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It seems there's a lot of blame put on "the media" because there is a common mindset that someone else ("the media") is responsible for informing everyone, rath
by txcwpalpha 7y ago
It seems there's a lot of blame put on "the media" because there is a common mindset that someone else ("the media") is responsible for informing everyone, rather than anyone taking on any kind of personal responsibility of informing themselves. This manifests a lot in regards to Asian countries where many westerners (specifically Americans, possibly others idk) get the impression that China/Asia is nothing but a bunch of uncivilized villages, and they never learn otherwise (because they never educate themselves and/or "the media" never educates them).
And I don't think it is just astroturfers, either. Given the above paragraph, I think it's understandable that many Chinese become quite defensive about the fact that they/their countrymen aren't, in fact, savages. I spent some time living in Asia, and even just from that (without any stronger roots like growing up there or having a culture based there), even I personally became quite frustrated and 'defensive' when having to constantly inform my American friends that yes, they do have electricity and running water in Singapore. I can imagine that someone actually from those places would be even more defensive.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago> having to constantly inform my American friends that yes, they do have electricity and running water in Singapore I’m afraid to ask where in America is that common sentiment about Singapore. The only misconception I’ve ever heard about Singapore is being executed for possessing chewing gum.
- txcwpalpha 7y agoI used to work at a very large (and reasonably well-educated) company that had coworkers from everywhere (LA, SF, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, NYC, etc) and it was quite a common misconception amongst almost all of them (and to be fair, I also met a handful of Europeans who thought the same). Also very common was the belief that Singapore is a city in China.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI don’t think you would ever hear something like that in Seattle. I’m guessing deep south somewhere?
- txcwpalpha 7y agoOne of my Seattle coworkers was one of the specific people who I was thinking of when writing the above comment, actually. I think it's less common now due to stuff like pictures of Marina Bay Sands going viral over the past several years, as well as movies like Crazy Rich Asians "educating" people that Singapore is a modern city. But around ~2010, not so much.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI’m still not seeing it. A lot of my generations introduction to Singapore was via articles like wired’s Disney Land with the Death Penalty (still banned in Singapore to this very day). The Singapore being apart of China is even weirder for someone who knew nothing about Singapore (why would they even know it was populated by mostly ethnic Chinese?).
- txcwpalpha 7y agoYou're citing a piece of literature that famously contrasts Kowloon Walled City [1] as preferable to Singapore, and yet you are confused why people are misinformed and uneducated about it? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI didn’t say the article had problems, but Singapore lacking electricity wasn’t one of them.
- pault 7y agoI think you are making the classic nerd mistake of assuming the average person has done as much self educating as you have.
- cure 7y ago> Also very common was the belief that Singapore is a city in China. Yeah, that does not surprise me. Americans are not always that great at global geography. I'm not sure why that is. Of course the country is huge, and American culture is such a dominant force that it is not so hard to live your entire life and never learn much (anything?) about a relatively small city-state far away in Asia. If you've never met anyone from Singapore, this doesn't surprise me at all. It still feels like something that the US should be better at as a nation, though.