Counter-Currents
Street, Shanghai, a few years ago. China ain’t what it used to be. Getting rid of Mao did the trick. PhredFoto
1,716 words
Ages ago, for reasons I no longer remember, I was wandering across Asia and decided to spend some time in Taiwan. The Chinese interested me, and Taiwan was then as close as it was practical to get. Then, as now, the Chinese were thought by many to be exotic, inscrutable, devious, and unlike normal people such as ourselves. You know, opium dens, dragon ladies, assassinations by puff adder, that sort of thing. Given the importance of China today, the nature of these multitudinous people might bear thought.
As was commonly done in those days, I found a (very) cheap place to stay in the winding alleys downtown and settled in. Nice enough place, I thought, agreeable people, pretty girls. It is curious how unweird people turn out to be if you actually live among them, this being a principle I had discovered among the Thais, Viets, Mexicans, and Cambodians. I shared an apartment with another wandering young gringo, and a little Japanese mathematician named Sakai — ”whiskey well,” if I remember the characters of his name — and two young Chinese guys. One of them, Ding Gwo, played the guitar and wanted to be a rock star. The whole bunch were extraordinarily ordinary. The Chinese are in fact as exotic as potatoes. The kids act like kids anywhere, the women like women. They are not another species.
The girls dressed to be attractive and pretty, hardly a novelty among young women, and were often wildly successful. (Oriental women tend to appeal greatly to Western guys, the condition being known as “yellow fever” or “rice fever.” It is not a matter of sexual availability, the middle-class girls being less promiscuous than American, but just lovely and feminine. Chilly they were not.)
At night we sometimes went to a local hangout for the young — pretty much like any other, though more innocent than the American today: Taiwan was decidedly authoritarian and being caught with drugs would not have led to a happy ending. Dim lights, soft drinks, Western rock, and considerable flirtation. It could have been Memphis.
Exotic murderess girlfriend Chin Ping distracts Fred with humor while temple dragon sneaks up behind to bite his hand off. It’s how the Chinese are, crafty, and hang out with concrete animals.
I studied Mandarin hard on the principle that most things are possible with a combination of modest intelligence and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and in six months could communicate reasonably and slog my way through a pulp novel with lots of help from a dictionary. A Chinese dictionary is an adventure all its own. The school was Gwo Yu R Bao (romanization a jackleg mix of Yale and Wade-Gyles and god knows what else), literally Mandarin Newspaper, but it had a language school above. My teacher, Jang Lau Shr, was a mid-fortiesish woman who seemed quite old to me at the time. She was competent and likable, and not devious, sneaky, or mysterious. She probably didn’t have a single puff adder. I guess she hadn’t gotten the word.
When the government realized that I was a journalist of sorts, she was suddenly replaced by a very attractive young woman who I know damned well was from Guo Min Dang intelligence. Manna from heaven.
Sisters of Chin Ping, the Wiley Murderess. You could almost mistake them for, you know, just kids, unless you knew of their eerie genetic affinity for puff adders.
Several things I noticed, young and dumb as I was (the two conditions overlap greatly). Taiwan was not Uganda. At the time all manner of countries in the bush world had Five-Year Plans or the equivalent. These countries usually consisted of a patch of jungle, a colonel, and a torture chamber. Decades later, they would still consist of a patch . . .
Taiwan, then in the Third World — whatever that is — had an equally ambitious program of advancement. Perhaps it was for five years. It included the Jin Shan reactors, a new port, a steel mill, a major highway, and so on. Thing was, they were actually coming into existence. Later, for the Far Eastern Economic Review, I would interview the head of the nuclear program. Harvard guy. Later, on a press junket, I would visit many of the projects, such as the steel mill, which was in production.
With my honed capacity for recognizing the inescapable, I concluded that these people could get things done. Things like industry, organization, technology. That sort.
At some point I had passed through Hong Kong and concluded that it was New York with slanted eyes. The Chinese, I judged correctly though young and dumb, could play hardball finance.
And in the United States, Chinese students were reported to be doing very well at places such as MIT. Hmmm . . . What if that great American ally, Mousy Dung, stopped paralyzing the mainland and the world had to compete with all 800,000,000 of them?
We are finding out.
I loved the language, the characters that seemed almost to dance on the page in old, old documents in the national museum, which was filled with wonderful works of art saved from the Communists when Chiang fled to the island. I couldn’t begin to read them, of course. Modern Chinese is remarkably easy, however, provided you don’t want to read or write it, having none of the complexities of tense, mood, or person of, say, Spanish. It made people lots less mysterious to realize that they were not talking about the hidden Blue Jade Eye of God, worth millions and protected by a curse, but about Grandma’s congestive heart failure and what to do about it.
You can buy Tito Perdue’s novel Reuben here.
And, for a young man, there was practical Chinese: “Wo mei-you kan-gwo numma pyauliang-de syau-jye.”
On blazing hot evenings we wandered through the twisting lanes past rows of what appeared to be orange crates at which sat children doing their homework. Inside, they would have cooked. I thought this studiousness impressive, but had no idea how much it would later pay off at MIT.
A traffic overpass near where we lived had a steamy, enclosed food market beneath with stalls selling just about anything edible and some maybe not quite. We would go there for sheets of fried squid — ”you yu” — and fruit juice, the latter sold by a young woman who became a friend. We called her “Shwei Gwo Syau Jye,” or Fruit Juice Girl. Taiwan had not then become the economic Mighty Mouse that it is today, and most people, though not hungry, were poor. She spent long, long hours in her stall with a small, fluffy dog to keep her company. She had a subscription to Newsweek that she read to learn English and walked home with her dog every night, exhausted, to take care of a father of some 80 years.
She deserved better. There was a lot of that going around.
There were relics, fast disappearing, of the old China, more closely resembling the exotic image. In Wan Wha (“Ten Thousand Glories”) there was the street of the snake butchers, definitely memorable by night. At stalls live snakes, some of them deadly, hung by strings around their necks, if that is what snakes have. The proprietor on request slit a snake from head to tail, massaged the blood into a glass, squeezed the gall bladder into the mess, and sold it to, usually, a laborer to drink. Dwei shen-ti hen hau: Good for the body. Not mine, though.
At the time what was called Madame Chiang’s hotel was going up on a hillside. Most new buildings in Asia look like buildings in Philadelphia. This one was deliberately Chinese, and glorious. I had no idea that years later on a junket the Taiwanese government would put me up there, and several other reporters, for a week. Funny how things work.
I came to have immense respect for China as a civilization. Given the dismal record of immorality, poor judgement, and venality that is the baseline for humanity, China is impressive.
Madame Chiang’s during a junket. Not too shabby.
Among racial sites on the Web today, one frequently sees the assertion that Asians can copy but not invent. Maybe. There is a chain of thought that begins with “screwed up like a Chinese fire drill,” then, “Well, they can make pencils and toys,” (“Made in Japan,” remember?), then, “Okay they can make easy things like washing machines with white supervision,” and then, “Well, yes, they can assemble iPads, but can’t create anything.” Then, it turns out — as it has turned out — they are designing world-class supercomputers all of their own. Oops, heh.
On the one hand, the condescension sounds like wishful thinking. On the other, in painting for example, there is more creativity between the Impressionists and Klimt than in centuries of Chinese painting, which usually consisted of making copies of past masters. We had better hope.
Years later, on the junket aforementioned, my wife and I and our very small daughter came to Taipei and stayed in Madame Chiang’s. I don’t know how old babies are when they first sit up unaided, but that’s how old Macon was, because it is what she did. Anyway, we came into the lobby, Blonde Poof in arms. gorgeous vases on pedestals, columns in red lacquer, everything but the Empress Dowager, and they may have had her in a closet somewhere.
The staff, mostly young girls, came running over, charmed by anything so exotic and golden-haired. The Chinese can do many things, but golden hair isn’t one of them. They all wanted to look at this wonder child. A girl smiled and unceremoniously took Macon from my wife’s arms. The mob raced about the lobby showing their prize to everyone they knew, disappeared into the kitchen for a couple of minutes, and came back, delighted, and put Macon, uncooked, back where they had found her.
I have a hard time getting from there to weaselly, sinister, and devious.
We went to Gwo Yu R Bau to say hello to Jang Lao Shr, who was still there, and to the bridge to see Shwei Gwo Syau Jye, who also was still there. Still reading Newsweek, still working long, long hours. It was delightful. I never saw her again.
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24 comments
No…they are so devious that you could not see it.
And they cannot create – only steal and imitate.
Nor are they even remotely ‘like us’.
Fact.
“They are not another species.” – They are not like us. Not whatsoever. They are a different species.
I worked in Taiwan for 6 months in the 90s, and I found the locals to be very friendly. The majority population is actually Chinese, with an indigenous underclass of ethnic Taiwanese. Interestingly if I’d married a local girl I would have been given indefinite leave to remain (whilst still married to her) but I would never have been made a citizen. I would never have been allowed to work there for a local company either (note I was employed by a UK company and paid into my UK bank account). So despite this massive ‘racism’ on the part of the state, I was made very welcome and treated very respectfully by pretty much everyone. Now *that’s* how a country should be run, protected and preserved.
Except that any state truly committed to its people would outlaw interracial marriage.
Yes, and between European Whites and Jews, too.
Last night streaming on Tubi, comedy/drama called, “Dealing With Dad” about a dysfunctional, but successful, immigrant Taiwanese family in LA:
Taiwanese Mom: I usually prefer my kid marry Chinese more traditional, but Margaret, she like all kind of boy, and we all come from same monkey.
Margaret (daughter): OK, Mom, Stop!
Mom: Why?
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Coincidence?
On reading this piece by Mr. Reed I burst out laughing all over again.
True diversity, maintaining identity, presents more opportunity for laughs at ourselves and each other. We turn into same boring monkey again not so much fun.
It’s a fun anecdote, but why do they have the reputation of devious if they’re apparently not? Spying, for one, seems pretty devious.
Nice article. I believe that overall people on this website have the wrong approach toward the Asian countries. Of course they can create and develop technologically advanced societies. I believe the first compass ever used was created in China in B.C.. However their genetics cause them to have a naturally different set of morality than whites do. They‘re going to steal technology because it’s easier and it gives them an advantage. And actually a lot of Asian people have more respect for white civilization then for any other race. However we still are not them and like what was once said on a counter currents podcast; the leaders and elites of their countries (particularly China) realize that the biggest disadvantage western civilization has is that we are not racially aware and soft in this matter. Thus they are playing on „easy mode“ in competition with us and overall do not want whites to become racially aware or nationalistic ( very similar situation with Russia). I am not fanboying or weebing for Asians I am just stating what I think is most likely to be true, overall I am unsure about the exact details of how our approach should be toward them. I do however want everyone to be very aware and careful what they read about China. Right now there is a ton of propaganda out there and an agenda that our establishment (the anti-whites who rule us) has against China. The ruling elite of China aren’t our friends but it seems as though they are the enemies (or at least in high competition) with many of the anti-white elites in the west.
Those snakes. Just, no.
The Chinese attitude towards animals is REPULSIVE. Where’s my nigga Rich Houck on this? Would be a good subject for him.
Agree. Coincidence, it just happened that I saw some youtube recommended video about puppies kidnapped for ” dog meat ” restaurants. They are skin and bones, at least westerners have the intelligence to fatten their animals for slaughter.
They have their snouts tightly closed with a very thin, sharp tie, so as not to be bitten of course, but above all not to be overcome by the yelps of fear and agony before being boiled alive (they do the same to cats). Oh what a delightful yellow race.
Ok ok western slaughterhouses ( especially with the third worldization … ) but here, we’re reaching new heights of abjection with these grimacing-faced orcs.( I hate their stupid giggles )
Fionn McCool: July 30, 2024 The Chinese attitude towards animals is REPULSIVE. Where’s my nigga Rich Houck on this? Would be a good subject for him.
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Unaware of your nigga reporter. Maybe Western journalist Fred Reed can give us an update about this one shocking aspect of lovely Chinese culture. Dr. William Pierce informed us 23 years ago about what some Chinese eat besides cats and dogs:
…A number of hospitals in China that perform abortions sell the aborted fetuses for eating. The smaller fetuses are cooked in a soup. The late-term fetuses are eaten more like roast suckling pig. The Chinese government understandably is a little bashful about having Western journalists publicize this sort of thing, just as it is bashful about having Western journalists film what the Chinese do to cats and dogs. Not to worry, though: Western journalists understand that it would be the worst kind of “no, no” to publish such information in the West; it might dampen the public’s enthusiasm for more togetherness with the Chinese… I recently acquired photographs taken in a restaurant in China of a Chinese man eating what is quite plainly recognizable as a late-term human fetus. The photographs are shocking and disgusting to me, and I imagine that they also will be shocking and disgusting to the average American lemming. They won’t be shocking to Chinese, of course. Eating fetuses is no stranger to them than, say, the habit of eating snails in garlic sauce is to a Frenchman.
The significance I see in the Chinese habit of eating fetuses, even if only the wealthier Chinese can afford them, is more than simply a difference between us and the Chinese in culinary tastes or in ideas of what’s healthy. A society that sees nothing wrong in eating babies, a race that finds this habit acceptable, is profoundly different from ours. The difference is far deeper than language or skin color or facial features.
Source: “Shocking Differences” at nationalvanguard.org
I, for one, vouch for the veracity of Dr. Pierce’s account, based on a direct personal experience. When I was working and living in China, a female acquaintance of mine (who was a friend’s friend and later wished to date me, which I declined) was a professional obstetric surgeon. Once when we met in a late afternoon, she just finished her last delivery operation of the day, and to my great shock, she brought me a small plastic bag in which there were several human placentae, still fresh, warm and dripping blood.
She told me those were from the women she operated on in that day to give childbirth. She intended to offer those fresh placentae to me as a gift and a token of goodwill and she said that they were highly nutritious tonic and I could cook and eat them for enhancing physical health. She also told me that they were sort of precious and hard-to-obtain because in the hospital she worked many doctors were desirous of and competed for them for either their own consumption or to meet the requests from their family relatives or close friends. I was flabbergasted beyond words and hurried to decline her offer. She pressed on but I was adamant and she gave up, not without some ineffable facial expressions of disbelief, as if I were kind of an unappreciating ingrate or ignoramus.
Later in our conversation she also told me that selling aborted fetuses to high bidders for consumption was still being widely practiced at town or rural level hospitals in China, though far less common in the hospitals of big cities. As I recall now, this episode occurred in mid 2000s.
Riki-Eiki: July 31, 2024 I, for one, vouch for the veracity of Dr. Pierce’s account, based on a direct personal experience. When I was working and living in China, a female acquaintance of mine.. told me that [fetuses] were sort of precious and hard-to-obtain because in the hospital she worked many doctors were desirous of and competed for them for either their own consumption or to meet the requests from their family relatives or close friends…
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Good for you for rejecting that marriage proposal.
So, the Chinese practice of not only eating houshold pets but also of human fetuses is widely known and accepted in China. Why haven’t some Western (read: Jew-owned) investigative media like 60 Minutes covered such a well-known practice to their American pet-loving audience? Americans should be made to know that their pets should be protected from their new Chinese immigrant neighbors.
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As I recall now, this episode occurred in mid 2000s.
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I visited Hong Kong in 1968 and found the citizenry friendly enough, but it was their job to be friendly to the GIs there for a week’s R&R (Rest & Relaxation) respite from the war in Vietnam. It was all about the natives competing for our money before we flew back to the war zone — and generously spend that blood money we did.
I never felt among my own with the Vietnamese, Thai or Cambodians that I spent considerably more time with than Chinese; they are all racial aliens. I occasionally enjoy a Chinese-style stir-fry meal but don’t need a Chinaman to cook one for me. I can do that myself in one of their woks.
Mr Williams, Rich Houck is in all seriousness no kind of nigga but he is a man of about my age who has written much for this magazine and who I am happy to call comrade— a truly good hearted pro white individual about whose work I feel very warmly. Check out this article as an introduction:
https://counter-currents.com/2019/06/7-11-nationalism/
Dr. Pierce of course speaks sense as usual in the quotation you provide.
As a white anglo guy, it’s hard to understand the appeal of Asian cultures. Especially the women. If you’ve seen an English rose, Asia just has pesky weeds to offer.
Mr. Reed penned a prosaic and nostalgic essay from his memories of his past pleasant living experiences in Taiwan, which, as far as I see, though bears only limited relevance and importance to the cause of White Nationalism, are visceral, anecdotally interesting and provide a little food for thought. I respect it and do not intend to find fault needlessly.
Meanwhile, please mind the two petinent facts: 1) It is in Taiwan and about Taiwanese, who are not Chinese and especially after years of independent development and with their peculiar history of having been subjected to long time direct rule and/or heavy and enduring influences of more civilized and advanced foreign powers in development and civilizatioanl level, namely, the Dutch, the Japanese, and the American (in that chronological order), the psychological and hehavioral patterns of the Taiwanese as well as their value system, have already become significantly and irreversibly different from those of the mainland Chinese, though some resemblances are still there.
2) It was “ages ago”, according to Mr. Reed himself at the beginning of this essay of his, and according to the pictures and the clothes and style of the people in them, I would estimate that such experiences of his living in Taiwan occurred in late 1970s or early to mid 1980s. Over the years, the Taiwanese have grown all the more independent and aware of their collectively separate identity in their own sovereign island and more different from and resistant to China and the Chinese.
With my clear, objective and unshakable perception that China today poses the largest external threat to the Western nations and the White race, plus the state of Taiwanese as I observe and analyze above, it again returns emphatically to my firm and consistent conclusion that in order to counter, contain and neutralize the menace of China without shedding much White blood, the factor of Taiwan must be effectively and potently leveraged to the hilt.
Every conscious and perceptual White nationalist and patriotic American with a rightful sense of urgency and a holistic and long term vision on the China Question should fully know and appeal to the US government, as much as one can, to reinforce, butress, and fortify its economic and military support and assistance for Taiwan and Japan, to shore up, boost and bolster the Taiwanese, as well as the more morally honest and honorable quasi-Aryan Japanese, materially and morally, so as to enable them to successfully defend themselves against the Chinese aggression and help keep China at bay for the ultimate interest and security of the American Whites and the White race wholistically.
Taiwan is Chinese. Taiwanese speak Chinese. Taiwan is Chinese culture. Taiwanese Chinese have relatives in China. They have factories in China. Arguing whether Taiwanese are Chinese, or not, does not make sense.
Except for the fact that a large and increasing proportion of Taiwanese, especially those belonging in the younger generations, are openly, proudly and unabasedly declaring their political and national identity of being Taiwanese, not Chinese, and are yearning for a separate and independent state of their own. Recently, the new version of the Taiwan passport has offcially removed the old English official title “Republic of China” on its cover and only shows the word “Taiwan” as the state name. All these make a big sense as clear indicators that the Taiwanese are not Chinese, mentally, politically and legally.
The modern Taiwanese culture, for all its Chinese origin, has already assumed and possessed distinctive and prominent features of their own, and are quite different from those of the mainland China, after having existed of, for, and by itself for half a century or so. This is not to mention that Taiwan has not been ruled by today’s China for one day, was ruled by the Netherlands for a brief period of time, ruled by a modernized Japan directly, successfully and prosperously for 50 years, and has been under a sustaned and heavy influence of US for the past 80 years.
As for language, the native tongue for the great majority of Taiwanese is Hokkien, not Mandarin. Even the official standard language of Taiwan, which is a revised version of Mandarin admittedly, has quite different characteristics than the Mandarin used in China in pronunciaiton, tone, intonation and vocabulary.
Having relatives and factories in China simply don’t add up as a persuasive argument of the Taiwanese being Chinese. Using this to support your claim is so weak and irrelevant.
Following your logic, Singapore, a sovereign country whose population of citizenry is nearly 80% ethnic Chinese, is also a Chinese state. What a joke!
A rootless individual man. His civilization and his race are at the pinnacle of the world. He wanders around the globe using that position to indulge in the pleasures of different company, cultures and civilizations. They were all fun little experiences that make for neat anecdotes on obscure blog post.
But, there is no great insight, not even a nice little novel left behind. Nothing but a trace. Meanwhile, his every homeland is invaded and colonized by these wonderful people. His people have little or no inheritance left. They live ever more adrift and unmoored from who they are and where they come from slowly subsumed by the great other. Finally, there is nothing left to appreciate about the others for it is taken for granted in the dullness of having become them. No more trace of that fascinating other you once were to them. Nothing left to remember.
Alexander’s men mutinied and slapped him out of his funk. Will we be so lucky?
I kinda agree with this sentiment on the authors personal situation and how the article is a tad shallow. However the fact of the matter remains that white nationalists gain nothing from defending Taiwan. I actually think we‘d stand more to gain if China took Taiwan. Right now the US is trying to decouple or de-globalize itself from that part of Asia because that might very well become reality. In fact the „US“ has been trying to build their own or more friendly semi-conductor plants on the main land in places like Phoenix Arizona. The efforts havnt been very successful because it turns out brown people and lazy Marxist barista white liberals aren’t very good at doing this and they demand and cost too much in labor. This is actually so bad there are talks of importing Taiwanese factory workers into the US just to keep the companies factories going. In fact that is probably already happening on a small scale. But still the fact remains that our movement really has nothing to gain from taking sides here. However it seems as though we are benefiting from the US‘s conflict with China and retreat from Taiwan in the sense that our establishment is being forced to de-globalize a little bit, is taking a big economic L here and might be willing to throw some concessions our way to get us to cooperate with their foreign policy.
You are far from alone recognizing China as the West’s great competitor, not Russia (scrappy as they are). I see them as both inventive, AND stealing from the west. It has facilitated their meteoric economic rise. I dated a couple of Asians too. They’re not all bloodthirsty Dragon Ladies. Best to see one’s competitors as they are so as to know who you are dealing with.
The Chinese are a hard working culture who carefully, ahem, ‘curate’ diversity. The state controlled media carefully edits out political threats, but also cultural threats. The West seems to be gambling that its mores may be able to sneak in and undermine China via the arts or news over VPN connections. Haven’t seen a lot of traction yet.
Mr. Reed says: The Chinese are in fact as exotic as potatoes… They are not another species.
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They are another sub-species, or race, Fred.
Bottom line, to those of us who are serious about the primacy of race, they cannot make White babies. You said it right when you wrote:
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The Chinese can do many things, but golden hair isn’t one of them.
Great article. I wish for more.
I was in Asia for a while, I want to go back.
Fionn McCool: August 12, 2024 Mr Williams, Rich Houck is in all seriousness no kind of nigga but he is a man of about my age who has written much for this magazine and who I am happy to call comrade…
Thanks for that, Fionn. I’ve never heard of Rich but looked at the 5-year-old essay you recommend. It’s a good reminisce of healthier times past. I’m probably from his dad’s generation when we lived in a more or less White world (in the racially segregated South).
I like Mr. Edmond’s comment under “7/11 Nationalism” about how Ivan the Terrible dealt with the racial mess in Russia in his day.
Yes, Pierce was right, as usual: we must SEPARATE (not resegregate) from the “nigga mess.”
Why did you call Rich your nigga since he’s no kind if nigga???
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