Text/Chen Yuandong
At the request of Lao Zhu, let me talk about the friendship between China and Pakistan in my eyes, not to mention popular science, a little superficial personal insight.
My family is in Xinjiang, where there is a tradition of aiding Pakistan, and for five years my father's comrades-in-arms helped Pakistan build the China-Pakistan Highway, came back to make some political capital, and entered the tax bureau. My brother-in-law helped Pakistan for more than seven years, built a cement factory, also made some political capital, and became a police officer. Going to Pakistan in those days was an honorable mission. The average person can't go. I listened to their stories of aid to Pakistan when I was very young, and now I forget them, I only remember poverty and suffering.
Perhaps because of this special experience of my family and friends, I have a natural sense of intimacy and curiosity about Pakistan.
When I arrived in Karachi in May this year, I saw the ruined cityscape, the dilapidated roads, and the cement isolation town in the middle of the road, and I thought that my brother-in-law's suffering had been eaten in vain. No cement? I have also read a lot of Batie's blowing articles on the Internet, and I also have a unique affection for Batie.
A few years ago, I contacted a Pakistani, it was April 2013, I returned to Xinjiang from Guangzhou, bought a hard seat ticket, just in time for seasonal migrant workers to go to Xinjiang to work, the water on the car is not passable, at my feet sat an old bus, there was no mobile phone translation software at that time, I used the good memory star of the child next door and his words, knowing that he was a doctor of biology, the Xinjiang sky in March and April was still a little cold, this buddy wore a slippers. I took my apple, seat and shared it with him.
In March this year, I met two international students in Chengdu, I saw that it was Laoba, I went up to set almost, one asked one is Laoba, the other is Indian, I deliberately ignored the Indians, and Laoba shook hands and hugged, and invited him to eat, a palace popping chicken, a spicy tofu, a oil wheat, just out of the pot, this buddy grabbed with his hand, which surprised my eyes, and the boss also deliberately took a knife and fork, and did not use it. By this time my passport had been sent to the embassy for signature, and I told him that I was going to his country soon, and he was not particularly warm, just said welcome.
In fact, I can also go to Indonesia to work, and the salary is higher than Pakistan. But the amount of money doesn't mean much to me, and it's more important to be able to follow the path of my predecessors and understand a country I love.
In May, we flew from Beijing to Dubai and from Dubai to Karachi, and the reason why we did this was because Emirates tickets were cheap and you could take 50 kilograms of luggage.
I only brought a few underwear myself and knew it was hot here. I brought a plate of cables to the company, two boxes of Rose, just fifty kilograms, passed through the customs, and the customs inspection said that I brought something! We were a group of thirty-five, and some of the team members had a variety of people, and the company told us that we could only bring two bottles of wine, and one brother brought twenty bottles. There was also a buddy who brought two large boxes of snacks. When I crossed the customs of Baba, I was worried about him, and as a result, the Ba Railway was the Ba Rail, and all of them were released. At that time, it was considered a special care for Chinese, but now I think it is not necessary, probably we are a group ticket, if one person has two bottles, seventy bottles is not excessive.
There is a seven-hour waiting time in Dubai, and you can see a lot of old buses in the waiting area, the same as seen on TV, when boarding, we lined up to enter the boarding chimney, the plane check signaled us to pull over, I still wondered, an old bus said to me in a very pure Chinese: Wait a minute, now it is on the AB ticket, you are the F ticket.
In Daoguo, I was very touched to hear foreigners speak in the local voice. And he is also a passenger, it seems that he is a relatively high-end old bus. Three hours later, we arrived at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. It was dark. We have to fill in the customs declaration form, all in English, we have a Chinese-English comparison form, but the line is not correct, fill in a random fill, there is also the Bashan customs to help fill in, there are also rubbing fingers, I want you to express it. Some compatriots will give a tip, some will give cigarettes, too many numbers will not give anything, and the old bus will also let go.
It was also dark outside the airport, and there were three-wheeled vendors soliciting customers, asking us whether we were "tearing that" or "fake judgment", saying "demolition that", and they would enthusiastically hug us and say: Hello!
The company's van stopped in front of us, and two nineteen-seater breads, each with two armed policemen, escorted us to the company's office.
We stayed for two days, waiting for the military to pick up, and pick up people every Monday, five or two days. On Monday, we took two more luxury buses, and the military came in five pickup trucks, each with six heavily armed soldiers and a heavy machine gun. Plus four policemen, thirty-five of us, thirty-four of them guarding. The first pickup truck opened the road, sounded the siren, followed by a bus, and then another pickup truck, behind the bus and the last three pickups. Let's close the black car curtains, afraid that the bad guys will see us as foreigners and use car bombs. Our convoy runs straight through the streets of Karachi regardless of traffic lights. In places with a lot of traffic, there are drivers who can't get out of the way. The soldiers hung on the left and right of the pickup truck, and kicked each other's cars with big-headed military shoes, eager to kick people's doors flat.
I secretly opened the curtains to see the view. The picture on the TV is right in front of you.
When we arrived at the construction site, the entire construction site was surrounded by barbed wire. We have more than 2,000 personnel on the Chinese side and more than 3,000 on the Pakistani side. Divided into two camps, our neat two-story dormitory buildings, each with TV, air-conditioned bathrooms. The Laoba camp is like a refugee camp, with a few sticks and broken mats, a large number of people sleeping underneath, no public restrooms, and all kinds of small businesses. Where the rice is sold, rats are running around on the pot counter. We have 400 yuan a day, including food and housing and labor protection supplies, and they only have 12 years of work, and they don't pack anything. Forty or fifty a day for small workers. The construction site is full of male dicks.
Old Zhu asked me to interview, and I couldn't visit a famous hall. Using mobile phone software, most of them are illiterate, the Internet is not good and can not speak, even if they can speak, the deadly accent will be difficult to kill the mobile phone.
No scenic view from Karachi to the construction site, farmland. Factories, such a poor country, carrying 200 million people, can be imagined. Their daily living expenses are less than 10 yuan, and we are 30 yuan per meal. I know a friend named Ali, twenty-seven years old, with good Chinese, and can understand Chinese numbers from one to hundred. He told me that he was very poor, that he earned 2,000 a month on a Chinese construction site, and that he had to support a mother, three siblings, a wife and three children. I invited him to dinner, and he invited me back to drink lacha, that is, put brick tea in a pot and boil, add some sugar milk, pour back and forth with two jars, the waterline is very long, a cup of fifteen rupees, or eight cents, and he only drinks tap water.
Most of the old ba warmly respect us, will say hello, call each of us bOss. Also busy introducing us to girlfriends. But we really don't have sexual interest in their women, most of them have fox odor, body odor. Not many beautiful either. The old buses still haven't evolved well, everything is semi-primitive and strong, and they can't eat meat several times a year, because their animal husbandry is also very backward, there is no large pasture, and there is no money to eat, and their food is absolutely difficult for you to swallow.
At the national level, Pakistan is the only reliable passage for our Belt and Road Initiative, and it is not so important to the United States, so the United States will not invest so much money. Hire two human bombs to cause sabotage, 200,000 will do. So we want to cultivate Pakistan in order to go out of the Indian Ocean and Iran. And the countries of Central Asia are Russia's sphere of influence, and if you go deep into it, it will arouse the suspicion of strategic partners. Therefore, the friendship between China and Pakistan will not be a problem from the people or officially, and with the decline of US imperialism, it is also a matter of time before Bata dies!
(To be recounted)