Do you want to know anything about China?

[pennyliu123]

Economically China is capitalist now, that much has been obvious for a while. But what about other type of comunist "values", so to speak, like a sense of collective comunity, all striving for the betterment of the nation, or the comunity as a whole? Is there any sense of that or people are much more individualistic now?

I mean, is it "either we all make it or we don't" or "only the more apt deserve to do well".

Personally I think the sense of "doing it for the benefit of the whole community" is still strong in people who is over mid-age, like 50-60 years old, but people who were born after 1980s will be more individual. And the sense of individualistic will become stronger when one is growing up.

For example, in primary school or middle school, it will be very easy to get the whole class to some activities, like a show or a journey nearby. But in high school or in university, it will be hard to gather the whole class to do the same thing. I believe now people think more about the value of oneself's happiness. If in a Chinese forum some people says "you should sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the society", people will say, "OK, why don't you do that", or "Do it if you wish, but that's none of my business". I think this situation is because nowadays Chinese have the chance to watch movies, TV series or books imported from the west, and the traditional sense of "being a good part of the society" is weakened.

 

[Sn1p3r187]

I believe if China and it's people are still in the status of Mao's age, it will be a huge threat to the world. 99.999% of Chinese used to admire Mao and believe everything he said. If Mao said, "let's fight Russia, because their government is evil, we must be their salvation", no doubt that Chinese people will follow his words and fight.

But of course, nowadays things are very different. I will show you a funny picture.

The Chinese letters says "It seems that you don't understand how precious life is". If a guy speaks against the government or Xi Jin Ping angrily in a forum, there will be no suprise that someone posts this picture in the reply for kidding. Xi Jin Ping has a lot of "nickname" on Internet, and most of them are very funny. Chinese people don't admire the President, and will not agree his sayings without thinking. So if Xi told the people "we should fight Russia", people will say, why, really? And at least me will not attend the army for that

It will be interesting if we assume that there will be a serious revolt or "break" inside of CPC, but I think the most serious result is the country fall to another civil war, like CPC fought with KMT before 1949. However, that will very unlikely to be led to fascism or nationalism in my opinion. I think the only possibility that China go on the way of fascism is for some unforeseen reason, the whole country is starving, Chinese people will do everything for food, and if they have none, maybe they will try to get food from other countries, and then there will be wars. Let's hope that will not happen, as it never happened before.

I hope not too. But I guess the China presented in Fallout 2 is what happened when people by the 2070's were still in that "Mao's age" way of thinking and the CPC used it to their advantage. Luckily and hopefully we will never go down that path. But Russia is debatable, they might go through a neo communist revival age and we could likely expect revolt. But let's not let there be another Cold war in 2030 and in the case of Great war let it not be Russia we're at war with. Because there really won't be a war anywhere. Just an exchange of nuclear weapons and 1 hour till midnight.

 

[mnmn1234]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, but i have heard that China's internet was heavily monitored to the point of not being able to do anything without it being tracked. I was also wondering, how do chinese elections work? After a bit wikipedia research i still don't have much of a clue, i know that things called People's congresses are thing, but other then that i have no idea.

 

[pennyliu123]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, but i have heard that China's internet was heavily monitored to the point of not being able to do anything without it being tracked. I was also wondering, how do chinese elections work? After a bit wikipedia research i still don't have much of a clue, i know that things called People's congresses are thing, but other then that i have no idea.

About being tracked, technically, I think so. All the Internet Service Provider (ISP) are well controlled by the government. I believe the government can track one people or at least one computer's activities if they really want, assuming the people who use the computer has not used any encrypted browser. But considering how many people there are in China, personally I don't believe the government will track every people. I guess maybe only a guy who is famous as a “dissident” will be tracked. I've said many words against CPC and the president in this thread, but I don't feel I have any kind of risk to do this, as I'm only a plain and simple citizen to the government.

About election in China, I'm not very clear about it, as I've not voted for anybody for almost 20 years. But I will tell you what I know.

When I was at the university, I voted for the first and the only time in my life. One day, during a break between classes, our instructor gave everyone in the classroom a ballot, then walked to the platform and told us that our university had one nomination for the "Representative of the District People's Congress", and then he read the information and background of 3 candidates, all of them are the leader or a famous professor of a department, and then we voted. I remembered that I voted for a lady whose name sounds very cool.

Now I've graduated. Every election year, I see paper pasted downstairs telling us the candidates of the representative of our District People's Congress and how and when to vote. But I never voted, I don't see the point to vote for a people who I never knew and I will never know.

How the candidates are decided? I believe they are decided by the "election committee" of the people's congress, they have some principles, which I'm not clear, to distribute the candidates and/or nominations. I guess that's why university had one nomination. And theoretically any people can be recommend as a candidate, as long as he can get at least 10 peoples apply for him. One classmate of mine, who is from a rich family is now a representative of one district of our city, I never asked how he make it though, as we're not very close.

Once the election for District Congress is completed, they can vote for the city's Congress, and then the city's Congress can vote for the Province's congress, and then the country's congress, I guess you have read this in wiki?

 

[mnmn1234]

Thank you for the swift reply! anyways, I had one last question(for the time being at least!) Is there sort of resentment toward Taiwan from the chinese people?

Also, does the PRC care what religion one identifies with?

 

[GlutinousRice]

Also, does the PRC care what religion one identifies with?

As long as the religion (and spiritual leaders) don't try to fuck with the Party, the Party don't care.

 

[pennyliu123]

Thank you for the swift reply! anyways, I had one last question(for the time being at least!) Is there sort of resentment toward Taiwan from the chinese people?

Officially people in PRC don't separate Taiwan and China, so if you ask an official about this question, he will correct you at once But of course I'm not an official, so there is no problem, and let me talk about this in a "politically correct" way.

People in mainland (PRC) have some complicated feelings to Taiwan people, I dare say. CPC always tell people that "Taiwan is a part of China, people in Taiwan is our brothers and sisters". And for a long time we believe Taiwan people think in the same way, only their government don't allow them to be close with us. So if in Olympics the team CPR was knocked out or didn't even attend a game, but there is a Player from Taiwan still in the game, no doubt that we will support the player from Taiwan, as we feel he/she is "Chinese".

But nowadays, as the communication via Internet between mainland and Taiwan is more frequently, and people can read more news from outside, people in mainland gradually get to know that most of Taiwan people don't want to be close to PRC, and instead, they really hope that they can be an independent country which is recognized by the other countries. The "angry young men" from different side of the Taiwan Strait will often bitching in Internet, it is very funny that they often use the same way to insult the opposite and obviously have the same way of thinking, only the “standing" is different. I believe if they were born at the opposite side, their attitudes and words will turn by 180 degree.

However, as people in mainland have been told about "Taiwan brothers and sisters" for a long time, we can hardly really hate people from Taiwan, we would like to regard them as "being emotional or stupid for a little while" and still hope that Taiwan will unite with PRC some day. And as Chinese is very practical, people from mainland and Taiwan will still be nice to each other, the pop stars from Taiwan is loved by fans in mainland, and even if he/she said something about "I'm Taiwanese and not Chinese", the fans will still love him/her while other people might feel angry. And tourists from mainland to Taiwan also will receive warm greetings usually. Personally I've no resentment towards Taiwan or Taiwan people, as I believe if I was born in Taiwan, I will want to be independent. And I believe many Taiwan people will have resentment towards PRC and it's people, as we don't allow them to be independent

Also, does the PRC care what religion one identifies with?

@GlutinousRice tells the truth but I want to add something. I know the NGOs which have religious bias are not welcome by the government. CPC is very cautious to give them permission to build primary schools or help the poor people. The reason is, in the past, many Christians were "created" that way. Chinese people are practical and will easily trust people who bring a better life to them. And CPC is afraid that the NGO will create more Christians. One or two individual Christians are fine, but if they are too many, the absolutely administrative position of CPC will be unstable.

 

[GlutinousRice]

Speaking of Chinese pragmatism and religion.

As a "communist" state, public school obviously has an atheist stance, and as you mentioned earlier say that "there is no god". But that doesn't stop China to have Taoist priest, Buddhist monk, Catholic priest, Protestant pastor, or Muslim imam to exist. I recall on one of my trip to Xi'an to my greatest surprise to find a Muslim mosque in traditional Chinese architecture, not so surprising as it is located in the Muslim district.

My family in China is without doubt overwhelmingly atheist, or rather doesn't care much about religious questions, with one exception of one great aunt who was successively and sometimes simultaneously Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, and maybe some other religion, to pray for the recovery of the cancer of her late husband. That show the pragmatism of Chinese people, or more precisely my great aunt, as I can't make a generalization from a single case.

So with this introduction, come the questions. How important is religion in life for yourself and the people you've personally met in real life or internet? Does Chinese people has an tendency to be pragmatic toward religion, using it as a situational tool to gain something, or are there persons who find in religion an answer to existential question and guidance in life?

And finally, I remember that in pre-modern period China, the attitude toward religion was syncretism, something quite similar to the Roman Empire, where Chinese people will happily follow different religions at the same time, mixed different beliefs together, and religions philosophy influencing each other to some extent. Is there today still the same attitude of syncretism in China?

 

[pennyliu123]

Speaking of Chinese pragmatism and religion.
So with this introduction, come the questions. How important is religion in life for yourself and the people you've personally met in real life or internet? Does Chinese people has an tendency to be pragmatic toward religion, using it as a situational tool to gain something, or are there persons who find in religion an answer to existential question and guidance in life?

And finally, I remember that in pre-modern period China, the attitude toward religion was syncretism, something quite similar to the Roman Empire, where Chinese people will happily follow different religions at the same time, mixed different beliefs together, and religions philosophy influencing each other to some extent. Is there today still the same attitude of syncretism in China?

I dare say most of Chinese are pragmatic towards religion. If they want to have children soon, they will pray to Children-Sending Guanyin / avalokitesvara 送子观音, who is from Buddhism:

If they want to get married, they pray to 月老 Yuelao /the matchmaker, who is from Taoism,

And if they want to go to heaven after death, they might try to believe Christianism, or if they believe there will be eternity or after life, they might try to be a vegetarian and pray to the Buddha every day.

And I think this kind of "belief" is not quite "religious", but like "believing all the gods which can affect people's life", for example, if one walks across a mountain and there is a temple for "the God of the mountain", maybe he will go inside and pray for a safe journey, without asking which religion the god of mountain is belonging to. I do know there are some people who find Christianism the guidance in life, but people like that is very few, in my opinion. And a funny thing is quite many officials, who are normally CPC members, will donate to temples. It sounds like "bribe" to me, they may think "I don't know whether the Buddha exists or not, but I don't want to be punished by him for having not believed in him". And I believe this is just the reason for the “attitude of syncretism”, Chinese people think "if you are useful or helpful, I will believe you, no matter which religion are you belonging to".

 

[Gonzalez]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, but i have heard that China's internet was heavily monitored to the point of not being able to do anything without it being tracked.

Now that sounds just like the NSA