The biggest contrast between
life as I know it here in the
United States and my home country of
China is that
life is so much more un-equal in
China.
Walking down the streets of
Shanghai, I see spectacularly beautiful, rich buildings set next to construction sites where the poor work for less than a dollar a day. You can observe a lot just walking around, seeing everyone from both ends of the spectrum. Life ceases to be
precious when there’s ten other people waiting to replace your miserable existence, waiting to take what meager possessions you have, waiting to snatch away the money you earned with your blood sweat for your
hungry children, waiting to live in the five square feet of
living space you’re allowed. When you have no hope of ever achieving anything beyond existing, beyond merely
surviving, how
precious is life?
For the
villagers that persevere solely from
selling their blood, to the rural families that have
one pair of pants to wear between everyone in the entire family, what is the
concept of human rights to them? When the talks of
human rights, all the
protests against the horrid conditions and awful treatments of
human beings in
China begin anew, think about where the
money that is going to support bettering these peoples lives will come from? A
billion is a lot of people. Before you criticize the enforced
policy of
one child per family, think about how merely keeping all the new
children alive will be possible, never mind the
space that all the
extra people will need. Before we talk about
human rights, before it has any
meaning,
life has to be
precious.
There are simply
too many people and
not enough resources in the
world. Someone has to
suffer for us to live as
lavishly as we do. And yes –
lavishly – that’s the right word. So the next time the
Internet is down, Richard, and you’re
cursing up a storm, stop for a moment and think about all the people in this
world that would
love to be you, to live in your
home, to have
clothes to wear, to have your
education, to have this
chance for a good
life. Stop thinking about how
life sucks for you, because it sure as heck
sucks for a lot more people.