China, the Country of the Blind
I recently read H.G. Wells’ short story The Country of the Blind, and it immediately struck me how relevant this story is to western visitors of China in modern times. If you’re a China observer, and an observer of how westerners interact with China, it’s definitely worth a read.
If you’re too busy to read a short story (and it’s not overly sci-fi, for those of you not into the genre), you might check out the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.
Here’s an excerpt to give you a taste:
> “Why did you not come when I called you?” said the blind man. “Must you be led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?”
> Nunez laughed. “I can see it,” he said.
> “There is no such word as see,” said the blind man, after a pause. “Cease this folly and follow the sound of my feet.”
> Nunez followed, a little annoyed.
> “My time will come,” he said.
> “You’ll learn,” the blind man answered. “There is much to learn in the world.”
> “Has no one told you, ‘In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King?'”
> “What is blind?” asked the blind man, carelessly, over his shoulder.
> Four days passed and the fifth found the King of the Blind still incognito, as a clumsy and useless stranger among his subjects.
> It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than he had supposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his coup d’etat, he did what he was told and learnt the manners and customs of the Country of the Blind. He found working and going about at night a particularly irksome thing, and he decided that that should be the first thing he would change.
There really is a lot there to appreciate. Read the original.