China: The Waking Dragon

When we here in Britain think of China, most of us don't think of a powerful country, steeped in history and culture. Unfortunately, most people only think about China as take-away food and kung fu!

What people don't realise is that this very diverse country has always been way ahead of the rest of the world.

In 7500 BC they had domesticated pigs and by 4000 BC they had writing, in the form of the 'Banpo script'. The country was unified by the warring emperor Qin Shi Haung in 2500 BC while we here in Britain were still living in caves. The country took its name from this emperor.

We in the west still think of China as a third world backwater, but it is now one of the biggest economies in the world, if not the biggest; even America is in debt to China! The world is changing and changing fast; it won't be long before countries like India, China and once again Russia will call the shots, while we here in Britain revert to being the tiny little island that we are.

The problem that China has and will have for years to come is its outdated ideology about human rights. It's safe to say they won't win any Nobel peace prizes for this any day soon. Life there is still regarded as cheap and can be short and brutal. But lots of the people know nothing about this.

But then we here in the west think we are well informed and we are, but we, too, are only informed about what the powers that be want us to know.

Of course the country is still going through lots of reforms and will have to do this for decades to come, but once the dragon has woken it will not sleep again! We in the west will have to get used to paying more for our goods, but technology will leap forward and of course they will enter the space race and once again benefits will come to us all from this.

In the seventies, while I was learning martial arts, I lived with a Chinese family here in Britain for quite a while. They taught me lots of things, but the one thing I really wanted to learn was the language - it is so alien to my ears that I found it very difficult. I would still love to learn the language, but I think I would have to spend time there and I can't see that happening for a while.

The reason that I'm telling you this is because a friend of mine who is a head teacher worked out there in the education system for a while. She was at times shocked and at times fascinated by their system, she said the students were respectful and keen to learn, but the discipline was scary at times. But they got the desired results- so who has the best system?

Teachers here are not teaching students a subject, they are just training them to pass an exam! This is not education, just training for an event. League tables and OFSTED have stripped teachers of their right to instil a love of a subject into keen young minds.

Britain is falling further and further behind the rest of the world in education, but we still carry on with this mind-numbing view that education can only be measured by exams! People learn in different ways and at different times of their lives I'm a testament to that. I was an 'A' grade student at primary school and an 'A' grade arsehole at secondary school. But, later, I went on to get an education in my twenties, having been written off by everyone!

I now write comedy for a living and I also visit school all over Britain and aboard to use comedy to help encourage young people to see the value of education. 

 

And I would love to visit schools in China to see what their system is like -  and maybe they can teach me to speak their language while I'm there! Any offers?