Complacent youth ignorant of hard realities

• Source: Global Times
• [23:02 November 22 2009]
• Comments

By Tian Wei

It is amazing to see that the event the most excited the media in their coverage of US President Obama's trip to China, was not the talk in the Great Hall of the People, but a town hall meeting between the US president and students from Shanghai universities.

The press considered it the least scripted event and hoped that the Chinese youths would grasp the opportunity to grill Obama.

However, the results were not that encouraging. In Shanghai's Hall of Science and Technology, the Chinese university students asked Obama seven questions.

Among them, there was only one that was specific, namely: Do you support improved cross-Taiwan Straits relations? The other six were all open questions, which allowed Obama to talk in a free-wheeling style without touching on crucial issues. Meanwhile, almost all of the questions asked were only on China's development and Sino-US relations.

Were the Chinese students too polite? Were they poorly informed? Were they shocked by Obama's fame and charm and therefore had no sharp questions left?.

While trying to figure out some answers to these questions, I was invited to work for the CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest.

One contestant was asked to debate on whether China should rely more on trains or planes. She chose the former, and argued that train tickets are always less expensive than plane tickets.

However, when I raised the example of the US where it is more expensive to travel on some luxurious trains than by plane, she was appalled and insisted that was impossible.

Then when I contradicted her, the contestant resorted to stating that China does not need to learn from the Western example, because China should always create something totally out of its own.

Suddenly, it stroke to me at the moment that there seems to be some underlying similarities between the uninteresting questions for Obama and the weak arguments at the English speaking contest.

Through TV and the Internet, young Chinese have some knowledge about what is happening in other countries and regions, and have become global citizens to some extent.