Internet Release....
Life can sometimes be so inconveniently embarrassing. Especially when you believe you're on your game, at the top of the world, burnishing your reputation. That's the official, outer show when you're a functionary at a fairly nice level in the communist Chinese bureaucracy. And then there's the inner life, where the real satisfactions lie, given one's values and opportunities, right?Right. Unless and until you really piss someone off and they go looking around for evidence of what they already suspect, that you're an unprincipled laggard, a moral deviant, a stupid fantasist. Who knows, it could've been someone passed over when you had your latest promotion, someone who felt he deserved the position of sales director at the state-owned tobacco monopoly in Guangxi province, southern China.
On the other hand, it might just as well have been some guy whose wife you'd been sleeping around with and the unreasonable dolt felt passionately betrayed; that kind of stuff. Revenge, after all, is a powerful emotion, likely far more so than the emotion of entitlement that you fell prey to. That's what happens, all too often, when someone feels they've fallen into a honeypot and they're eager to lap it all up.
That's you, Han Feng, right? After all, you faithfully wrote those revealing diary entries. Did you not? Were you, perchance, modelling yourself after earlier, more historically eminent diarists? Might you have been inspired, perhaps by the illustrious Samuel Pepys? He too was fond of himself and his position, and loved the lavish life.
No matter, you felt inspired, in any event, to chortle to yourself through the medium of your diary about all the sexual conquests, the binge-drinking, the bribes that came your way, and made your life (burp) the exciting adventure it turned out to be. Mid-life crisis, Mr. Han? Plenty of satisfactions in your life, that's abundantly clear:
"This is the year in which my work has gone more smoothly than ever. the company is growing. the mid-level cadres have worked hard to understand my goals. " (Resentful too, no doubt, of their having to do all the dog-work while you spent your working days in hotel rooms with women, went to booze-fuelled banquets - and occasionally deigned to show up at the office.)
"My authority has grown ... As for romance, Xiao Pan is hooked, Miss Tan is now a regular, and Miss Mo is in the queue. This year I had abundant romantic encounters, but when there are too many women I have to pay attention to my health." It's true, isn't it, you naughty boy, women can just drain one's energies, they are so demanding.
The reading public is titillated, you can be certain of that. You've become famous! Infamous? Whatever. You naughty, naughty boy. "...That evening Xiao Pan wanted to see me. She is getting married on the 29th and she still wants to have fun with me. This girl is too wild! Got a room at the Guoda Hotel. She arrived after 10 p.m. She bathed, jumped into bed and we went at it vigorously."
Were you perhaps practising to write an exciting post-modern Chinese novel?
Labels: China, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 04, 2010
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