Li Haijian was brought up solely by her grandma after her father’s death at the age of 3.   They relied on welfare for livelihood.   Her grandma, however, began to show symptoms of dementia during her high school time, and by now needs the girl’s care.  

“I am worried that when I return from school (next year) she won’t be here …” Li explains why she insists on bringing grandma with her to the new school which is 200 Km away from home.

The university appreciates her filial piety and thus allows the grandma to stay in the same room with her in the student dormitory.     A corporation in the town has also agreed to undertake the tuition fees and living expenses for them during the four school years (SingTao Daily 2021 Aug 26).

How can a human endure the terror, absurdity and hardship of existence?   Some choose to pursue happiness at whatever costs, some choose to define good and bad in their favour and then strive to erase the bad, and some choose to bear sufferings and strive to self-overcome.

“ … a society based largely on instrumental and utilitarian values, and determined by power-politics and driven by a money-economy, is incapable of arriving at a proper conception of culture … ,,, Like Tocqueville, Nietzsche sees hidden dangers in the new political realities opened up by the modern industrial world, modern democracy, and a money-economy … to cultivate the tyranny of the majority …… Society becomes made up of a herd of last men and women who are concerned only with ‘happiness’ ,,,”  (see p. 5-6 in Keith Ansell-Pearson (1994), An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker”, Cambridge University Press).

The anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine phenomena are wonderful sceneries in the 21^st Century, aren’t they?

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Categories: Human Rights & Social Issues

Tags: China, Feature