CHINA The nation named "China" on our maps of planet Earth's varied classifications of different types of peoples seems marked. China has become more evidently that it may, before too many years pass by, be a nation which is among those few which we might well have studied seriously in the past.
The "past",remember,was also our future. That which we are doing now become "news" to far-flung north-east-west-south. I remember when young "journalists" were taught that was the derivation of the term itself. Just as the designation" journalist" has now expanded - endlessly it seems to old-timers - Journalism College grads in particular, to include any person who passes along a news item in whatever form might be available to them. There are now more radio and television "journalists" than newspaper men and women...photographers of every level,- even "pap-a-raht-esses" and other such over-eager subspecies. Internet's bloggers, plus research and tech writers in every known occupational field. Anyone who has even a vague association with passing a news items or comment opinion, may now be called a "journalist."
That's my long-winded way of getting around to a renaming of China as a nation among us. The nation has been doing very well with new ideas for decades now and the China you heard about as a child no longer exists.
Emphasis has long been placed on the population figures for China. If, for instance, you arranged for the population of China to walk past you in single file,the line would never end because of the birth rate in China. China, today, also has more English-speaking persons than the United States. You share your birthday date , we are told, with at least nine million people in the world. How many Chinese share our birthday?
Mr. and Mrs. American have not yet become acquainted with Trade and Production or Manufacturing deficits we are incurring. There is an article of special interest in the magazine section of one of our local papers. It was written by Luanne Austin, a feature writer for the "Daily News-Record," Harrisonburg, Va. Bring up "dnr on line.com."...down near the end of a fine daily page click under SKYLINE. Read it and be ready when you,too, discover that your favorite apple juice is made with an apple concentrate from China - 40-60% savings for the local manufacturer. More articles such as this one will irk homemakers to an awareness of just how far this drift of our economic and social treasures has gone.
It will become a thing for political focus,in time but by the time the "barn doors" are locked the horses,cows,lambs - and apple juices will be long gone. Journalist Luanne Austin,in her column "Rural Pen", specializes in articles concerning country life and this juice story is certainly about the life of a country - ours.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 1-23-07 [c496wds]
