a thought

A Chinese man told me one day the following:

“In fact, China is very simple country. There are five rules to follow:

The government is ALWAYS right    

Respect you leader (= is ALWAYS right)

Look after your children as they are OUR future

Money TALKS…"

and... I forgot the last one.

...

Met this Chinese girl the other day; quite westernised with a good command of English. She described  her trip to Hong Kong and added ‘That may surprise you, but we need a special permission to go to HK, even though it’s a part of China. It’s a special autonomic region, you see’.

Then I asked her if she had a passport. ‘No’ – she replied.

Me, maybe in a bit not politically correct manner, continued my exposition and asked – I read in The Economist that only 5% of Chinese population has a passport (still, it’s around 70 million people), is it really difficult to get one? 

- Erm, it's quite difficult, but it's possible... and you need to fill out a lot of papers.

(no criticism  of the government recorded).

Right… Well, then why is there any needless paperwork at first place? Shouldn’t it be just a filled out application form, a pass photo and some administrative fee? Or maybe… what if your government doesn’t want you to go abroad?