ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

A suppressed truth, a distorted truth, a hidden truth

What is the truth? Truth can be distorted and people can be easily misled and brainwashed by the "mastermind".  I remembered that while I was young, we were told by the teachers that the pro-democracy activists involved in the Formosa Incident were Communists trying to overturn Taiwan.  Luckily, a lot has changed in Taiwan to unveil the truth.  Still, there are places in the world where governments continue to deceive their people, distorting, suppressing and hiding the truth.  This happens mostly in countries governed by dictatorship.  When the Chinese government criticized the Japanese government of distorting the truth of the 918 incident, have they thought of what they did to the truth of the Tiananmen Square?  My husband showed me a video.  It tells us how naive the people can be when information and minds are controlled.  How powerful brainwashing can be on a young mind and the long effect it has on their people even living abroad.  I remembered that I once met a Chinese in 1994 in Minneapolis.  He graduated from Peking University, a very talented person and a son of a high-ranking Chinese government official (高幹子弟) but has little common sense and the ability to distinguish between true and false.  He told me with arrogance how pitiful the Taiwanese are to have no fruits at all and to have to rely on the imports from China.  I couldn't help but laughed because I thought that we praised Taiwan as the Kingdom of Fruits.  Anyway, he took whatever he was told to be the absolute truth without doubting it.  Even though he had access to the open and non-government controlled media in the US, he chose to ignore them.  Like the majority of his countrymen, he firmly believes that the Western culture is a pill and the Western media is constantly sabotaging his country.  I still wonder why he and many of his countrymen tried all methods wherever possible to stay in the US, a country they despised so much and a country they thought to be filled with poisons.      

These are the links to the videos that my husband suggested sharing.

Chinese students asked about Tiananmen Square protest 1989

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hooL98OwlMM

BBC News - June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBnHMpHGRY&feature=related

Written By Elisa English

On 6/4/10 in Minneapolis

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