Inspired by the recent c/AskLemmy question about Myanmar.
As a PRC-born ethnic Han-Chinese person who currently is a US Citizen and reside in the US, I’m curious on what people think of my former country.
Horrific dictatorship that commits atrocities.
People that have been subjugated and oppressed and have little to no value as humans to the CCP.
Became a world power by exploiting the working class.
Beautiful country and amazing history.
- Interesting mythology and past.
- Technologically advancing.
- Many ethical issues against people by the Government.
- They are very into the illusion of being a paradise.
- If you are a person not from there, it can be a potentially traumatizing experience, depending on what parts of the country you go to.
If you are a person not from there, it can be a potentially traumatizing experience, depending on what parts of the country you go to.
Actually, foreigners (white foreigner to be precise) such as Youtubers Serpentza and Laowhy86 managed to go around China and make videos critical of the CCP and they didn’t end up in prison or anything. But if a Chinese person attempted the same thing, they’d probably get jailed. I feel like there a sort of “foreigner privilage” that basically the CCP doesn’t want to get involved in a diplomatic incident, but is otherwise happy to punish their own citizens (since there wouldn’t be any diplomatic incidents).
I didn’t even mean trauma from the gov’t, which is a whole different level, but trauma from its own people. My wife traveled to China for work and it was not great for her.
Very interesting history and culture, plastered over with bland authoritarian turbo-capitalism that disguises itself as communism.
Rice field to magalopolis in a generation. Absolutely wild speed of seismic change.
Edit: megalopolis
Chinese food, which i love.
I think of China as a country that pretends to be communist while making cheap products that vary in quality. I also think of the nice people that live there though.
Thiefs, low quality, dictatorship, murders, will probably try to fuck up my life in the future.
Dude that is the USA. They do have knife guys occasionally but nothing is as terrifying as being a US grade student with an active shooter warning on campus. Besides Japan I’ve never felt safer that over there.
Do you folk have any other talking points than “but USA bad”? This question is not about USA, it’s about fucking China.
You sure nothing’s as terrifying? I think being an Uyghur in a Chinese concentration camp might be even worse.
Well I can’t speak from a Chinese/Uyghur perspective, only from what I know and have seen. I doubt you will find many Chinese residents that would say China is more dangerous than the US. A more divided opinion here for sure. The data proves it, in total murders and per capita. I’ve been all over their cities at all times of night and would not do that here, especially in the city I live in now. The things you are saying that is bad about China I think is worse here. I don’t think any Chinese resident is worried about getting shot while driving down the highway and I’ve lived thru those periods here, in the places it was happening. Just doing a direct comparison. If you’ve visited China I would find it hard to believe you would find it more dangerous.
No, it probably isn’t more dangerous in the direct sense. But it’s more dangerous in the subtler ways. Look, I’m from a country where we had the Soviet bland of dictatorship disguised as communism and let me tell you it’s very similar to the Chinese bland.
You have to censor your opinions because you might end up in prison for saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. And the worst thing, you don’t know what you’re missing because the government and its secret police tries really hard to make sure you don’t know how much better it is.
I believe that you had a superb time as a tourist in China, after all they only show you the good parts as a tourist. You’re simply not allowed anywhere that might shed light on their propaganda.
I’m not saying US is some kind of utopia or whatever, but pretending China is a good country to live in is crazy and dangerous.
I lived there for 2 years. I’m familiar with the propaganda. It was easy for me to ignore since I wasn’t going to be a permanent resident.
I see the same propaganda here. its gotten us in multiple unwinnable wars and is now stripping away our democracy. It’s why we have terrible, expensive healthcare and why gun related deaths are the #1 killer of children. Neither place is utopia. But now I get to worry about my country deporting naturalized citizens which is a thing I never thought I needed to worry about.
Massive cities with LED buildings, beautiful mountains with paved hiking trails all the way to the top and gondolas to get down, Long queues that are still orderly and move quickly, families eating large meals outside, friendly and very curious people.
I’ve spent a lot of time there. Compared to the west the cost of living is super cheap especially for all the options and amenities you get. Even in the hippest part of Chongqing I could rent an apartment 2x the size of my house for half the mortgage. If the US is headed towards a permanent authoritarian regime I would trade life here for over there. At least their dictator appreciates science and education.
I would trade life here for over there.
If you are white… maybe
Otherwise… it isn’t that pleasant…
winnie the pooh
Oh Bother
I always think about visiting due to the amazing natural and historical areas but simultaneously, how much I don’t want to visit due to other issues.
Same with a lot of countries.
I yearn for the day when the world rid itself of all states, they are the source of evil.
Complicated. Big.
A collection of a wide range of geography, languages, and peoples. Held together by a mix of national pride, iron fist, and a solid record of on the whole very good for most people improvements in life quality in living memory.
Big. Brazen. Splashy. But with an inability to face problems, and a resignation to the world as is. An almost fatalistic attitude paired with naïve or blind optimism on its dexter side.
A place filled with potential, as well as already existing food, culture, history. But hard to find much of it as modernity does a speed run towards uniformity and mass production, while historical sites are rebuilt as poured concrete facsimiles.
A ruthlessly effective technocracy that has achieved very impressive outcomes for their citizens¹ while also being a cultural / societal system I never want to live in. For some reason super obsessed with outside appearances.
1:
From 1995 to 2025:
- GDP/c: 603 to 13973
- Literacy rates: 77% to 96%
- University graduates per year: 900K to 10M
- Life expectancy: 33 to 77
- Railway km: 54616 to 160000 (50000 high speed)
- Urbanization rate: 29% to 67%
etc.
The first thing I think of is “propaganda” but you might not expect why. I grew up in the western world, hearing constantly that China was basically the epitome of evil. Their government is evil, their people are evil, the very land they walk on is evil, everything they’ve ever done has been evil. In history we only learned about their crises and the times they caused problems for the western world.
Unlike my peers, however, this made me curious. Why are you telling me so constantly that they must be evil? Can’t there be good people there doing their best just like we are? And then things started getting weird in the western world. Then they got worrying. Then they started really taking their masks off and I realized “ohhhh you were projecting the whole time weren’t you?”
I still don’t know much about China. I don’t know what your culture is really like, how the people actually treat each other. I don’t know basically anything about you. I’d love to learn though, if you’re willing to teach.
Their government is evil
I mean… its not entirely false. . I mean, the CCP through the one child policy did try to terminate me, since I was the second pregnancy that my mother had (she already gave birth to my older brother), so they did try to find my mother to force an abortion against her will. Then after I was born, I guess the since I already exist, its too difficult to justify killing someone who was already born, so they just let me live. My parents had to pay like somewhete like ¥10,000 to ¥20,000 (in Renminbi currency) in order for me to get legal documents, which was a lot of money at the time. So yea fuck the CCP.
But to put in in perspective, it isn’t nearly as bad as North Korea, where they totally ban people from leaving.
their people are evil
Yea this is total BS. There’s nothing in the DNA of ethnic Chinese that make us “evil”.
Unlike my peers, however, this made me curious. Why are you telling me so constantly that they must be evil?
Like, don’t think this is just a western thing.
Nationalism is a thing in every country.
In China, they teach people why Japan is evil and all Japanese people are monsters… and I’m like… “all of them?” 🤔
Then it got weirder when the US was also portrayed as evil… I mean, don’t get me wrong, the US has done a lot of evil things. But its was also the US that aided China aginst the japanese invasion of China. Although controvertial, it was the US who nuked japan and that immediately stopped the war and save a lot of Chinese people.
So yea I get it, every country want to portray others as evil. Its not unique to the west.
But remember one thing:
Governments =/= The people whom they rule over
You can dislike a government without hating the people too
I still don’t know much about China. I don’t know what your culture is really like
I mean, tbh, I immigrated to the US as a kid, so I don’t know much either.
I don’t know basically anything about you. I’d love to learn though, if you’re willing to teach.
I mean… do you have any specific questions to ask?
Having two child rule is evil? Why? Rules makes a society, its your mom that try to break the rules? You know why they try to have 1 child policy right?
Sure they can be evil, but 1 child rule isnt evil. Imagine if 1st world countries suddenly started getting 5-10 childs everyone, everyone taking sueside cus no jobs and heavy competition on school.
The nasty bit was telling a mother she has to have an abortion against her will.
China now has the opposite problem of a declining population, which causes problems because of the working age population is small compared to the older population, you end up running out of money so you either have to tax more heavily or abandon older folks to their fate without helping them.
The declining population problem is very common in wealthier countries.
And lower population means fewer jobs. The number of jobs that need doing in a country doesn’t depend on the area of the land, it depends on the population size. The problems come when governments don’t build infrastructure. If you don’t build schools and hospitals and suchlike, three are fewer jobs in construction and less money going into the local economy, and schools and hospitals get crowded and do a worse job.
Yep agree, i was in China in 2021, with my job, honestly i did see tons of jobs they dont need, like big security on each school, Cooks everywhere at school, and others
It would be nasty if she was pregnant and suddenly the rule goes in action. If she got pregnant after the rule was set? Idk
You and I completely and utterly disagree.
The government shouldn’t have control over this. This is no different from nazi eugenics.
Hmm, there are way to many people in China, how would you regulate it?
I think you’re quite a few decades out of date with that opinion. The Chinese government is very worried about population decline now.
Ye sure, but that was not my point
I worry that your point is even worse than I thought.
Order. Conformity. Mystery. Impenetrable language. Impossible writing. Eating anything that moves. Mindless nationalism. People who don’t talk or even care about politics. Depressed single young people obsessed with shopping. Security cameras. Police. Airport-sized train stations. Electric scooters. Electric cars. Utopian-dystopian sci-fi.
Yes, I have been there multiple times.
PS: to be clear, I was very, very impressed by those trains and especially by the electrification of city transport. In Shenzhen the air is now cleaner than any big city in the West and with all the greenery and silence it really does have a utopian feel. The progress there is genuine, it’s amazing, it deserves lots and lots of credit.
Impossible writing.
Native Chinese speakers often forget how to write after they finish school. Especially exacerbated by technology. All you need to known is Pinyin.
Eating anything that moves.
My grandmother told me a joke, roughly translates to: “anything with 4 legs and with the back facing the sky, with the exception of a table, is food”. I mean… there were famines, so you can’t judge with western lens. You gotta eat whatever to survive.
People who don’t talk or even care about politics.
Its honestly the same with Americans. (to a lesser extent)
When I was in Highschool (in the US). Nobody in my classes seemed to be interested in voting. 🤦♂️
Depressed single young people obsessed with shopping.
Huh? I mean, I left when I was a kid so idk what this is, I never heard of this “obsessed with shopping” thing.
Their authoritarian form of government which is definitely making me not want to ever visit China.
I am sure China is otherwise a wonderful country, I don’t have a negative opinion of Taiwan at all, but the PRC needs their Gorbachev to come to power and liberate them.
Gorbachev did not exactly liberate them, not the Russian SFSR part of it… gestures at putin
That was the fault of the people who were in power after Gorbachev…
Gorbachev chose Putin himself.
A decade out. Yeltsin chose him.
