He
tried his hand at raising pigs first but the business went belly up because the
pigs were not gaining weight fast enough in spite of the nutritious feed. In China,
pigs gained 100 kilos in six months. He decided instead to grow Chinese
vegetables, cabbage, and to raise 150 goats with his associate’s father.
Constantin
Dragan and Dan Mihalacea, reporters for Realitatea TV, interviewed Li Bing Zhi in
February 2011. In broken Romanian and a jocular mien, Li Bing explained that he
paid his workers well when they showed up for work. After they drank their pay at
the end of the month, they returned to work sheepishly. Since they were so
undependable, Li Bing bought a few dogs that he trained himself. Li Bing gave his
goats Romanian names like Monica, Tantica, and Tapul.
Most
villagers accepted their new neighbor with open arms and called him “our
Chinese.” A small group, however, were not impressed with him and resented the
fact that his goats ate the grass that nobody used or needed anyway but that was
not the point. He was intruding on no man’s lands, grazing his goats in the
woods and other pastures, and he did not belong in their village. Besides, he worked
very hard and earned good money, a source of envy and discord.
Three
years ago, Li Bing Zhi opened a business in Bucharest. When it failed, he moved
with one of his associates to her native village of Lacusteni de Sus. What was
his explanation for settling in such an unlikely place, far away from his
native China and his family?
Li
Bing traded the pollution and restrictions of communist China for fresh air, freedom,
and a good life in the formerly communist country of Romania, more capitalist
today than many countries in Western Europe. He said, he wanted to settle there
permanently - “Where else could I go? Maybe the cemetery?” I was a doctor in
China but I now raise goats in Romania.”
The
case of this Chinese doctor fascinated me because he fled from a totalitarian
state to a formerly totalitarian state. I judged his move through the prism of
my experience. I have moved from a totalitarian state to the United States,
which was the beacon of freedom at the time in late seventies, the “shining
city on the hill.” Today, considering the accelerated change towards socialism/Marxism
and welfare dependency in the United States, would I move again to my adopted
country, or would I choose perhaps a newly emerging capitalist country like
Romania?
Freedom,
fresh air, a good life are very tenuous gifts from God in any society. In 1989,
when communism fell, Li Bing would not have chosen Romania as his permanent
residence because it was just as oppressive, polluted, and poor as his native
China was.
Change
for the wrong reason and blind faith in an omnipotent government can take away fragile
freedoms and an abundant life. Will we be able to keep our exceptional country
based on successful capitalism and Judeo-Christian values? Will Romania be able
to keep its fragile newfound capitalist freedom, good life, and fresh air?
Communist
agitators and community organizers are on the rise, supported by European
socialists and communists that never went away; they just hid in plain sight
and re-emerged in larger and larger numbers who are quite well financed.
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