There are no nations or individuals in the world, of which other individuals and nations have nothing to learn. I, however, communicate with individuals and foreigners with this predisposition. It is obvious that the Chinese are the people whose many traits of character can be a model for us. In Armenia, perhaps, many people have met them in Yerevan or Chinese students, the equipment purchased from China by our companies were under the maintenance service for a while by the Chinese experts. The representatives of this nation are hard-working and friendly, these young people simply aspire to gain new knowledge and skills.
In China, alongside with this admirable features, I discovered one more too, which perhaps is the base of all the mentioned – the internal peace, tranquility, I would say, the inner slight smile.
This is a country communist by its form, but it seems to me the in contextual sense, the roots of the national psychology and governance system are much deeper into the layers of centuries rather than just in the doctrine originated in Europe in the 19th century. And perhaps, by preserving and developing the key elements of their ancient culture, the Chinese created an economically powerful country, the world’s second-largest economy.
I was in China for the “One Belt, One Road” forum, which was attended by heads of the media from 60 countries. A few years ago, the leader of this country introduced the upgrading of the Silk Road Project, which, first of all, has economic, as well political, cultural and, one can say, civilizational meaning. I have no doubt that Armenia’s active participation in this project will be only beneficial for us.
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The democratic freedoms that are in use in the West are completely missing in this country, and naturally, we should not imitate these negative features of organizing China’s internal life. But for the outside world, this country is open and tolerant, and the idea of the Silk Road is based on this philosophy. “When the stones clash, sparkles appear, when ideas collide, wisdom appears,” this folk wisdom was used by the high-rank representative of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China in his opening speech. Indeed, there was no “censorship” at the forum, the representatives from America, Africa, Europe and other nations were saying what they were thinking.
But I was impressed by the first glance seemingly minor details. At the forum, the “secretaries of the district committees” were introducing the economy, history, and culture of their districts (for example, one was saying, our region is relatively small, with just 35 million inhabitants). It in itself was interesting but most noteworthy was how they bowed to the audience before approaching the podium, at the same time very respectfully and with great dignity.
Also, I noticed a very nice thing at the National Park in Beijing on Sunday evening. Many groups of young people were singing and dancing (without “patriotic” rallies), they were training, and all of this was well organized and with great dedication.
… During the forum, one of the Europeans said that China is a superpower, but the Chinese colleague objected, we are not a superpower, we keep going as a developing country. The Chinese are also modest people.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
