China - Let's not be lazy - Are your thoughts correct?

[H3LL]

Prompted by some posts making statements that are suspect...

Here is a challenge to critical thinkers on this forum.


As I now live in China and my Chinese family has direct experience of many events through four generations during what one might call "interesting times", in an area of China that has seen the most changes. Many stories I believed to be true before arriving here have now fallen into grey areas.

The problem:

A history with two sides directly opposed to each other. State controlled media and propaganda on both sides. One the CCP and the other McCarthyism and associated attitude, some still active to this day.

Trying to sift any reality from available sources is difficult, to say the least, but with the relaxation of some state control in PRC, better Internet access for the people and access to previously restricted documents in the USA, more and more reliable information is becoming available.

Many sources of so-called information are suspect. Their accounts are motivated by obvious prejudice and are taken "as is" because it did/does serve a political purpose.

Corroborative evidence is hard to find and cover-ups in the PRC is assumed to be so, whether true or not, as it has proven to be so many times in the past. This is coupled with obfuscation and deliberate 'tunnel vision' hanging over from McCarthyism in the west.

The challenge:

Stop accepting cold war and other propaganda as "fact" and think and research a bit.

See if you can make sense of various stories and find something that "makes you think" and wonder where the truth may be.

An example of something that may "make you think", to show what I mean:

Mao caused 30 million deaths.
Are the numbers perhaps suspect and maybe largely attributed to propaganda and/or an unscientific census?
Was it "evil" intent or bad planning?
How much was murder, how much was starvation?
Was the USA trade embargo preventing grain shipment from Canada and Australia a factor in the starvation?

Have a search and decide for yourself.

Pick a "fact" you think you know about China and see what is out there. Are you right?

Why Bother:

When I first arrived in China, western news about the country was about one item a month, and usually of little interests. Unless you have had your head in the sand for some time, the news is full of so many articles about China that I find it hard to keep track.

China is changing more rapidly than most of you can even comprehend, and will impact of your life. If not already, sometime very soon.

Aggressive cold war thinking and outdated attitudes help no one. Least of all encouraging the Chinese to move forward in very important areas and may well hit your own lifestyle. For example, if you are American and have a mortgage, do you know that China is assisting in keeping your interest rate low? Is this a fact?

In conclusion:

Am I trying to make China all cute and cuddly with no problems or crimes past or present? Certainly not. No more than I would say that the UK or USA is cute and cuddly with no problems or crimes past or present.

Do you want to be considered a critical or skeptical thinker or a mouthpiece of outdated propaganda?

Challenge your preconceptions and find out.

I have discovered that most of what I thought to be true about China is just plain wrong at best, lies at worst; with bits of little known details that change the whole perspective.

Have I found out the truth?
Not yet...but I'm getting closer to something that seems more logical and balanced than before and fits what I experience, see and hear much better.

I will be interested to see what is posted.

You never know. You might find out something new today.

[Zep]

Honestly, I'm not understanding what your point is.

Sure, nothing in the past was exactly as the media presented it, either Chinese or otherwise. Unpleasant things get covered up, stories get enhanced, visible facts portrayed as what they are not, depending on political climates...on BOTH sides. Time for large pinches of salt, usually.

[H3LL]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zep
Honestly, I'm not understanding what your point is.

Zep, if more people posted with your knowledge and lack of tunnel vision I would see less "cold war" rhetoric and poorly researched comments.

I would just like each person to pick a fact they think they know about China and see, through a bit of googling or whatever how right or wrong they are.

Maybe they can post something to show what they have found.

It's a country that is featuring more and more in peoples lives throughout the world and to a great degree, many are ignorant of the place and their knowledge is limited to old or regurgitated propaganda.

If you met someone that thought America is represented by "I Love Lucy", Australia by "Skippy" or England by "Dad's Army" you would laugh in their face. Why is it OK for so many to have equally outdated images of China?

I don't think this is a good thing and just thought I would prompt a bit of self education and maybe learn a bit more myself along the way.

I thought that was the point of these forums: New ideas, new ways to look at things, questioning established "norms", seeking evidence and being critical of our established thoughts and ideas.

I don't see a much of any of that on this topic.

My apologies for not making it clearer.

[Barak]

Well, not to make too much of a point of it, but perhaps it is a misconception to believe that most skeptics here would "believe" false facts about China, no?

I, for one, am well aware of the fact that the american media machine has always distorted any fact having anything to do with communism. Therefore, everything heard about China, which is a communist country (it is, isn't it? ) I take with at least a grain of salt.

[H3LL]

Quote:

Originally posted by Barak
Therefore, everything heard about China, which is a communist country (it is, isn't it?)

It is.

It also amuses me that If I have anything positive to say about the place some people assume it make me a communist too.

I'm not BTW

[Barak]

Well, it's not like everyone living in the States is a capitalist, so that makes sense. And after the last US election, we know full well that although the US is a democracy, less then half the people living there are Democrates.

[crimresearch]

OK, I think this is probably true about China.

Mao issued an order for the people to kill the '4 pests' wherever and however they could...even implemented an incentive of some kind as I recall...as a result, the decimation of sparrows actually increased the health problems suffered by the rural peoples.

Your take?

I also think that this was a factor in the People's Medical Conference of '51 ( my memory is fuzzy on the date, may have been later), in which previously banned counterrevolutionary activities such as Qigong and Taijiquan were revived in lieu of expensive medicines and diagnostic equipment...which in turn became a factor in the number of people today who are gullible followers of ChiLel, XanXin, and Falun Dafa.

Thoughts?

[crimresearch]

OK, perhaps I misunderstood what the OP wanted.

It wouldn't seem to serve any useful purpose to have us say things about China that we know to be inaccurate, or sterotypical, or propaganda from a long time ago, but I am at a loss as the what input *is* desired.

My view of China is informed, as I would think that of many Westerners, by having friends (met either in college or on the Internet) from there, and keeping up with their views on the current situation in China.

From them, and from the Westen media, I hold certain beliefs that I cannot personally verify without being there to see it first hand..but I have no good reason to disbelieve.

So if the OP would be so good as to return to their own thread, perhaps they could weigh in on things like the 'turtles', the level of woo-woo among the educated in China in the form of Taijiquan, Qigong, superstition about omens, dreams, etc....
the slogan from the Party 'It is glorious to be wealthy', the view of the Party on the 'People's Autonomous Regions' all over the world, the decline in bicycles and increase in cars, Western foods, etc. or many other beliefs that I have gotten from living in the West.

[H3LL]

It is not my intention to debate the issues in this thread, more to show that a little research of your own can cast a different light.

As you asked, I will just paint a broad picture IMHO of some of your comments.

You mention some things that are quite old. A conference in 1951 is hardly a hot topic today, the same as a conference 54 years ago in the USA is not disturbing many minds today I would think. Many of the none woo things you mention fall into this category.

As I mentioned before, applying thinking and ideas from 50 years ago to modern China is as foolish as doing the same for a western country.

On woo. In my experience, still common beliefs held in the older and poorer population, and considered a joke by educated people. China is exporting its woo, such as Feng Shui (Lit: Wind Water) and there is a good flow of woo entering the new Chinese market, in particular from the USA and S. Korea.

The problem is about the same as in the west, but less so in higher education IMHO. The government is supportive of anti-woo efforts. Read Randi's commentaries about China and you get a good picture.

In my experience, when talking to large groups of university students, woo is a joke, and many are surprised at the gullibility of westerners and some even think I'm making it up as they believe intelligent people cannot hold such nonsense as true.

On the 4 pests, it was a praiseworthy achievement to kill any of the four. They could be: Cockroach; Mosquito; Rat; Fly but with a BIG maybe. Creatures on the list were changes often, sometimes to meet local health needs. Sparrows, locusts, bedbugs and snakes are some that have jumped in and out of the list. Ask any older person in a city and you will rarely get the same last creature. Cockroach, rat/mouse and mosquito tend to stay there.

Sometimes this is confused with the effects of hunger and starvation in the past. When you have a large population starving, and anything that moves is valuable protein, there were large areas that were completely cleared of almost all animal life and have yet to recover, if they ever will. IMO if there is a nice juicy endangered species close by and my family is starving, it goes in the pot. Thank you very much. Again this is some time ago.

[crimresearch]

Thank you for responding, I am pleased to gain information that varies from my previous understanding...here in America among the university population it is not uncommon to see Chinese with academic degrees also teaching Qigong and Taiji or alternative health practices.

And it is accepted that Mao specifically wanted birds killed, which left insects without a natural predator, leading to famines and worse.

[H3LL]

I'm not very familiar with American university populations.

Mao said a lot of things. He's still dead though, the last I heard and I'm unaware of him telling anybody to do anything that causes mass starvation at the moment.

There's still a lot of woo in China..I think I mentioned it as I did that Randi's commentaries make a good read and would appear to be close to reality.

We had an American professor teaching environmental science in one of the universities here who also taught Taiji on the side. He's written a book that you can get from Amazon, but I'm not sure about the content, having never read it. Nice guy though.

We had another American (CA) that was here teaching and simultaneously studying (and practicing on the side) Chinese medicine and acupuncture. He got fired though.

It's a funny old world.

[H3LL]

Now I come to think of it, all the ex-pats that I have met that have subsequently been fired and/or deported have been American and each of them scored really high on the wierd/woo meter. I'd not made the connection before. Maybe I'm cursed.

[Lantern]

My prediction is that China is going to have impacts large and small throughout the world in the coming decades.

My opinion is that Americans (in our typical isolationist way) don’t expect any country to have an impact on us - certainly not one so far away geographically and socially as well. And since China had made itself isolated for so long, what knowledge we think we have is old and dusty. What happens as the Sleeping Tiger wakes?

I had the unique opportunity to visit China for a week last year. My husband went for work (with high-tech types) and I went as a visitor. We were only able to visit Shanghai, an place where you see the image that the “21st Century China” is presenting to the world. It’s an image of grand expansiveness, pride, confidence, optimism, and money - huge skyscrapers everywhere, modernistic architecture, people bustling along with cell phones. Alongside the old, for sure, but the construction cranes continue their work. Check out pictures of the Pudong district - the skyline is right out of a science fiction adventure. (For example http://www.brhphoto.com/photo/china/10)

Surely I saw only one city in China, so I have a limited view. But as a non-Chinese speaking tourist, I was able to get around by taxi and on foot, and see quite a bit of the city, including the older parts. I was able barter for tea and textiles in areas where nobody spoke English, and (though maybe I should have) I did not feel afraid.

It's not just seeing the buildings that makes me interested in China's economic impact. Here are some bits of information to add to the interest:

…China holds a large amount of U.S. debt.
…China is buying oil. Lots of it. And building materials, too.
…Check the labels on what you buy. Likely it comes from China.
…With US import quotas being lifted on textiles, more will come from China, hurting other developing countries’ textile exports.
…China has not had well-regulated lending to fund its growth.
…Watch China and high-tech…

I am looking forward to hearing others' perspectives.

Cheers,