Do you want to know anything about China?

[pennyliu123]

My parent are from Anhui. To be more precise my father came from the countryside in the canton of Wuwei 无为, and my mother from the city of Ma'anshan 马鞍山, and her parents (so my maternal grandparents) were from Shanghai before the revolution of October 1940. They moved in France for their studies and stayed here.

You could say that I'm more French than Chinese, since I'm closer to European culture than Chinese. I do know a few Hanzi, speak reasonably well, went a dozen time to go back to China, and know some stuff (probably more than your regular folk, but less than a PhD in sinology) about Chinese culture, myths, history and theology.

Thanks for your reply. I think you can answer most of the questions in this thread, and it will be interesting if you and me can answer the same questions from different angle. And if you have better answers, please feel free to post it.

 

[GlutinousRice]

Maybe you've already mentioned it (but I'm to lazy right now to go check all the post), but the Chinese Catholic Church work quite differently. Christian missionaries were kicked out of China, as they were seen as a manifestation of Western Imperialism, and so the CCP formed in 1957 the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, it doesn't recognize the authority of the Rome, and the bishop are appointed under government control, otherwise their dogma is the same. There are Chinese Catholic who still follow the Roman Catholic Church and recognize the Pope as spiritual leader, but their cult are considered as illegal.

 

[pennyliu123]

Maybe you've already mentioned it (but I'm to lazy right now to go check all the post), but the Chinese Catholic Church work quite differently. Christian missionaries were kicked out of China, as they were seen as a manifestation of Western Imperialism, and so the CCP formed in 1957 the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, it doesn't recognize the authority of the Rome, and the bishop are appointed under government control, otherwise their dogma is the same. There are Chinese Catholic who still follow the Roman Catholic Church and recognize the Pope as spiritual leader, but their cult are considered as illegal.

No, I didn't mention it (as I'm not very clear about it), many thanks for the post!

I have an impression that Cittàdel Vaticano is the only European country which has diplomatic relations with Taiwan(ROC) and not PRC, that's one of the important reason that CPC will not allow Vaticano be the leader of Chinese Catholic. Another important reason is the idealism of Catholic has many conflicts with CPC's policy, ie, the attitude to abortion.

I did some research via Internet and it is said that the Catholic in China still follow Vaticano while explaining the Bible, and the Pope is still their leader in their mind, but just like many things in China, you can do it, but not publicly.

It seems that the relationship between Vaticano and China has been improved, maybe in the future things will be different. A sign is now the Pope is not translated as Jiao Huang 教皇 (The emperor of Catholic) but Jiao Zong 教宗 （The great master of Catholic), which is more "correct" and has not so many negative intimation.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I would be actually interested to know how Chinese citizens see their own nation and politics. Do they agree with the chinese government? Are they actually more critical in their thinking? I mean is it even really allowed to express your opinion about the politics of the government and leaders.

Without the intention to judge anyone. I am not the kind of guy who sees China as this big evil thing in the world. Albeit, they sure have issues. And I am aware about the fact that China is fucking huge. It's not even comparable with the US. More like with Europe, where you have tons of different nations squezed in to one big thing.

I am really interested in the opinion of the common Chinese person.

 

[pennyliu123]

I would be actually interested to know how Chinese citizens see their own nation and politics. Do they agree with the chinese government? Are they actually more critical in their thinking? I mean is it even really allowed to express your opinion about the politics of the government and leaders.

Without the intention to judge anyone. I am not the kind of guy who sees China as this big evil thing in the world. Albeit, they sure have issues. And I am aware about the fact that China is fucking huge. It's not even comparable with the US. More like with Europe, where you have tons of different nations squezed in to one big thing.

I am really interested in the opinion of the common Chinese person.

I can only tell you my own opinion about the government and the "Party", as there are too many people in China, and different people have different points of view.

I don't like the government, and disagree with many of it's policies. And I'm worried about the situation of the freedom of speech in coming few years.

In past few years, people can always make jokes or just "bitch" the Party or the government on internet, and don't need to worry about the "influence", the "improper" posts might be delete afterwards, but very few people will really get into trouble for the things they said via internet. But recently, especially this year, President Xi Jin Ping seems to be very unhappy about this situation, some famous real-name account active in Weibo (Chinese facebook) has been disabled, and the guy who was banned are not allowed to register a new account, the reason is they have been keeping "attacked" the party and it's policies. This thing never happened when Jiang Ze Ming or Hu Jin Tao was the president. I think one reason is Xi Jin Ping has some worship to Mao Ze Dong, which is obviously not good at this age.

3 years ago, I could be very confident to tell you, our Chinese can say anything we want unless we're in a very formal occasion, but now I'm not so sure about it.

We can't deny that in past 40 years, the life of Chinese have improved a lot. A normal citizen like me can have an iphone, can live on his own ability and if he works hard enough, he has the chance to have a decent life. But I think the "progress" in politics is not so remarkable, especially after 1989. 1989 is a very important year, after that year, CPC has tried to made more strict control to the freedom of speech, or the freedom of thinking.

But on the other hand, I have to say current government or CPC is still the only option which Chinese people can take. The most important reason is China is too huge, and people don't want to be involved in any kind of chaos. From 1840 to 1949, China is always in a state of chaos and war, the pains and fear has been inherited for generations, most of Chinese are still willing to give up some of freedom and get a peaceful life as return, just like we did in thousands of years ago. If you know something about Chinese history, you will know that Chinese people will only make violent "revolution" to overthrow a government when they can hardly make a living. So I don't see CPC or current government will be replaced by any other guys in my whole life.

However, I still believe things will be different after Xi Jin Ping retires. Many people will dislike his policy more and more, and the next president will know about it, and will try to make it better. And maybe after several generations, more and more people will feel freedom is very important and would like to risk a little bit for it. I think freedom will not fall from the heaven, people need to fight for it. But now Chinese, including me, are still very cautious and don't want to risk our own peaceful life for freedom, so we only think about it, discuss about it (very cautiously), and teach what we think is correct to our sons or daughters, and hopefully, they will be braver than us.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well, thx for your answer. Look at the bright side. Xi is at least not Donald Trump.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hey there,

Had to think of a good question I wanted to ask about China and I finally have one I am curious about.
Would you perhaps to know anything about foreign media in China? Games, movies and such?
If so, how much foreign media is allowed to be imported into China? And does the Chinese government monitor the content of games and movies, if necessary applying censorship on what they consider 'morally' or 'politically' subversive? (if necessary preventing media from entering the market?)

Is there also any form of market favoritism? The government trying to promote media that is considered 'Chinese' over imported media?

And last, does the general Chinese population have the disposable income to actually purchase foreign media to the same numbers as in the US or Europe? (I keep having this idea that in general many in China are not interested in foreign media or just don't have the money for it)

 

[pennyliu123]

Well, thx for your answer. Look at the bright side. Xi is at least not Donald Trump.

Yes, of course, the problem of Chinese is not "don't look at the bright", but "look too much at the bright and try to forget the dark side"

Hey there,

Had to think of a good question I wanted to ask about China and I finally have one I am curious about.
Would you perhaps to know anything about foreign media in China? Games, movies and such?
If so, how much foreign media is allowed to be imported into China? And does the Chinese government monitor the content of games and movies, if necessary applying censorship on what they consider 'morally' or 'politically' subversive? (if necessary preventing media from entering the market?)

Is there also any form of market favoritism? The government trying to promote media that is considered 'Chinese' over imported media?

And last, does the general Chinese population have the disposable income to actually purchase foreign media to the same numbers as in the US or Europe? (I keep having this idea that in general many in China are not interested in foreign media or just don't have the money for it)

Yes, that's a good question.

As I said for a few times, China is huge and has a lot of people, so different people have different opinions on most of things. I would like to say the situation in China is, those who would like to know more about foreign media can always get the information they want. Many people always use VPN to view youtube or facebook, or get the programs played on BBC, ABC, FOX or other media. And once a good movie or good game, songs is released in north America, there are always some people can get a copy at the first time and before it is officially imported (if it will be, and in many cases it will not), and spread them via internet. But on the other hand, more people in China don't know how to overcome the great firewall, or don't even feel it exists, they only view local websites (as they are in Chinese), play Chinese games, and don't care about things happening in the rest part of the world.

One example for this is a famous soup opera “Love Apartment" in China, most of it's content are just copied from "Friends", "The Big Bang Theory" and many famous US TV series, but this soup opera still have many fans in China, because there are many people who have never watched or heard about "Friends". And obviously, those who have watched the original TV series will despise the "Fake Friends".

And yes, all the foreign media must be inspected before imported, and the “improper" content must be revised or deleted. And if the content is impossible to be revised, it will just be banned and are not allowed to be legally imported to China. The "improper" content could be violence, nude, or just "against China government". And yes, the government will promote native media over imported media, especially for movies. There are a few months the government may limit the times which an imported movie can be played to make sure the native movies can have more chances to be shown.

About purchase, as China is so huge, I can only say my opinion. I think most people are not interested in foreign media, and most of those people don't have enough money for it. And there are quite a few people, which are less in quantity but the amount is increasing, are interested in foreign media, and some of them have the money to purchase at least some of the items they want, the rest of them may have not the money, so they will only download the media files from internet, or buy some illegal copies.

The interests for foreign media is more about the education one has received(mainly about English training), and less about money.

This question is not easy to answer and I hope you can understand what I mean. If you find any strange expressions, please feel free to ask.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I am curious though, do you know about tank man/Uknown rebel? And what is your opinion about him.

 

[pennyliu123]

I am curious though, do you know about tank man/Uknown rebel? And what is your opinion about him.

If you mean the tank man in 1989, yes, I knew about this guy while I visited wiki, I think that man is brave. China need more people like him to get real progress in politics. But I didn't know anything about him before I visited wiki, as he is not reported by the official media, and I was still young in 1989.

Edit:

I confirm that most Chinese young people who were born after 1985 barely know anything about what happened in 1989, I've talked to some of them (all girls), and they really didn't know about it. Only those who were old enough to remember those things or those who care more about freedom or democracy will know about tank man.

 

[zegh8578]

But I didn't know anything about him before I visited wiki, as he is not reported by the official media, and I was still young in 1989.

This is amazing
I knew about "tank man" even as a child, I think a lot of people do, he is famous for being a very powerful symbol - the man standing against the tanks, regardless of where or why, just a man versus tanks, and how the tanks actually stop in front of him (the strong symbol extending to the humans inside the tank, who are reluctant to just go ahead and kill someone else, just because they're inside a tank)
It's an immensely strong image, and quite well known around the world. Perhaps one of the very best known images of modern history

 

[pennyliu123]

This is amazing
I knew about "tank man" even as a child, I think a lot of people do, he is famous for being a very powerful symbol - the man standing against the tanks, regardless of where or why, just a man versus tanks, and how the tanks actually stop in front of him (the strong symbol extending to the humans inside the tank, who are reluctant to just go ahead and kill someone else, just because they're inside a tank)
It's an immensely strong image, and quite well known around the world. Perhaps one of the very best known images of modern history

Lol, I never know this guy is so famous in west. I can understand why CPC feels awkward to report it. Tank man disobeyed CPC and survived, CPC would not tell Chinese people about his courage, which could be a bad model, if more and more people act like tankman and believe they will not be hurt, it will be a big trouble. On the other side, CPC also can't declare tank man has been punished, so the best choice is to pretend like the guy never existed and don't report it.

If you use Baidu to search "tank man", it will show no results about him, and you will see some Chinese characters to tell you, according to local law and policies, some results are not shown. That's how tank man and 64 were forgotten by Chinese people. It is just like in the novel "1984".

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well, the concept of "man vs tank" is simply popular, because nothing else stands so strong against the people and their struggle with communism. Already since the first time a large number of people started to revolt against the Stalinist system in the 1950s. Each time, tanks crushed any attempt in changing the system. But often enough, people tried their best to stop it. The part that inspires people is that sher bravery. You know it is hopeless. And yet. They try it.
What makes tank man in my opinion so special, is that he doesn't seem like a revolutionary or student or what ever. Just a man with grocery bags. And he managed to stop a whole line of tanks.

 

[pennyliu123]

Well, the concept of "man vs tank" is simply popular, because nothing else stands so strong against the people and their struggle with communism. Already since the first time a large number of people started to revolt against the Stalinist system in the 1950s. Each time, tanks crushed any attempt in changing the system. But often enough, people tried their best to stop it. The part that inspires people is that sher bravery. You know it is hopeless. And yet. They try it.
What makes tank man in my opinion so special, is that he doesn't seem like a revolutionary or student or what ever. Just a man with grocery bags. And he managed to stop a whole line of tanks.

I still have some memories about the army going to Tian An Men Square, that's the first time in decades PLA have to face normal Chinese citizens as their enemy, those people are not criminals, but normal citizen. I can understand why the solider in the tank will not crush the citizen before them, one reason is they have never done this, the other reason is they have not received an order to kill citizens during the march to Tian An Men. I believe at this stage CPC only wanted to use minimum violence to drive the students out of the square.

However, things had changed during the march, it was rumored that the army were coming to kill all the students, so more and more citizens were trying to blocked the road and stop the army by violence, there are quite a few soldiers were killed, and they didn't even fight back when they were attacked. Personally I don't believe those guys who killed the soldiers are normal citizens, maybe they did that for money, maybe they did that because they thought they have a perfect excuse to commit such a crime. Anyway, this kind of sacrifice shocked Deng Xiao Ping and the CPC, they decided to be tough and breakdown the resistance of the people, and then the army start shooting, and the army finally reached Tian An Men. This is what I know about it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Possible, we will never know. Some simply enjoy violence. However, I think, or well I like to imagine that tank man was just a normal person who happend to be there. And decided, enough is enough. There is even rumor that he asked the crew of the tank why they do this to (his) people? Why they are such cowards. Or something like that.

 

[Vanguardbr]

This thread is so interesting its not even funny man, thanks to take your time to answer all these questions! Its very interesting to see how another society runs.

May I ask you my friend, whats your opinion on Comunism, and, have you read any work from Karl Marx? I mean, once you read it, it should be obvious that China is not comunism, and its not even trying to be comunism. How does the CPC deals with Karl Marx work?

Are the theoretical contradictions of the chinese social economical system discussed in universities? Does the average citizen in Chine still believe that one day the CPC will bring real communism to China?

I'm from Brazil man, if you have any questions about us as well, woud be a pleasure to answer them!

 

[Illuminati Confirmed!]

Well, thx for your answer. Look at the bright side. Xi is at least not Donald Trump.

@pennyliu123 I heard a while ago that some Hearts of Iron games got banned in the PRC for presenting China of the interwar period as a bunch of warlord-controlled countries rather than a unified nationalist China. How often is it that foreign historical content is censored for not being in sync with the party line, and could you shed some light on what you were taught in school of China's 20th century history before the CCP's rise to power?

 

[Crni Vuk]

Wow, you can't even take a joke man ...

 

[Illuminati Confirmed!]

Wow, you can't even take a joke man ...

Because it wasn't funny.

Why was there no doubt in my mind that the next thing you would post would be a John Oliver video?

This one is probably the most idiotic of them all, and that's saying a lot when one talks about the subject in question.

Especially the last name bit. How is it Trump's fault that his grandfather allegedly changed their last name?

And what's wrong about Trump wanting to know who David Duke is before denouncing him (for the record, Duke doesn't support supremacism of any kind and has been out of the Klan for about 40 years)? How is that pretending to be racist? Why isn't Hillary being forced to denounce the late Robert Byrd? Why is it kosher for her and Obama to have KKK connections, but not Trump?

 

[pennyliu123]

This thread is so interesting its not even funny man, thanks to take your time to answer all these questions! Its very interesting to see how another society runs.

May I ask you my friend, whats your opinion on Comunism, and, have you read any work from Karl Marx? I mean, once you read it, it should be obvious that China is not comunism, and its not even trying to be comunism. How does the CPC deals with Karl Marx work?

Are the theoretical contradictions of the chinese social economical system discussed in universities? Does the average citizen in Chine still believe that one day the CPC will bring real communism to China?

I'm from Brazil man, if you have any questions about us as well, woud be a pleasure to answer them!

Glad to know you feel this thread interesting.

About the communism, there's a famous joke, I heard it by 2000.

Mr Deng Xiao Ping and Jiang Ze ming are in the car "China", and they arrived an intersection, on the left side the road sign says "Communism", on the right side it's "Capitalism". There are many cars ahead of them, so they're waiting.

Mr Jiang says, “Look, Mr Deng! Poland turns right!"
Mr Deng says, "OK, let's wait and see."

After a while, Mr Jiang says, “Look, DDR turns right, too!"
Mr Deng says, "OK, let's wait and see."

All the cars ahead of China turn right, and the last one is the Soviet Union.

Mr Jiang says, "Where shall we go? It's our turn now."
Mr Deng says, "Well, let's turn on the left signal, and drive to the right."

Everyone in China will smile at this joke, as it's just telling what's happening in China. CPC still insists that China is on the way of ”Socialism With Chinese Characteristics", but everybody knows we're capitalism.

About Karl Marx's work, I'm not sure what we can read in China is censored or not, as I never read one. I do know there're many things different between "Chinese Socialism" and Karl Marx's socialism, but CPC explained as "Chinese Characteristics", lol.

Even most of Chinese people now think "Chinese Socialism" is only a joke or a lie, it doesn't matter. As I said before, most people in China don't care much about politics, unless when they feel they can hardly make a living. “Capitalism or Socialism" is not such an important problem to Chinese. A few years ago, there were still discussions about this problem in universities, but I guess now they don't discuss it anymore, as the result is quite obvious, but you still can't say it in a very formal occasion.

People in China care more about when they can make more money, when they can buy a new apartment, and things like that. I doubt people still think about the possibility that CPC can bring the real socialism. It's just "not so important", and "can't be realized in near future".