It is not of concern whether the couple was right or wrong in their beliefs. It is the persistence that they demonstrated to follow through on their ideals that deserves our kudos, precisely because it is clearly what we Chinese lack most nowadays.
We once had strong beliefs, but decades after the economic reform those beliefs have become diminished or even fallen into oblivion. The pursuit of wealth has permeated all levels of society.
Officials trade their power for money or sex; law enforcers betray principles for bribes; doctors prescribe unnecessarily large amounts of medicine for kickbacks from drug manufacturers; merchants sell fake or even toxic products without the slightest sense of guilt; professors publish theses that are completely plagiarized; students happily buy and use hi-tech cheating gadgets in exams. In fact, corruption has become all-pervasive.
To argue that this is only a small part of society is meaningless. Sure, these kind of people account for only a small percentage of our social fabric.
Yet, this tiny percentage is large enough to cause disaster, and this moral decay is the result of a lack of strong conviction, such as those shown by Hinton and Engst.
When one has no belief system, one becomes unscrupulous. Most Westerners believe in God. They are taught from childhood that God is watching all their actions.
That is one reason why they are more law-abiding and have more morals than we do and also why they usually stick to principles once they recognize them. It also partly explains why Hinton and Engst followed their ideals to the very end.
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