Eric Arnow, China Writers’ Group member on historical nihilism and Taiwan
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Eric’s perceptive email to Jeff J. Brown,
Hi Jeff,
I read your article on Taiwanese getting screwed (separatists, that is).
A definitely ‘Tough Love’ lesson.
What I constantly observe here in Chiang Mai, is a lot of both Russian, former Russian and Soviet satellite (Belarus, Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian), as well as mainland and Taiwanese people. It’s like Casablanca here. On the outskirts of the Empire where dissidence is tolerated since they are outside the immediate zone of influence of China, Taiwan, Ukraine, Belarus, etc etc
Actually, most of the British, US, Canadian and Israelis are just as brainwashed.
“The British won WWII, while losing 18 million people”. Yup, someone actually insisted on that.
Most of such people are complete Historical Nihilist targets. BLPM and they believe it all.
Basically when I attempt to talk with such people (not to mention most Murkyians–shitferbrain Americans) they stare blankly or are in complete denial.
Two mainland Chinese I met at the temple here, run by a Taiwanese monk, told me how evil Mao is, ‘killed my family’, etc etc. And the current goverment is terrible, etc etc. These Mainland Chinese think KMT were the good guys!
This Taiwanese monk, who is of the Linji School, one of the two main schools of Zen, told me that there is no such book as ‘The Record of Linji’ even though there is a Chinese text online for it, and I had (now lost) a copy of it in English translation. What’s worse, his students accept his word as authoritative! He doesn’t even know about the book about the founder of his school of Zen!
See, much of Buddhism, especially Zen, was lost in China only preserved in Japan and maybe Korea. But most Chinese don’t even know that it was lost, or even that it exists.
So how are they supposed to believe what some Laowai like me tells them in mild form, what your article presents? One guy challenged me about the ‘conspiracy theory’ Covid being a US creation. I replied, “Of course it is!”….he just walked away.
There are two ways to learn, to be told and accept the truth. Or to experience first hand, which is usually a lot more painful. They’re choosing the latter, unfortunately.
Sorry for the rant…yours was a great, definitive statement of historical fact.
Eric
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