“…most of the so-called nationalists are young people. They have not experienced too much in their lives. They have not experienced frustrations about jobs, about bad treatment,and other injustices from the government side. So they think it’s legitimate for them to stand by the government unquestioningly and they regard this kind of nationalism as patriotism.”

How true. A couple of months ago, I posted on this blog “The Amateur’s Guide to Understand China. My seventh point went as follows:

” Yes, Chairman Mao made a few boo-boos. Who hasn’t? Things are much better now than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Any notion that the “unpleasantness” of 1959-61 was a result of anything but natural causes is lying western propaganda.”

I should amend this post as follows: “Be sure to praise Chairman Mao as a fearless man of unquestioned genius, the greatest revolutionary leader ever, whose bold social experiments such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution have been unfairly maligned by those who wish to demonize China.”

If you are a teacher and repeat the above sentiments in front of your students, their respect for you will grow tremendously. However, and I cannot emphasize this too heavily, make certain to never, under any circumstances utter such statements before any Chinese old enough to have actually lived under the wise and benevolent rule of the Great Helmsman!