The real India, break through your imagination

What's your impression of India? Is it a flying cake of mutton curry or a musical of singing and dancing? It's wrestling The dusty in Dad or the absurdity in Bollywood?

Is everyone in India good at singing and dancing? Is it not safe for girls to go to india tourism? Do Indians wipe their bottoms with their hands? Do Indians eat with their hands? Our curiosity about India has increased with the enthusiasm of the people of China and India for communication, and we are no longer satisfied with Tik Tok's videos and Bollywood blockbusters in cinemas.

Whenever India is mentioned, many female friends are full of yearning for this mysterious and affectionate country. "It would be great to have a chance to play!" This is a sentence that many female friends relish, and it is often followed by another sentence: "Is India safe after all?" The subtext of this question is whether going to India as a woman will be at risk of sexual assault at any time, as advertised by the media.

No doubt, yes. The documentary "India's Daughter" released on March 8, 20 15 once shocked the world. This documentary is based on the 20 12 12 16 bus gang rape case in Delhi, India, which truly and cruelly depicts the potential danger of women in Indian society.

In India, a country with a population of more than one billion, a rape case occurs every 20 minutes; In the 20 18 survey, India even topped the list. There are countless media reports about the bad behavior of Indian men on the issue of sexual violence.

At first, as a foreigner working in India, I also implicitly consulted some Indian male colleagues around me. Obviously, almost all male colleagues are secretive about this issue that hurts national self-esteem and gender self-esteem, and this mentality of "national ugliness cannot be publicized" is understandable. But when asked about some Indian female colleagues, everyone seemed very angry.

In my local office in India, there has always been a rule that female employees should not leave work after 9 pm. This regulation is purely for their safety.

A female colleague named Aditi drives to and from work every day for the convenience and safety of commuting. One day, the little girl came back from work a little late, and she was caught in a traffic jam again. Her car was blocked on the road. At this moment, the passing man gave her strange eyes. Some people began to whistle at her, and some even began to knock on her window and front cover and yell at her as if cursing her. Aditi, who was hiding in the driver's seat, later recalled that he was trembling with fear.

Aditi's situation at that time was actually similar to that of Joyti, the heroine of the Delhi bus gang rape case. In the eyes of many Indian men, women who wander outside at eight or nine o'clock in the evening are dissolute, obscene and unruly. Such a woman must "teach".

This general male mentality also reflects the difficulties faced by Indian women: gender discrimination, judicial laziness, and the popularity of pornographic concepts. These are the direct reasons for the continuous rape cases in India, and the root cause lies in the lack of women's rights in Indian society-property rights and labor rights are not guaranteed, and it is difficult for women to change their weak and dependent status.

In India, which suffers from "preference for boys over girls", the cruelest words of swearing are not greetings to the 18th generation ancestors, but "You will definitely have a daughter". Many Indian men will be furious when they hear this, and they have to fight to the death with others.

Many women have to pay a large dowry from their parents when they get married as adults, otherwise no man is willing to marry this woman home. After all, this is a "loss-making business"; For girls from wealthy families, marrying a luxury villa is a piece of cake, but for girls from ordinary families and even poor families, getting married sometimes means nightmares.

Because Indian women have not received enough respect and protection for a long time, this discrimination and prejudice against women will become undisguised and blatant. When this discrimination against women reaches a certain level, it will turn into extreme disrespect: sexual violence.

If India's most successful export, it must be Bollywood musicals. When it comes to Indian movies, the first thing that comes to mind must be a group of Indian beauties dressed in saris, marching in uniform steps and performing the plot of the movie with passionate dancing. Wordless dance has become the standard of traditional Indian song and dance films. Why do Indian movies love singing and dancing so much? Is this the tonality in Indian daily life?

That's true. Indians who grew up in the monsoon climate of the South Asian subcontinent are themselves a passionate ethnic group. They like to express their rich inner feelings, and song and dance itself is the most expressive form. Whether you believe in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam or Christianity, Indians with diverse beliefs are keen to express their feelings by singing and dancing.

A Muslim female colleague once told me that even if I cook at home, I must turn on the music, twist my waist and throw a flying cake in the pot with a cheerful rhythm. It is extremely difficult to think of this picture.

Another winter, the department organized a team of Chinese and Indian colleagues to go to the suburbs of Delhi for group building. On the way to the destination, several female colleagues weighing over 140 kg danced enthusiastically in the aisle between minibus seats with the driver's amplified music. I saw this minibus constantly "bouncing" on the bumpy road in India, and our "Indian women's group" danced up and down on the bus without any sense of disobedience; In the noisy Indian folk music, my ears seem to recall Yu Hewei's classic lines: then play music, then dance!

When it comes to Indian songs and dances, we have to mention India's "national hobbies" or ABCD: astrology, Bollywood, cricket and piety. To some extent, the love of dancing and watching musicals and movies is also a continuation of the Indian nation ABCD. This ABCD combines the elements of diversified religions, myths and legends, national culture and foreign culture in India.

The first is astrology. The older generation of China people like to talk about the zodiac and birthdays, while Indians have always believed in the theories of horoscopes and astrology.

Similar to China's fortune teller, there are also astrologers in India; The difference is that under the materialistic values, China's fortune tellers have long lost the market, while astrologers are still respected in India with their astrolabes and tarot cards. It has been estimated by some institutions that the market size of Indian astrology is about 654.38+00 billion US dollars, and it can reach 30 billion US dollars every year with spiritual practice, healing and rituals around it.

According to public reports, there are at least 2 million astrologers and 1000 astrology training schools in India. In addition, astrology has a "regular course" path: more than 30 universities have opened undergraduate and master's degrees in astrology under the impetus of former Minister of Science Mulally Manohar Josh. It's incredible to think about these figures.

Then Bollywood (Bollywood film), a mature, high-quality and huge industry, can already play India's foreign business card in external communication and screening. The "Three Sweats" in Indian film circles are becoming more and more familiar in China.

To tell the truth, after experiencing the initial inadaptability to musical films, the author thinks that Indian films are comparable to American Hollywood films in terms of production technology and stage tension of actors. The song and dance films in Bollywood movies make the audience feel a sense of harmony between strength and beauty, and show the enthusiasm, boldness and vitality of this nation to the fullest.

Then cricket. In terms of influence, Indian cricket should rank first in ABCD. This sport brought by British colonists took root and flourished in the South Asian subcontinent, and now it has become the most profitable economic sport alongside football, F 1 and golf.

In the annual Indian Cricket Super League (IPL), the naming right alone has reached the price of several billion yuan. This first sport in the South Asian subcontinent has created a long list of cricket superstars comparable to Bollywood stars and Indian politicians, and it has also evolved into a wrestling field between countries in the subcontinent that is related to national face. Every cricket match between India and Pakistan, from the warm-up match to the World Cup, there will be a spectacular scene in India. Winning, singing and dancing, celebrating all over the world; Losing is like bereavement, and the whole country is angry.

The last one is piety (religious worship). Judging from the history of India, there are too many colors, languages, religions, legends and cultural habits mixed here. All religions in the world can find followers in India, which makes India known as the "religious museum".

At present, the mainstream religions are Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism. Combined with complex and colorful astrology, Indians who don't ask people about ghosts and gods have integrated this belief in God into every bit of daily life.

Remember to go to the bar to drink with some Indian male colleagues. One of them just happened to coincide with the fasting day of his religion. Boy, he didn't touch anything except water all night. This Indian man, who is usually addicted to alcohol, is really impressive in his religious festivals.

Until now, I still remember a detail during my work in India. One day, an Indian colleague in the team had a birthday, and everyone bought a cake to celebrate. Indian birthday party cakes are not for eating, but for sticking faces for fun. At that time, an Indian female colleague jokingly tried to put a cake on the face of a China male colleague. At this moment, the male colleague avoided the "attack" of the female colleague and left the meeting room where the party was held. Afterwards, the male colleague said, "Think about her left hand."

The left hand is used to wipe the ass and the right hand is used to eat. This racial label of Indians can be said to be "famous". I tentatively consulted my Indian colleagues on this issue. At that time, everyone was full of food and drink and in high spirits. Hearing this question, several Indian colleagues didn't care, and some even proudly said that wiping your ass with water with your left hand was a sign of hygiene.

In the eyes of Indians, wiping your ass with toilet paper, the hardness of the paper itself will cause harm to the anus, and the bacteria attached to the paper will also cause germ damage to the anus. Although this statement is a bit melodramatic, according to a data from the World Health Organization, India has the lowest incidence of hemorrhoids in the world. It has to be said that this is closely related to Indians washing their anus with their left hand accompanied by water instead of toilet paper.

Following this topic, a pedant colleague who was present at that time seriously told the author that in some ancient legends of Indian religions, the left and right sides were born with the distinction of good and evil, sleeping on the right belongs to the Buddha, lying flat belongs to Asura, and facing the left belongs to the devil; Under such other standards, there is a difference between filth and sacredness in the right hand. Dirty left hand is used to deal with some dirty things, such as wiping ass, such as killing people; The sacred right hand should be used to handle some sacred things, such as touching instruments during religious ceremonies, such as eating and shaking hands with people.

Of course, if you look at some opinions on Indian social media, you may find more ridiculous reasons. On the famous Q&A website Quora, many Indians gave various "extremely justified" reasons for wiping their left hands: "Using hands instead of paper can save paper, reduce the felling of trees and be more environmentally friendly", "We are not short of water, why not use water" and so on. Although there is nothing wrong with these reasons, they all seem to be wise after the event, forcing an act to rationalize and find reasons.

In view of this, when you shake hands with an Indian in the future, you must see clearly whether he holds out his left hand or his right hand.

In recent years, in China's social media, the competition and contrast between Chinese Americans and Indian Americans in the mainstream stage of the world, such as Silicon Valley and Wall Street, has been a hot topic. What we often hear and see is that when Indians come to the United States, their situation is obviously better than that of China who went with them. Supporting cases are also very convincing: Google CEO Pichai and Microsoft CEO Nadella; Among the top 500 companies in the United States, there are 75 foreign CEOs, of whom 10 is Indian.

As for why Indians get along better than China people in the United States, many people also give some reasons: natural English language advantage; Indians love MBA and are good at upward management; Indians are more United and like to support each other; Indians are very talkative.

Correspondingly, when it comes to China people or local Chinese who go to the United States, they will always be "obedient good students", "problem solvers", "infighting" and "poor English". It's Su Mingzhe in Everything is Fine, and this label is becoming deeply rooted.

But this question, if viewed from another direction, may have a new understanding: why did such excellent Indians stay in the United States instead of returning to the motherland? The brain drain in India is so serious, shouldn't it be a question of reflection from the dimension of Indian state and society?

On this issue, the author has also consulted several well-off Indian counterparts. One of the female colleagues, her brother stayed in the United States after graduating from college, and now she has got an American green card; Moreover, she also yearns for the United States and travels to her brother's house in the United States every year. In the eyes of this Indian girl from an upper-class family, going to the United States means better employment opportunities, better development prospects, better medical and educational environment, and more equal and free marriage.

Another male colleague, whose father is an engineering contractor, also thinks that India's own environment is too bad, good job opportunities are too concentrated in state-owned enterprises and government systems, and the business environment in the private sector is very bad.

For the vast majority of ordinary people, it is no problem to make a living, but for outstanding high flyers graduates from Delhi University and Indian Institute of Technology, such a social environment does not allow them to exert all their efforts and talents. Therefore, almost all middle-class families in India tend to let their children study in Europe and America, and it would be better if they could stay and settle in Europe and America.

From this point of view, Indian talents who know technology, management, ambition and online emotional intelligence meet the definition of elite in Europe and the United States, and the harsh domestic environment has made many Indians instinctively choose to "forget their roots." In contrast, with China's growing comprehensive national strength and increasing attraction to top talents, China people returning to China and China people staying in the United States are not at the same level in essence.

Of course, India has been getting stronger and stronger. Some people say that India today is China from 10 to 20 years ago, and China today is India from 10 to 20 years later. With the same vast territory, the same population and ambitious politician Modi, India seems to be running towards this goal. However, India's own complicated national conditions and political system, heavy historical and cultural burdens, and a different international environment all make people question whether India can copy China's model and road. The impact and destruction of the epidemic on India is more obvious. In the context of the current Modi government's lack of better solutions, India's development prospects will inevitably be overshadowed.

Author | Take care of senior media people

Edit | Xie

Typesetting | Ginny