This is an unfiltered take just coming from my top of mind and my own experience – which while pretty impressive – is still very limited. I’m just going to dive into it without any real organization other than countries I’ve spent time in over the last year.
The United States of America. The biggest lie the world has ever been told. Homeless everywhere. Poverty everywhere. Opportunity if you are 1) lucky or 2) have the right network and connections 3) know how to cheat. A country that uses violence to take power but hides behind the lies of freedom, opportunity, and the lie of a protestant work ethic – work hard and success will follow. In recent years, the US has begun to show itself more and more as what it is – a government that uses greed, corruption, and violence to consolidate power and steal resources from the world. Citizens are given just enough benefit to keep them from rising up and are controlled by a variety of control systems including mandatory schooling, housing uncertainty, anxiety, financial insecurity, social media manipulation, fear mongering, and blatant lies. The two main parties operate as two sides of a control system – one gathers those who seek change and turns them into victims with a victim mentality, the other uses anger, fear, hatred, and blame to retain power. I won’t go into the historic atrocities, the lies, or the current nastiness since they are well documented elsewhere. Beautiful lands and some amazing people, but a diseased and malignant system sitting over the top of it. It’s a deadly place if you make a mistake and you are likely to get robbed if you are not always on your guard. Stay a while and get fat from processed chemical poison food.
Japan. An absolutely sick and malignant work ethic that has made citizens decide not to breed rather than bringing children into the world. The very things that make Japan unique and beautiful in the world are the things that are least nurtured and cultivated. The art, the spirituality, the reveration of the natural world. There aren’t a lot of Japanese parents who say “become a kabuki actor, a zen nun, a bonsai master, or a gardener” instead they say become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, salaryman, or company employee. What makes Japan special? Art, nature, spirituality, ritual – and everything that goes with that from the years long process of learning Japanese archery to anime and manga. These things define and permeate Japan and in my opinion, it has been poisoned by the post war idolization of business and industrialization/progress. I love Japan, but not the part of it that includes suicide by work or vomiting salarymen on a Saturday night. Japan is safer, orderly, and beautiful – but the culture of shame/face makes it kind of a cold place. Still, it’s such a clean country, such a safe country, such an orderly country. The food is so good.
Taiwan. I’m just recently back from a limited experience there but I found Taiwan way more interesting than I thought I would. Taiwan was ruled by Japan during what may have been Japan’s golden period. Japan wanted to show that being part of the Japanese Empire was a glorious thing and they built railroads, gardens, schools, and deeply deeply deeply influenced Taiwan. The Chinese influence up until 1895 was formative as well. The American influence in the post war period after the Chinese Nationalists were driven from mainland China by the communists and landed in Taiwan has been toxic. The American style nationalism (and the uncountable murders in the streets by the ruling party) did something to the Taiwanese people – on the one hand – they might be the most independence minded people on the planet – they carry the warm intensity of the Chinese, the micro detail appreciation of the Japanese, and the overt friendliness of Americans – but over all of that is a work culture that multiple people described to me as slavery. The costs in Taiwan are absolutely insane – a good cup of coffee in a cafe is $5 U.S. and the wages don’t match that. The imminent threat of China annexing Taiwan is something that on the ground is hard to process and as a foreigner ever harder. Taiwan is beautiful and safe. The number of bookstores says something to me about a country. There are a lot of them in Taiwan. There are also a significant number of homeless and a significant amount of obesity – so they got more than just friendliness from the USA.
China. Total fucking control. That’s what the Chinese government has and constantly consolidates in its population. Cameras everywhere. In schools, in business, on the street – and not fake cameras or unmonitored cameras. But you know what you don’t see? Homeless people on the streets. Crime on the streets. Abject poverty on the streets. I’m under no illusion that those things must exist – but I didn’t see them in Shanghai on my most recent trip. I did see some in 2001 on my first trip there, but China is a totally different world from that time. No country has raised more people out of poverty than China in the history of the world. Want to build a maglev bullet train? Don’t try to do it in the USA or it will take hundreds and billions of dollars and decades. In China – six months. I expected to hate being in China, I expected the foreigners I met there would hate living in it – I didn’t hate it and neither did they. Quite the opposite. The Chinese friends I made were kind, hard working, creative, and open minded. China is not a communist country – it’s something else completely different though it still has a lot of socialism baked into it. I’m not scared of China controlling the world, in fact, I think it might be the best possible outcome.
Vietnam. Vietnamese people are incredibly warm and kind. The country is beautiful. The food is next level delicious. The pollution is atrocious. Watching tourism take off as Vietnamese cater to Chinese, American, and French tourists (the very people they defeated in multiple wars) is super disturbing. The poverty is unthinkable – and yet – Vietnamese people genuinely seem to be pretty happy. Communism has failed them horribly but people don’t worry about starving, not having medicine, or becoming homeless – at least that is what I was told by the local friends I made there. There are opportunities. In Vietnam, if you work hard and are innovative, you really can succeed because it doesn’t have the same barriers to success that you find in countries like the USA. The pollution is the biggest drawback of that.
Hong Kong. Okay, it’s a part of China but kind of not since it has a special status and different rules that generally apply. My time in Hong Kong was extremely limited but the contrast to Shanghai was shocking. Beggars, homeless, and poverty on full display. Hong Kong felt kind of dangerous. Not as dangerous as a U.S. city, but not safe either. The people were warmer than Chinese but with a slightly cold British sensibility – unlike Taiwan in that regard. I can’t say much due to the short time I was there but it seemed crowded, dirty, hectic, and very money focused.
In putting people on a scale of initial friendliness – given the countries above it would have to go:
- Vietnamese. They want to be friends with you. Truly.
- Americans. They want to be friends with you if you can improve their life in some way.
- Taiwanese. They are open to you starting a friendship.
- Hong Kong. They are open to doing business with you and possibly becoming friends.
- Chinese. They will regard you a bit suspiciously for a while but then when the walls come down, they will introduce you to their family, drink the night away with you, and become your lifelong friends.
- Japanese. They won’t interact for fear of making you (or others) uncomfortable. Trust is a long process and relationships must be carefully nurtured.
I look forward to going back to South Korea, Australia, and Thailand so I can include them in my snap-judgment list.