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>> Access to the book 1984. jd.com is like amazon equivalent in mainland China (amazon.cn has less traffic there) > I dont know where you get the idea that ave

by tivert 8y ago

>> Access to the book 1984. jd.com is like amazon equivalent in mainland China (amazon.cn has less traffic there) > I dont know where you get the idea that average mainland Chinese person who attended their public school system...are not aware of those things. I just asked my Chinese friend, and they haven't heard of 1984 and report that they mainly read textbooks in high school or college. They didn't read novels because they weren't tested on that material. I would guess that mainland Chinese people are less aware of dystopian, anti-authoritarian novels like 1984 than Americans, even if they are available, if only because those books are commonly part of US high-school curriculums and not Chinese curriculums.

theseadroid 8y ago
True, 1984 is not included in any Chinese textbook. Chinese education system is not the best. We have literature related classes from primary school to high school but they don't include many western works (well translation is one factor I can see). And the way teachers teach them is very very test orientated. We have a big test after highschool called Gaokao which is almost the only factor to decide which college you can go to. Many ppl spend their entire highschool prep for that one test. (There are schools specialized for students retaking this test after they failed the first time, and it takes 1 year to retake.) During college there's no mandatory literature courses anymore but I was exposed to many western work during that time in my spare time. One reason was I was trying hard to learn English. But I can see many people dont have the incentives to read those even if those works are famous even in China. Many STEM college students in China start to prep for studying overseas once they step into college and all they care is GPA + a good Toefl/GRE score (and there are faster ways of getting good scores for those other than reading literature). I dare to say many of those STEM students become the friends and coworkers you guys have in US today and they probably haven't "wasted" much time on pondering issues outside of STEM fields or getting their own lives to a better place. Edit: not appearing in literature textbooks doesn't mean it's not famous or popular in mainland China. Haruki Murakami is also a very popular author whose work is not included in textbooks. He has a book called 1Q84 which was very popular and many Chinese got interested in 1984 because of it.
posterboy 8y ago
You might be surprised to learn that they don't know Star Wars either, or Dallas, or Moby Dick. I met many visiting students, e.g. from India or Bangladesh, who do not know Star Wars, which was kind of a reality check for me, for how deep in a bubble we live.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Yea talk about a bubble: how many Americans know the romance of the three kingdoms or the monkey king? At this point people are just talking past each other, instead of trying to see the cultural factors of another person.
est 8y ago
> I would guess that mainland Chinese people are less aware of dystopian Chinese people does not like reading in general. Extremely few are aware of how gov works, what's the difference between party and state, and what democracy is. However it not like the Party are actively censor George Orwell's books, it's just so insignificant. In 2016, the chinese Ministry of Education published list of recommended books for middle & high school libraries. http://ncct.moe.edu.cn/uploadfile/2016/0518/20160518021534303.pdf http://ncct.moe.edu.cn/uploadfile/2016/0518/2016051802153430... You can search for "9787547121290", which is the ISBN for Animal Farm by George Orwell.

by tivert 8y ago

theseadroid 8y ago

True, 1984 is not included in any Chinese textbook. Chinese education system is not the best. We have literature related classes from primary school to high school but they don't include many western works (well translation is one factor I can see). And the way teachers teach them is very very test orientated. We have a big test after highschool called Gaokao which is almost the only factor to decide which college you can go to. Many ppl spend their entire highschool prep for that one test. (There are schools specialized for students retaking this test after they failed the first time, and it takes 1 year to retake.) During college there's no mandatory literature courses anymore but I was exposed to many western work during that time in my spare time. One reason was I was trying hard to learn English. But I can see many people dont have the incentives to read those even if those works are famous even in China. Many STEM college students in China start to prep for studying overseas once they step into college and all they care is GPA + a good Toefl/GRE score (and there are faster ways of getting good scores for those other than reading literature). I dare to say many of those STEM students become the friends and coworkers you guys have in US today and they probably haven't "wasted" much time on pondering issues outside of STEM fields or getting their own lives to a better place. Edit: not appearing in literature textbooks doesn't mean it's not famous or popular in mainland China. Haruki Murakami is also a very popular author whose work is not included in textbooks. He has a book called 1Q84 which was very popular and many Chinese got interested in 1984 because of it.

posterboy 8y ago

You might be surprised to learn that they don't know Star Wars either, or Dallas, or Moby Dick. I met many visiting students, e.g. from India or Bangladesh, who do not know Star Wars, which was kind of a reality check for me, for how deep in a bubble we live.

chillacy 8y ago
Yea talk about a bubble: how many Americans know the romance of the three kingdoms or the monkey king? At this point people are just talking past each other, instead of trying to see the cultural factors of another person.

est 8y ago

> I would guess that mainland Chinese people are less aware of dystopian Chinese people does not like reading in general. Extremely few are aware of how gov works, what's the difference between party and state, and what democracy is. However it not like the Party are actively censor George Orwell's books, it's just so insignificant. In 2016, the chinese Ministry of Education published list of recommended books for middle & high school libraries. http://ncct.moe.edu.cn/uploadfile/2016/0518/20160518021534303.pdf http://ncct.moe.edu.cn/uploadfile/2016/0518/2016051802153430... You can search for "9787547121290", which is the ISBN for Animal Farm by George Orwell.