Chapter 675 Absolute Tragedy
Xiao Peng had a reason to say this. Twenty years ago, the "Dover Port Tragedy" that shocked the world occurred in Dover Port. It can be said to be the eternal pain of the Chinese people.
At that time, China had not yet joined the WTO and its national strength was generally weak. Many people chose to smuggle themselves across the border in order to improve their lives, which is similar to the refugees in Europe today. How Europeans view those refugees now is how they viewed the Chinese back then.
On June 18, 2000, customs officers at the Port of Dover nearly fainted while investigating a refrigerated truck carrying tomatoes. Sixty people were piled on the truck bed, but only two survived. The remaining fifty-eight were all dead! Most of the deceased were young people in their twenties, and all had died of respiratory failure.
And these sixty people all came from Fujian, China...
It is human nature to want to improve one's life, but it is not worth losing one's life for this result.
Ultimately, the fact that this incident led to the deaths of so many people is related to the irresponsibility of European countries.
For the Chinese people at that time, as long as they could go to any country in Western Europe, they could change their lives. So why did they choose to go to Britain?
In reality, these sixty people were transported by the same smuggling organization, originally bound for Belgium, but were apprehended by local police. Normally, such a situation would have led to detention or deportation. Instead, Belgium released them but placed them on a blacklist, barring them from entering the Schengen area. This left the migrants with two options: return the same way they came, which they couldn't possibly accept, or go to the UK.
After all, the UK is not a member of the Schengen Area, right? This means that those stowaways have to take risks again to get through the UK, which ultimately led to such a tragedy.
In fact, such incidents happened frequently during that period. The journey to smuggle people was always accompanied by risks and death. But this incident was truly huge. Fifty-eight people suffocated to death at the same time! How painful must that be?
Fortunately, as China becomes more and more powerful and people's lives become better and better, fewer and fewer people are illegally crossing the border.
Of course, there are still many people who yearn to go abroad, and every year there are still many people who feel that their lives in China are not satisfactory, so they simply go abroad to "live illegally" in the hope of changing their lives.
Are there people who have made a comeback after going abroad? Yes, but they are truly rare!
If you can't make it in your own country, you can make it in a strange environment with a different language and customs? Isn't this an international joke? Some people say: I can endure hardship!
Based on Xiao Peng's experience living outside, he said: Then hurry up and get out, there will be endless suffering here...
In fact, Xiao Peng himself has thought about this problem. If he had not gone abroad and stayed in China, and if he had put the same enthusiasm into working as he did into learning languages and diving, he would probably be doing well now.
But China is his hometown after all, and life there is much more comfortable than living outside. When people are comfortable, they become lazy. It is still a question whether he can force himself to work so hard if he is in China.
The Dover Port tragedy may be unknown to many in China, but it is a deeply felt pain in the overseas Chinese community: many overseas Chinese also smuggled themselves out this way, simply because they were "lucky." This incident serves as a constant reminder to the older generation of overseas Chinese: a happy life is hard-earned and must be cherished.
But in the eyes of Westerners, this incident has a different meaning. Whenever there is something to criticize China, this tragedy is repeatedly brought up, with the content being nothing more than: China is so bad, causing the people to live in dire straits, and people risk leaving just to survive, etc. etc.
Two years ago, a similar tragedy occurred in the UK, but not at the Port of Dover, but in Essex, southeastern England, where 39 stowaways died in a container.
This has once again inflamed those British media outlets that have long criticized China, and they have been questioning China in their media: Why would ordinary Chinese people risk their lives to go to the UK when China is now the world's second largest economy? Just how dark is life in China?
After investigation, it was discovered that all 39 people were Vietnamese, and the media changed their tone, turning it into a "tragedy in human history"...
Every one of these Western media outlets is a hypocrite playing double standards!
A comparison of these two things can show the speed of household development in China in recent years: life was too hard in the early years, so people left their homes and moved away. If life was good, who would be willing to suffer such hardship outside?
Although Xiao Peng didn't like Dover Port because of this, he still lived here. After all... he was tired and hungry!
While eating, they talked about what happened in the tunnel. Billy said disdainfully, "These people are too barbaric! They stabbed people with knives just because they didn't give them food?"
Walter also said, "In Germany, in areas near the refugee camps, the local government doesn't recommend girls wear skirts to prevent rape. This is because, in their doctrine, it represents women's 'impurity.' This is simply incomprehensible! I looked into their religious history, and they've been engaged in nothing but war for the past 1,200 years!"
Bo Ke hurriedly said, "Boss, don't say this outside. If others hear it, it will be troublesome!"
The so-called "freedom of speech" in the West is sometimes a joke. Topics like the one they're discussing now should never be discussed publicly. If they were, they'd be subjected to all sorts of compliments.
He now joins Walter and the others in calling Walter "Boss"
Walter said, "Who in this room do you think will spread this?"
Pascal said, "Look, your boss doesn't even mention this topic!"
Kasin laughed and said, "That's because the boss is an atheist!"
"Huh?" Xiao Peng put down the bread in his hand after hearing what everyone was saying. "No, no, no, you're wrong. I'm not discussing this because you're all too naive!"
"Childish?" Everyone looked at Xiao Peng.
Xiao Peng nodded. "Do you insist on distinguishing between good and bad? There's no such thing as 'good religion' or 'bad religion' in the world. The original purpose of all religions is to guide people to good! Deviations occur because of people. Just like your New Testament, it went from Hebrew to Greek to Latin, then to Tyndale's translation into English, and finally to the King James Version... These translators were actually revisionists, but their actions are called 'truth' by you. Why is it that when it comes to others, you can't tolerate it? My view is: there are no bad religions, only bad people who use religion in the name of achieving their own goals!"
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