10 ms·

Mainlanders don't all view Hong Kong the same way

126 points by hardmaru 7y ago

the_resistence 7y ago
Without all the facts, mainlanders will never be in a clear position to make a proper decision. That's how the system is designed.
- ubercow13 7y ago
  Isn't this exactly the point of view that the article is arguing against?
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    There seems to be a subtle distinction: The point is not that mainlanders can't or won't see the truth, but that their ability to make informed decisions is being undermined. The article argues that many mainlanders are doing their best and making good decisions despite being undermined by their government... but there's certainly a lot being done to stop them.
- chrischen 7y ago
  To be fair, even with the facts I doubt the average person would ever be well-informed enough to make a proper decision. Governing should be a full time job done by professionals. Imagine if Apple were run by its users...
  - xmprt 7y ago
    To be fair, even with all the facts and being well-informed, I doubt a mainlander would risk all the trouble they'd get into for supporting HK.
  - cryptonector 7y ago
    Talk about anti-democratic.
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Democracy is fair, not efficient.
      - Nasrudith 7y ago
        That is hilarious given the lack of efficency of every alternative seen so far. The trains running on time is a myth - because the time they arrive is defined as "on time" all while denying reality.
        chrischen 7y ago
        Almost all companies are governed by dictatorships.
  - Y_Y 7y ago
    Imagine Apple were run by professionals! They'd employ sweatshop labour, charge exorbitant prices, and control a colossal pile of cash for which they cannot find a use.
    - sersi 7y ago
      And somehow completely fail to listen to their users when their users tell them that a working keyboard is a necessity in a laptop :)
  - paxys 7y ago
    And what exactly is a "professional" governor?
- dragonelite 7y ago
  From what i gathered 140 million mainlanders travel abroad each year. and 140 million mainlanders return to China. That tells you enough people vote with their feets, wallet and voice.
  - GuiA 7y ago
    What do they see when they travel abroad though? A large portion (if not a majority?) of those 140 million travelers go through organized tour groups, where they jump from attraction to attraction, staying half an hour or so to take pictures before rushing back to the bus to head to the next stop. This French photographer was allowed to join such a group and it's fascinating: http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touristes-chinois-europe-jeremy-suyker http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touristes-chinois-europe-je... Choice quotes from the photographer (translated): "Costs are cut on everything. For 10 days, we ate Chinese food for lunch and dinner. Before I started this project, I thought that tourists always ate Chinese food because they weren't curious. But cheap backroom cafeterias are imposed on them, where the meal (often inedible) costs 5 euros per person. We only took 10 minutes to eat, and I'd always be the last to finish. After Paris, we were supposed to sleep in the "French village" of Dijon [original is in quote because Dijon is a large city]. But the hotel was situated along the highway, at Sauvigny-sous-Bois [about an hour away from Dijon]. That night, with Lan, we decided to take two people to Relais Fleuri, a nice restaurant next to the hotel, without the guide, so they could discover French gastronomy. When we got back, the guide was really upset. The next day, I got an email from the agency saying that if it happened again, I'd be kicked out from the group." "The majority of guides are not there to teach. When Chinese tourists go back home, they haven't learned much; in fact, stereotypes tend to be reinforced [...] a few of them complained about the [Chinese meals], and that they wouldn't visit markets, for instance, but those criticisms were very limited. It's a shame, because the only contact they have with French people is at the register, when they buy something." "I was shocked by how resigned people were. You're not supposed to disagree with anything. The guide was considered like a boss whose orders had to be followed, and who should never be contradicted. Ours was 34 years old, and went into tourism for money. But he didn't know anything about Europe, and spent the whole time telling cliché anecdotes about cities. He even got monument names wrong! His only goal was to sell additional options, such as gondola rides, to get a bonus."
kristianp 7y ago
Does it matter what the mainlanders think? It's the communist party that controls China, not the general public.
- verroq 7y ago
  A government without the support of its people generally gets removed by the people.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    That's right. The Chinese government and the 90 million Party members are drawn from the people. It's easy to dismiss all of them if that makes someone comfortable, but reality is rather more complicated than either "China is full of Communist drones, all of them" and "Government and people are on completely opposite sides one oppressing the other." It's a symbiotic and pragmatic relationship.
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    Dictatorships need a lot less popular support than democracies. Of course once that popular support evaporates, the regime change is a lot messier than an election.
    - zone411 7y ago
      Venezuela is a good example.
      - C1sc0cat 7y ago
        I think Romania is a better one as an example of a dictatorship rapidly changing.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    Sure, but do the Chinese people actually care about Hong Kong governance beyond what the Communist Party promotes? Would there be mass protests if the government just declared one country two systems is great and they’re going back to a strict interpretation of it?
dumbfoundded 7y ago
Just an anecdote. I went to Beijing to watch the Olympics while I was in high school. During a volleyball game, I sat next to a local Chinese boy about my age and started talking with him. Apparently, at some Chinese schools, they give all of the students an English name. Kind of like how American schools give you a Spanish name for Spanish class. His name was Adolf. I asked him if he knew any other famous Adolf's. Of course, he did. I asked him about why the Chinese cheer so fervently against the Americans, even when they're not playing the Chinese. He said it was because Americans were friends with the Japanese. To play devil's advocate, I told him that the Americans fought the Japanese in WW2, significantly helping China, and dropped nukes on the Japanese. He told me it wasn't enough, the US should've eliminated Japan from the map. I don't think my sample size is representative but I think it's a warning of how strong nationalism can be. In the US, we have relatively free flows of information and we still have a dangerous nationalist movement. I imagine it's much stronger in China where the government actively encourages it.
- devoply 7y ago
  Just watched this which calls CPC a mafia... Interview with Miles Kwok by Kyle Bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE
- verroq 7y ago
  The anti-American sentiment draws from the Boxer Rebellion and the Eight Nation Alliance that sacked the Summer Palace as well as America's support of the KMT during WW2. In the eyes of the Chinese, America eliminating Japan in WW2 doesn't absolve itself of its past grievances (nor its present ones i.e. playing world police and inserting itself into the South China Sea disputes).
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    America supported both the KMT and communists, not to mention the soviets, during WW2. They didn’t really fall out with each other until the Korean War (at the start of which they decided to fully support the KMT after giving up on them after the war).
kccqzy 7y ago
Since I can read Chinese, I've been reading news coverage as well as opinions from both the English-speaking and the Chinese-speaking media. It is quite depressing to find that both sides are obviously biased. The Chinese news would emphasize isolated incidents of violence by the protesters during the protests, pontificate on it and publish op-eds analyzing the cause of the protests ranging from the failed economy of Hong Kong to the profound corruption of its youth. The English side of course would illustrate the use of tear gas and facial recognition technology by the police and paint the protestors as victims of an unjust and unsympathetic government whose independence and autonomy is chipped away little by little. Opinions aside, even just for the facts I'd like to think there's truth in both, but it really depressing that neither really wants to report the truth and the whole truth.
- devoply 7y ago
  Well what truth do you want? China wants to extradite Hong Kong citizens to China to stand trial. Hong Kong citizens want autonomy. This is a classic David vs Goliath battle.
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    The protests did start because of the extradition bill, but the bill has been dead for more than a month[0], yet the protests have not stopped. Can you see that the protestors are protesting about something else now? If the bill were the protesters' goal, they had already succeeded. The situation is so much more complicated than just an ill-conceived bill. It doesn't help things when media (or other people) try to simplify things and frame it as something as clear cut as David vs Goliath. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48918096/carrie-lam-hong-kong-extradition-bill-is-dead https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48918096/carrie...
    - keiferski 7y ago
      There seems to be a distinction between "withdrawn" and "dead." Although the bill has not been formally withdrawn, on 9 July, Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam said she has stopped the amendment process and reiterated there is 'no plan' to restart this process in the Legislative Council, stating: "the bill is dead". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bil...
archibaldJ 7y ago
Nationalism aside as a Chinese citizen I believe all educated Chinese citizens should be grateful to the protesters in Hong Kong for the sole reason that these protesters are directly challenging the CCP (which is an extremely rare thing to happen in this day and age without the direct involvement of another superpower). It may be wishful thinking but I believe through direct confrontation like this CCP will learn and improve and reflect on all the shit it has done (just to name a few: the Tiananmen massacre, the disinformation campaign against Falun Gong and Jiang’s subsequent use of Falun Gong as a scapegoat to fulfil his political needs leading to more killings and screwed-up things like organ harvesting, the suppression and killings of the Tibetan culture and people, the on-going internment camps in Xinjiang, the kidnapping of Gui Minhai and others related to the Causeway Bay bookstore, etc) which collectively, in direct or indirect ways, lead to the pandemonium in Hong Kong today.
- ConfusedDog 7y ago
  Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. A lot of them has strong prejudice against mainland Chinese making it easy for Chinese government spin the people against these protesters.
  - mcny 7y ago
    » Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. Well yeah. China PR wants to pack Hong Kong with han people. This is no secret. They did the same with Tibet as well.
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Hong Kong is packed with Han people. Hong Kongers are not ethnically different from other Cantonese.
    - ConfusedDog 7y ago
      HK is already "packed"... Gov want to dilute/infiltrate to increase political effectiveness. Tibet is less packed. Different story.
Aperocky 7y ago
There are some extremely strong prejudice and discrimination against people from mainland, it's similar to racism. mainland Chinese people didn't know this in the past however the past few years it became much more pronounced, this is especially true among the poorer people in HK. People who visited Hong Kong came back with very negative experience and words spread fast. There's next to 0 sympathy to Hong Kong in mainland today, if the PLA rolled in to quell the protest, half would probably cheer.
- olgdyf 7y ago
  Exactly, as a mainland Chinese, I traveled to dozens of countries and districts. Hong Kong was the least place I wanted to visit. As a matter of fact, I have never been there except at only one time when I needed to stay there over night for a connection flight, and I chose to stay at the hotel in the airport. I think others' negative experience stands for at least 70% of the reason for my negative attitude to Hong Kong.

126 points by hardmaru 7y ago

Without all the facts, mainlanders will never be in a clear position to make a proper decision. That's how the system is designed.

ubercow13 7y ago
Isn't this exactly the point of view that the article is arguing against?
- kevingadd 7y ago
  There seems to be a subtle distinction: The point is not that mainlanders can't or won't see the truth, but that their ability to make informed decisions is being undermined. The article argues that many mainlanders are doing their best and making good decisions despite being undermined by their government... but there's certainly a lot being done to stop them.
chrischen 7y ago
To be fair, even with the facts I doubt the average person would ever be well-informed enough to make a proper decision. Governing should be a full time job done by professionals. Imagine if Apple were run by its users...
- xmprt 7y ago
  To be fair, even with all the facts and being well-informed, I doubt a mainlander would risk all the trouble they'd get into for supporting HK.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  Talk about anti-democratic.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Democracy is fair, not efficient.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      That is hilarious given the lack of efficency of every alternative seen so far. The trains running on time is a myth - because the time they arrive is defined as "on time" all while denying reality.
      - chrischen 7y ago
        Almost all companies are governed by dictatorships.
- Y_Y 7y ago
  Imagine Apple were run by professionals! They'd employ sweatshop labour, charge exorbitant prices, and control a colossal pile of cash for which they cannot find a use.
  - sersi 7y ago
    And somehow completely fail to listen to their users when their users tell them that a working keyboard is a necessity in a laptop :)
- paxys 7y ago
  And what exactly is a "professional" governor?
dragonelite 7y ago
From what i gathered 140 million mainlanders travel abroad each year. and 140 million mainlanders return to China. That tells you enough people vote with their feets, wallet and voice.
- GuiA 7y ago
  What do they see when they travel abroad though? A large portion (if not a majority?) of those 140 million travelers go through organized tour groups, where they jump from attraction to attraction, staying half an hour or so to take pictures before rushing back to the bus to head to the next stop. This French photographer was allowed to join such a group and it's fascinating: http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touristes-chinois-europe-jeremy-suyker http://www.slate.fr/grand-format/touristes-chinois-europe-je... Choice quotes from the photographer (translated): "Costs are cut on everything. For 10 days, we ate Chinese food for lunch and dinner. Before I started this project, I thought that tourists always ate Chinese food because they weren't curious. But cheap backroom cafeterias are imposed on them, where the meal (often inedible) costs 5 euros per person. We only took 10 minutes to eat, and I'd always be the last to finish. After Paris, we were supposed to sleep in the "French village" of Dijon [original is in quote because Dijon is a large city]. But the hotel was situated along the highway, at Sauvigny-sous-Bois [about an hour away from Dijon]. That night, with Lan, we decided to take two people to Relais Fleuri, a nice restaurant next to the hotel, without the guide, so they could discover French gastronomy. When we got back, the guide was really upset. The next day, I got an email from the agency saying that if it happened again, I'd be kicked out from the group." "The majority of guides are not there to teach. When Chinese tourists go back home, they haven't learned much; in fact, stereotypes tend to be reinforced [...] a few of them complained about the [Chinese meals], and that they wouldn't visit markets, for instance, but those criticisms were very limited. It's a shame, because the only contact they have with French people is at the register, when they buy something." "I was shocked by how resigned people were. You're not supposed to disagree with anything. The guide was considered like a boss whose orders had to be followed, and who should never be contradicted. Ours was 34 years old, and went into tourism for money. But he didn't know anything about Europe, and spent the whole time telling cliché anecdotes about cities. He even got monument names wrong! His only goal was to sell additional options, such as gondola rides, to get a bonus."

kristianp 7y ago

Does it matter what the mainlanders think? It's the communist party that controls China, not the general public.

verroq 7y ago
A government without the support of its people generally gets removed by the people.
- pishpash 7y ago
  That's right. The Chinese government and the 90 million Party members are drawn from the people. It's easy to dismiss all of them if that makes someone comfortable, but reality is rather more complicated than either "China is full of Communist drones, all of them" and "Government and people are on completely opposite sides one oppressing the other." It's a symbiotic and pragmatic relationship.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  Dictatorships need a lot less popular support than democracies. Of course once that popular support evaporates, the regime change is a lot messier than an election.
  - zone411 7y ago
    Venezuela is a good example.
    - C1sc0cat 7y ago
      I think Romania is a better one as an example of a dictatorship rapidly changing.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  Sure, but do the Chinese people actually care about Hong Kong governance beyond what the Communist Party promotes? Would there be mass protests if the government just declared one country two systems is great and they’re going back to a strict interpretation of it?

dumbfoundded 7y ago

Just an anecdote. I went to Beijing to watch the Olympics while I was in high school. During a volleyball game, I sat next to a local Chinese boy about my age and started talking with him. Apparently, at some Chinese schools, they give all of the students an English name. Kind of like how American schools give you a Spanish name for Spanish class. His name was Adolf. I asked him if he knew any other famous Adolf's. Of course, he did. I asked him about why the Chinese cheer so fervently against the Americans, even when they're not playing the Chinese. He said it was because Americans were friends with the Japanese. To play devil's advocate, I told him that the Americans fought the Japanese in WW2, significantly helping China, and dropped nukes on the Japanese. He told me it wasn't enough, the US should've eliminated Japan from the map. I don't think my sample size is representative but I think it's a warning of how strong nationalism can be. In the US, we have relatively free flows of information and we still have a dangerous nationalist movement. I imagine it's much stronger in China where the government actively encourages it.

devoply 7y ago
Just watched this which calls CPC a mafia... Interview with Miles Kwok by Kyle Bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE
verroq 7y ago
The anti-American sentiment draws from the Boxer Rebellion and the Eight Nation Alliance that sacked the Summer Palace as well as America's support of the KMT during WW2. In the eyes of the Chinese, America eliminating Japan in WW2 doesn't absolve itself of its past grievances (nor its present ones i.e. playing world police and inserting itself into the South China Sea disputes).
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  America supported both the KMT and communists, not to mention the soviets, during WW2. They didn’t really fall out with each other until the Korean War (at the start of which they decided to fully support the KMT after giving up on them after the war).

kccqzy 7y ago

Since I can read Chinese, I've been reading news coverage as well as opinions from both the English-speaking and the Chinese-speaking media. It is quite depressing to find that both sides are obviously biased. The Chinese news would emphasize isolated incidents of violence by the protesters during the protests, pontificate on it and publish op-eds analyzing the cause of the protests ranging from the failed economy of Hong Kong to the profound corruption of its youth. The English side of course would illustrate the use of tear gas and facial recognition technology by the police and paint the protestors as victims of an unjust and unsympathetic government whose independence and autonomy is chipped away little by little. Opinions aside, even just for the facts I'd like to think there's truth in both, but it really depressing that neither really wants to report the truth and the whole truth.

devoply 7y ago
Well what truth do you want? China wants to extradite Hong Kong citizens to China to stand trial. Hong Kong citizens want autonomy. This is a classic David vs Goliath battle.
- kccqzy 7y ago
  The protests did start because of the extradition bill, but the bill has been dead for more than a month[0], yet the protests have not stopped. Can you see that the protestors are protesting about something else now? If the bill were the protesters' goal, they had already succeeded. The situation is so much more complicated than just an ill-conceived bill. It doesn't help things when media (or other people) try to simplify things and frame it as something as clear cut as David vs Goliath. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48918096/carrie-lam-hong-kong-extradition-bill-is-dead https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48918096/carrie...
  - keiferski 7y ago
    There seems to be a distinction between "withdrawn" and "dead." Although the bill has not been formally withdrawn, on 9 July, Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam said she has stopped the amendment process and reiterated there is 'no plan' to restart this process in the Legislative Council, stating: "the bill is dead". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bil...

archibaldJ 7y ago

Nationalism aside as a Chinese citizen I believe all educated Chinese citizens should be grateful to the protesters in Hong Kong for the sole reason that these protesters are directly challenging the CCP (which is an extremely rare thing to happen in this day and age without the direct involvement of another superpower). It may be wishful thinking but I believe through direct confrontation like this CCP will learn and improve and reflect on all the shit it has done (just to name a few: the Tiananmen massacre, the disinformation campaign against Falun Gong and Jiang’s subsequent use of Falun Gong as a scapegoat to fulfil his political needs leading to more killings and screwed-up things like organ harvesting, the suppression and killings of the Tibetan culture and people, the on-going internment camps in Xinjiang, the kidnapping of Gui Minhai and others related to the Causeway Bay bookstore, etc) which collectively, in direct or indirect ways, lead to the pandemonium in Hong Kong today.

ConfusedDog 7y ago
Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. A lot of them has strong prejudice against mainland Chinese making it easy for Chinese government spin the people against these protesters.
- mcny 7y ago
  » Only if HK didn’t protest against mainland tourists before. Well yeah. China PR wants to pack Hong Kong with han people. This is no secret. They did the same with Tibet as well.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Hong Kong is packed with Han people. Hong Kongers are not ethnically different from other Cantonese.
  - ConfusedDog 7y ago
    HK is already "packed"... Gov want to dilute/infiltrate to increase political effectiveness. Tibet is less packed. Different story.

Aperocky 7y ago

There are some extremely strong prejudice and discrimination against people from mainland, it's similar to racism. mainland Chinese people didn't know this in the past however the past few years it became much more pronounced, this is especially true among the poorer people in HK. People who visited Hong Kong came back with very negative experience and words spread fast. There's next to 0 sympathy to Hong Kong in mainland today, if the PLA rolled in to quell the protest, half would probably cheer.

olgdyf 7y ago
Exactly, as a mainland Chinese, I traveled to dozens of countries and districts. Hong Kong was the least place I wanted to visit. As a matter of fact, I have never been there except at only one time when I needed to stay there over night for a connection flight, and I chose to stay at the hotel in the airport. I think others' negative experience stands for at least 70% of the reason for my negative attitude to Hong Kong.