more likely knows vaguely that something went down but has been instructed not to discuss political topics while strolling through tiananmen. or they're in their 20s, came from far outside beijing and haven't heard of it because with or without internet censorship there's a lack of interest in tiananmen and in recent chinese history and the event isn't remembered the same by those that were around in china as it is in the west where it's one of a handful of things people can come up with when asked about china.
I DUNNO
― dylannn, Thursday, 4 June 2015 22:00 (eight years ago) link
Probably the better analogy would be to Iran Contra or any of the innumerable horrible things Reagan did while in office
― 龜, Thursday, 4 June 2015 22:21 (eight years ago) link
Im sure tour guides talking to tourists about 1989 get a e-ticket to prison so I wouldnt talk about it either.
― panettone for the painfully alone (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 5 June 2015 01:28 (eight years ago) link
talking to american tourists about china's internal politics is probably not very rewardingafter you have the 60000th dude says, "HEY TELL ME HOW THERE WAS A MASSACRE HERE IN 1989"/"HEY ISN'T THIS A COMMUNIST COUNTRY HOW COME YOU GUYS GOT SO MANY FANCY CARS"whether you end up in jail or not
― dylannn, Friday, 5 June 2015 02:16 (eight years ago) link
it was a good run zhou yongkang
― 龜, Thursday, 11 June 2015 11:12 (eight years ago) link
but my point was though-- even if tiananmen is not a topic that can be openly discussed, it's not the only event that's been airbrushed out. the chinese school system does not place much importance on recent chinese history. it reduces it to a nationalist highlight reel of deng xiaoping 1997 hong kong comes back 1999 shenzhou in space 2008 olympics.-- even if you remember tiananmen and you know something fucked up happened, it doesn't mean you want to mark the event or dig deeper. criticizing the events of 1989 is criticizing the party. the party has brought stability and wealth that the party has brought the country. everyone involved with it is mostly out of visible positions of power (li peng is an exception?).
-- even if tiananmen is not a topic that can be openly discussed, it's not the only event that's been airbrushed out. the chinese school system does not place much importance on recent chinese history. it reduces it to a nationalist highlight reel of deng xiaoping 1997 hong kong comes back 1999 shenzhou in space 2008 olympics.
-- even if you remember tiananmen and you know something fucked up happened, it doesn't mean you want to mark the event or dig deeper. criticizing the events of 1989 is criticizing the party. the party has brought stability and wealth that the party has brought the country. everyone involved with it is mostly out of visible positions of power (li peng is an exception?).
Hm thanks this comment is actually a bit enlightening to me. Like how it would be unfair to criticize the US in general today by the word "Watergate", or characterizing the UK Labour Party *OR* the UK Conservative Party using the term "miner's strike"?
In other words, lots of political changes + processes taking place as everywhere*, but since there is an actual one-party system it is an easier target (rightfully, imo) seen from the West?
*) idk about North Korea
― anatol_merklich, Thursday, 11 June 2015 20:51 (eight years ago) link
i think i mean something a bit like that and something a bit different, too. it's hard to compare chinese nationalism to american politics.of course partly it does seem unfair to criticize the cpc2015 for the excesses of cpc1989 but more:
to criticize the party-- the party that stood up to a century of humiliation by foreign imperialism! that gave dignity to the nation! that cleaned up after chaos and imperialism and famine and disease! that made the world respect china again! ... the party is so linked to the chinese people, the chinese nation. this is why tiananmen... like, the images that most people remember, if they were around in 1989 and not physically at a protest or even just marched in a more placid protest in another city are: the cctv coverage that showed the uniformed man with his guts pulled out, the uniformed man burned alive. the protests were seen as attacking the nation by attacking the party. the student protests represent(ed) for most people-- well, the students were collaborating with foreign powers, promoting foreign ideologies, threatening to send the chinese nation back into chaos and making it vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by the many outside forces that oppose it. that foreigners are so obsessed with the events of 1989 is more evidence of this.
that's how i see it.
― dylannn, Friday, 12 June 2015 07:23 (eight years ago) link
and the party's legitimacy is linked to its maintaining the nationalist myth of the party as savior of the country only bastion against foreign invaders and internal corruption that it can't really admit to a lot of mistakes.
― dylannn, Friday, 12 June 2015 07:24 (eight years ago) link
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/q-a-xie-shi-on-the-brotherhood-of-skateboarding-in-chinas-far-west/?_r=0
i want to buy this book
― 龜, Friday, 10 July 2015 13:55 (eight years ago) link
oh man
i always wanted to make a documentary about lil bubbles of skaters in otherwise-unexpected corners of the world
― jason waterfalls (gbx), Saturday, 11 July 2015 05:26 (eight years ago) link
https://twitter.com/raypride/status/631524072535425029
― goole, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 18:02 (eight years ago) link
http://www.rt.com/news/312292-china-tianjin-massive-blast/
― goole, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 18:03 (eight years ago) link
The blast had erupted from a shipment of explosives in a key industrial zone in Binhai New Area at about 11:30 pm local time (3:30 pm GMT), state broadcaster China Central Television said. The initial blast triggered a suspected petrol explosion in an adjacent reservoir.
jfc
― sleeve, Thursday, 13 August 2015 05:59 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWQMLO-pHcE
― dylannn, Sunday, 23 August 2015 07:30 (eight years ago) link
oh that's fake? fuck. anyways, something blew up in shandong.
― dylannn, Sunday, 23 August 2015 07:31 (eight years ago) link
not fake but a faked headline on the youtube video, i mean.
― dylannn, Sunday, 23 August 2015 07:33 (eight years ago) link
checked out the IRON MINISTRY with Morbs yesterday, wasn't too impressed
― 龜, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 17:54 (eight years ago) link
your time would be off better checking this photoset out again http://photoblog.hk/wordpress/46976
― 龜, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 17:58 (eight years ago) link
Im in Guangzhou right now then xiamen where should I go next
― 龜, Sunday, 4 October 2015 15:07 (eight years ago) link
what's the fanciest train in China, go take that
― go hang a salami I'm a canal, adam (silby), Sunday, 4 October 2015 15:49 (eight years ago) link
coastal shandong
― dylannn, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 15:12 (eight years ago) link
wenzhou on the way there
― dylannn, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 15:19 (eight years ago) link
come to beijing this weekend and party with me
― tpp, Wednesday, 7 October 2015 17:10 (eight years ago) link
I actually did want to visit wenzhou but the timing didn't work out would have only been able to stay one full day there
― 龜, Thursday, 8 October 2015 01:52 (eight years ago) link
is this story true/website trustworthy? http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/attack-09302015174319.html
did i somehow miss this story? i haven't seen it in Western media...
― Mordy, Thursday, 8 October 2015 14:55 (eight years ago) link
I've seen it elsewhere, but all of them are quoting the RFA story. I was wondering if the attack was related at all to the big layoff of 100,000 coal mine workers but it seemed to be earlier.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 9 October 2015 18:53 (eight years ago) link
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/world/asia/in-a-region-disturbed-by-ethnic-tensions-china-keeps-tight-lid-on-a-massacre.html
― Mordy, Monday, 19 October 2015 03:28 (eight years ago) link
Twenty five years in Chinese jazz: http://theanthill.org/jazz
― F♯ A♯ (∞), Friday, 4 December 2015 19:13 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty3iDweGotk
― 龜, Monday, 7 December 2015 14:09 (eight years ago) link
This smog alert, closing Beijing schools and businesses, is pretty major, no?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/beijing-smog-red-alert-issued-schools-and-businesses-to-completely-shut-down-as-chinese-capital-a6763286.html
― my harp and me (Eazy), Monday, 7 December 2015 16:01 (eight years ago) link
dont' think the smog is the worst that beijing has ever seen but mayeb the response is the first time they've done something like this?
― 龜, Monday, 7 December 2015 16:02 (eight years ago) link
Kind of a crazy story, although I think the idea that this is some kind of commentary on the "national character" is the wrong way to look at it:
http://chublicopinion.com/2015/12/06/the-unbearable-coldness-of-being-chinese/
― o. nate, Tuesday, 8 December 2015 01:47 (eight years ago) link
good read
― 龜, Tuesday, 8 December 2015 12:00 (eight years ago) link
twitter is all: pu zhiqiang trial w smiley face hired thugs slapping reporters / "worse than the cultural revolution" repression of uighur communities / choking air pollution / and a good amount of fake island/territorial dispute stuff. leaving tomorrow to go job hunting in gz.
― dylannn, Friday, 18 December 2015 07:07 (eight years ago) link
Pu Zhiqiang trial is bleak AF, as is Uighur situation. Friend's article on her travels in Xinjiang made it into the best NZ essays 2015 book.
G'luck with the job hunt. If you're at a loose end tomorrow evening, I'm v.vaguely doing a thing w/some local music friends at Loft345:http://www.douban.com/event/25948581/
― etc, Friday, 18 December 2015 07:31 (eight years ago) link
thank you! looking forward to getting back to guangzhou. are you there for the next little while?
― dylannn, Friday, 18 December 2015 07:43 (eight years ago) link
i should be permanently relocating in mid to late-january. my girlfriend is going to be studying at south china normal university.
― dylannn, Friday, 18 December 2015 07:44 (eight years ago) link
Leaving on the 27th, sadly. Finish up at 广外 on Christmas day ... would have liked a month to travel/kick back, but my partner's been having a rough time in NZ and wanted me back ASAP after a year away.
SCNU, sweet! As much as I've loved being up by the leafy green vistas of Baiyun shan, 25min walk to the closest metro through random caryard alleys then 20-stop journeys has meant I haven't always gotten out as much as I meant.
― etc, Friday, 18 December 2015 07:58 (eight years ago) link
NK orders workers in China back home http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=13647
― dylannn, Saturday, 19 December 2015 08:37 (eight years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/18/north-korean-moranbong-anti-american-lyrics
The source said that Chinese censors had not approved of references to the United States an “ambitious wolf”, and lyrics which glorified the 1950-53 Korean War.
― dylannn, Saturday, 19 December 2015 08:39 (eight years ago) link
(but it was a chinese korean war song) https://adamcathcart.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/japanese-devils-and-american-wolves.pdf
― dylannn, Saturday, 19 December 2015 08:44 (eight years ago) link
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35144579 industrial explosions, accidents/craziness in shenzhen
― dylannn, Monday, 21 December 2015 08:54 (eight years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/world/asia/journalist-says-china-may-expel-her-for-article-on-uighurs.html
curious if the uighur problem is much worse than even the western media has portrayed it but china has done a good job keeping a lid on it. (i wonder the same thing about iran's often restive ethnic minorities.)
― Mordy, Tuesday, 22 December 2015 18:45 (eight years ago) link
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/travel-12222015110252.html
― dylannn, Friday, 25 December 2015 07:33 (eight years ago) link
i would say it's not MUCH worse because it's been portrayed as a decades long campaign of ethnic cleansing. the western media probably hasn't come close to describing the full extent of the violence and oppression of non-han ethnic groups in xinjiang, just the day to day disruption of normal life, the number of people in detention, travel bans, whatever. most of it is happening in rural southern xinjiang, far away from the prying eyes of foreign journalists, or any journalists. maybe the western media focuses too much on the easiest issues to report, which are those connected to the anti-terror strike hard campaign.
― dylannn, Friday, 25 December 2015 08:05 (eight years ago) link
Also, the west has a tendency to think that it's only bad for the Tibetans, so it can't be that bad for anyone else. Otherwise, why would Beastie Boys not say so?
― Frederik B, Friday, 25 December 2015 10:58 (eight years ago) link
i guess with the tibetan situation you do have a relatively chilled out leader-in-exile, no terrorism as we think of it in the west, some violent riots and self-immolations confined to tibet itself. and it might be fair to say that tibetan leaders are often not calling for national liberation but human rights, religious freedoms.
but with the uighur situation, you have terrorism inside xinjiang and attacks outside of xinjiang. it's hard to separate the various forces at play, the various overseas uighur groups, the groups inside xinjiang agitating for national liberation, radical islamist groups, local groups not connected to any particular ideology but motivated by local oppression. you have the world uyghur congress being funded by the u.s. government, but east turkestan islamic movement sending fighters to syria, and both groups with basically the same aim of national liberation. it's hard to sort out who deserves our sympathy. it's not possible to put it all on chinese state oppression and economic disparity in the region, as some western journalists are quick to do. it's a great big mess.
― dylannn, Sunday, 27 December 2015 05:19 (eight years ago) link
I think it mostly has to do with western hippies thinking of Tibet as Xanadu, and Buddhism being much more chic than Islam.
― Frederik B, Sunday, 27 December 2015 15:31 (eight years ago) link
the story of bookstore / publishing company employees disappearing is frightening.
the latest, went missing from hong kong, called his wife from a shenzhen number: http://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/jan/02/fifth-man-working-for-publishers-critical-of-chinese-government-goes-missing and the others include a hong kong-based swedish national, the owner of a publishing house, who went missing while in thailand + two that disappeared while in shenzhen + one in hk (i believe that's the total in 2015).
― dylannn, Monday, 4 January 2016 07:18 (eight years ago) link