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When Thought goes Wild

When Thought goes Wild

Friday, June 8, 2007

Civilized Anything

It is not unusual to notice that there are a lot of banners with slogan hanging here and there in China, one word that comes out most often, I think, is 'civilized', for example, be a civilized citizen, civilized unit, civilized management, civilized user, civilized working, civilized driving etc, it has been used so widely until it has almost reached a stage where 'civilized' can just be coined to any nouns and verbs. 'Civilized' here simply means to be considerate, to think about others, to respect.
The China population has been ranking top for long, it has become a custom for most people to fight for whatever they want without considering much about others, living in scarcity for so long has planted a concept that whatever you want will be grabbed by others if you are not fast enough and being too considerate, this mode of survival skill has been carried forth until the age of economic booming.
As Beijing 2008 Olympic is approaching, the government has worked extra hard with the hope to remove as much 'uncivilized' habits as possible from the public, in order to not leave a bad image to foreigners. However, smoking in a closed public area like lift, train carriage, or spitting onto floor or even carpet, peeing beside a road etc can still be seen.

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