"Eight-Step Program For What Ails China"

President Hu Jintao recently published an 8-point set of moral guidelines to live by as China evolves economically. Mom clipped an article about it from the Washington Post so I could read about it from a Western perspective, and though I'm ashamed to admit it, after living here for over 9 months and getting to know this country's people and culture, the following made me laugh out loud.

1) Love the motherland, do not harm it.
2) Serve, don't disserve the people.
3) Uphold science, don't be ignorant and unenlightened.
4) Work hard, don't be lazy.
5) Be united and help each other, don't benefit at the expense of others.
6) Be honest, not profit-mongering.
7) Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless.
8) Know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries.

And that's not even the best part.

The closing paragraphs to this article are as follows: "Despite the noise generated by party propaganda organs, some Chinese questioned whether Hu's preaching would ever reach officials in the small towns and villages where disenchantment with the party is strongest. 'It won't even get to provincial capitals,' said Kang, the social scientist.

"Even in Beijing, a group of recent graduates from prestigious Peking University, all of whom work in governement-connected jobs, said they had not heard of the eight aphorisms after more than a week of the campaign. And in Inner Mongolia's distant Tongliao City, Bai Lianhua, a 46-year-old homemaker, said in a telephone conversation that she had no idea what they were.

"'I guess it's the same kind of thing as the harmonious society, right?' she said."

Tongliao, represent.