贴一个原文
By Joan Chen
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; A19
I was born in Shanghai in 1961 and grew up during the Cultural
Revolution. During my childhood, I saw my family lose our house. My
grandfather, who studied medicine in England, committed suicide after he was
wrongly accused of being a counterrevolutionary and a foreign spy.
Those were the worst of times.
Since the Cultural Revolution ended in the late 1970s, however, I have
witnessed unimaginable progress in China. Changes that few ever thought
possible have occurred in a single generation. A communist government that
had no ties to the West has evolved into a more open government eager to
join the international community.
A state-controlled economy has morphed into a market economy, greatly
raising people’s standard of living. It’s clear that the majority of the
Chinese people enjoy much fuller, more abundant lives today than 30 years
ago. Though much remains to be done, the Chinese government has made rapid
progress in opening up and trying to be part of the international community.
Last month I went to China and spent four weeks visiting Shanghai,
Beijing, Hong Kong and Chengdu. The people I met and spoke with are proud
and excited about the Beijing Games. They believe that the Olympics are a
wonderful opportunity to showcase modern China to the rest of the world.
Like many Americans, most Chinese people are disturbed by the recent events
in Tibet. But after watching the scenes of violence and arson by the
rioters, the Chinese believe that the government is doing the right thing in
cracking down to restore order.
The Olympic torch is in California and is to be carried through San
Francisco today. In a resolution criticizing China, Chris Daly, a member of
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that demonstrating against the
torch relay would "provide the people of San Francisco with a lifetime
opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese people gain more freedom and
rights." To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign Daly’s resolution.
This statement could not be further from reality. For one thing, the
Chinese are a proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but they
know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one can grant
them freedom and rights from afar. The stigma of Western imperialism and the
Opium Wars also remains a strong reminder of the past, and Chinese people do
not want their domestic policies to be dictated by outside powers. They also
do not want the United States to boycott the opening ceremonies of the
Games. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Soviet boycott
of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished nothing. A U.S. boycott of
the opening ceremonies in Beijing would be counterproductive for relations
between the two countries.
For decades, anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent
millions of dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this
lobby is the only voice that’s acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media
and to the U.S. government. But times are changing. We need to be open-
minded and farsighted. We need to make more friends than enemies. Remember
what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let’
s celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge for
friendship, not a playground for politics.
The writer is an actress and director. She became a U.S. citizen in
1989.
