Voice of China – New meaning on freedom and human rights

I watched a few series of Voice of China where young artistes were given a chance to sing in front of a few hundred million viewers, on CCTV. There are similar programmes like Sing My Song, I Am a Singer, also offering opportunities for talented young people to showcase themselves, pitching their own talents and turning themselves into successful pop idols on their own. Three memorable individuals like Zhang Bi Chen, Su Yun Ying and Huo Jun were really impressive. Watching them performed gave rise to an unspeakable emotion within me, and my eyes welled up. It was so warmth and comforting to see young people carving out a new future of fame and fortune for themselves without having to depend on anyone else. The system allowed it, allowed freedom of expression and for a person to be his very own best, to be himself and accepted and appreciated. These rights were robbed from the Chinese people for almost 200 years, by the ex colonialists, notably the West.
 
Reflecting back, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, such things would not happen. Talented young individuals like these young men and girls would at best be begging for a few coins thrown at them on the roadside or in tea houses. And often, for a few coins, they would suffered the indignity of being embarrassed, harassed, abused or taken advantage of. They were at the mercy of corrupt officials, the rich and mighty and the bad. For nearly two centuries, the Chinese people suffered such humiliation for being weak and poor, for lacking opportunities, for living in a bankrupt political system made worst by foreign invasion, wars, bullying, looting, cheating and corruption. All the talented individuals did not have a chance to be what they could be, their talents treated with dismissive intolerance and wasted in a broken poverty stricken country. The result, the Chinese had no talent.
 
Many of our parents had no choice but to migrate to run away from such abject poverty when the simple right of survival is not even there. There was nothing, no pride, no dignity, no shame, just poverty. What human rights to talk about, what freedom of expression, what opportunity to excel in one’s pursuit in any field, in the arts and in the industries. That was what life was in a China that was not a country, insulted and branded as the Sick Man of Asia. The Chinese people were despised as a people, as a hopeless civilization where its people were like hapless flotsam in the ocean of life, weak, defenceless and taunted as useless and untalented and unskilled scum of civilization. Every country in Asia and SE Asia was even better off than China and the Chinese landing on their shores eking for a living, to do anything that their labour, blood, sweat and tear could exchange for. Being Chinese was a shame, a curse, to be less than a human bean. Where was the freedom, where was the human rights?
 
Today, China has rebuilt itself and is standing among the nations of the world as an equal among the equals. The Chinese people are now given the opportunity to be what they could be, to develop their talens and to excel in every field of pursuit, with pride and human dignity. Communism or whatever, China and the Chinese people are now able to live a normal and decent life, to live like human beans, to have a roof over their heads, to eat well and live well. They have security and a sense of well being.
 
Would democracy offer China and the Chinese people the life they are having today? Everyone one of them living in peace and security, and dreaming of making their dreams come true and with very real possibility of their dreams coming true, on their own merit, individual merit, without having to depend on anyone else. Freedom and human rights have returned to China.
 
There is a China Dream. The Chinese can dream of anything and making their dreams come true. This is the meaning of freedom and human rights, the Chinese way. The Chinese people have regained their confidence as a people, as a civilization, to have found a new pride to be Chinese. They are proud of their country and what they have achieved on their own, as individuals and as a country, a nation, on their own effort and hard work. Everything is now possible for the Chinese people. And they know it.