Like most people I grew up with “baggage”.
My mother used to rave on about the greatness of Chinese culture/civilisation. True there are some things which are admirable about it. But like everything else there are unsavory parts to it as well.
Recent Chinese history is not something I can praise. In fact the opposite. The underhanded way in which China (HK and clampdowns in postcovid) has craved for world domination is ugly. Equally, the West (particularly No. 45) is no better. And Japan has its unseen side (Abe and the Moritomo affair) also.
In short, baggage is not culturally or ethnically based (as if it ever really was). Everybody, and I mean everybody, is trying to force their opinion on to you. We are by nature like this.
So to try to live a life where I do not throw my opinion out there is near impossible. That is why I had chose to be a monk once. We want to escape from it, not be a part of it. The Amish and Luddites have tried. Brazilian tribes to hide in the forests. But in the end, isolation is unattainable or unsustainable. The world is not a series of enclosed bubbles. And if it is, it is as fragile as soap.
For all the baggage we try to throw out and discard it remains like garbage in a landfill.
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