A Message in a Bottle from East to West

How different are we really? I've been reading Gao Xingjians (Nobel prize 2004, not that it means too much since the Nobel is way over rated for what it is nowadays) autobiography, and the way he shares his pain with his german lover about the past in their lives that they can never change, yet which conditions them forever. Human suffering is universal and the way we repress it and refuse to deal with it when the time is right, in order to drag it out and all the problems it has creates afterwards.
Amazing is the book I found on democracy in China which I found hidden awayin the library. What is amazing is how democratic ideas have been present in chinese society from the time of the dinasties until 1989. Already the revolutionaries after the Wuxubianfa under Kang Youwei who wrote the five petitions to the emporer late 19th century realised the necessity to start from the bottom and reform in the direction of a democratic state. The Taiping movement at the beginning of the 19th also included progressive ideas of feminism and modernisation.
I hope this post won't get me blocked on the web in China...