China thread

Politics & News
41

She’s a Chinese tech vlogger with a large following and a sympathetic backstory regarding gender identity, kinda famous for anime-esque proportions that she is not shy about.

Officially or not she is a soft power figure for the regime. I’ve been blocked/unblocked by her multiple times on Twitter (seems I’m not alone, there, not sure what the deal is). She is big on dishing out hot takes and blocking anyone who questions them at all.

There’s very little that gets to me more than “western media is OBSESSED with something something unfairly negative about China”. There’s a particularly loathsome figure state media loves to platform named Maitreya Bhakal who’s sole takes are “white person = Nazi” and “western media is OBSESSED with trashing Eileen Gu (or whoever/whatever from China is at all currently noteworthy) but NEVER reports on any problems in America”.

The take Naomi Wu posted that pissed me off is essentially that western media is always reporting that China is going to collapse and if Chinese media was similarly ignorant they’d do the same regarding the US. So many layers to this. First of all, THERE IS NO TAKE THAT WILL GET YOU PLATFORMED ON STATE MEDIA QUICKER THAN “THE WEST/US IS COLLAPSING”.

Meanwhile, Gordon Chang (who no one, literally no one, takes seriously. He’s looked upon as a joke) and some guy I’d never heard of who was on Rogan recently are, afaik, pretty much the only people you’ll see claiming PRC is on the verge of collapse (Gordon’s been on that beat for two decades). Reporting that China’s population has fallen, despite clear efforts by the government to not have that happen, and that this could come with some problems is not saying China is collapsing. It’s not anti-China, it’s not dishonest, it’s basic reporting. That’s 99% of China reporting from major western news outlets: fact, context, potential consequences. Same with the Wuhan lockdown and Zero Covid: harsher than the rest of the world, very few deaths compared with other countries, potential economic consequences, not sustainable indefinitely.

NY Times just published an op-ed last week that wasn’t that far away from “saying mean things about Xi Jinping is causing hate crimes against Asian-Americans”. Funny, I still haven’t got the invite to write in state media about how Zero Covid meant not seeing my wife for over two years.

Even to the extent that reporting from actual journalists has a slant against the Chinese government. There is clearly fault that lies with the entity that kicked out nearly all foreign journalists and currently is holding a Chinese-Australian former state media journalist hostage in prison, I believe for over three years now.

The Economist’s guy in China, David Rennie, made a great point on a podcast with Bill Bishop (#1 China watch guy out there) that the lack of foreign journalists in China made it a lot harder for western media to reflect on the Chinese perspectives on Covid Zero. That for much of the population its comforting to have people at the front of small town and villages regulating people coming in and out etc. The PRC government is happy to sacrifice such foreign understanding of China in order to cut off the credibility of foreign media at the knees by kicking them out of the country.

As for Naomi Wu, if she were an out-and-out state media propagandist it’d bother me less.

TLDR I really need to get a job and better hobbies

5 Likes
42

My fondness of comparing modern PRC nationalists with the American right is kind of self-serving because I despise both.

But.

I shit you not they are actually doing the “SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” thing over Blinken tweeting about Lunar New Year without specifically.mentioning China.

43

As someone from a culture with a lunar calendar which celebrates a lunar new year that isn’t this one, I can’t help but notice how “lunar new year” in the US means the lunar new year as reckoned in the Chinese calendar (and other calendars influenced by theirs).
Luckily I’m not the sort to get triggered by things like these but it’s not like I don’t notice.

44

I understood that saying Lunar New Year in the first place is preferable to Chinese New Year because the latter subsumes various cultures into China inappropriately (Vietnam and Korea, in particular). The PRC slappies would probably prefer everyone call it Chinese New Year.

East Asian Lunar New Year?

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45

You are attempting to be inclusive. Obviously you hate China and are partially responsible for any crimes committed against all Asian-Americans.

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47

I understand why the PRC would like to call it “Chinese” new year but for people from south Asia who celebrate different lunar new years at different times of the year (not this one) - to call the “Chinese” new year lunar new year feels like erasure. As an Indian who lives in the US, I feel that the term “lunar new year” as used erases my culturally observed new year which is a full 2 new moons after this one.

Also @Mendoza’s implication that any opposition to calling it lunar new year in general must come from a locus of PRC propaganda - that’s not very nice. I don’t disagree that this would be the PRC party line here but is it fair to assume that there is only one reason/motivation behind why someone takes a particular position on an issue.

48

I have no problem with people saying “Chinese New Year” in any context, and in the context of the Chinese celebration of Lunar New year it makes perfect sense. “Spring Festival” is overwhelmingly how it’s referred to here but I’d have zero qualms referring to the holiday being celebrated here as “Chinese New Year”, just as it would be absurd to be bothered by “Tet” in Vietnam.

That’s what makes this nonsense so pathetic, and equivalent to being outraged over Starbucks using generic wintery holiday cups that don’t specifically mention Christmas. Perhaps an even closer analogy would be taking offense at wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and not specifying Christians.

Also, because of course:

https://twitter.com/MrSeanHaines/status/1617351586694447104?t=Ki_RirWzZL02hO1paoCGIg&s=19

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Met a guy last night who was previously in the PLA. Told me that of course the only moral option is for Taiwan’s political future to be a question for the Taiwanese people alone.

Heartwarming

Soon after found out a fellow foreign teacher at the high school that’s hired me has a tattoo dedicated to his fondness for sleeping with asian women.

Not heartwarming

Also, how a foreigner describes their ability to speak Mandarin remains undefeated as telling you whether or not there is any reason to look on them as a serious person.

1 Like
51

Kinda curious what you mean by this. How would an unserious foreigner describe their Mandarin in your opinion?

52

Is it a tramp stamp with the Chinese characters for “yellow” and “fever”?

53

The traits that lead someone to genuinely put in the work to speak Chinese at a high level (even on the foreigner scale) correlate with being humble and cognizant of how far away they are from anything approaching fluency etc.

In almost a full decade in China and Taiwan the people I’ve met who aren’t full-time Mandarin students and fit that description are in the single digits. (I don’t make the cut fwiw)

Also there’s the constant compliments from Chinese people if you successfully communicate something very simple and not convincing yourself that they actually think you’re Chinese is amazing. I genuinely think this contributes to the amazingly low bar white guys internalize for what being able to speak Mandarin means.

Serious people qualify they’re language skills regardless of their level, non-serious people think they’re showing off by successfully telling the taxi driver where to go.

IMO “My Chinese is ok” should at least mean your pronunciation ignoring tones is correct (at least for the vast majority of pinyin sounds) and your tones on relatively basic vocab is done right. None of these guys (let’s face it, this is 90% a male thing) would describe a Chinese person’s English as “ok” if they had a short list of vocab and phrases they can botch but would not be able to follow the simplest English conversation.

It’s a pet peeve and relates to the overall sub-mediocrity-mixed-with-excessive-confidence you find in the foreigner population here

3 Likes
54

I love the scene in The Staircase where the Chinese-American forensic scientist testifies and defends writing a complimentary note in a copy of a book by a forensic scientist he’s attempting to trash on the stand.

55

It still being inappropriate and a huge red flag for a teacher aside, I would respect this.

56

I was curious because I lived in China for 3 years and always described my Mandarin as terrible. I never put in the effort to take classes because I kept thinking I was going to leave as I was there year-to-year. So I said a few words and was just honest about its shittiness despite the number of positive comments I received.

The number of foreigners I ran into who spoke fluent Mandarin was in the single digits also. I only met one American who was fully integrated into the country (married to a local, kid, fluent Mandarin etc). However, he would complain that despite all that he was always seen as the foreigner because he was white. Eventually, he moved with his wife and kid to America and I lost track of him since.

Are tattoos still frowned upon in China? I had colleagues who had to cover theirs up in order to stay employed since they’re associated with seedier elements of society there.

57

I feel like I see tattoos all the time here. I’m sure they’re still way less common than in the US and I was asked in job interviews about “visible” tattoos but hard for me to believe there’s a big stigma.

I’m sure like everything in China (and the world) people’s mindsets are different in big cities vs elsewhere.

58

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1622066339576745987?s=20&t=iGF85MY_tSZTNNdd2zqB9g

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59

Of all the white foreigners I meet in China (or Taiwan) I tend to respect South Africans the most. They just seem the closest to people you’d meet back home.

Without touching on sensitive topics I’m not in a place to say anything smart about, their reasoning for coming to China is less likely to be seeking out the most privileged life possible or it being Sex Disneyland and more just “situation back home is difficult…go abroad”.

60

Just like in most languages, if you’re less than fluent the proper response to your language skills is to say I speak ‘a little’ in that language. Yidiandian. Easy. Although in China they will applaud you for pronouncing it correctly haha.

1 Like