Chapter 28: Leisurely daily life during the plague (Part 2)
Finally, let’s turn our attention to China’s close neighbor, the great nation bathing in the waters of the Ganges, and the most populous democratic country in the world—India!
As the birthplace of this global "super pandemic", the epidemic in India is naturally not optimistic, and can even be said to be extremely serious.
——This country located in the South Asian subcontinent has a hot and humid climate, an extremely dense population, poor sanitary conditions, and poor people’s awareness of epidemic prevention. Therefore, it has become a nest of viruses, a paradise for bacteria, and of course a disaster for mankind.
In theory, India has a very advanced universal free medical system, but in fact, due to lack of funding and insane corruption, the vast majority of Indian public hospitals are in name only. Public hospitals in big cities are famous for being dirty and messy, and the technical level of doctors is also very poor. Minor illnesses can be treated only half-heartedly, but serious illnesses can lead to death. A scandal broke out in a public hospital in the capital, Delhi, where otherwise good mothers were killed by quack doctors. The public hospital in the countryside is simply a dilapidated building, and doctors and nurses are missing all year round.
Although the medical standards in private hospitals are somewhat decent, with the meager income of ordinary Indians, it may be difficult to afford the expenses of private hospitals. Even in normal times, there are many poor Indians who turn minor illnesses into serious illnesses, and serious illnesses into terminal illnesses... Now with the T-virus outbreak, the situation is even more miserable. In the slums of big cities like Mumbai and Calcutta, They are all piled up with corpses that were too late to be buried, and the countryside has become a hellish scene strewn with corpses. The death toll across the country is soaring at a rate of tens of thousands every day.
Faced with such a doomsday-like scenario, if it were in East Asia or Europe and the United States, the government would have already declared a national emergency, fully mobilized local governments, and sent various medical teams to the countryside to carry out treatment. But in magical India, the government’s response is... basically nothing!
There is no way, in this continent that is saturated with "democracy and freedom", Indian politicians have always been keen to use their national characteristics of "big talk" and often argue endlessly over trivial matters. For example, if the government wants to build a subway in the city center, it needs to acquire land and relocate some residents. In China, negotiation is usually the first step to coax away most of the good people who are easy to get rid of, leaving behind those "nail households" who refuse to leave. There are urban management on the white side and street gangsters on the bad side. In addition, there are public opinion offensives and mass pressure. In fact, If you can't, just use a bulldozer to push the problem away.
But this is not the case in India. Politicians will gather together to vote in a pretentious meeting. If the residents are unwilling to move - usually, even if everyone is obedient, there will probably be opposition secretly inciting trouble and stuffing money. Create a few nail households, and then this matter will become difficult to deal with. Many "conscientious politicians" will definitely use this topic to make noises. Those who support it will definitely oppose it. Then it will evolve into a struggle between several political groups, and the original project will be gradually forgotten by everyone. . So the politicians kept arguing on the stage, and the local people continued to do whatever they needed to do. After several years, everyone came to their senses and realized that none of the scheduled projects were completed, and several years were wasted.
Next, those Indian politicians began to argue with each other about who was responsible for "delaying the official business", triggering a protracted football kicking war that would not end in a few years. You have to wait until the next thing comes out to temporarily end this boring cycle.
Therefore, for more than half a century since India became independent, it has only built a few thousand kilometers of railways in total... which is really different from China.
Of course, the Indians are not without vigorous efforts in infrastructure construction. When large consortiums need land, they directly dispatch bulldozers and "vibrant social groups" to launch fully armed raids without paying a dime for land acquisition. They beat them up with swords, guns and sticks, and at the same time bulldozed the houses of those unruly people, crushed those who couldn't escape to death, and then looted the survivors before mercifully allowing them to leave alive.
In short, India is such a democratic country full of "civilian politicians with conscience" and "dynamic social groups". It is useless to rely on the government to solve most problems and can only rely on civil society groups to solve them by force. Official matters are always so procrastinating, and ordinary people have no sense of time. They believe that everything in the real world is illusory, and that the afterlife described in religion is real. As early as thousands of years ago, Indians I am used to living such a life, and this has given rise to Hinduism with local characteristics, and Buddhism, which is equally eloquent. Anyway, the clouds are dancing around the mountains, talking about the mountains, living a good life in words, forgetting the reality. pain. Although most poor people are hungry every day, they still live happily and die of starvation and disease in peace and contentment... They are harshly called "a group of two-legged humanoid creatures" by international critics.
When the plague is raging now, the Indian government's style remains the same - the ruling party proposed to implement a strict quarantine policy, and the opposition party immediately called for protecting the human rights of the poor. As for whether they will die from the disease, no one cares. Then, the ruling party wanted to organize free medical measures and distribute some cold medicines to all the people free of charge. The media immediately exploded a series of corruption cases: they engaged in purchasing expired counterfeit medicines with commissions, and resold the medicines they were responsible for distributing to private hospitals. There are also various scandals involving falsification of account books... which have caused a stir.
Anyway, judging from the results, so far, not a single pill of free cold medicine provided by the Indian government has been distributed. However, some kind-hearted landlords and wealthy people have organized some charity activities and used their own money to provide it to the poor who are too poor to wear clothes. Handed out some aspirin or something.
In addition, although there is no clear instruction from the central government, the wealthy areas of big cities have begun to spontaneously erect barbed wire fences and roadblocks, and mobilize armed personnel from unknown sources to patrol day and night to prevent sick poor people from sneaking in and polluting the breath of the gentlemen. of air.
But what is amazing is that despite the ineffectiveness of official measures, the mood of the Indian people is still very stable. Even though thousands of people are dying every day, there are no signs of riots, but they silently endure all the suffering - —I have to admit that from a manager’s perspective, these Indian Asans are quite cute. Although he is a bit lazy at work (someone commented insightfully: Indians are the laziest people in the world. Even a dog will sweep it with its tail when squatting down, while Indians just sit there), He also likes to brag, but his advantage is that he has a great temper. Even if he is treated like a cow or a horse, he can still approach life with a smile. Even if he is hungry, he rarely takes extreme measures.
What is even more surprising is that even in this situation where there is a lack of medical treatment and no one is taking care of it, in terms of absolute proportion, the infection rate in India is not particularly high, and is actually about the same as in China. Just because medical treatment cannot keep up, the mortality rate after contracting the disease is many times higher.
One of the domestic news websites that Wang Qiu logged on reprinted a translation from The Economist magazine. The article compared the epidemic prevention measures and social status quo of China and India, praised the optimism and disease resistance of the Indian people, and ridiculed In order to eliminate the fuss and neurosis of the Chinese people, they also used a chart to show that the average infection rates of the two countries are actually about the same (the death rate is ignored). Finally, there are two photos with strong contrast: one is a shabby small Indian village. The poor people in the village are all starved to lean, shirtless, and tanned by the sun, but they still smile happily at the camera; the other One picture shows the streets of a big city in China. Even though it is midsummer, everyone is still wearing thick masks and there is a gloomy look in their eyes.
Under these two photos, a lot of domestic netizens were all talking about it.
"...Oh my god! Can't melamine and gutter oil make our bodies more invincible than Indians?
Reply to the person above: Melamine and gutter oil want to overwhelm the sacred Ganges water! ! ! Saonian, you are so naive!
Reply to the original poster: One is biological and the other is chemical. Which one do you think is more poisonous?
Reply to upstairs: How did you forget that "Chinese famous brand xx fresh milk, 100% pure melamine, no milk?
Reply to the above: But you don’t know that the Chinese famous brand is jointly operated with the New Zealand famous brand. After continuing the Chinese famous brand, the New Zealand famous brand also found melamine, and it was added to their dairy products and high-end products-the kind that is added to milk powder. Added lactoferrin, then what? New Zealand officials said: We can't tell you which company this is. Then, the Chinese company went bankrupt, while the New Zealand company continued to be regarded as a savior by many people as a "safe alternative to domestically produced milk powder" ~ In fact, you just changed the can, folks..."
"...Hey, no matter what, based on my experience of traveling to India, poisonous MAX cannot withstand the water of the Ganges River of freedom and democracy...
Reply to upstairs: The ability to resist chemical poisons cannot resist bacteria and viruses. These are two completely different resistances! ”
"...How can you say that the holy water of the Ganges is dirty? You have to say that the Ganges contains all things!!
Reply to the person above: The Ganges River is natural and ecological, and with a little improvement it can be probiotics. Melamine, it directly sublimates people into biochemical Tom Q! ”
"...The Economist dares to compare India with China?! India is a democratic country where the flag of freedom is flying. The Indian people are free to starve to death, beg freely, and live in slums as long as they want. They can spit and defecate freely. Indian women are also free to give birth to children and let them die of hunger and malnutrition. The Indian media publishes and prints freely, and they never lie, because he They are free. Even their cows are free, oh, no, not just cows, their monkeys, elephants, donkeys, chickens, and mice are all free, no matter day or night, they can be free. They can poop freely anywhere on the highways and city streets. India is a great and free country! How can it be compared to some dictatorial and corrupt country?
Reply to the person above: Third brother is so rich that all he has left is freedom...the freedom of 100 million people and one billion animals!
Reply to the person above: Free? Can I eat it?
Reply to the person above: In the greatest democratic and free country, you can get high and eat people’s faces..."
……
Reading these increasingly mindless quarrels on the web, Wang Qiu couldn't help but smile bitterly and shake his head.
——How should I put it? At least more than 90% of Chinese people don’t know what democracy is. Instead, they have drawn a formula in their minds that “election (direct election) = democracy”, but they don’t know that even the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan It’s not directly elected...
Also, in the minds of many Chinese people, things that cannot be obtained are always good. As long as it's something no one else has or something rare, it can be sold at a good price, even if it's just a packaging box. Therefore, even if it is the "freedom" in the slums of India, there is still a group of Chinese people who are extremely envious of it and verbally pursue it, as if they want to get wings and fly over to share the "air of freedom" with the Indian untouchables who smell of curry. ".
But, after this "freedom" is truly obtained, it immediately becomes nothing. Because this is the freedom to die, the freedom to starve, the freedom to be massacred by the rich, the freedom to spend other people's money, the freedom to live in filthy places... Who can bear it?
But there is no way. What is in a person's mind is what he sees in the world. As for the real reality? Does it matter?
To put it simply, everyone likes to imagine a perfect paradise in their hearts. Some petty bourgeoisie who call themselves sober people never seem to be afraid of killing people for their own dreams, and they shout aggressively online. It seems as if they are about to overthrow the government and start a revolution. But in fact, apart from the vicious curses, these guys had no intention of taking action themselves. Instead, they were looking forward to having "patriots" who had the same ideas as him to be cannon fodder, and other "patriots" also had the same idea... So, The final result is always that nothing happens...
In the final analysis, the biggest ideological problem of the Chinese people is still the all-round inferiority complex caused by the country's long-term backwardness and social poverty. There is a good joke: there are only two countries in the world, China and foreign. Therefore, the object of comparison between China and the world is the whole world, which makes life very tiring for the Chinese people. They have to compete with black people in sports, and compete with white people in technology. They have to compete with Germany in cars, and with the United States in software, airplanes, and aircraft carriers. I also want to compare electronics and animation with Japan, beauty with South Korea, massage with Thailand, and India. Democracy is more comparable to Northern Europe than welfare, to Africa than primitive customs, to South America than forests, to New Zealand than milk, to Argentina to beef, to Brazil to football, to Mexico to gangsters, to Russia to nuclear bombs, to Britain to nobility, and France is more slutty, and Italy is more spaghetti...
After such a comparison, it is natural to feel discouraged everywhere, as if everything in China is not worth mentioning. Hundreds of years have passed since the hatred of national subjugation and genocide, but people still call themselves "insensitive Chinese". Little do they know that they have long been called "Chinese imperialists" by the island country across the East China Sea!
However, this kind of deep-seated self-confidence cannot be cultivated overnight. Even the majestic Bald Eagle of the United States was already the world's largest country in terms of GDP as early as the late 19th century. But in the decades before World War II, wasn't it still too cowardly to face the European powers? Not to mention the current China, even if the economy is the best, it is the second best. As for its military strength and international influence, I am afraid it is not as thin as a camel than a horse. The Russian fur bear... Hey, I want to rebuild my subconscious mind. There is really a long way to go to build national self-confidence!