Demystifying China
China, for me, has always been a country and culture clouded in mystery and beauty, and I suppose, dangerous. Jonathan Watts writings help to demystify this new emerging world leader.
A Red Country in Blue Eyes. He came to China in August 2003. Not long afterward, his mother came and he went to Beijing Capital International Airport to meet her. She came through after collecting her luggage, gave her son a hug and looked around nervously, whispering to her son: “Can we talk here?”
“That was what China was in the minds of people of my mother’s generation – a secretive communist-controlled empire, and that image survives even well after the millennium,” Watts said. “That’s why I believe you have to see a country for yourself.”
…
“When you have to give an image of China, maybe one is this strong, frightening, powerful China—old-fashioned, communist,” he said. “And that’s still definitely part of it. But there is also this very friendly, happy, fast-developing modern China. And one of the big challenges for a foreign journalist is to get the balance between the two.”
