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I understand that religion is a part of daily life for many, many Chinese. I do admit that I don't know that much about China except the little I have learned f
by James_Henry 6y ago
I understand that religion is a part of daily life for many, many Chinese. I do admit that I don't know that much about China except the little I have learned from reading and talking with people. I've been mostly asking about the things that these Buzzfeed articles articulate. I'd like to know more, hence my questions, reading about it, etc. I'm not that much more invested than the average interested person, and I've been somewhat interested in China for quite some time, but haven't had (or made, really) the opportunity to visit.
I have a Christian Chinese friend with whom I've talked about the role of the Chinese government in curtailing the free-expression and practice of religion. The 80's are certainly not the 2020's, but as is obvious to even someone who "clearly knows very little about the place" the CCP still works against religions that it sees as threats to their power. I get that this can be framed as a difference in "cultural norms" and this is something that I'd like to understand more fully.
Short of living in China, do you have any good advice, books or whatnot to read, or whatever that would be good to do/read in order to learn more?
- free_rms 6y agoRE: religion, the impression I've gotten is that it's specifically organization that the government sees as a threat. So, without the context of Urumqi riots or bombings, they'd probably default to seeing catholics or certainly falun gong as a bigger threat than disorganized Uyghur muslims. Protestant christians less so, if they knew enough to discriminate. I don't have any great reading materials for 2020 daily life, there's laowhy86 and serpentza on youtube who I haven't watched much but they've been recommended. Books: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MHHREI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MHHREI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... Mao, the unknown story, fantastic original research but you've gotta discount for a LOT of bias as the author is clearly still butthurt over the civil war. Not to say that Mao was a nice guy, but if you're refusing to use pinyin in the 21st century, calling Beijing 'Peking', you've got some baggage. https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-China-J-Roberts/dp/0674000757 https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-China-J-Roberts/dp/06... Longer run of history, makes you realize all of the cultural context that they have which differs from ours and makes conversation impossible at times.
- James_Henry 6y agoThanks!
- free_rms 6y agoThank you!