Mading China (Made in China)?

Last weekend, when I was wandering around in the famous Yashow market (the western visitors' paradise for shopping genuine fake clothes, shoes and accessories), I noticed a sign hanging at one silk clothes stand, it says "all mading China". I was puzzled for a second, then quickly realized it and laughed, "yeah, well, it meant to say made in China!" It is not the first time to see those funny Chin-English signs though. If you walk around in Beijing, you get to see a lot of those, it is worth a laugh, but then as a Chinese, I also feel sad and a bit ashamed that in a lot of ways Beijing is not a modern and world class city yet. The most difficult thing for foreigners, is that you hardly find people who can speak relatively passable English. And honestly I don't really think this will change that much before the 2008 Olympics.

And really, a lot of things are still very substandard, when it comes to manners, social responsibility and general care/respect for life. You see rude drivers everywhere on the road, spitting is still a major problem, and those annoying little ad flyers pasted on the pavement or slip under your doors. I remember when I was travelling in the beautiful country side near Shanghai last spring, it was late April, the season when this little yellow flowers in full blossom in the fields, I was sittting in the train, enjoying this gorgeous scene outside the window. Then out of sudden, the scene was replaced by trashes littered along the railway, river banks, it was just disgusting! I closed my eyes, and felt the deep sadness filled my heart. And indeed, that scene, like a shadow, has been hanging there since then. And don't forget, this area near Shanghai is not poor, a lot of the farmers (or rather prefarmers) there have been a major beneficiary of China's reform and industrialization. You see nice a lot of three storey houses built near the river side and it is the locals who live there not tourists. But apparently, they still don't care about the environment around them, there is no sense of building a community that people would relate to.

I have thought about the idea of opening a book club but maybe also expand it into a virtual community that promotes reading, education, communication and public awarness of values and humanity. It is easy to build nice looking high rise buildings in the modern era that we live in, even in a developing country, but the quality of life relies more on things underneath the surface of infrastructure itself.