Hi Santiago,

I enjoyed the positive sentiment of your post.

I like the phrase "I'm just this guy living on the Earth". The problem with that however is that most people do not feel that way about themselves, and feel that they are superior to people of other races (in fact to many Chinese people who catch sight of you, and other ex-pats, anywhere in China, you will always be one or more of the following: an alien-NOT of this earth, the outsider, the funny looking foreign monkey, big nose, round eyes, bai ren (white person), hei ren (black person) etc. In fact anything that keeps you outside of their ring.

I agree and appreciate the fact that you can make serious and honourable friendships with Chinese people. But it has to be said, however close you think you are to your friends, you will still often be regarded as someone not completely in their circle, because you are of the other nation-that being, non-Chinese.

I think you made a good point about the people with axes to grind who bash certain countries. However I noticed that even you had a little dig at America! Anyway if somebody points out the dangers and potential pitfalls of living in a certain country to others who are thinking of going over to said country to live and work, I don't think that automatically makes them a basher of that country. In fact I would be grateful to have certain things pointed out to me in advance so that I could be aware of, and prepared for potential problems.

"...we're all of us in this together and... no one of us is better than the other". Again, this statement is a valid and positive one, but if you were turned away from a school just because of the colour of your skin would you feel that you were "in it together" with your discriminator? Isn't it also easier to accept that "not one is better than the other" if you were not living in a society where most people are judged simply by their income, what clothes they are wearing, their gender, height, physical attractiveness, weight, size of their wallet, complexion, nationality, occupation etc?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I respect your post, Santiago. It was positive and valid. It's what I would call a good "keyboard post". Great and noble in principle, yet unrealistic, because unfortunately we don't spend all of our lives at the keyboard. We have to dwell in the harsh reality of society. Your ideas would work better if most people in the world felt the same as you do. Unfortunately, they don't.