India’s Chinese Wall

To most readers, comparisons of China and India are nothing new. Whether it’s the breathless pace of China’s economy versus India’s slower, more measured growth, or China’s communist political system rated against India’s complicated democracy, the two countries are endlessly dissected in relation to one another. Yet amid all the hand-wringing over which country is “beating” the other in their race to industrialize,casque beats, one simple question sums up very pointedly the debate over which one is making life better for its citizens. It’s a question few dare to ask in polite circles: If you were born today, would you rather be Chinese or Indian?

Delhi-born Pallavi Aiyar, the first Chinese-speaking Indian journalist based in Beijing and author of an engaging new book about the two countries, takes on the charged question. The best option, she contends, is to be a high-caste Indian man. His political freedom would certainly outweigh the economic opportunities of any Chinese citizen, she argues. But if that weren’t possible,burberry, she’d choose to be a wealthy Chinese woman, because she wouldn’t be as constrained as her Indian counterparts by low literacy rates and limits on female participation in the public sphere. If she had to be poor, she’d go with China. An Indian latrine cleaner may get to vote, she says, but a Chinese one is far less likely to be viewed as completely subhuman.

If it sounds like Aiyar’s five years in Beijing have left her reluctant to give a definitive answer to this question—one she poses often in her book, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China—she is. Like so many other foreigners who gradually discover China, her opinions are constantly evolving. What makes her unfolding view of a booming and globalizing China special is the mix of experiences she brings to bear: She has lived both in Asia and the West, worked in Beijing not just as a journalist but also as a teacher, and knows what her compatriots think of the Chinese as well as what the Chinese think of her homeland. She is, to borrow a term coined by another cosmopolitan writer, Pico Iyer, just the sort of “global soul” we need to guide us into a China that is transforming and being transformed by the world. And her book, which was released in September in India to generally positive reviews, has fresh things to say about the usually overlooked issues between these countries, such as the true experience of expats in both nations.

Part memoir and part reportage, the book covers the period from 2002 to 2007 and describes everything from the unique business opportunities that a booming China offered entrepreneurial yoga instructors, to the SARS scare, to the high-tech, high-altitude train to Tibet, on which Aiyar was an early passenger. After studying in Britain and the United States, she arrived in Beijing to teach English and went on to become the China correspondent for The Hindu.

Every foreign writer’s perspective on China is shaped by the country where he or she grew up. But Aiyar is refreshingly honest about this fact. She knows that her Indian background gives her a lens that’s more interesting than most through which to watch China’s rise. To many Indians, China is close to home geographically, yet mysterious and distant philosophically, often generating mixed emotions—including disgust (the “strange” foods), scorn (the limited freedom),doudouen moncler, and envy (the skyscrapers, the roads, the Olympics). Aiyar is a bit dismissive of some of these attitudes. When it comes to envy of China’s transformation into a land with spectacular airports and highways free of potholes, though, her own awe-struck reaction helps us understand the nature of South Asian anxieties about the surging country to the east.

Throughout Smoke and Mirrors, Aiyar alternates between describing Chinese people, places, and events, and ruminating on their Indian counterparts. She also lets us eavesdrop on other Indians commenting on China and on Chinese airing their views on India. We meet Jayesh, a “buyer from Mumbai” working in the button trade: “What we need is a government like these Chinese. No unions, no nonsense.” And we hear from Nigami,abercrombie and fitch, a representative of an Indian bank, who complains about all the smoking and drinking involved in Chinese business transactions, which makes it “difficult for us Indians to adjust here. The Europeans, of course, enjoy themselves here. . . . Many even marry Chinese girls and the food is fine for them.”

From a Western perspective, it might seem that Aiyar’s book, with its reflections on Chinese-Indian tensions, the two countries’ differences, and their economic booms, has arrived a bit too late. A year ago, the totemic pairing of China and India dominated the Western press. Scores of articles fretted over how the joint rise of “the Dragon” and “the Elephant” would challenge the West—or salivated over the countries’ massive markets. Alternatively, some took a Dragon vs. Elephant approach. Overstating the contrasts between Chinese and Indian development paths (and overlooking the parallels between, for example, the two countries’ shared passion for five-year plans since the 1950s), commentators ranging from Danish political scientist Georg Sorensen to American business guru Jack Welch to various Indian public figures often used the two countries to support overly simplistic theses about globalization, democracy, and authoritarianism.

Of course, that was before the global financial crisis, the U.S. presidential election, and the devastating terror attacks in Mumbai. Now, the ways that China and India have remade themselves no longer have the same hold on short attention spans they did just a few months ago. Today, the sound of cascading market crashes seems to be drowning both the fretful and the exuberant China-India chatter—but not completely, probably not for long, and not equally in all places.

As for the “not completely,” consider this: A recent Google search for “Dragon and Elephant” yielded nearly 5 million hits, compared with just 531,louboutin,000 for “Eagle and Bear,” a once dominant pair. On the “not for long”: However the financial crisis shakes out, we’ll surely see these two economies continue to claim a more central place in global markets, and some analysts have begun to speculate that the crashes might ultimately give these rising powers opportunities to narrow the gap between themselves and the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan. And “not equally in all places”? Keep this in mind: The front sections of American newspapers might have ignored it, but in late October the front page of The Hindu featured Russia’s announcement that it plans to move toward having China and India displace European countries as its main trading partners.

In that sense, the timing of Smoke and Mirrors is just fine. When the obsession with China and India’s mutual, competitive, and thrilling rise comes back into vogue in the West—and it will—we will benefit from having Aiyar’s cultural vantage point and nuanced lens. She will certainly serve as a better guide to exploring those issues that don’t easily fit into the already hackneyed “Dragon vs. Elephant” cliché. And when it comes to answering that all-important question of how these countries are improving the future for their citizens, who better to help us understand than someone who knows them both with the love of a native and the curiosity of a traveler?

对许多读者来说，在中国和印度间作比较已经不是什么新鲜事儿了。无论是对中国令人窒息的发展速度和印度的虽较缓慢但更平稳的经济增长，还是对中国的共产主义政治体制和印度的复杂的民主体制，这两个国家都在不断地被相提并论。然而，在哪个国家会在工业化的竞赛中打败另一个国家的喧嚣中，一个简单的问题就会当即终止哪个国家正在使公民的生活变得更好的争论。这是一个在有教养的人的圈子中很少有人敢提及的一个问题：如果你今天出生，你愿意做一个中国人，还是愿意做一个印度人。

出生在德里的帕拉维·艾亚尔，是驻北京的第一个能说汉语的印度记者，也是一本以两国为题材的有趣的新书的作者，尝试了这个敏感的问题。她声称，最好的选择就是做一个高社会等级的印度男士，他的政治自由毫无疑问会超出任何一个中国公民的经济上获得的机会。但如果这样不可行，她愿意选择做一个富有的中国妇女，因为她不必象她的印度姊妹们那样因低教育率和限制女性参与公共生活领域。如果她注定要贫穷，她愿意呆在中国。她说，虽然一个印度公厕清洁工可能有机会去投票，但是一个中国公厕清洁工很少会被视为低等人类,louboutin pas cher。

如果这听起来好象是因为艾亚尔在北京的五年使得她不愿意对这个问题给出一个明确的回答，确实是这样。这个问题她常常在她的书中提起，书名是《烟与镜：经历中国》。象许多其他慢慢了解中国的外国人一样，她的观点也是与时俱进的。是她的多种经历造就了她对一个繁荣的、全球化的中国的开放观点。她在亚洲和西方都居住过，在北京不仅当过记者，还当过老师,moncler pas cher，既了解她的同胞对中国人的看法，也了解中国人对她的国家的看法。借用另一位世界主义的作家皮柯·艾耶创造的一个词，她就是那种我们需要的“世界人”，引导我们进入一个正在改变世界，也正在被世界改变的中国。她的书于9月份在印度发行，获得了普遍的好评，书中有新鲜的内容，讲了两个国家间通常被忽视的问题，比如两个国家中流亡国外者的真实经历。

这本书带有半传记半报告文学性质，涵盖了2002年至2007年的时间段，描述了从繁荣的中国为有经济头脑的瑜珈教练提供的独一无二的商机，到“萨斯”恐慌，到艾亚尔作为较早乘客的高技术、高海拔的青藏铁路列车之类的各种事情。在英国和美国求学之后，她来到了北京教授英语，继而成为了《印度》报纸驻中国记者。

每一个外国人对中国的看法都要受他或她成长的国家所左右。但艾亚尔另人耳目一新地承认了这个事实。她知道她的印度背景给了她一个有趣的视角来观察中国的崛起。对于许多印度人来讲，中国在地理意义上是近邻，但在哲学意义上是神秘而遥远的，经常让人产生出一种混合的情感，包嫌恶（奇怪的食物），蔑视（限制自由），以及嫉妒（摩天大楼，道路，奥运会）。艾亚尔对这些看法有些不以为然。然而，涉及到对中国成为了一个有着壮观的机场和平坦的公路国度的嫉妒，她自身的敬畏帮助我们理解了南亚人对这个东方大国的焦虑。

在《烟与镜》中，艾亚尔通篇在描述中国的公民、地域、事件和反思印度的相同方面之间交替进行。她同时也让我们窃听到了印度人对中国的评价以及中国人对印度的言论。我们可以碰到来自孟买的钮扣采购商雅耶斯的言论：“我们需要的是象中国这样的政府,burberry pas cher，不结盟，不胡来。”我们也能够听到一个印度的银行代表尼嘉米的话，抱怨在中国的商业活动涉及的吸烟和饮酒问题，使得它“很难让我们印度人适应。当然，欧洲人自得其乐…在很多方面，甚至娶中国姑娘为妻，食物以他们来讲也是很好的。”

从西方人的观点来看,doudoune moncler pas cher，在反映中印的紧张状态、两国的不同和经济繁荣方面，艾亚尔的书看起来有点儿过时。一年前，中印结对的图景就占据了西方的媒体。几十篇文章对“龙”“象”的联合崛起将怎样挑战西方国家表达了忧虑之情——或是大肆宣扬两个国家的巨大市场。另外，也有一些媒体采取了龙象之争的立场。夸大了中印发展道路的差异（忽视了如两国各自从1950年就开始实施五年计划的相似性）。评论员形形色色，从丹麦的政治学者格奥尔格·索伦森到美国商业界大亨杰克·韦尔奇，再到各类印度的公众人物，他们经常利用两国的状况支持过于单纯化的关于全球化、民主及独裁的论调。

当然，那都是在全球金融危机、美国竞选总统和孟买破坏性的恐怖袭击以前。现在，中国和印度重新确定的道路再也不会象几个月前那样吸引短期的注意力了。如今，如瀑布一样的市场衰退的声音一并淹没了焦躁和夸张的关于中印的鼓噪——但是还没有完全淹没，也许不会太久，并且在各个领域情况并不一致。

关于“没有完全淹没”，考虑一下这种情况：最近在谷歌上搜索“龙和象”词条，出现了5百万个项目，与搜索以前占主导地位的“鹰和熊”词条产生的仅531000个项目形成了鲜明的对比。关于“不会太久”的问题：无论金融危机怎样扩展，我们确信这两个国家会继续占据全球市场的更靠中心的位置，一些分析家已经开始推测这次打击也许最后会提供给这两个崛起的大国缩小与美国、英国、德国和日本的差距的机会。“各领域的情况不一致”？牢记这一点：美国报纸的头版也许忽视了它，但10月末的《印度》报纸头版登载了俄罗斯计划使中国和印度替代欧洲国家作为主要贸易对象的言论。

从这种意义上来讲，《烟与镜》的出版时间是正当其时。当中印之间共同的、有竞争的和令人激动的崛起的困扰重新在西方世界流行时——情况会是这样的——我们得益于艾亚尔文化优势和精细的视角。她无疑会作为一个更好的指导者，帮助我们探讨那些已不合时宜的“龙象对阵”问题的陈词滥调,casque dr dre。当考虑回答那个“这两个国家怎样改善公民的未来生活”重要问题时，谁会比一个对这两个国家都了解，抱着对国家的爱和旅行者的好奇的人对我们更有帮助呢？相关的主题文章：

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