"Mei-Hua" View, April 2008, Issue # 2

Freedom of Speech

by Nicole Oberjuerge

Freedom of speech is enshrined in American belief and is a cornerstone of American democracy, protected in the First Amendment of our nation’s Constitution. But while it is “enshrined,” the government and other organizations often do not live up to America’s number one principle, instead utilizing phrases like stability or national security to suppress information that they do not want divulged.

The recent controversies dealing with torture, secret state prisons, domestic wiretapping, and a host of other issues have re-awakened the debate over how far freedom of speech and the press extends. However, if the recent controversies have shown American citizens anything, it is how important free speech is—if a government is to be transparent, and uphold the most sacred and fundamental human rights, free speech is of the utmost importance.

The dissemination of knowledge acts as a check on abusive governments and provides necessary accountability for its citizens and for government officials. The government cannot hide its abuses and citizens are given the responsibility of acting as government watchdogs. Without free speech there is no check on the government, and as Potter Stewart stated, “censorship…is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”

Living with many students who come from an environment where information is tightly controlled and censorship is just another thing the government does, has driven home to me how much I value, and often overlook, my ability to say and write what I think and what I feel, and to read work from authors who have relevant criticism that they want to share.

My roommates have commented on my often negative remarks toward the Bush Administration, emphasizing the fact that statements of that nature cannot be publicly directed toward the Chinese leadership. Can you imagine living in an America where it wasn’t legal to publicly criticize the Bush Administration or its policies? I certainly cannot.

To live with people who can is often discombobulating. I have enjoyed spending time with some of China’s brightest students. I have learned many things from them. However, they are so intelligent, hardworking and nice that it is easy to forget that they come from such a tightly controlled, regulated, and censored environment—until suddenly we are in a discussion and they say something fantastic and incongruous.

For instance, yesterday my roommate told me that western media is doctoring all the information and images that have come out of Tibet during the recent Tibetan protests and violence. Where was her source from? Chinese people espousing ideas that align with the Chinese Government and the Chinese Government’s news source. How many western sources were apparently lying and falsifying information?—The U.K.'s BBC, several German newspapers, CNN, and Yahoo! news.

I pointed out the obvious to her but didn't really elaborate on the fact that it is impossible that there is some giant conspiracy by the Western media working together from many different countries to attack China, because in the West the media is free and independent of the state. Additionally, the number of reputable news sources that supposedly doctored images was quite unbalanced when compared with the lone Chinese government source. Western journalists are not required to toe a party line. However, the Chinese government does control the media and does have a specific agenda it is pursuing.

My point is not that Tibet belongs or does not belong to China, it is not to suggest that Western media does not have a bias or is not capable of making mistakes, and it is not to point fingers at one country or another—my point is that strict government censorship has presented the Chinese students with a skewed ability to analyze sources.

When foreign news sources are banned or severely limited at the discretion of the government, including public sources like Wikipedia, it prevents people living in China from making knowledgeable decisions. My roommates are exceptionally smart. I think it is the greatest insult to their intelligence and their capabilities to limit their ability to make informed opinions.

As Claude-Adrien Helvetius said, “To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves”—and my roommates are anything but fools. Why does their government insist on treating them as such?

Nicole Oberjuerge is a senior student majoring in Law at California State University Long Beach.

Chinese College Students’ Perspectives on Jobs and Marriage

by Xiao Zhang

“This Boeing program is the best chance for you guys to find your spouses here – don’t wait until you start working,” noted Samuel Mok, Managing Director of Condor International during his address to the group of the U.S.-China Bilateral Trade Internship Program, and everyone started to laugh. I had never thought of this before. Like most of us, I came to Washington, DC, to gain a competitive edge in job hunting through networking, professional skill building and self-discovery.

Ten years ago, a degree from an American university ensured a decent job in China. China’s growing economy required thousands of talented professionals with foreign experience, and the economic exchange between the U.S. and China rose with stunning speed. However, the fact is that an increasing number of Chinese graduates with American Ph.D. and MBA degrees find it much harder to find jobs on the Chinese market today.

It seems the proven successful career path – finish college, work for several years, get an MBA degree from the U.S., come back to China and become a top manager – is no longer valid. As James McGregor wrote in his bestselling book, “One Billion Customers,” it is true to some extent that Chinese only care about making money today. “This is the best of times. This is the worst of times.” In this unprecedented economic boom when there is gold everywhere in China, if you do not become rich, you are a loser, says common wisdom.

It is not surprising to find so many Chinese college graduates, regardless of their majors -- be it finance, economics, or electronic engineering, nuclear physics or even aeronautics -- trying every means to work in investment banks such as Golden Sachs and Merrill Lynch and international consulting firms such as McKinsey and BCG, which pay much higher salaries than average in China market.

This is a time when Chinese college students are seeking quick success and instant benefits, with the influence of materialism and pragmatism. Any “unpractical” knowledge such as literature, history and sociology is being quickly discarded. Instead, “smart” students are busy passing CPA and CFA tests, reading stock analysis and investment suggestions, and constantly seeking better internships and higher positions.

At the same time, there is another trend among young Chinese college graduates to choose a steady job with satisfactory welfare and without much pressure and workload, that is, to become a civil servant by passing the civil servant examination. It is common that tens of thousands of students compete for one position in Shanghai Customs. However, this is based on misperception.

The fact is, with China’s political and social reform, civil servants with party membership no longer have an “iron bowl” with exceptionally good welfares. They may be laid off according to related law and their welfares have been reduced due to social complaints about the income gap. It is a pity that many people still have illusions of this kind.

China has long been a society that values education and prioritizes it. Many parents hope that their children go to universities, get a bachelor degree, then a master degree, then a PhD degree and be done with their education. This is much different than Americans, who choose to pursue a master or an MBA degree because they realize the necessity of further learning in a specific field after several years’ working experience. Rather, many Chinese go to graduate schools to avoid job hunting pressure, both because they have no clear career goals and they are afraid to face social cruelties as an adult.

Less lucky than their American counterparts whose average entry-level salary is mostly enough for making a living in their motherland, the average entry-level salary of Chinese college graduates is far from enough for them to survive in cities. Due to continuous imbalance between countryside and the metropolitan cities, especially Shanghai and Beijing, most college graduates are unwilling to go back to their hometown or secondary cities in central China, let alone western China.

This not only causes serious “talent drain” for many inland cities but also deteriorates living conditions in these overcrowded cities. As an alternative, many college students and young professionals choose to go abroad, mostly to the United States due to its openness and favorable migration policies, to start a new life.

With fierce competition, increased mobility and overwhelming pragmatism, Chinese college students’ perspectives on love relationships and marriage have also changed to a considerable extent. The “Butterfly lovers” of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, exist only in ancient legend. On the one hand, feminism has liberalized and empowered Chinese women to compete with men by arming them with the idea that females are the fittest to survive in this increasingly complicated society with female qualities.

Though this can be seen as a part of modernization compared with the earlier feudal society where women were all confined to housewives’ roles, the guiding principle of selecting husbands for most Chinese women remains the same as two hundred years ago: husbands should be more capable, earn more money and hold higher social status than their wives. Otherwise it is a mismatch.

This explains that why more and more successful and powerful Chinese women choose to stay single, just as their American counterparts depicted in “Sex and the City.” Even those successful married women seem to be cursed because “you cannot have your cake and eat it too,” as is the theme revealed in another TV drama, “Cashmere Mafia.” Many female college students in China choose to focus on developing their career and earning money, which makes them more secure, while avoiding being distracted by love relationships.

On the other hand, as the current popular saying goes: it’s better to marry well than to study and work well. Many female college students who are unwilling to face competition and overwhelming stress choose to lay all their hopes on marrying a wealthy man. More and more female college students even start searching for their husbands online, go to marriage agencies and attend blind dates before graduation. Due to the work pressure, even those working females tend to give up their jobs as long as they are married.

From my perspective, this phenomenon has resulted from China’s rapid economic and social transition, and clearly demonstrates a clash between traditional and modern life values for this generation of Chinese women in their 20s and 30s, many of which are college students.

Xiao Zhang is a senior student majoring in English at Tsinghua University, Beijing.