Igkh, China

Many predict that in twenty to thirty years, China will overtake America’s economy and become the world’s greatest economy. To the Chinese – in and out of China, - this serves as a shining beacon of hope. These people hope that in the supposed future-bound victory of the oriental dragon, they will be finally viewed equal to the Caucasians and Japanese – the crème de la crème of international society.

The tragedy is that despite my obviously Chinese appearance – with the characteristic one-line eyes, pear-shaped nose, and pale yellow skin – I am not one of those people. Rather than basking in the joys of this hope, I drown in lamentations of the possibility that in its increasing momentum, Chinese culture, mainly its language of ugly complexities will overtake American culture and the language of which I am currently writing with.

These nightmarish speculations are, however, merely speculations – as nightmarish as they may be. English is already deeply rooted in world society – from England’s colonial dominance – to America’s twentieth century cultural dominance, that a gigantic shift between two languages of completely different characteristics is highly unlikely. The likelihood of the world being forced into dumbly memorizing three thousand characters is outlandish – simply because most of us aren’t willing or sharp enough to do so.

It is, of course, moronic to believe that an economy reliant on inferiorly copying and manufacturing American/Japanese/European products will overtake the economies responsible for the original innovation and artistic developments. After all, the land is known as a land of unoriginality and aesthetic distaste, that for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they consulted with Caucasians for its architectural and systematic development. Sure, these people invented the compass, gunpowder, paper, whatever. But that was ancient – many centuries ago. It has since devolved and only recently did that devolution halt to a positive outlook for the nation.

It doesn’t stop there. Chinese music has never been viewed as one of high sophistication – contrary to the great music produced by Europeans. Their opera singers sound like drunken idiots shrieking, and while Western music have left boybands and their effeminate crud behind in the nineties, the people of the orient are still caught up in the inferior Eastern renditions of melodramatic vomit – F4, rain, Jay Chou, that lot.

The exponential growth China is currently experiencing is like the growth Europe and America experienced in their industrial revolutions. Today, while America, Europe, and Japan are already moving from the information era to the biotech era, China – still predominantly a land of primitive peasantry – is only moving from its agricultural era to its industrial era – leagues behind its Western and Nippon counterparts.

Economic dominance does not always result in the same occurring for cultural realms. Take a look at the USSR, whose political and economic dominance spanning for over half a century did not result in the global popularization of Soviet culture and language.

Why I rant about things that are decades ahead of our time is – in truth – due to this overwhelming fear of the things everyone predicts – and a secret fear that for once, my foolish father may actually be right.