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This sounds crazy, but /r/sino on reddit is pretty much as close as you'll get to mainstream Chinese political thought in English. There's a very good chance ma
by fiblye 6y ago
This sounds crazy, but /r/sino on reddit is pretty much as close as you'll get to mainstream Chinese political thought in English. There's a very good chance many of the people there are legitimate shills for the government, but I mean, those are the state-sponsored and permitted opinions that they're presenting. People going against the grain either don't talk or get silenced.
From an American perspective, the stuff said there is absolutely bizarre and contradictory to virtually every talking point you'll hear from everybody else, but it aligns very closely with what people I know who live in China/still have strong ties to China say. Expect lots of cherry picked data and extreme reaching just to prove a point. Though to be frank, that's politics everywhere.
If you're frequently caught up in American/European politics, a few minutes of reading discussions there might frustrate you, but it'll also make you think because the viewpoints are so contrary to what most Westerners regard as the norm.
- haecceity 6y agoIt does sound crazy but that's mainly because it'd be crazy for mainstream Chinese opinions to be discussed in English. Maybe r/china.
- fiblye 6y ago/r/china is exclusively western expats. They're the opposite of what mainstream Chinese thought is. And based off what I see on the actual Chinese net in Chinese, /r/sino stays completely in line with the common consensus.
- FooBarWidget 6y agoI sure hope actual Chinese netizens aren't as polarized as the guys on /r/sino. We need the east and the west to come together, and not merely to contend on who can be the biggest bully.
- imtringued 6y agoI don't think the people with controversial opinions voice them publicly.
- 082349872349872 6y agoAt the moment, I'm not sure if /r/sino is any more serious than /r/aeiou. We truly live in a Poe's Law world. (And I leave it to the argies and the austrians to fight over who makes the best milanesa/schnitzel. But it does sound like it may be what I was looking for, in terms of non-hanzi-expressed general opinions which, however outlandish they may sound on HN, would be unremarkable on 新浪微博.)
- FooBarWidget 6y agoI would not recommend /r/sino if you're looking for good discussions. It's an echo chamber. Most of the guys there are blindly pro-China, blindly anti-American. For better discussions and analysis, check my recommendations here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24035638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24035638
- fiblye 6y agoI mentioned /r/Sino because it's what you'll typically find on the Chinese internet. It is an echo chamber. Try scrolling through weibo for an active discussion saying "Maybe Taiwan can be its own country" or "Maybe China's policy of banning all foreign discussion platforms isn't good." You might have a one off comment saying something like that, but the moment multiple people talk about it, it is guaranteed to be deleted in the best case. If the discussion gets too big, worse things will happen. Oftentimes there'll be a discussion about something offending China by simply existing, and the comments are just increasingly outlandish suggestions of how everyone needs to retaliate. /r/sino is just a mirror of the Chinese internet experience, in English. It's like reading comments on a mainstream TV news site, but anyone who dares call out the content as BS gets their comments instantly wiped.
- FooBarWidget 6y agoAre there any places on Chinese Internet with more balanced discussions?