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MBA班上的一堂经济课,教授谈到了西藏

(2008-03-24 16:15:53) 下一个
我在美国一所top 20的executive MBA班上课。班上60多学生,只有我一个中国人。大部分是白人,有不少印度人。还有一个韩国人和一个黑人。

教我们managerial economics的是一个中年白人。说实话,他的课讲的非常好。他能把很多枯燥的经济理论和现在的时事联系起来,生动的讲清楚。他喜欢嘲讽时事,骂各国政府的经济政策,所以当他有时谴责中国政府时,我开始也不以为意。

后来感觉他对中国的看法比较偏激,谈起中国时明显感到他坚定的认为中国还是彻头彻尾的共产主义,是西方自由社会的敌人。我有时上课时会跟他辩论几句。

有次提到经济系统,他大放厥词,说中国人哪里有真正懂经济的。我说你知不知道世界银行的下一个首席专家要从中国派来。他说知道,所以他现在很担心世行的前途。我觉得他这样回答很无赖。

上周末讲到货币汇率,他说美元以前很强,但是一直价格过高,所以现在对其他货币比如欧元,日元都在降。但是有些国家比如中国就不肯遵守市场规律。我说实际上人民币去年一年对美元就涨了十几个百分点。他很不屑的说那一点算什么,还差很多,他们(中国政府)根本就不懂。我说我相信他们很清楚,但是也要保护自己的生产业。另外美国这样做不也是占便宜吗,试想中国在美元高的时候攒了上万亿的美元储备,现在美国一句话,就要中国的美元储备减少几千亿的价值?

他可能不高兴我跟他争执,忽然开始谈西藏问题,说国际社会对中国已经开始失去耐心了,因为中国侵略了一个独立国家。然后盯着我说,西藏是一个独立国家!

我说,我不同意。他很大声讲,我知道你不同意,但是那是一个事实!不过这是一个经济课,我也不能花时间讲这个。然后继续讲课。

我一下火了。我压住气,拿出本子,开始写一些我要讲的话的思路(呵呵,我这人嘴比较笨,吵架一般都不占便宜)。等他又讲了两个小时,下课前一分钟,我举起了手。

“我想和班上的同学分享一些我关于中国的看法,因为我们明年要去中国(我们MBA课的最后一个学期,大家一起到中国学习一个星期)”

他楞了一下,说:“好吧。不过你只有一分钟”

我的原话:"I have lived in the US for almost 10 years. I have seen things in China that are not properly reported here by the media in the US, and that might have caused some of the misunderstanding."

"I've never believed in Communism myself, and I think the Chinese Communist Party did a lot of terrible things. But today, whether or not China is still a Communist country is highly debatable. Mostly importantly, I have seen with my own eyes that the average Chinese are living a much better life than they did 10 years ago."

"As managers, we all know how hard it is to manage a team of 10. Just imagine how hard it would be to run a country of 1.3 billion people. It's only inevitable to make a lot of mistakes, sometimes big mistakes."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't listen to everything I said, and don't listen to everything Dr.XX said. (Class laughing) When you go to China next year, see it for yourselves, talk to people, learn about the country, keep an open mind, and understand that just because people do things differently doesn't mean they are dumb or evil."

班上有几个同学鼓起了掌。还有一些到我这边握了手,说了一些鼓励的话。

我不知道这门课还能不能通过了。呵呵。不过我的GPA还可以,经受的住一门课的打击。
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评论
shavignon 回复 悄悄话 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpuDTit_pcM&feature=related
有人看过这个视频么?一共4个部分
songwaimai 回复 悄悄话 作者智力有问题,不自觉的偷换话题。比如说教授说中国是个专制的(共产主义)国家,作者则反驳说人民的生活水平提高了。
思路花雨 回复 悄悄话 ding !
jwayne_1 回复 悄悄话 if you check history, most of the horrible crimes and human caused disasters were due to two reasons: blind patriotism and blind religion. and most of the time, most people wouldn't know they were wrong until too late.
jwayne_1 回复 悄悄话 回复littlebirds的评论: i think you over estimated the political intelligence of average people, american and chinese.
tinygrace 回复 悄悄话 支持你。。。这个教授对中国太偏见了。
同样是美国MBA的教授们,我们学校的教授一些过中国,对中国都评价很高,尤其是教法律的教授,对于中国法律制度发展很是赞许,他还说中国是世界上法律制度发展最快的国家。。。
littlebirds 回复 悄悄话 回复jwayne_1的评论:
一般中国人能想到的美国人岂会想不到?他们会被诱导根本原因还是因为他们乐于被误导或者对被误导无所谓。即使现在民主党主张撤军也不是因为所谓道德上的问题,而是因为经济代价太大,石油利益又视乎遥遥无期。
西藏问题则完全不同,它干系到的是中国主权这样根本的政治问题,而不是经济利益和政治理念。中国政府提农奴制度主要还是指出达赖并不是个好鸟,而不是为了要正当化既成事实:中国老早就声明过了,主权问题没的谈判,美不美化都一样了。 :-)


pinkpony 回复 悄悄话 太酷了!
jwayne_1 回复 悄悄话 回复缘言的评论: 美国人50%反对伊战是因为结果糟糕

i don't agree. it was because the government misled people. i don't know about you, but i think the current u.s. government behaves more and more like chinese communist government in many aspects.

some western governments use 民主 as excuse to do many things (including iraq), there is no doubt about it and that's why many chinese are angry. however, have you thought about tibetan people's feelings?

if a chinese argues, we are stronger and we liberated them from slavery, so they should thank us, then the same argument can be used by the american for invading iraq, for supporting tibetan separaists.
鼎祥 回复 悄悄话 说得好
smeagolrocks 回复 悄悄话 I think China deserves some criticizem but your professor is a jerk. You can complaint to your school authority about this professor. Let them know that this is a economy not a political science class. And let them know that this professor is making you feeling uncomfortable by bringing up things that are irrelelavant to the class.
lsj1268 回复 悄悄话 I had similar experince. In a EMBA program, economy class, good prof. Being objective and analytical is very importent in defending China. Not lack of enthusiasm, lack of composer due to the language skill, concerns for the consequence. Yet, we got to do something now rather then later.
foxingy 回复 悄悄话 Thumb up!!
--Another MBA student in north America
水蜜 回复 悄悄话 人人都有民族自尊心!!
shavignon 回复 悄悄话 great !!! BRavo!!!
wantno3 回复 悄悄话 Well Done!!!
为你感到自豪
金色的麦田 回复 悄悄话 好样儿的!佩服你!
逛完有话说 回复 悄悄话 你是好样的,佩服你的勇气,更尊敬你以理服人,有理有节的气度!
summer_rose 回复 悄悄话 直接去学校有关部门反应他的言行,有关种族,政治等很多敏感话题是不被大学讲课范围所允许的,也许他会因此失去站在讲台上的资格。
这种无耻教授我遇见过,我不但当面驳斥了他的观点,还有写EMAIL继续直言不晦地表达了我的异议和遗憾。也许他也感觉到了自己的无理和心虚,最后成绩并不象我想象的那么差。老美永远是贱命一条-----只怕比自己凶的人。如果奴性越重,他们反而越瞧不起。现在美国经济这么烂,不知道他们有什么好嚣张的,还能猖狂几呀?美元这么无耻的让日元和人民币帮它卖单,还能有什么国际威望?
littlebirds 回复 悄悄话 1.如果以过去10年而论,中国gdp年增长率一直在10%左右,世界上有这个发展速度的国家是很少的,当然,中国也为此付出了高昂的社会和环境代价。nothing comes free.

2.以过去50年而论,即使有文革对经济的破坏,中国仍然比印度发展的更快,而两者在人口问题方面比较接近。 认为大公司和小公司一样管理结构/可以如法炮制的人真太缺乏常识了。玩过传真不走样没有?人不是机器,没法进行精确控制的。假设每个环节上出1%的错误,10个管理层次就意味着结果偏离目标10%,50个层次就意味这结果完全变性了。

所以我觉得中国政府发展经济上还不错了,虽然在环境和公平等问题上可以做的更好。
Mulan_t 回复 悄悄话 you did great job.
kyderby 回复 悄悄话 Does the communist party allow a foreigner to meet anyone in Tibet freely? The Chinese goverment is so paranoid about unchecked information exchange. If the goverment has nothing to hide, why it does not allow foreign journalists (even journalist from Hong Kong) to report from Tibet? People in Tibet want religious freedom, not just money.
denzil39 回复 悄悄话 Good job! Well done. I wish I could be as wise and brave as you when this moment comes.
wtwyc 回复 悄悄话 我想就凭一句中国人都不懂经济,你就可以complain discrimination,居然有这么愚蠢自大的教授。应该公布他的姓名。
wtwyc 回复 悄悄话 为你感到自豪
gn3721 回复 悄悄话 I am very very proud of you !
缘言 回复 悄悄话 监督政府是公民的义务,维护中华民族的利益是中国人的职责。做为个人来说,尽责而已。
smith34 回复 悄悄话 well, it is sad that the individual chinese has to defend their own country, where is the chinese government, what have they done? counting their money in some banks in us?
缘言 回复 悄悄话 如果民主代表着民族的利益或神的意志, 就不会有大洪水了。文革和第三帝国也是特例了。美国人50%反对伊战是因为结果糟糕,战前的支持率是超过一半的,而且布什毕竟也是美国人选出来的。就像天地万物一样,规律是自然的,人再多也没用。行事在人,成事在天。做人心正即可。

又,鄙人没有说过的话,请不要臆断。
jwayne_1 回复 悄悄话 回复缘言的评论: there are more than 50% of american disagree with the us government on iraqi war. you want to call them mei3 jian1?
jwayne_1 回复 悄悄话 of course there are lots of prejudice and misunderstanding. but the communist government is not defendable. for your comments, you may gain some applause in usa but you will get into trouble if you are in china for saying "i never believed in communist and they did lots of terrible things".

so, try not to confuse china / chinese with the current chinese government.
缘言 回复 悄悄话 LovingKyle 是好样的,至少尽了作为一个中国人的本分。反对者们
其实也在尽作中国人的本分,只是环境和方式值得斟酌。LovingKyle 的本意和对一个对中国有偏见的人辩论(对外),而不是讨论中国的发展的实际问题(对内)。对方如果已经有了偏见,合理的辩论在那种情况下是不可能的了。但如果要讨论中国的发展的实际问题,可以到相应的论坛去探讨,发牢骚发错了地方。 其实反对者们的言论依鄙人看也是愤青言论。

再多说几句,辩论一个问题,特别是政治问题,首先要确定立场,政治问题就是利益问题,如果站在中国人的对立面上,那就不是”人民内部矛盾了“。换言之,西藏问题是中国的利益问题,用个不恰当的比方,就像“和美国政府辩论伊拉克战争的正义性”。所以,西藏问题是中国政府怎样才能保护中国利益的问题。再者,辩论要有前提,中国发展有内部的问题,但也有外部的大环境问题,绝对的讨论两者的每一个都是片面的。再三,说人多不是问题, 那最好拿出点数据来,比较一下和中国国情(资源,国际政治环境,等等)差不多的国家,也让大家心服口服。
rhealthy 回复 悄悄话 顶贾兄!
其实现在生活好只不过相比30~40年前的穷苦而言, 而那又恰恰是中共造成的, 比解放前还糟!回过头来说,现在有肉吃,有车坐就是生活提高了吗?不说别的,环境恶化造成那么多疾病,更有很多穷人得病不敢上医院,又有孩子考上大学家里却绝望的自杀. LovingKyle, 要是您,您还会说好吗?您只是看到两极分化的上面, 大千世界的俗面, 紧张社会的表面, 难听一点讲,您带有选择性的忽视了负面.在您的潜意识里,您认为这些负面对您以后发展不利(比如,MBA需要经济蓬勃的中国,世界瞩目的中国).这不怪您, 我们都会犯这样的错误,因为我们常不善思虑,亦非圣贤.举个例子,来美国"参观"的大陆官员大多嘲笑美国好象中国农村.
人多不好治理?大公司还敢要您这个MBA?敢要您当CEO, MANAGER?
Quarx 回复 悄悄话 好!
Suggest change "guess what I'm trying to say is," ==>"what I'm trying to say here is,". It is more assertive.

adriana 回复 悄悄话 回复gzlady的评论:

I like the speech very much. It's very objective.
袁小二 回复 悄悄话 同意屠夫的话
“英文子弹”!
拿起笔杆做刀枪!:)
gzlady 回复 悄悄话 Great speech! I am very proud of you.
外乡人 回复 悄悄话 agree with adobecreek, in fact, you are safe after this "battle". No one whants trouble, you have shown to everyone that your prof and you had different oppion. therefore any low mark may result a dispuse.
贾庆皋 回复 悄悄话 过去十年哪些国家或地区的生活水平在下降?纵向自己和自己比的进步,不如横向同类型国家比的同步!1949年中国和其他哪些国家人均生活水准类似,现在他们之间的区别如何?

人口多不是犯错误的借口。更何况13亿人口是从4亿五千万大跃进来的。更何况人多人少领导层次和结构都是类似的。不是一个人领导13亿而是领导7-10人,层层类推。管不好十人,自然管不好十亿。见识和权威是领导者应该具备的。

亲眼之见大恐未真,背后之言岂能全信。一个成熟的人要善于搜集信息分析资料并给出合理的结论。单纯的口号和指责不是交流和提高的手段和过程。西藏问题缺乏多方位的公开信息,现在下结论还太早。
子夏浮云 回复 悄悄话 Very good! Chinese need to speak out loudly!
疯一样的男子 回复 悄悄话 你的回复非常的proper,换做我可能就被学校kick out了,呵呵
biglovee 回复 悄悄话 Well done!

Cannot imagine an economics professor can be this openly disrespectful and judgmental of another country's internal affairs without doing fair amount of research. It takes huge arrogance to point fingers like this, especially with your presence!

Remember to give him an awful awful teaching evaluation!
疯一样的男子 回复 悄悄话 楼主加油!!
疯一样的男子 回复 悄悄话 回复adobecreek的评论:
我非常同意你的看法
梦驰 回复 悄悄话 Thank you for speaking out for Chinese.
adobecreek 回复 悄悄话 That's the difference between Chinese system and American's. If you are in Chinese university and have a different opinion, for example: you think Japan should stay in Manchua and you speak out, you will not only fail the course, you'll be in big trouble too.

Becomes you are in America, not only you won't be in trouble you get applause for speaking out your opinioin.
屠夫诗人 回复 悄悄话 好!将你这段英文版收录了,等有机会也和周围的澳洲朋友邻居宣传宣传。如有此类英文的反驳文章,请一并放在网上,以供各位朋友,我们需要英文“子弹”。
blackjack8 回复 悄悄话 Great!!. You should be fine, otherwise he will be in touble.
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