China 5

The target sign for the Target Store is very zen. The comedy of Jerry Seinfeld is very zen. Zen is really nothingness and the comfort of nothingness. When you add a martial element to nothingness though, it becomes very different. What disturbs me here is the absense of any moral sense in zen.

Perceptions are empty when they are stripped of ideas. In such a world, perception at first becomes infinite. If the doors of perception were open, we would see things as they are, infinite. I am paraphrasing William Blake. Then, there is the Alice in Wonderland Effect is a world we never discovered before. Sounds we notice. Smells we notice. Things that disturb you or do not disturb you.

Time is eternally present. There is no future and no past. Zen poems notice the moment to moment passing of things, happenings. This is related to Eastern philosophy in which one thing arises out of the other. There is no strict logic here.

American zen poems are still filled with worries and concerns. The unconscious starts to integrate itself with consciousness or the ego once again.

But Zen Buddhism in East Asia has become too martial. Whether the Chinese leadership has adopted Zen modes is hard to figure out. The Chinese leadership has a long-term view of things. It lets the river run to the Ocean, and then it takes the bounty of the Ocean.  

China is a country of 1,300,000,000 people. I really don't think that they really think too deeply about how to create an economy that can support so many people. I suppose 300-400 million are middle class. There are many people living near poverty levels. I think they would find 300,000,000 of their people expendable. So there are plenty of people to replenish the workforce or labor may go to Vietnam or not go to Vietnam. Probably the same with India.

When you view it in this manner, their attitude towards minorities are not that awful. But some attitudes must be examined. I think they consider Caucasians to be funny fetishes. I don't mean all Caucasians. I mean the ones on tv shows and such. This contrasts with the American view of Asians as asexual or nonsexual fetishes.

Now, a fetish is a sexual mutilation. You fetishize people whom you fear on a deep, unconscious level. A foot fetish is a literal Chinese mutilation of the foot. You derive erotic fixation from the fetish. A rabbit's foot is a fetish.

Some of this fetishism reminds of the play, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. "Sing, sing" Do this, do that. The Imperialist telling the slave to do this and that and very they are both enslaved by boredom, thoughts of suicide, waiting for God to make the final decision on who is right and who is wrong.