Rockets' red glare

Piero Sierra's Creative Commons image taken July 4th, 2005, in Seattle WA:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/piero/23712191/

It's only the first anniversary of my life in China, even if it's the 237th anniversary of the USA. But I understand that 99% of the fireworks exploding under US skies tonight were made in China--and no wonder. As we all know, the Chinese were the first pyrotechnics, and they continue to celebrate each new year and passing life with dramatic sound and spectacle. I had no idea what was going on when I first witnessed a Fourth-of-July-like funeral in the park below Ban Zhu Cun, the first of many funerals to keep me awake at night.

I remember my seven year old delight swirling a sparkler around, the biggest firework an ordinary citizen could possess in Michigan. It was big enough for me. I remember my seventeen year old  amazement when I learned that Missourians were allowed to set off their own fireworks, at least outside certain city limits. Later, my own children could see from our back porch on Gans Road not only the city fireworks, but the huge display from Riback Lane and ongoing private pops all night long. But, oh my gosh, on the eve of the 2013 Chinese New Year, I found myself in the cold next to JiaYue in downtown Dujiangyan, where the big stuff ripped all around us--individuals right and left were lifting into the sky the grade of fireworks that is usually set off from big city barges in the US, and ashes from all of this snowed down on my wool hat and eyelashes.

It's interesting what "independence" means here and there, both for our countries and for our individual citizens. As far as I know, no country wants to be lorded over by any other, and there is no uber-country to look over all of us. Independence seems to be a good, even if many countries value their own more than that of others. Interdependence of some sort may be a necessity in a complex global economy, but it seems that most countries will assume whatever autonomy they can hold onto. But does this hold true for the individual? What does it mean to be "independent" in a country where filial piety has been preached for thousands of years, where young people tend to hold in check their own desires if it conflicts with duty to one's parents? Despite recent BBC reports to the contrary, filial piety is alive and well in China. Who makes the decisions, calls the shots--and when? About a course of study, a job, a spouse, the country? Of course, the individual doesn't make all of his or her own decisions anywhere, in the East or the West, but here in China it seems that paternalism still runs thick and deep in both the family and the state. Individual decisions seem to be mediated mightily, for good or for bad. Interdependence is something I value, but I'm given pause when I think about what it means to be "independent" here--what it means to grow up.

A student once told me that she once heard that, in America, children are kicked out of their home when they're 21. It's true that there's a difference--generally, young adults in the US are assumed to be independent and capable of steering their own lives. It's true that in a collectivist society with a history of extended families living under one roof it's not quite the same. Among other things, the ideal of "independence" is different.

But just how mediated the reality of that independence or freedom might be is another issue. Of course, I must be mindful of what I write while living in any country where freedom of speech is not taken for granted. But what is freedom of speech anywhere in an era of the digital Big Brother, an era of pervasive surveillance, including Uncle Sam's? It gives me pause on this Fourth of July.