Zeng

I cited the “official” number is because I don’t know the “true” number. Do you want me just say “The military budget increase is 17.8% this year”?

Sir, you forgot that you are living in a communist country and communist is infamous for exaggerated propaganda. Your comments sound pretty much like theirs. I was born in China and lived in China for most of my life but I didn’t know all the "official truths" you mentioned here.

Let me make some comments below:

Surely, CCP exaggerated the role of China especially the role of CCP in defeating Japan. But this is the first time that I ever heard the statement “the Japanese had already surrendered to Mao”. I heard the exaggeration like “Mao led Chinese people to defeat Japan”. About A-bomb, the common explanation in China is that it was dropped on Japan and was shown to USSR.

Some European media said that Apollo mission was a hoax and Chinese media cited their article. But you didn’t know that the scientists in Beijing Planetarium rebutted the article.

I heard the first part of the sentence that “China beat the United States in Korea”. But this is the first time I ever heard the second part of the sentence that “after the United States invaded China”. In the very beginning of the war, USA pilots did mistakenly bomb the border areas in USSR and China. USA apologized to USSR but didn’t acknowledge the bombing on China.

Sir, in just short three sentences, you gave me two first time surprises. Your exaggeration is pretty much comparable to that of the communist "official truths".

If what you said are all true, These are the "official truths" in China, then you should be able to provide the evidence for us. We are waiting for you to provide evidence. You show us evidence, I will stand corrected. If you can not show us the evidence, I hope that you can come out to correct yourself.

After you finished the teaching in China and go back to USA or other country, please be a little bit more moderate on your exaggeration.

I would like to elaborate the third points a little bit. From China’s view, although China didn’t defeat USA but China gained something. In fact, China feels luck now that China didn’t defeat USA. Otherwise, we may have another Vietnam on our northeast border. Today, many Chinese consider that the Korean war is the one that CCP fought with the largest cost and got the biggest gain.

The Korean War set a buffer zone for China for the northeast industrial region. China used Korean War results got large scale industrial aids from USSR and built the heavy industrial foundation. Korean War also prevented CCP’s invading Taiwan at that time. It avoided a war on China’s land. Taiwan later played important role in China’s reform and rapid development. Mao’s son died in Korean War, which may have changed China to a better direction.

Recently, CCP has become less dictatorship than before, all Chinese recent history has been rewritten. This forum has mentioned that a Chinese historian wrote an article to say that Tibet didn’t always belong to China. Indians on this forum took that as a big news. But these kinds of articles and books have become normal in China even several years ago.

There were also many books and articles published recently about all the wars China fought. For example, there is a book focusing on the mistakes and defeated battles of CVA in Korea. Several new anti-Japanese war books focused on the battles fought by KMT. Those kinds of books could not be published 10 years ago. But today, they have become normal. If you can read Chinese, you should read some of them.

ExNavyAmerican Sir, I sincerely thank you for your teaching Chinese kids in China. You may not like the job and those Chinese kids very much, but I am sure that they learned a lot from you.

I feel almost impossible to believe that Chinese kids wouldn’t respect a normal teacher no matter he/she is a Chinese or American. From your comments, I can see that you have short temper. I have short temper too.

It is OK to argue the things you argued on this web forum; but I hope that you wouldn’t argue them with your Chinese students although some of your arguments may be correct. You can imagine the result of arguing these things with your students. It will not be pretty. Your arguing with British people are not pretty, your arguing with French people are not pretty too.

Every country has some nationalism and problem. Every person including you and me has some pride and shortcoming. Try to ignore the childish arguments of Chinese kids, try to be equal and try to respect them especially when you meet them face by face. Then, you will get respect back.

When I was in USA, I never talked with Americans about politics or Iraq wars face by face. It seemed that the Iraq war doesn’t even exist in our working and studying environment although we watch it and read it all day on TV and web. On this forum I said that I feel that Americans deserve a better president. But if I say this face to face to an American, I am sure that the response will be “it is not the damn business of you foreigners” even if that American doesn’t like Bush too.

The same logic works for Chinese too. We see problem and we complain the problem. But tell you the truth; we don’t like to hear the same complain from a foreigner at least not face by face. If you want to be a beloved teacher, you better tolerate that.

Most Chinese kids are eager to know America and they all know that America is one of the best countries in the world if not the best. They all know that China has lot of problems. But if an American tells them in their faces that America is the best country and China has lot of problems, then in most cases, they will not agree with you and tell you some American problems, like Abu Ghraib.

You want America to support Taiwan's independence. You are entitled for it. But please don't try to convince your Chinese students to agree with you. They wouldn't.

America has so many great things to teach. You really don’t need to argue with your Chinese students to convince them how great America is and how bad China is. Showing some great pictures and telling some great stories about America, you will become the favorite teacher on the campus

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I am here for exchanging opinions.