外國人無法融入的中國

You’ll never be Chinese – Why I’m leaving the country I loved 英國《Prospect》雜誌節錄

上月初，在浙江莫干山經營民宿與咖啡店的英籍老外Mark Kitto，與居住了16年的中國道別了。這位畢業於倫敦大學亞非學院的中國通，在傳媒撰文表述了無奈的離思：「我曾經想過在中國成就我的終身事業與人生，但現在我要走了。」
Mark Kitto熱愛中國，卻也因了解而分開。原因很多，最主要的，還是為了下一代。他表明受不了中國模式的教育制度，受不了女兒在開學日便要被迫看歌頌解放軍「打敗」北川大地震的樣板電影。香港的高官應該感同身受，否則他們不會把子女送到外國讀書，而拒絕留港接受國民教育。

Death and taxes. You know how the saying goes. I’d like to add a third certainty: you’ll never become Chinese, no matter how hard you try, or want to, or think you ought to. I wanted to be Chinese, once. I don’t mean I wanted to wear a silk jacket and cotton slippers, or a Mao suit and cap and dye my hair black and proclaim that blowing your nose in a handkerchief is disgusting. I wanted China to be the place where I made a career and lived my life. For the past 16 years it has been precisely that. But now I will be leaving.

But this article is not personal. I want to give you my opinion of the state of China, based on my time living here, in the three biggest cities and one tiny rural community, and explain why I am leaving it.

Fear of violent revolution or domestic upheaval, with a significant proportion of that violence sure to be directed at foreigners, is not the main reason I am leaving China, though I shan’t deny it is one of them.

Apart from what I hope is a justifiable human desire to be part of a community and no longer be treated as an outsider, to run my own business in a regulated environment and not live in fear of it being taken away from me, and not to concern myself unduly that the air my family breathes and the food we eat is doing us physical harm, there is one overriding reason I must leave China. I want to give my children a decent education.

The domestic Chinese lower education system does not educate. It is a test centre. The curriculum is designed to teach children how to pass them. In rural China, where we have lived for seven years, it is also an elevation system. Success in exams offers a passport to a better life in the big city. Schools do not produce well-rounded, sociable, self-reliant young people with inquiring minds. They produce winners and losers. Winners go on to college or university to take “business studies.” Losers go back to the farm or the local factory their parents were hoping they could escape.

There is little if any sport or extracurricular activity. Sporty children are extracted and sent to special schools to learn how to win Olympic gold medals. Musically gifted children are rammed into the conservatories and have all enthusiasm and joy in their talent drilled out of them. (My wife was one of the latter.)

And then there is the propaganda. Our daughter’s very first day at school was spent watching a movie called, roughly, “How the Chinese people, under the firm and correct leadership of the Party and with the help of the heroic People’s Liberation Army, successfully defeated the Beichuan Earthquake.” Moral guidance is provided by mythical heroes from communist China’s recent past, such as Lei Feng, the selfless soldier who achieved more in his short lifetime than humanly possible, and managed to write it all down in a diary that was miraculously “discovered” on his death.

The pressure makes children sick. I speak from personal experience. To score under 95 per cent is considered failure. Bad performance is punished. Homework, which consists mostly of practice test papers, takes up at least one day of every weekend. Many children go to school to do it in the classroom. I have seen them trooping in at 6am on Sundays. In the holidays they attend special schools for extra tuition, and must do their own school’s homework for at least a couple of hours every day to complete it before term starts again. Many of my local friends abhor the system as much as I do, but they have no choice. I do. I am lucky.

An option is to move back to a major Chinese city and send our children to an expensive international school-none of which offer boarding-but I would be worried about pollution, and have to get a proper job, most likely something to do with foreign business to China, which my conscience would find hard.

I pity the youth of China that cannot attend the international schools in the cities (which have to set limits on how many Chinese children they accept) and whose parents cannot afford to send them to school overseas, or do not have access to the special schools for the Party privileged. China does not nurture and educate its youth in a way that will allow them to become the leaders, inventors and innovators of tomorrow, but that is the intention. The Party does not want free thinkers who can solve its problems. It still believes it can solve them itself, if it ever admits it has a problem in the first place. The only one it openly acknowledges, ironically, is its corruption. To deny that would be impossible.

I read about Ai Weiwei, Chen Guangchen and Liu Xiaobo on Weibo, the closely monitored Chinese equivalent of Twitter and Facebook, where a post only has to be up for a few minutes to go viral. My wife had never heard of them until she started using the site. The censors will never completely master it. (The day my wife began reading Weibo was also the day she told me she had overcome her concerns about leaving China for the UK.) There are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of mainland Chinese who “follow” such people too, and there must be countless more like them in person, trying in their small way to make China a better place. One day they will prevail. That’ll be a good time to become Chinese. It might even be possible.

劈啪一聲，我們尊貴的局長阿波仔又被記者篤爆了。
那時他新官上任沒有火，一上場便被踢爆經營劏房，天真的我們心想，是時候下台了吧，豈料梁書記宅心仁厚死命救波，波仔即時配合走位，帶大家遊花園說板間房不等於劏房……啊？等等，我再次覆述這個解釋時也給弄得即場當機，就像叉燒發臭了，阿媽找燒味佬理論，燒味佬卻說，我賣的是豬肉，豬肉不等於叉燒，甚麼跟甚麼呀，還不是臭的。
然後一波未平，一波又起，波仔這次給記者狠狠篤爆酒後駕駛。這個波，真是給他吹脹，就算再三被篤爆了，他還是一如以往自動充氣圓圓的升上半空，下方有市民責難嗎，他當然聽不見。
我們實在很難接受有這樣一個局長，不說他劏房，不說他劏香港，也不說他醉駕，就只說他貴為發展局局長，其事業卻發展得如此差劣，又怎說服大眾他可以好好發展香港呢。
波波你也不要太過淡定，梁書記早有前科，兒時跟玩偶Dream Bear如膠似漆，可是長大了，玩具熊也註定被遺忘。你只是波，梁書記一腳踢開就是了。
這樣吧，好趁昆頓塔倫天奴新作《Django Unchained》還未上映，波波你就去硬銷一下你的傳奇職業生涯，希望昆頓看中你那些瘋狂、血腥、嘔心而又帶點惹笑，總之就是Cult爆的故事，讓它火速拍成《劏房．醉駕．大話波》插隊上映。這樣一來，至少會為香港文化發展帶來一丁點貢獻。

老友P約吃午飯，話明由佢做主場，唔到中環灣仔遷就左丁山，佢在電話講：「帶你走出港島旺區，周圍發展得幾快，你要走出中環，嚟體驗吓」，佢第一個提議話去大埔大元街市，左丁山嚇咗一跳，唔識噃，點去呀？老友P話大元街市可能係全香港最新穎嘅街市，帶張八達通可以買齊菜肉鮮魚雞，兼且乾淨企理，街市內有靚嘢可食，哎吔，由中環去大埔食午飯，始終係太遠，留番星期六日再與家人揸車去搵啦。（後來先知道，蘋果日報副刊有成版講大元街市。）拉扯一輪，卒之達成協議，去坐地鐵可達嘅樂富商場。講起樂富，回想番好似十幾年冇去過，以前去樂富，出咗地鐵就入吉之島，買完嘢就搭番地鐵鬆人，甚少行十分簡陋嘅商場。
呢日坐地鐵到樂富，嘩幾乎唔認得咯，乜咁新穎㗎，雖然唔及又一城咁正斗，但同印象中之房委會商場完全不同，而且人流不少，週中午飯時份睇嚟有不少人來此吃飯購物，好快就搵到「美食廣場」，見時間未到，於是行咗一個圈，裝吓啲價錢，見到有一間嘅價錢幾平民化，一碟飯賣32元，但有食客在門口排隊輪號碼嘅，就係一間價錢較高嘅上海菜館。咦，原來老友P就企在門口，等左丁山行入去。
屋邨商場大變身，追上時代潮流，幾啱樂富區現狀吖。一位親戚表弟以前讀書時，佢父親在老虎岩街邊賣燒味，佢幫完老竇手就坐在生果箱讀書，因升中考試成績好，竟然派入皇仁書院，在沒有地鐵年代，由老虎岩去皇仁返學，可說路途遙遠，但因為入到皇仁而考到港大，後來成為工程師，老竇年老唔駛再在街頭開檔咯。老虎岩已成為樂富，數十年前入住嘅徙置區公屋人士，不少已成為中產，子女有成者甚眾，屋邨商場變身成為比較現代化商場，係好自然一回事。飯後再在美食廣場（Food Square）行一轉，見到有一間劉裕發茶莊，名字似曾相識，入去睇吓，咦，乜嘢名茶都有得賣，唔會差得過名店英記茶莊噃，老友P話呢間茶莊於1972年在東頭邨開始，在樂富商場經營三十幾年，係地區老牌名店嚟㗎，唔怪得啦，呢塊招牌以前係見過嘅，老店能追上時代，穩步向前，不受潮流變化所淘汰，可喜也。