Got back from the IQ2 debate a couple of hours ago. The topic tonight was “We have nothing to fear from a powerful China”, and the final audience poll results showed an overwhelming 70% or so in disagreement, an exponential leap from the initial 36%. Not even going to vocalise my thoughts because that would eventuate in some 1000 word post, BUT

• My father constantly tells me stories from his childhood, and how he ran away from home and hopped on freight train once in an angst-fuelled fit of 10 year old rebellion. This is amidst the pervasive poverty and communism of yesteryear, when no one was going to kidnap a 10 year old and hold him ransom because really, the chances were his family was just as poor as you.
• Now as a self-made man riding the back of state capitalism to a decent level of success, the anecdotes have changed for the worse. Recently, in the reasonably well-to-do and heavily guarded suburb he lives in, he witnessed the attempted kidnapping of a newborn baby at knife point. Clearly it was monetary incentive that prompted such a thing, but as man with two other 6 year olds of his own, this was disturbing to say the least.

I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. Thank you China for all your economic and financial spoils, but sometimes, you’re not really a fun place.