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I would like to share the stories of a Chinese family over 4 generations:above: taken in 1984.These were My dad’s parents, his grandmother , his EIGHT siblings and their spouses and kids. I was the baby being held on the very right. Woman holding me is my mother.1. My grandparents‘ generation - before PRCMy Nainai (the mother of my father) was born in the 1920s. She was born into a wealthy family. Her family owned almost all the land in the village. She knew simple maths and how to write and read, and she knew how to use an Abacus - she was an educated Chinese woman, and it was a big deal at the time, it’s the ultimate sign of being someone from a privileged family (at least in this part of China). She had 11 siblings, all shared the same father but different mothers, which was totally legal and socially acceptable at the time. Life was great for her until 1949 - The communist party confiscated everything her family owned then divided their family properties equally among the villagers. My grandma also received her fair share of land like everyone else, but this time , she had to grow plants on it herself instead of having other people do it for her.In order to receive more “quotas”(the bigger one’s family was , the bigger the land one could get from the Party) and creat more man power to work on farming， she gave birth to 11 children over the course of 15 years. 2 of them died shortly after birth. The remaining 9 children are still alive and well as of today.My Popo ( my mother‘s mother) was also born into a wealthy Chinese family, but unlike my Nainai, her childhood and youth was far from being privileged. My Popo‘s mother ( my mum’s grandma) was sold by her parents into that wealthy family as a child bride at the age of 11. her family was poor and had too many children so her parents decided to only keep the boys and the oldest daughter ( because the oldest daughter could manage the household and do chores) and sell “the rest”. Being someone from the bottom class, my Popo’s mother was never treated any better than a “servant girl” . The only difference between her and other servants was that she had to take care of the young son of that wealthy family, sexually. That rich young boy became my Popo’s biological father .My Popo’s mother’s life would have improved a lot had she given birth to a boy. But She never did. Instead , she gave birth to four girls. So, like her mother, my Popo was never treated any better than a servant girl. Her biological father got married to another woman from a “good” family later on，and my Popo served her half sister as a lady‘s maid.My Popo remained a servant until 1949, and then she was released as a “free woman” by the CCP. Like my Nainai, she also received land from the government. Her mother had passed away already by then. She decided to leave her land and biological father and half siblings behind and move to another city - Foshan. There, she met a boy, they had 5 children together. One died, 4 lived. Life was never easy for her, but she did smile, and laugh, and live life.Above: my Popo and me. 1986.2. My parents’s generation - the beginning of PRCIf I am to retell the childhood stories my father and mother shared with me over the years ,it would make this an even longer answer, so I’m gonna skip it. I will however , sum it up with 3 words - it was difficult.My dad has 8 siblings and my mum has 3, China was in ruins back then. Think of Syria, think of Iraq, think of Iran now, then imagine it being even worse (if it’s possible) then you can see what China was like back then……Not only all my parents and their siblings grew up “fine”, they also all had been to school. They all know how to read, write , and count. Even the girls. Even though they weren’t privileged in any shape or form.According to our local culture, a Chinese woman cannot leave the family she was born into until she gets married. And when she gets married, she goes from one home straight into another - the husband’s home. All my father’s sisters got married young ( 18–22), my Nainai told them it’s time for them to find their own men to look after them. None of my aunties have been to high school, they all had to cut their education short in order to support their brothers to seek further education. As my grandma puts it “Boys are more important”. - since they couldn’t afford to send all the kids to high school , they picked the ones that “mattered”...Above: my Nainai and two of her daughters.Two of my aunties resented my Nainai for years. They wanted to learn more , they wanted to see more, they wanted to live more. But instead, they were pulled out of school just because they were girls. They were told that marrying a nice husband was more important/ “better” than finding a job. They felt unjust. But eventually they both forgave my Nainai - because after they became mothers, they too, had to make similar decisions as their mother. ( my untie on the left has 3 kids, the one on the right has 5)My mother on the other hand, had received way more education than other girls from her generation. The boys in her family quit school and started working early to put her through high school ( tuition was free , but someone had to work to feed her and the rest of the family) then Teachers’ College. She was one of the first generation of qualified teachers in PRC China. She can even speak English.My Popo told her: education is your only way out.so there she was, holding hard onto her only way out. Even through the infamous Cultural Revolution….My dad was a “Red Guard” during the Revolution. In order to get a train ticket to go from Guangzhou to Beijing to see Chairman Mao, he sold his English Teacher out. He ratted her out, told the authority that she was reading an English book. He led a Red Guard Team into her dorm , turned it upside down, found the book, burned it, and threw her in a dirty pigsty. They shaved half of her hair off, threw eggs at her, called her a “capitalist” and a “traitor”. Then he got “the ticket”. He went to Beijing. He heard a speech made by his hero, Chairman Mao. He felt proud.My mother was 16 when the revolution started. she loves foreign literatures, Charles Dickens, The Bronte sisters , Jane Austen, the father and son Dumas…she told me she used to sell her own lunch at school to buy books. She‘s a romantic really, she used to fantasize about the Lords and Ladies in the books, their castles, their nice clothes, their silk gloves, their butter and cheese , their blue eyes and blonde hair, their sweet words, their elegance, their passion for love … A world filled with abundance, she wanted to see it one day. Until then , she would just lose herself in the world of “ western books that promote feudalism, capitalism and hierarchy”.When the Red Guard turned up at her home asking her to handover the books, she said she was a true communist and she had burned all the “evil books”. She lied. She had buried the books somewhere deep in the ground. The Red Guards didn’t believe her and turned her home upside down. They couldn’t find anything but still, she was asked to leave her post as a high school teacher and joined a re-education camp in the countryside. They called her a “traitor”.Fast forward to the 1980s, my mum met my dad. They fell in love. Then they had me.Above: “The Red Guard” , “ The Traitor” and me3. My generation - the growth of CCPThe year was 1989. We were living in a city called Foshan. Foshan is very close to Hong Kong, and we used to watch a lot of Hong Kong channels (our TV could catch the HK TV signals). I remember during the Tiananmen Square Movement, at 18:00 everyday, when the TVB news (the most popular HK news program in the 80s and 90s) came on, my mum and dad would drop everything they were doing, closed the door, drew the curtains, turned down the volume of the TV and watched the news without saying a word. When they finished watching it, they would open the curtain and door then go back to whatever they were doing before. I was 5 years old then and didn’t think much of it. Until one day….As a young child without too many toys with play with, I liked to draw, I didn’t have any drawing books so I liked to draw on pictures on the newspaper. One day, I was drawing something funny on a picture of a man printed on the newspaper, a ridiculous moustache, bright red lips that kind of thing. My mum saw it and her face went white. She grabbed the newspapers, torn it into million pieces, she closed the door and drew the curtains, started a fire in the middle of the living room. Then she burned the newspaper. She did all that in silence. Then she said to me: that was Deng Xiaoping you were drawing on. You are not allowed to draw on him ever again. A few seconds later, she said , you are not allowed to draw on any men on the newspaper ever again.That was the first time I felt scared of the government.But it was also the only time.I didn’t have any history class until I was in Junior High. At the age of 12, I attended my first ever history class and for the first time in my life, I watched a war documentary that haunted me for life. I refuse to get into the details of what I saw, but anyone who was in a Chinese Junior high in the mid 90s will know what I saw. The lesson of my first ever history class was this: the life we have now did not come easy.The message of that history class was not about how we should hate wars, or how we should hate our enemies, or how brave and great the Chinese Communist Party was. It was all about the sacrifice our parents, grandparents and great grandparents made. It was all about us staying united and treasuring what we have. At the end of that class , our history teacher said: the only way to prevent history repeating itself , is for us to stay strong. And the only way we can stay strong as a nation, is through education and hard-work.I would say my childhood was great. I mean I didn’t have many commercial toys but my mother made me plenty of others - paper planes, handmade kites, handmade board games, bamboo shooting guns, mini sand bags to learn how to count and do maths, flash cards to learn Chinese characters.I could read books already when I was 6. I had read the “The Arabian Nights “, “Grimm‘s fairy tales“, “Andersen’s fairy tales” before I started school at 7. I read all these foreign books openly. My mother even taught me some basic English and we used to have simple conversation in English in public.Oh, and I have a younger brother.He was born in the late 80s , the hype of the One-Child Policy. Once my mum’s tummy started to show, we started to get “visitors”, constantly. They were all local government officials from different levels. They were all trying to convince my mum to get an abortion. “You will lose you job”, “ one child is enough”, “we can’t let you be the special case”, “how can we implement the national policy if everyone acts like you”, “you are being selfish, you are putting yourself before the greater good of the country”. My mother didn’t give in, and she went into hiding for the remaining of her pregnancy.My brother was born in a hospital in a much smaller city nearby. He was well taken care of by the nurse, he was healthy. But both my mum and dad lost their jobs , and they had to pay a hefty fine - 3300RMB. To put what 3300RMB meant at the time in prospectives, a 170-square-meter piece of land costed 2000 RMB, My mother’s salary was 150RMB/month, my dad’s was 350RMB/month. They expected this, they had been told that this would be the punishment, but they had my brother anyway because they really wanted a son. Not just a second child,A son.Above: me and my broEverything happens for a reason I suppose. After losing his job, my dad started a business. Then we got rich( by a developing country’s standard). By early 2000s , we were living in a 760 square meter villa , front and back gardens, a swimming pool and a fish pond.Above: my nephews playing ball in front of our homeAbove: family dinner gatheringAbove: my dad chilling out by the fish pond after dinnerAbove: my dad cooking up a storm for the pool partyAbove: My bro and my hubby having a cuppa.Above: “The Red Guard”, “The Traitor” and their two grown kids. A.k.a the “selfish family that broke the One-Child Policy”My parents sent me to New Zealand to study when I was 17. They knew nothing about NZ, and all I knew about the country was that people speak English there and they have more sheep than men.They met with great disapproval from the rest of the family when they announced their plan to send me off. A little background, my parents started their business with borrowed money, every single one of their siblings chipped in for them to get their business started, in return, my parents give part of their profit to their siblings every year. They disapproved this plan because:I’m a girlinstead of paying for my expensive school, they should use the money to make more moneyThey still have a son, they should save the money for the son, not me. It is the son who will remain by their side till “the end” , not me.My dad had second thoughts after family discussions. It was my mother who insisted that I should go. She said, either both of her children get the best education they can afford , or neither of them should get it.So I went.Above: Christchurch , New Zealand, 2001.Above: Clock Tower, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. 2002.In 2003, my brother joined me in New Zealand.It took both of us just a little more than 3 months to get a passport and the visa to go to NZ.I learned a lot about China when I was in NZ , not that the Kiwis like to talk or write about it, in fact , during the 10 years I was in NZ , nobody talked about Chinese politics with me , not even once. All they ever asked me was : aye? You have a bro ? (Lol…) I have never heard anything condescending from the people of this beautiful country. I learned a lot more about China through getting up close and personal to this civilized, developed , open-minded, kind western society. I learned about the pros and cons of democracy and what it was built on. I saw my 18 year old uni classmate go and vote for a politician he knew nothing about just so he wouldn’t get a fine for not enrolling to vote. I had also seen my working colleagues debate about which candidate’s policy would bring a better life for the people and a brighter future for the country. The good things is, for a country like NZ, more people are voting with the understanding and knowledge of their own country, a lot less people are voting just to avoid a “fine”. China on the other hand…I had a part time job with minimum wage, the girl I work with told me one day, that she was going to quit, she said she would receive more money making babies than working at a shitty job. A society like NZ can afford this, China on the other hand…I was also exposed to a lot of interesting people with amazing world views and concepts. The longer I stayed there, the more I understood the things I learned in my Political class back in China.“Group before individuals” (集体利益高于个人利益),is the key principle of the Chinese politics ( in my opinion). I used to hate studying for politics in China, because it was sooooooooo boring and there’s so much we had to memorize for exams. Memorizing , not understanding. It was impossible for a 12-year-old me to understand the CCP politics.It was much later on in life, after living on a several different continents, after meeting people from all walks of life , after learning more about the history of other countries, after knowing the social and political problems these countries have, I started to have a bit more understanding of the Party‘s controversial policies - they were necessary and the most effective policies for a country like China at the time - A country filled with hungry, uneducated, short- sighted, individuals.Everybody has heard about “The Belt &Road Initiative” now. You know when the first time was I heard about it ? 20 years ago in my political class. They called this policy “西部大开发“(The development of the western region in China). I thought at the time, yeah right, giving out all the high hopes again. And now , I say to myself, no kidding, they are really doing it.4. My daughters generation - established PRC.My husband is Austrian. I was 33 when our daughter was born.Shehaseverything.She was born in the most expensive private hospital in HK.She had everything a new born needs and doesn’t need, before she was even born. She had gifts sent to her from friends and family all over the world. She had her own little fancy baby bed, organic baby clothes, BPA free plastic drinking bottles, fancy shampoo and shower gel for babies only, a shock-resistance baby stroller,she has an Austrian passportand a Chinese (HK) passport.she has everything I didn’t have when I was a child.I had everything my parents didn’t have when they were children.when she’s asked “where are you from”, she will answer “I’m Chinese and Austrian” not “I’m half Chinese and half Austrian”I told her she doesn’t have to be “either” “or”, and she isn’t “half “ of anything.And her name is Anna Chen-RainerAbove: that’s her, holding a picture of me.We are currently living in Austria and we go back to China twice a year. Anna loves going to China. My parents spoil her rotten, and she loves the attentions she gets from the locals , they call her “洋娃娃”- a baby doll. Near our neighbourhood in China, we have a massive park with beautiful landscapes and playgrounds, an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor swimming pool with a manmade beach (yeah I know … ), iMax cinemas , gyms, tennis courts , basketball courts, library, museum …. - all within 10 mins of driving. Compared to our nice quiet life in Austria, Anna loves the “exciting” Chinese vocation equally muchMy dad told me he regretted deeply of what he did to his English teacher, he thought he was doing the right thing, he was told that he was doing the right thing. He has been trying to make up for what he did all these years, he would send gifts and money to his teacher on every traditional Chinese holiday, he would visit her and talk to her regularly, he would drive her to the hospital if her kids are tied up with work…My mother said she forgave the Red Guards like my dad. She said they were just “misguided youths”My Nainai, the once landlord’s daughter, the daughter of the most hated family by the CCP, was a well respected person in the village. She used to write and read letters for other villagers ( she was one of the very few people who could read or write in the village). When she passed away, the entire village came out and walked alongside her for her last journey on planet earth. She used to tell me how grand her life was before the CCP took everything.My Popo worshiped the CCP and told me they saved her and changed her life.The village looks like this nowAbove 3 photos: Village dinner. 3 times a years every year, the village will host public gatherings on certain traditional Chinese holidays. Any villager above the age of 60 can just come and eat for free. And it’s 50 RMB for everyone else. Many “former villagers” ( like my dad) will make donations during these kind of events, and all the money goes to maintaining our ancestral temple . The Chen’s ancestral temple. My family temple.I even got married in our Ancestral Temple.The truth is , Chinese people have a love hate relationship with their government. I can not speak on behalf of all the Chinese, there are 1.4 billion of them after all. I can’t even speak on behalf of anyone who isn’t my immediate family. Over the four generations of my family , we have all been hurt by our government, on different levels, at different times. There were times when we had been very unhappy.We didn’t forget , we just forgave. My family don’t blame the ill fortune brought upon us on the CCP. We blame it on the individuals that were leading the CCP.My mum and dad are retired now. My mum goes to the local “College for Senior Citizens ” 3 times a week , she’s taking singing class, cooking class, dancing class and English class. All with a very small fee. My dad on the other hand , he just plays Mahjong everyday with his friends. They both enjoy free health care, they stopped driving around 6 years ago - they were given “Senior Bus Cards”, and they can ride around Foshan City for free. For the last 5 years, they have been going on overseas holiday once a year.We are very happy.and grateful for the life we have.I have been called a Wumao before, as much as they can’t prove that I am, I can’t prove that I am not. But I will say this: I am real.I’m a blogger with 144k followers, on my blog, I write about my life as a woman who gave up a career to be a full time mother , I write about life as a Chinese living in foreign countries. And of course I write about the usual subjects like fashion items and such.I am writing this answer in the honor of those who sacrificed their own individual benefits for the greater good of China, for I am sure a beneficiary of their sacrifice.

Vladimir Bukovsky: I have lived in your futureIt was Vladimir Bukovsky, a well-known Soviet dissident, who, having lived several years in the West, said these words about the European Union. Did he exaggerate or did he hit the nail on the head? Well, let us see1)An analogy is what it is: it is an analogy, not a mirror reflection. If history repeats itself, it repeats itself as a farce. Napoleon III had all the imperial trappings of Napoleon I and was but an echo of his predecessor. And: for those who are observant enough no proof is necessary; for those who cling to their dream-world no proof is possible. With this in mind let us draw a comparison between the European and the Soviet Union.1 Symbols. The two structures are unions. They have commissioners or commissars (the USSR into 1940s) at the top. Their respective uni-color flags feature yellow stars. They have an anthem,2)and councils or soviets; soviet translates council. The Soviet Union had one currency, the European Union is about to have one. It was in 1903 in Brussels of all the places, that Russian Social-Democrats split up into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. The latter took power in the Russian Empire and later on in Central Europe by way of a violent revolution; the former took power in Western Europe by way of the long march through the institutions.3)The Order of Lenin (the founding father) was for Soviet citizens what the Charlemagne Prize also known after its first recipient the Coudenhove-Kalergi Prize (both founding fathers) is for the European: one of the highest decorations.2 Structure. Both unions are governed by unelected people who are not responsible to anyone. Both unions have parliaments which for all practical purposes have no power. Central planning is a characteristic feature of them both: in the Soviet Union there were planners who steered the economy of the country from their desk; in the European Union there are detailed regulations and financial subsidies (inverted, hidden customs duties) that channel the joint economic effort of the population. In either union democracy is for show rather than for real: accepted party or parties rule and dissent is not welcome. Both structures churn out loads of laws, rules, and regulations; both combine a number of different states or republics, where the stronger (Russia and Ukraine on the one hand, and France and Germany on the other) impose their will on the smaller; the core countries of the initial European Union have their satellites in the form of new member states (these happen to be Central European states) the way the Soviet Republics had theirs in the form of befriended socialist states (these happened to be… again Central European states).3 Ideology. Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology of the Soviet Union, metastasized into cultural Marxism of the European Union, where Marx, Engels and Lenin have been replaced with such disciples of theirs as Marcuse, Adorno and Spinelli: just as Soviet leaders would lay flowery tributes on Lenin’s Tomb, so the European Union’s leaders lay wreaths on Altiero Spinelli’s tomb. According to both systems they are historically warranted, leaving no alternative and only objected to by uneducated, unskilled and backward individuals. Soviet censorship has been substituted for by political correctness; internationalism has been renamed globalism; the working class and peasantry, the proletariat that occupied centre stage in the Soviet Union, have been dethroned (or rather disappeared or shrank as a result of a long historical process) and now it is colored people, women, sexual minorities and you name it that act as a new proletariat that has been elevated to the status of the protected social strata because they were once allegedly exploited and discriminated against. All that is being implemented by the apparatchiks is allegedly implemented in the name of the people. Failures are always called challenges: they are never recognized as failures. The leaders’ speeches are predictable and boring stiff. Religion was not and is not an option:4)Christian churches were forcefully desecrated in the Soviet Union; they are falling into disuse in the European Union.5)National identities are the prime enemies of the ruling, rootless, cosmopolitan classes of both systems. Expansion is a must: the Soviet Union overreached itself to such diverse places as Cuba and Angola and Vietnam; the European Union is about to absorb Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia. The ideologues in the Soviet Union tried to make people believe that the new system would set free an enormous productive potential in the masses; the European Union’s ideologues maintain pretty much the same in reference to the system of the free flow of capital, people and goods; here and there the ruling classes maintain that under new circumstances nations and social classes will come to respect, if not love, each other and all sources of conflict or tension will be overcome. In order to live and consolidate, both unions have external and internal enemies: in the case of the Soviet Union these were western countries and the United States; in the case of the European Union this is Russia and her allies; internally, in either case these are reactionary forces in the form of extreme right and nationalists. Both unions never wage wars: they help other countries get rid of dictators, restore socialism that nowadays goes by the name of human rights, and, yes you guessed it, democracy.An analogy is what it is: it is an analogy, not a mirror reflection. If history repeats itself, it repeats itself as a farce. All post-communist parties from Central Europe whose members used to take orders from Moscow underwent an overnight metamorphosis and voted en mass to join their respective countries to the European Union to be able to take orders from Brussels. Why did they do it? Simply because birds of a feather flock together. If that is not evidence enough substantiating the affinities between the two systems, then what is? But then, for those who are observant no proof is necessary; for those who cling to a dogma no proof is possible.Many people now believe that the EU is, in many critical ways, indistinguishable from the old Soviet Union.In a speech delivered at the House of Commons in 2002, Vladimir Bukovsky noted the following similarities between the old USSR and the EU. I have paraphrased and expanded on his thoughts below:1. Anyone who opposes or deviates from the socialist system will be ostracised. For example, when the Austrian people had the temerity to elect `the wrong sort of Government' (it was considered too nationalistic and right wing by the EU) the EU pronounced the new Government unacceptable. With apparent magnanimity, the EU announced that it would `accept' an Italian President elected by the Italian people. All sorts of tricks are used to isolate and marginalise those who opposed the EU. Those questioning the EU are often portrayed as insular and parochial.2. Like the USSR, the EU is governed by a group of people who appoint one another, are unaccountable to the public, enjoy generous salaries, massive perks and huge pensions, are pretty much above the law and cannot be sacked. The EU, like any committed socialist government, operates without any real feedback from the people, and certainly without any concern for what the people think. The state must always come first. The only people who benefit (as with all socialist and fascist organisations - and the two are, of course, interchangeable) are those who have put themselves and their friends in charge. The workers never really benefit from socialism. The profits of the hard working, the creative and the thrifty are redistributed to the bureaucracy: the lazy, the unthinking and the wasteful.The central planners (in the case of the USSR they were in Moscow, in the case of the EU they are in Brussels) insist on making all the judgements and decisions but their lack of experience means that they get everything wrong so there are constant shortages and black markets.State socialism in the EU has not led to affluence, equality and freedom but, effectively, to a one-party political system. (All three main parties in Britain support the EU and the destruction of Britain). The fascist EU has,inevitably, created a massive bureaucracy, heavy-handed secret police, government control of the media and endless secrecy and lies.The socialist bureaucracy of the EU is run by people who arrogantly believe that they are the only ones who need to know and that they always know best.3. There was one political party in the USSR (and no opposition) and the same is true of the EU. Political parties which don't support the EU are denied the oxygen of financial support. Politicians who do support the EU can look forward to good jobs (when they retire or leave domestic politics they may, like Neil Kinnock or Chris Patten, get jobs as EU commissioners). The system looks after its own. When the EU constitution was being debated, the main sticking point among delegates was not the sovereignty of their individual nations, or the rights of the voters, but the number of delegates each country would be allowed to send to EU meetings. Each nation's individuality was pushed to one side as irrelevant and inconsequential, in favour of the rights of politicians to attend regular, all expenses paid beanos.4. Like the USSR, the EU was created with little or no respect for normal democratic principles. Much of what has happened within the EU has happened secretly and without the normal principles of democracy being considered or applied. What has happened over the last few decades has happened largely in secret.5. Instead of information about the EU we have been fed a good deal of propaganda. The bureaucrats organise and control people and they try to control the availability of knowledge. The people are always controlled with lies and misinformation. (Today these are known as `spin'.) Anyone who dares to oppose the EU or to promote England is likely to be described as a `racist'. My book England Our England has proved enormously popular with readers (and was, within the first year, reprinted numerous times) but advertisements for the book were banned by a number of publications. Although the book is one of Britain's bestselling books on politics, it has never been reviewed in any national newspaper.Very few Britons realise exactly what has already happened, how what has happened has already affected their lives and how things will now develop unless we do something very soon. A poll quietly taken for Britain's Foreign Office showed that a quarter of Britons did not know that their country was already a member of the EU. Astonishingly, 7% of Britons thought that the USA was a member. This ignorance isn't unique to Britain. A poll in Germany showed that 31% of the public had never heard of the European Commission.The bureaucrats realise that until there is more awareness of and interest in what has happened, and what is happening, there are unlikely to be any protests.6. The former USSR was renowned for its vast number of laws, rules and regulations. But the USSR was nothing compared to the EU. The EC has become a law factory covering everything imaginable and enabling small petty-minded bureaucrats to hound small businesses and flex their puny muscles. One law on fire regulations alone cost UK businesses £8 billion. New regulations have poured out governing every aspect of our lives, and businessmen have been swamped by an avalanche of red tape.Dairy farmers have been subjected, in the last few years alone, to 1,100 separate, specific new laws. Even teddy bear manufacturers have been targeted.Huge numbers of new criminal offenses have been listed.It is true that these new laws have to be debated by MEPs but the debates are managed at a such frenetic rate - with MEPs voting on as many as 400 issues in just 90 minutes - that in practice the laws proposed by the bureaucrats are just nodded through. Speakers in the European Parliament are allowed 90 seconds to read out prepared speeches. And then the voting begins.There are so many new laws that the British Government cannot study them all. The Council of Ministers cannot even read the new laws which the EU passes. The real power now lies with faceless, nameless, unelected bureaucrats who have no accountability whatsoever.The unknown bureaucrats in Brussels are so desperate to extend their own power and authority, that they have, through the production of miles and miles of unwanted red tape, effectively destroyed the European economy.Our special tragedy is that Britain's economy has suffered more than most from these new laws.The other big European nations (France, Germany and Italy) just ignore the rules they don't like. Both France and Germany have flagrantly broken the rules on government deficits but for these two countries there have been no sanctions, no fines and no penalties. `These are for smaller countries,' said a French Government spokesman with typical gallic arrogance. The French have ignored hundreds of directives relating to the single market (directives which Britain, of course, has obeyed slavishly). Commenting on why he had, like so many other Britons, bought a home in France, Lord Nigel Lawson (former Chancellor) said he'd bought it because it was such a relief to get away from the EU.Britain, of course, obeys all the rules. And British people and British businessmen pay the ever increasing price.7. It was a crime for individual countries to talk about quitting the USSR. Indeed, there was no procedure to enable countries to leave the soviet union. The EU is much the same.8. Corruption usually starts from the bottom and works its way up through the system. In both the USSR and the EU the corruption starts at the top and works its way down. Corruption was systemic in the old USSR and it is systemic in the EU. The EU is riddled with the standard socialist form of corruption where the protagonists live by the motto: `what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine and I will chop your hands off if you try to take it'. This was the popular way of doing things in the USSR. Like the USSR, the EU operates in a way that ensures the redistribution of wealth. In both cases the system means that the wealth is redistributed from the workers to the bureaucrats.9. Like a pyramid selling scheme the USSR needed to be aggressive and to continue growing in order to stay alive. If it stopped growing it would fail. The EU is the same. It makes absolutely no economic sense for the EU to take in small, poor countries. The countries encouraged to join the EU in 2004 were welcomed for ideological rather than economic reasons. The six original members of the Common Market have slowly become 25. And then how many will there be? The bureaucracy needs to grow to justify its existence and its demands for increasing amounts of money. All bureaucracies like to grow. It is, in part, their raison d'etre. As they grow so they become increasingly important. Assistants can have assistants of their own. Secretaries can have secretaries. The politicians of the existing countries are persuaded that if the EU grows they will have bigger markets. No one bothers about the fact that the new countries which join the EU will want to share in the subsidies which the EU hands out. Countries like the UK, which pay money to be members of the EU, will have to pay more money for even less reason.The language problems are enormous. In the new EU there are hundreds of translation combinations. The EU now works like a series of Chinese whispers. Speakers in, say, Finnish are translated first into English and then into another language and then into a fourth language.The new countries coming into the EU have many different cultures and laws. Just how they are going to fit into one superstate is something only the bureaucrats who have planned the whole thing can explain. (And, as always, they aren't talking.)For example, consider Turkey, one of the new EU proposed members. Under Turkish law, if a rapist marries his victim he can walk free. The basis for this is that nobody would want to marry a girl who is not a virgin and so the rapist is doing the girl a favour.Turkish law also allows a mother who murders her child to be given a reduced sentence if the baby was born out of wedlock.Another Turkish law rules that kidnapping a married woman is a greater crime than kidnapping a woman who isn't married.The Turkish authorities arrested a young journalist simply on suspicion of being linked to a banned political party. For this, she was sentenced to over 12 years in prison.I mention all this not in criticism but simply to show just how much difference there is between Turkish culture and British culture. And yet the Turks and the British are expected to be citizens of the same 450 million citizen country; supposedly sharing customs, mores and laws. Naturally, all governments want harmonisation to be organised on their own terms.(The Americans, incidentally, are desperate for Turkey to join the EU. They believe that if this happens it will make it impossible for Bin Laden and others to claim that the EU is another `Christian Superstate'.)10. In the former USSR the citizens of individual countries were told that they should forget about their former national identities. They should, they were told, consider themselves members of the USSR rather than citizens of Ukraine or Russia. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU superstate.The EU is intent on destroying and absorbing national states. Britain and England will both disappear completely as the EU superstate develops its identity.11. The USSR was an ideological dictatorship. That is what the EU is. The aim of the EU is the formation of a state, the preservation of socialism within the state and the expansion of the principles of political correctness. Most political groups which oppose the EU are small, and will remain small, because it is virtually impossible to obtain funding or publicity for any group which opposes the EU.In the UK there are just three main parties - all of which are supportive of the EU. This is manifestly unfair since it means that a majority of the British population must inevitably remain unrepresented.Organisations which represent national interests (particularly English interests) are denied power, money and publicity on the grounds that they must be racist. Anyone who supports Britain or England will find themselves branded a racist. (Supporters of Wales and Scotland are never accused of being racist since both these countries will still exist as regions in the new EU superstate.)12. The USSR had a gulag and so does the EU. The EU has an intellectual gulag; if your views differ from the `approved' views you will find it difficult to get them published.Naturally, those who disapprove of the EU will find it difficult or impossible to obtain a job working for the EU. Making a speech or writing a book which criticises the EU (or the laws of the EU) may be regarded as a crime if it is considered subversive. (It is, of course, up to the bureaucrats of the EU to decide whether or not something is `subversive'.) One Englishman made the mistake of standing up at a public meeting and defending the rights and freedoms of English country people. As a result of his comments two police officers visited the speaker's home, arrested him (refusing to tell him why) took him to a police station and threw him into a cell.When five Britons visited Brussels and drove around the city in vehicles which were decorated with posters which called for a referendum on the EU constitution they were arrested for `disturbing public order' and `demonstrating without permission'.13. Citizens in the old USSR had to carry ID cards. The loss of civil liberties which this entailed used to be regarded with suspicion and some contempt by Western European democracies. In the new EU, citizens are losing their freedom and must carry ID cards. (It is a myth that ID cards contribute anything whatsoever to national security. ID cards always exist for one reason only: to take away the freedoms and civil liberties of the citizens who must carry them.)It is very easy to lose your freedom, but very difficult to get it back.14. Officers in the new EU police force have even greater privileges than officers in the much feared KGB. All members of the new EU police force have diplomatic immunity. They can walk into your home, arrest you, beat you up and steal your property and you cannot do a darned thing about it. Now do you believe me when I say that the EU is a fascist organisation?

What do you think you’re doing, Andrei? One answer I can do, but fifty? Oh well... (btw, your other A2A is in the workings: I’m having fun writing it, but it’ll take some time. They always do):My profile pic is a bit old, but then again, my cell phone barely works and I’m also lazy. Nowadays I don’t wear a beard anymore: I sport a Lupin III ‘do, with short hair and longish whiskers (and I think I don’t look that bad, either). I’ll upload a new profile pic, one of these days (... or weeks... or months...);Time is my greatest enemy in life. I can’t overstate this point: time hates me, and I hate it back. Too much good stuff to do, so bloody little time in a day;I shave barbarically. Razors are good so long as you can tell the “sharp” edge from the blunt, the face is collateral damage;I’m probably way too ADHD to make it out of this answer alive. Not that I’m complaining: I love doing ten things at a time, it keeps me on my toes, where I gotta be;I love complaining in jest, when everything is going fine, but in fact, I like and respect those who restrain from showing they’re under stress. Rarely have I admired someone so deeply as when a friend of mine, a couple of years younger, recently had a small wooden beam fall right on his head: instead of swearing, as he always does, and cursing the Most Blessed our Virgin (he’s Tuscan…), he started gently poking fun at the guy who’d dropped it (“We’ve left our eyes stuck on the ceiling, haven’t we?”) even as he was kneeling in pain. I never respected him as much as that day. I want to be like that.If I were a Jew, I should like to be called Mendel;I love the night, and I’ve spent countless schooldays, back in those times, going to school after a merrily sleepless night. Before the last day of each schoolyear, in high school, us boys would try to stay awake the whole night, and then go to class: the last one unfailingly fell asleep half an hour before me, and I was always the only one to stay true to the task. I did this often during the year, too: too much engrossing stuff to do, and lessons stole enough time of the day already. Myself, I know nothing more beautiful than reaching the end of the night. It is a bliss that can’t be explained nor pondered, only experienced — I often find myself longing for that feeling;I first cut my right hand’s nails, even though the temptation to start from the left is very strong. I’m pretty torn on this issue (yes, it’s a movie reference. From a great movie, too);Since I like to research individual topics that catch my attention, people sometimes end up telling me “well, you’re the learned guy”: but I have a hard time believing them, with all the fascinating things I learn from them every day. I generally feel pretty ignorant around people, and they double down by making me feel dumb when they disagree with that. I give up;I hate peeling eggs. I’m singularity inept at that. I rarely eat figs for the same reason, despite them being about the tastiest fruit on earth;I’m a huge film nerd. I haven’t watched all the classics, but a decent amount, leaving some room to the pleasure of discovering. And I’ve watched many of the weirdest films I could get my hands on, which I’m quite proud of. If it is worth watching (and often even if it isn’t), it’s pretty likely I’ve at least heard of it, and that I plan to watch it if I haven’t. In short, I haven’t seen all of it, but I’ve seen it all;When I have no time to read books, I get frustrated and buy more books to soothe that. It’s a bad stress management technique, but I don’t care: I’m stocking up for retirement (see below);When I do get to read books, I have a very nervous way to go about it: I try to take in as much as I can discern, which means that I need to be decently awake and that, the more I’m enjoying them, the more impatiently I want to be done with it already. Once I’m done, they start telling me things, wonderful things — not before that. I keep a list of books I’ve recently read (going back some four years) because, once the book has become part of me, I can’t always remember just in what order I’ve read it;When my beard grows longish, it gets a reddish hue. I share this trait with Caleb as well as with the pirate Barbarossa, it seems. I like that, but I won’t be having a beard for a while — not so long as it is so hot outdoors;I often wonder what I’d have been if I had lacked all that I have and if I’d had all that I lack. I’m so curious for an answer — which I obviously can’t have: too many the variables for even contemplating — that it almost hurts. I’d love to meet that alternate myself and just look him in the eye;Speaking of books, I love lending them out to people, but I always threaten them with death before I do. Enjoy the read, but if you so much as fold the corner of a page, I’ll murder your kin;I’ve always been a lazy person and never done any sports at all — until I (relatively recently) started working out a whole lot. I do it very regularly now, and I plan to get so big the door won’t fit me, sooner or later. But, until reaching adulthood, I would do nothing all day and still have quite good health: I think it’s called good genes. Seriously, with the kind of lifestyle I used to lead, I should have deserved to be in terrible shape by now;I’ve set for myself the goal to learn all of the Divine Comedy’s 100 cantos by heart already back in high school. I forgot this commitment, and then took it up again. I’m a full 2% of the way (1st and 24th), working on the next one;I have been so utterly enchanted by what mankind is able to do that I’m often doubly cynical when looking at what it does: I often give good reasons to be called callous, and I never rejected that label. Don’t get me wrong, I love company and I love sharing love with those close to me, but the thought of a deserted city is almost unbearably beautiful to me: it’s the only scenario where people don’t fail to live up to their incredible potential, it seems, and I’m grateful to them for that. Again, I’m not alone in having this specific trait.I like lost causes. Perhaps it’s related to the previous two points (in which case it’d be a bad thing — mere aestheticism), but going down with style has always appealed to me way more than rising to the stars without it ever could. I can think of little more enviable than going down for something worth it; but more often, one has to bear the burden of having to live among the ruins of what could have been. I don’t like it, but I feel more at home there, and I don’t expect ever to get out;Last stands help you learn a lot about what the Cause was all about (and it often was about more than its fifteen minutes of triumph, I dare say) and besides, an instinctive love for the discipline of forlorn hopes is the one vestige of Romanticism I haven’t managed to shed;I can and gladly do forgive any and all lapses in self-discipline, save one: giving in to comfortable lies. All the rest is human enough, but believing what you’d like to be true rather than what is, may not and must not be forgiven;I hate borrowing books. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on Quora, it started when I was a kid, so I’ve had the time to build up a pretty impressive library, if I may say so. I’m very proud of it, but my abode’s logistics suffer as a consequence. You just don’t know where to stick your foot;I love riddling my answers with links. But you may already know that. No link needed here, as all my answers look like that;I write on Quora in order to be useful to others at least as much as I do for myself. If some attentive reader has noticed my recent answers growing ridiculously long, it’s due to that: I try to cram everything I’ve found out about the topic into it, and the more I work on it, the more I learn about it (duh). I’m trying to reverse that trend;I use the word “autistic” as a compliment. I know that’s not how you’re supposed to use it, but it makes sense to me, especially after an old stint at 4chan. I’m not the only one to do so.Perhaps unsurprisingly, given a few above points (you asked for fifty, of course I’m going to try and spread them out as much as I can), I recoil in a cloud of Lovecraftian horror at the mere though of writing on books: when I read book X for the 50th time, I want to be surprised by a new, pristine meaning emerging from it, not meet the relics of my own younger and dumber self rambling about it. I, as a person, continuously change and I’ll end up dying, but this book has a better chance at weathering the ages. No need for me to defile it;The only exception to the above is the Cantar de Mio Cid, where I’ve marked — a round mark, with a soft pencil’s very light touch — those lines that are unnaturally beautiful in their simplicity, to me. I’ve given a few examples of those in an older answer of mine.I’m fine with religions (if people spend enough time and effort investigating their faith, good and useful thoughts will inevitably be produced), but I have some big qualms with the fundamentals of Abrahamism. Atheism also doesn’t satisfy me at all: methinks it’s only a step, but there is a lot of good stuff it denies and that’s a pity. There are better, sounder non-scientific forms of knowledge and wisdom — methinks;Coffee is a drug I’m entirely immune to, unlike everybody I know; when I do drink it, I like it Turkish, but I have to be at my aunt’s for that. I also hold my liquor pretty well, but I almost only drink it with friends, and that means never, as they only drink beer (and here the Russians are (were) right: that one ain’t alcohol). Spritz ain’t alcohol, either; wine is only if you drink it the wrong way. I also don’t swear unless I’m with friends (what fun is calling someone “fuckface” unless he’s your buddy anyway?) or the situation calls for it. I never wanted to be the guy who can’t keep from swearing, so I never picked up that habit. I might come across as a bit stiff, maybe, but that’s better than being an undisciplined brat;When I was a kid, my favorite game was devil’s advocate: I can’t express in words how much I loved it. Then I found out other people don’t like it nearly as much, which is why I only play it with good friends who know me and my stances very well — barring exceptional outbursts. It’s my tin drum, and ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶;Last point on books: it’s my gramps’ fault. When I was a kid and he came over to visit, I’d leave for school while he sat and read: the traumatic injustice of it all was burnt on my soul, and I started to envy retired people and all their free time. I started stocking up back then;Plus, the very idea that you can pay as little as a couple euros for a tangible, durable, ever-available piece of wisdom boggled my mind and still does;Yes, I sometimes say I’ll do things and then don’t. Nobody’s perfect, and who’s less perfect than I?;I have a hard time being too hearty with acquaintances because I’m used to joke pretty hard and pretty mean with my good friends (hey, don’t blame me, blame my environment); oddly enough, I have a very easy time making friends when I get this trait straight upfront, or at least it’s worked when I tried. On a similar note, I fell into a bromance of sorts with a guy who once used the expression (quoting a famous football player) “that garbage bin we have where the heart is supposed to be”. I felt like I found a kindred soul that night, a heart of darkness my peer;I might have overstated that last point, but it is true that I have little qualms with frequenting deplorables;I like to thread as many quotes into my speech — no matter how mundane — as I can, and the more seamless they are, the happier I am. If I can convincingly deny it even is a quote, then I’ve reached my nirvana, and if you are then able to notice it is, you’ve won my utmost respect;I barely could speak my own first mother tongue for most of my life (but I’ve always been able to understand it): in the last few years I’ve made a conscious effort to get back on saddle and now I’m in a pretty good place with it, but I’m still incomparably better at my second mother tongue; the story behind it all I’ve already mentioned elsewhere;I have an uncannily easy time learning to pronounce languages, whereas the rest (vocab especially) is worse than torture. I’ve had many people tell me that my pronunciation of their mother tongue was flawless, even when I could only speak those sentences they taught me (eg. with Russian, which I’m now hoping to learn for good). I learn very easily things (language-related things) others struggle with, and I have a very hard time understanding what others find quite banal;My goal with languages has always been to learn them, go where they’re spoken, and pass for a local. I’ve managed that in the UK a couple of times, but I don’t travel nearly enough (alas) to try that game more often. Yes, my love for (linguistic) knowledge is fed by a conman’s pride, that’s correct;Speaking of which, I’ve come early to the conclusion that I’d much rather speak like an uncouth but authentic boor than an educated-but-unnatural academician with a silver spoon up his ***. Doing otherwise may be useful the way cheating can be, but in the long run it’s counterproductive. Besides, I want to blend in;I notice that I insisted a bit on the “wickedness” factor, I might be overplaying it; maybe I could clarify myself thus: the line between complimenting someone and shameless flattery is a bit too fine for my taste, so I feel more at home displaying respect through trash talk. I’ve always felt uncomfortable being complimented to my face, and I’d always pick complimenting people when they’re absent rather than doing so to their eyes. Bad experiences with narcisists, I guess;All my youth I’ve been used to considering those political ideas diametrically opposite to mine (and their ethical foundations, too) the norm, at times even the only offer on the menu: that would be the political Leftwing. I wasn’t one (too many painful lessons from family history), but I accepted most of that side’s ethical premises: that’s the milieu I was in, and I bought into those tricky dichotomies — “with us or against us”. Now I know better, and I guess I’d call myself so-far-Right-I-got-out-the-window-and-back-in-through-the-door. Yeah, it’s a mouthful, but it’s way more moderate than it sounds. I won’t give any ground on a few fundamentals, though, and that makes me a bit insufferable, at times. I do speak to anybody: I set no bars for entering a conversation, nor do I see much good in doing it. If I get tired, I’ll just leave;I still think those ideas and principles I cherish are not the norm, it’s just that I’ve developed a very bad impression of the concept of “norm” itself, within this topic. There seems to be a conspiracy afoot to prove that the majority agreeing on something can turn even the best ideas into a mess;I love it when I have a pretext to give people a second chance, and in general, I never judge people I personally have to do with too harshly — I always suppose there’s way more to the truth than that tiny tidbit of it I know. But if you get me to dislike you, if you manage that much, then find a bloody crevice in the floor and bloody cower into it, for I’ll have no mercy on you;I like learning things by heart, especially in foreign languages — for some reason, I find that particularly easy. But when I was a little child, my father often read Kipling’s poem If— to me, and even had it copied on papyrus once, in Egypt (he traveled a lot for work… long story); and I’ve never been able to recite more than the odd line from it. I wish I could say I’ve at least internalized the poem’s wealth of meanings, but I doubt I ever will in life. It’s a goal of mine, but I’ll most likely die before I manage that;I hate technology, and it hates me back. I’ve lost a lot of precious stuff I’d saved on devices, to the point I’ve come to expect it. Quora is one of the very few social networks I bother using, and even here, I’m terribly irregular in my posting, reacting and responding. I’m really sorry when I have people wait, but this is the one functioning balance I’ve found;I went to the best sort of High School (in my branch, of course: the humanities) I could find precisely so that I’d have those notions I deem basic — including Greek and Latin, or rather, centered around those — so that I wouldn’t need to waste any more time on Uni and just finally start learning. I haven’t regretted that reasoning, and I don’t think I will anytime soon;Linked to the above point, I’ve always been an autodidact. Schools, whatever type and sort, bored me senseless, and I’ve gone through them with top marks in some subjects and bottom ones in others. Maybe I’m the weird one, but I think it holds true that nobody can’t really teach you jack — you can only learn things. The rest is helping at best and posturing at worst;TV, what’s that? A way to waste your life staring at stuff you don’t even get to pick and plan? But there is the internet, my dear! The devil’s box has no place in my lair;I’m no specialist and I have no formal education in it, but I’m deeply convinced that architecture is the one and only foundation of public health. You can have people starving on the streets, roasting each other on spits while plague and famine rage: it happens. But if you have bad architecture — now, that’s the collapse of your civilization right then and there. Europe has been going tits up and will become one big gulf between Asia and Africa precisely because we’ve started building ugly buildings and uglier cities with abandon. The fact that we even seem to be happy doing so is a good indicator to how we need to f*** off as quick as possible.I love history and couldn’t live without it, but curiously I’m more interested in the early and terminal stages of specific cultures/civilizations (usually called the “Archaic” and “Late” periods): rather than what makes a culture worth knowing, I tend to be more attracted to how that specific something came to be, and what part (and how) it survived.I’d rather aim for better, even if I know from the get-go than the best is out of reach, than having to settle for the best without knowing whether there is anything better. Much though it sounds like sophistry, I think this describes many choices of mine pretty well;Quora has given me way more than I would have imagined, but the way it often misfunctions and deletes what I saved is tempting me to leave;I’m getting more and more convinced that the truer the truth you’re speaking, the simpler its one and only formulation — and the closer to 100% the chance of misunderstanding it. The main truths have been spoken and degraded a myriad of times already, and understanding them is no longer (or has never been) about understanding, as much as about building up the ancillary wisdom necessary to correctly interpret them;Needless to say, this sort of reasoning makes for very stressful living. My greatest fear in life is solipsism;My phone messed up as I’d written half of this answer — as it often does, too. I don’t know if it’s the phone itself (which no doubt is malfunctioning) or the Quora app, which also seems to be often malfunctioning, but I would have loved to murder someone when it did — and stoop, and start again at your beginnings, / and never breathe a word about your loss…Yes, I know, I wrote more than 50. Call me an anarchist (I also complained earlier I would write less than that, and now am complaining about the opposite — call me a feminist).