Confidence Quotient
When people have jobs and are happy, it shows on their faces. An average Chines is busy, proud of his nation, and has no worrisome attributes like castes or religion. God is optional and mostly in hiding, in a country with an old civilisation. Revolutions and the long communist rule has virtually erased dominance of gods and godmen from being the guiding features in people’s lives. Taoism is the most followed by Buddhism, a close runner. Muslims are predominant in the North-west, bordering Central Asia, Christians limited to overseas settlers, and atheists the most.
Chinese, from the plains and the heights, from the Pacific rim and the western deserts differ in many aspects, from their language wholly or partly influenced by Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Shanghainese etc. Their culinary habits vary too, as do apparels and lifestyles. Their colour of skin ranges from pale yellow to brown and everything in between!
Discipline is infused from a young age. Scouts, cadetships and drafting in the army are compulsory, and the country has 2.3 million army personnel, the largest in the world, almost twice that of India.
A unipolar government, with no opposition party in China, has had its pitfalls too, rampant corruption in the administration. Trials are swift with no appeals and executions are often in public to discourage others. I was hearing that bribes and crime have been coming down with a changeover to online transactions. Travel, either by air or rail requires an ID proof in all stations, where frisking and baggage x-rays take place.
Terrorism threats are minimal as harsh punishment, often lengthy imprisonment or death acts as a formidable deterrence. Roads are safe to walk even for women, unlike in many of our cities.
I found the two very your policemen on duty, posted in a fairground to keep a check, as were there many colleagues assigned in many other vantage spots, all standing in rapt attention, only their eyes endlessly hovering around and proving that they are mannequins. The young cops will not fade from my memory for long, as they were not posing for a picture but were in the same pose for hours.
Train stations are orderly, as everyone is allowed entry into the platform only when the train is ready to receive them until they all can sit in the spacious and airy stations, which are even better than our airports. It will not be surprising to see workers waiting for the traffic light allowing them to cross on the zebra lines, doing so in a single orderly file. There is no jostling or pushing as we see in our country, or India bound flights from abroad.
Questions have been raised, as to the reason for this transformation, and I think minds have been harvested into a regimental mode as against our excessive democratic freedom, turning our people argumentative, questioning and pontificating every move by the government.
I would strongly advise that some form of cadetship be commenced for the youth to taste a bit of nationalism and patriotism. The sooner the better.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide voix
In pic: the young cops
