4 ms·

As an American who has spent a large amount of time in Hong Kong and China, lived there for a year, speak (limited) Chinese, basically go every year, read a ton

As an American who has spent a large amount of time in Hong Kong and China, lived there for a year, speak (limited) Chinese, basically go every year, read a ton about China, talk to Hong Konger's and Chinese about politics on a regular basis...I can tell you that most Americans have a very abstract understanding of the complexities of the situation and implications, yet at the same time we feel that we have a high understanding of the situation because the internet gives an illusion of knowledge. Basically if you are the typical American who reads the New York Times, you generally consider yourself well informed, and so you can consider a lot of the problems with the massive complexities of the world, "solved," by reading this level of publication, because there's an underlying assumption that our free and open media sources deliver a sufficiently robust amount of value, but if you haven't got any real deep exposure with the problem, you won't be able to discern what the gaps in a meta-analsysis may be. Basically, the person who you are asking that question will have no idea what you mean by, "cultural genocide," and no historical backdrop for why you would use that term in the first place. For starters, we are not taught anything about Chinese history and "World History," is basically European history. Can you put yourself in the shoes of someone who is starting off from that perspective? You hear a lot of broad oversimplifications over here such as, "China is communist!" vs, "No it's not, it's capitalist!" But not a lot of nuance behind the truth of such statements. The commentator is not likely intending to be malicious, he/she likely just does not have access to sufficient information to even know they are making a bad assessment.

dcgudeman 10y ago
It's true that I am not familiar with the "cultural genocide" you are referring to. Could you elaborate?
- xenihn 10y ago
  You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
  - spacehunt 10y ago
    Cultural Revolution is another topic I haven't touched on -- many of our previous generation are those who fled it, and the exact same people they fled from (ie. the actual persons who might have flogged them in Struggle Sessions[1]) are now becoming the rulers of PRC. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
- x2398dh1 10y ago
  Broadly, it's action, whether intentional or unintentional yet beneficiary, to remove evidence of any difference between two bodies of people by destroying and/or suppressing information, language, practices, methods, or anything that you may want to loop into the word, "culture." Within the context of Hong Kong / China it's difficult to explain, essentially there is a massively different, "feel" to each locale, and completely different systems of laws, language, thinking about the world, ways of communicating and thinking about how to govern and organize society, among other factors. It may or may not be within China's interest as a whole or in part, or their perceived interest to do away with these artifacts and methods of difference. But individual interests of the largely powerful economic scale within mainland China rather than attempting to decelerate the process, treat Hong Kong like a personal sandbox and pay people to attempt to bring the democratic governmental system down, and this involves all sorts of strategies which help toward that aim. It's not really a, "conspiracy theory," it's kind of just a long, slow out in the open slog that everyone knows about. If you go to Hong Kong in the year 2047 and then go over to Shenzhen I predict you won't sense much of a difference crossing from one side to another -- I would contest that is not likely good for China as a whole as my other comments on this thread point out. Further evidence to my point...can you imagine if you saw banners in the US being put up by the Federal Government which said, "Be Civilized...Speak English Everywhere, Including the Airport!" Or, could you imagine textbooks in school which say, "don't do uncivilized things like spit on the street, or speak Spanish." Horrifying. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cantonese-language-could-disappear-says-ubc-linguist-zoe-lam-1.3053933 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cantonese-lan...
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  The Western elite hit upon a liberal system which did indeed produce massive economic and technical growth over the last couple of centuries. This system requires ceaseless indoctrination of the populace - ideological carpet bombing by means of movies, TV, news, music, books, games, toys, whatever - on the supreme value of 'freedom', above and beyond any local cultural norms, or indeed rational evaluation of the benefits. People must just know in their bones that 'dulce et decorum est pro libertas mori', and that whatever came before is now obsolete and irrelevant. Some people get riled up about that.
  - schoen 10y ago
    > dulce et decorum est pro libertas mori Should be "pro libertate" ("pro" governs the ablative case). Edit: the reason you may not notice the difference in the original is that the ablative of "patria" is "patriā" (just with a long a, which isn't explicitly marked in all texts).
    - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
      Sincere thanks for explanation, appreciate it. I have "[very] little Latin and no Greek", which is now a common condition among supposedly educated people, but still saddens me.
- spacehunt 10y ago
  Sorry about that. I guess my strong reaction came from a deep dislike of the concept of "integration" in this context. To me, "integration" means "to achieve sameness", so perhaps I should briefly explain how mainland China and Hong Kong differs. Apart from the differences in the political, economic and legal systems, culturally Hong Kong is very different from northern China; from the languages we speak, the script we write, to the food we eat, but more importantly, in our different worldviews and different thoughts on how the entire society should be run, like how business relationships should be maintained, how kids should be raised, how success is defined, who should we look up to, and so on. It's not completely different, but different enough to be distinctive. Which brings us to today. Most primary schools now teach in a non-native tongue. Kickbacks are almost expected in deals because "that's China and we're in China". Infrastructure projects for "integration" are abnormally costly and got to go ahead with doctored projection data to justify them. We must "go north" and look for opportunities in mainland China, the government says -- what happened to the rest of the world? And then there are 150 new settlers from mainland China every single day, 7 days a week 365 days a year, and our government have no say in who gets to come.
  - hangonhn 10y ago
    Come on. "Most primary schools now teach in a non-native tongue" They used to teach English in HK schools. At least Mandarin is in the same language family as Cantonese. As someone who used to live in HK and then left before '97, "cultural genocide" sounds like a hyperbole to me. HK and China has much more in common than they differ. HK and Guangzhou are exceptionally similar in culture and speak the exact same dialect. In fact, many people in HK have relatives there. Lastly, having left HK and seen the rest of the world, I want to ask "what culture?" Nearly all of HK culture is imported and cheap copies of other cultures such as China, UK, and Japan. I can be onboard with opposing the political changes but culture is a stretch for HK. HK's culture is skin deep and very insular.
    - bsznjyewgd 10y ago
      I'm not sure if you're missing the point. Yes, secondary schools used to teach in Chinese and English (more of the former if you chose a Chinese school, more of the latter if you chose an English one), but the Chinese used to be Cantonese. Now they're teaching even primary schools in Mandarin. The lingua franca is Cantonese, and Mandarin is a foreign language. Obviously, this is problematic. When I was going through the school system, Mandarin instruction (as a separate class, not as a language of instruction) didn't even start until fourth grade. Can you imagine starting your first day of grade one and your teacher starts speaking gibberish to you? That's ridiculous.
- FabHK 10y ago
  I'm not the OP, but here a few issues that they could've meant: * the increasing dominance of Mandarin, rather than the native Cantonese (see [1] for details and background). * the (attempted) imposition of a "moral and national education curriculum" [2] in schools in 2012, teaching better appreciation of the motherland. (This was mostly defeated by a public outcry. Some groups that opposed it, e.g. Scholarism, played a major role in the umbrella movement later.) * creeping erosion of press freedom and other civil liberties, such as the Article 23 anti-subversion bill that was introduced in 2003, but rejected after massive protests, or the so-called "Internet Article 23" bill introduced in 2015. * integration and China-focus at any cost, leading to projects such as the high-speed railway to Guangzhou (Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link) or the 50 km bridge to Zhuhai. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227 http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language?zid... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_and_national_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_and_national_education

dcgudeman 10y ago

It's true that I am not familiar with the "cultural genocide" you are referring to. Could you elaborate?

xenihn 10y ago
You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
- spacehunt 10y ago
  Cultural Revolution is another topic I haven't touched on -- many of our previous generation are those who fled it, and the exact same people they fled from (ie. the actual persons who might have flogged them in Struggle Sessions[1]) are now becoming the rulers of PRC. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
x2398dh1 10y ago
Broadly, it's action, whether intentional or unintentional yet beneficiary, to remove evidence of any difference between two bodies of people by destroying and/or suppressing information, language, practices, methods, or anything that you may want to loop into the word, "culture." Within the context of Hong Kong / China it's difficult to explain, essentially there is a massively different, "feel" to each locale, and completely different systems of laws, language, thinking about the world, ways of communicating and thinking about how to govern and organize society, among other factors. It may or may not be within China's interest as a whole or in part, or their perceived interest to do away with these artifacts and methods of difference. But individual interests of the largely powerful economic scale within mainland China rather than attempting to decelerate the process, treat Hong Kong like a personal sandbox and pay people to attempt to bring the democratic governmental system down, and this involves all sorts of strategies which help toward that aim. It's not really a, "conspiracy theory," it's kind of just a long, slow out in the open slog that everyone knows about. If you go to Hong Kong in the year 2047 and then go over to Shenzhen I predict you won't sense much of a difference crossing from one side to another -- I would contest that is not likely good for China as a whole as my other comments on this thread point out. Further evidence to my point...can you imagine if you saw banners in the US being put up by the Federal Government which said, "Be Civilized...Speak English Everywhere, Including the Airport!" Or, could you imagine textbooks in school which say, "don't do uncivilized things like spit on the street, or speak Spanish." Horrifying. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cantonese-language-could-disappear-says-ubc-linguist-zoe-lam-1.3053933 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cantonese-lan...
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
The Western elite hit upon a liberal system which did indeed produce massive economic and technical growth over the last couple of centuries. This system requires ceaseless indoctrination of the populace - ideological carpet bombing by means of movies, TV, news, music, books, games, toys, whatever - on the supreme value of 'freedom', above and beyond any local cultural norms, or indeed rational evaluation of the benefits. People must just know in their bones that 'dulce et decorum est pro libertas mori', and that whatever came before is now obsolete and irrelevant. Some people get riled up about that.
- schoen 10y ago
  > dulce et decorum est pro libertas mori Should be "pro libertate" ("pro" governs the ablative case). Edit: the reason you may not notice the difference in the original is that the ablative of "patria" is "patriā" (just with a long a, which isn't explicitly marked in all texts).
  - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
    Sincere thanks for explanation, appreciate it. I have "[very] little Latin and no Greek", which is now a common condition among supposedly educated people, but still saddens me.
spacehunt 10y ago
Sorry about that. I guess my strong reaction came from a deep dislike of the concept of "integration" in this context. To me, "integration" means "to achieve sameness", so perhaps I should briefly explain how mainland China and Hong Kong differs. Apart from the differences in the political, economic and legal systems, culturally Hong Kong is very different from northern China; from the languages we speak, the script we write, to the food we eat, but more importantly, in our different worldviews and different thoughts on how the entire society should be run, like how business relationships should be maintained, how kids should be raised, how success is defined, who should we look up to, and so on. It's not completely different, but different enough to be distinctive. Which brings us to today. Most primary schools now teach in a non-native tongue. Kickbacks are almost expected in deals because "that's China and we're in China". Infrastructure projects for "integration" are abnormally costly and got to go ahead with doctored projection data to justify them. We must "go north" and look for opportunities in mainland China, the government says -- what happened to the rest of the world? And then there are 150 new settlers from mainland China every single day, 7 days a week 365 days a year, and our government have no say in who gets to come.
- hangonhn 10y ago
  Come on. "Most primary schools now teach in a non-native tongue" They used to teach English in HK schools. At least Mandarin is in the same language family as Cantonese. As someone who used to live in HK and then left before '97, "cultural genocide" sounds like a hyperbole to me. HK and China has much more in common than they differ. HK and Guangzhou are exceptionally similar in culture and speak the exact same dialect. In fact, many people in HK have relatives there. Lastly, having left HK and seen the rest of the world, I want to ask "what culture?" Nearly all of HK culture is imported and cheap copies of other cultures such as China, UK, and Japan. I can be onboard with opposing the political changes but culture is a stretch for HK. HK's culture is skin deep and very insular.
  - bsznjyewgd 10y ago
    I'm not sure if you're missing the point. Yes, secondary schools used to teach in Chinese and English (more of the former if you chose a Chinese school, more of the latter if you chose an English one), but the Chinese used to be Cantonese. Now they're teaching even primary schools in Mandarin. The lingua franca is Cantonese, and Mandarin is a foreign language. Obviously, this is problematic. When I was going through the school system, Mandarin instruction (as a separate class, not as a language of instruction) didn't even start until fourth grade. Can you imagine starting your first day of grade one and your teacher starts speaking gibberish to you? That's ridiculous.
FabHK 10y ago
I'm not the OP, but here a few issues that they could've meant: * the increasing dominance of Mandarin, rather than the native Cantonese (see [1] for details and background). * the (attempted) imposition of a "moral and national education curriculum" [2] in schools in 2012, teaching better appreciation of the motherland. (This was mostly defeated by a public outcry. Some groups that opposed it, e.g. Scholarism, played a major role in the umbrella movement later.) * creeping erosion of press freedom and other civil liberties, such as the Article 23 anti-subversion bill that was introduced in 2003, but rejected after massive protests, or the so-called "Internet Article 23" bill introduced in 2015. * integration and China-focus at any cost, leading to projects such as the high-speed railway to Guangzhou (Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link) or the 50 km bridge to Zhuhai. [1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227 http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language?zid... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_and_national_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_and_national_education