Chinese Cheerleaders

Met an ex-pat here, someone that my friend Nguyen knows, who is engaged to a woman who is from Beijing. She is clearly educated to a level and a diversity of knowledge that we would admire in the west, and she studied in London for a few years.

While watching beach volleyball together, they had cheerleaders both before and between games. Young girls jumping around in skimpy bathing suits to provocative music, just like in America. We both were amazed that China would have that; She had never seen that in China before. China is changing so fast, embracing things that before were taboo. Economic liberalization, and many personal freedoms, although still with an authoritarian regime.

Her fiancée commented: Maybe the 21st century won't be the century of democracy the way we all thought it would. With the fall of the Berlin Wall we thought it would usher in an era of democracy. But if you look at China, and Russia, and many other smaller countries, they tend to have much more economic and personal freedoms, but still with authoritarian governments. Is this what we will have to get used to in the 21st century, a necessary intermediate step before development of political freedoms later?

I was surprised to be able to have this conversation with a local Chinese person. Eight years ago when I was in China no local Chinese person would have dared to discuss the subject. They would have feigned that they didn't understand, rather then even claim they didn't have any thoughts on the subject. Did she feel free to talk about such things with her other friends from China? Yes, they do discuss such things, as long as everyone understands they are discussing events, and not advocating any particular policy. Her parents do not discuss these things, though: They lived through the cultural revolution. The older generation is shocked at the pace of change, and happy that things are so much better than they were before. They still remember the times when discussing such ideas, even thinking such thoughts, could be dangerous.

The flow of information is getting harder to control. Internal media still don't report on many events, but outside media do report on things in English. Many more people are learning English, and are using the Internet, and the Chinese government are encouraging both trends.