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  ALUMNI

Thoughts After the L.A. Reunion
BY DR. MAXIMO KIOK ('72)

Posted Saturday, April 23, 2005 2:06 AM

Dr. Kiok, who resides in Monroe, Louisiana, wrote the following after Fr. Go's visit.

Pictures! New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver 1, Vancouver 2. Pictures here courtesy of the '72 Dragons.

FR. JOHNNY GO is a man of the hour, and in a sense, we have been gathered from the four corners of the world to help him fulfill this historic mission of Xavier School. Not only that, I believe Xaverians are chosen to lead the entire Tsinoy community in a historic reconnection with China, and re-establishing the deep and dependable ties between the two cultures hat had existed for centuries, briefly interrupted by the historical diversions of colonialism and mercantilism. I think we are quite on the verge of implementing the Golden Rule amongst all neighboring cultures--do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you--clearly half of the mandate Christ has gsiven to us, the other being a deeply personal communion with God through our soul, our mind, and our physical strength. In fact, the message of Christ could not enter China in anything but this humble garb of offering ourselves for others, certainly not in the traditional armor of demanding of others what we want out of our own whims. The true spirit of humility that marks the lives of St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius of Loyola, and other Jesuit missionaries, that endeared them to the Chinese people and its past governments, can only come from those who have suffered, endured, and prevailed, under adverse circumstances. We are re-entering China as its forgotten but forgiving orphans, repaying hurt with healing, loss with love, and fear with fortitude. This is a time that parallels the Exodus. "This land is mine, God gave this land to me . . . "

I think we can create in China, the kind of peaceful, self-respecting, hardworking mentality, with emphasis on treating others as we would want them to treat us, with emphasis on tolerance of diversity, rather than intolerance and hatred. We cannot transform cynics to this Quixotic quest, but we do not need to depend on them for our success. We have enough of us to do it. We have a way to go to instill the right attitutude of
credit-worthiness in the hometowns of our great grandparents that seemed to have been lost under the grinding weight of decades of poverty, but which in its prime enabled our ancestors to launch trade expeditions to all of Asia, India and Africa, setting the first example in the world's history of what FAIR and FREE trade REALLY means. We have a way to go to inspire the tolerance of other faiths and races that marked the first humanistic society the world has ever seen, prevalent in China when the European missionaries first set foot on her soil, brought back to Italy, as the seed of the Renaissance. You would be doubly proud that the source of such
a world vision of tolerance was our own hometown--Amoy.

But first, we must blaze a path for our own children and those of our families and friends, to enable them to set foot again and settle productively and peacefully in China. As it is, it is harder for an overseas ethnic Chinese to get a permanent resident visa in China, than it is for
a Chinese to get a PR visa in the States. This is a historical oversight and
aberration that must be corrected from the China end, and which we must exert every influence and effort to rectify, as soon as possible, because it sets an artificially short time horizon for the investment of any money or time by anyone of us in China. Until this Porcelain Curtain is lifted, all of our plans, all of our efforts to preserve the Chinese culture and language, would end up in failure, and remain futile. There is absolutely no reason why this unnecessary and unreasonable obstacle to the return of overseas Chinese who can support themselves and contribute to China's economy should persist. The 1949 civil war is over. The Cold War is over. Our state of being a "diaspora", likewise, should also be over.

I shall share with you my further thoughts, and developments as we walk together in our march from persecution, from isolation, and from despair. We cannot part the Red Sea, nor need we, if we can part the ignorance and bigotry that isolates the future generations of overseas Chinese from their ancestral homeland. "Yao guan che shi xian gai ge kai fang jiu yao dui hua qiao kai fang ding ju de fang bian." (To fully implement reform and opening up, one must reform and open up the establishing of permanent residence to the overseas Chinese.) The current requirements for investing 2 million USD or demonstrating first-degree kinship with a live Chinese national are overly restrictive, if not punitive, when the real requirement to prevent any danger to the economy of China should simply be that the permanent resident show ability to support himself for at least 5 years, by virtue of his skills, his work, or his wealth.

 

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