Eric's Beijing Diary

"Ren zhe wu di." Leander was trying to teach me the meaning of this ancient four-character saying. Of course, I knew about four-character proverbs, because Ina had taught me about them. But I had not heard this one. "People who forgive quickly will have no enemies." We were eating radish and mutton stew at a quiet little cafe not to far from the West Gate. As if to emphasize the folly of ignoring these words of wisdom, a fight broke out behind us. The people involved had been inbibing rather heavily, and of course I have no idea what the argument was about. But the commotion was getting louder and Leander decided we should leave. I got up and looked around, and saw one of the guys, a young man in his twenties looking like he was ready to go off. I had seen the signs many times before when I was a security aide in a maximum security ward at Oregon State Hospital. Sure enough, he picked up a beer bottle, and hurled it at his opponent, whereupon it crashed into the opposing wall. Well, this cemented Leander's determination to leave immediately. He pushed me out the door, and then went back to get my stuff. But I was missing my cap and gloves. I tried to return to get them, but Lisa and Leander were holding me back. I finally pointed to them on the floor by my chair, and Leander crawled under the table and got them. The matron of the establishment came outside to settle our accounts. One man who had apparently gotten caught in the crossfire was holding his head which was bleeding, although not severely. He looked a bit bewildered. In retrospect, the students' slightly excessive concern was probably well placed--things would have gotten kinda complicated if I had gotten hit in the head with a bottle. But I really wasn't afraid of either of the men...they were actually pretty nice guys. In fact, both of them had, independantly of each other, approached me earlier in the evening to offer a friendly toast to my stay in China. And I am sure that after they'd had a chance to sober up, both of these gentlemen (I use the term loosely) regretted their actions.

Of course the incident I have just related is much less about culture than it is about alcohol. I have seen drunks in several cultures, and there is a boring sameness to them all. A drunk is a drunk is a drunk. Perhaps it is not completely out of place to contemplate what forces might incline a young man to feel boxed in, with a desparate need to fight his way out. But any analysis would be suspect. Drunken behavior is caused by drunkenness. And the only thing that has ever been known to cause drunkenness is too much alcohol.

When I got home, I turned on the CCTV English channel and heard the hostess say cheerily, "Spring Festival is a time when old grudges are forgotten, and everyone is on their best behaviour." Well, that's the idea anyway. This morning I was listening to a discussion on CCTV about corruption in China. A professor from Qinghua University quoted a four-character proverb that I could not follow. But the gist of it in English was that "we expect that people are born to be good-hearted." Then this professor from Qinghua University made a very interesting statement. He said, "In dealing with the problem of corruption in China today, we can no longer rely on this traditional view of human nature." Congratulations. But this belated enlightenment begs a very important question: If we can no longer rely on this traditional view of human nature, then what can we rely on? This is the question China is asking today. I wonder who will provide the answer?