ensure that their own kids will have a better life as well. The world thus progresses toward a hopeful future and each and everyone of us thus lives in joy, creativity, audacious explorations, love and happiness.

By such an ideal and such a belief, America indeed creates its own reality -- a reality that great human beings endlessly emerge to challenge the infinite unknown, a reality that great values constantly are being created by human imagination, risk-taking undertakings and courageous struggles against hopelessness to achieve freedom.

China is the antithesis of what America is all about. And America is the antithesis of what China is all about. There is no comparison between the two. There is only a sharp contrast. Only when you understand such a reality, you can possibly embark on your own journey toward your own destiny -- a hopeful destiny of human freedom.

Best. Kai Chen