10 ms·

My Experience Working and Living in China

93 points by fzliu 5y ago

onetokeoverthe 5y ago
arisAlexis 5y ago
The problem with China is that its people have never known democracy. The leader is eternal like Putin. You can see how an economic superpower with nukes and a dictator can go. So all the article goes about how nice and misunderstood things are in China without addressing the hard reality.
- popularonion 5y ago
  > “This ties into another common misconception about China - the idea that the government wants to track everything you do at all hours of the day” > “I was involved in a project that uses face recognition to track residents going in and out of communities … Data from such a system was also entirely managed at the local level and not automatically shared with the provincial or central governments.“ > “In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit ‘blacklist’ - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law.” It went through the whole progression from “it’s not happening” to “it might be happening but it’s not a big deal” to “it’s happening and you deserve it” in just a few paragraphs. Impressive.
  - arisAlexis 5y ago
    Yes will sound bad but I have no idea about Chinese culture but it's objectively a biased look as OP is himself raised by Chinese parents although in another country. It's not like an Italian guy is describing these issues from a Western point of view.
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      I'm German and I lived/worked in China for several years. I don't see much bias at all in the post. The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s. In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else. And I think it's borderline bizarre if not straight up insulting to suggest that the author does not have a 'Western point of view' despite living in the US since he was three years old. Chinese parents, like the Chinese state, contrary to popular imagination do not have brain altering superpowers.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        The CCP-as-omni-scient/-potent has the same feel as 90s American conspiracies about their government. It takes Olympic level mental gymnastics to get to "all-seeing and all-powerful secret government" from "my local DMV can barely fill out a form correctly." I'm sure all world governments would function much better if there were in fact a limitless supply of extraordinarily capable employees willing to work for government salaries.
        themacguffinman 5y ago
        It doesn't take omniscience or omnipotence or a limitless supply of extraordinary employees to effect severe oppression. North Korea exists. The KGB, now called the FSB, exists. The Great Firewall exists. Xinjiang internment camps exist. Operation Fox Hunt exists. WeChat & Douyin censorship exists. The Gestapo used to exist. American government-enforced chattel slavery used to exist. American Japanese internment camps used to exist. So tell me, how do you get there from "my local American DMV can barely fill out a form correctly"? Because it happened. And it will continue happening if we forget history.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Severe oppression wasn't the the topic of the comment I was replying to. It was regarding unreasonable fantasies of competence in government oppression. You can construct an oppressive regime simply by dedicating enough people to it, but they still can't exceed the fundamental ceiling of wage:job_tenure:performance. Consequently, every example you mentioned routinely failed. In aggregate they accomplished oppression, but emotional pleas about "forgetting history" don't change the fact that we're talking about bureaucracies. And bureaucracies only ever approach a semblance of competency via brute force, either in resources or manpower.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    I don't know why he'd think that, as a foreigner, he'd be allowed to work on projects that touched state security. It's like working at BlueApron and claiming that the NSA definitely isn't spying on Americans because they aren't tracking their meal plans.
- eunos 5y ago
  On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. * For the west part, I recently saw an old video of Biden (still senator) mocking post-Soviet Russia for thinking to look at China for prosperity.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    The End of History comes to mind. I remember people parading that book around like it was gospel.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tiahura 5y ago
    - eunos 5y ago
      Ahahaha that clip. Chinese nationalists used that clip (among others) to show that US only friendly to you when you are unequal or incomparable to the US. When of course China is rising US reacted by showing its zero-sum mentality instead. P.S. Xi wasn't the paramount leader yet back in 2011.
  - qiskit 5y ago
    > On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. Which is insane when you look back on it. Since we didn't become prosperous under liberalism either. Nowhere in the west did liberal democracy bring prosperity. The US wasn't a liberal democracy when it became rich. We are the wealthiest nation in the world decades before liberal democracy arrived. The same goes for the british, french, etc.
- AsceticBear 5y ago
  What is real democracy? Is it true that only Western democracy is correct in the world? It's just a joke. It's not that China doesn't have democracy. China's democratic system was created by itself based on its own national conditions. It is completely different from Western democracy, but it does not mean that there is no democracy. It is recommended that you read the history of China objectively and understand how this country with a long history has developed step by step to today. Oh I believe your opinion will change.
  - arisAlexis 5y ago
    Democracy is easily defined by not having the same leader self appointed for life. You can't dance around that China is a democracy. It's ridiculous and adds nothing.
    - AsceticBear 5y ago
      Please take a look at the transition of Chinese leaders over the past 20 years, it's not what you say. China's population is too large, the Western multi-party system is not suitable for China, and the internal friction is too serious. Western systems have been explored in Chinese history, but all have failed.
      - philliphaydon 5y ago
        No they haven’t. China has never attempted anything except authoritarian and totalitarian.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - shigawire 5y ago
        Sure, but democracy has a real meaning. Just because you like single party rule doesn't mean you can call it democracy because that has a better brand than autocracy.
      - deleted 5y ago
- bene_legionary 5y ago
  Even Sun Yat-sen, who worked his whole life off trying to bring democracy to China in the chaos of the civil wars before WW2, decided China wasn't ready for democracy. Dr. Sun's successor state of sorts, Taiwan, did manage to carry out his vision in a way (even if they don't agree with the Chinese bit). The first time China had an election was in 1912, and it was largely free by the standards of the time, although the elected president, who was a friend of Sun, was assassinated not long after (the person who ordered the assassination ended up declaring himself emperor of China)
another_story 5y ago
＞ With the current political climate and state of affairs in mainland China, many Gen Z-ers and Millenials (mostly from Guangdong Province), as I consider Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to be separate territories) who hail from mainland China but don’t refer to themselves as Chinese, instead calling themselves Cantonese. While some simply wish to preserve personal identity, there are also many who dissociate themselves simply because they believe the rest of China to be inferior. There's a lot of Chinese stereotypes being trotted out here, but I'll address this one. Those who refer to themselves as Cantonese do not feel superior, but they have generally felt pushed around by Beijing. Guangdong was, and still partially is, the economic powerhouse of China. This has made the North nervous at times. Beijing has continually pushed their political weight around to try and stifle any sense of original Cantonese cultural, from suppressing the language and media to installing leaders that are happy to oblige with these policies. For the most part they have been successful, and it's quite sad. The homogenization of China is seen as necessary to bind the country, but has destroyed the cultural beauty of the country.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > There's a lot of Chinese stereotypes being trotted out here, but I'll address this one. As an ethnic Chinese who been in, and out of China every year since childhood, I'd yes, it's very superficial. I do not feel he lived in China for long enough outside of the insular expat bubble. Chinese Americans have self-invented insecurities about being "identity-less," but Chinese in China have very real insecurities about being "identity-less" This "identity searching" crowd looks very strange to me. Besides us speaking languages of the same linguistic family, is as easily different as India, and UK. For me, who spent nearly all childhood in Russia, and whose parents were separate from China for 5, and 4 generations, Chinese Americans do still feel more similarly wired than mainlanders today, which are their own completely brand new type of people. It's very similar with my experience meeting overseas Russians from immigration waves from before 1917 in America. For some reason, to me they felt "more Russian" after 4-5 generations in the US than people whom I knew back home. > 1. I visited a prison in Jiangxi to discuss a potential prisoner safety solution. In a meeting with the vice-warden, he tacitly mentioned how Adidas shoes were being made in the prison that he was running. We quickly pulled out of that project. I haven’t bought Adidas- or Nike-branded shoes since. This gave me a chuckle. I don't know what to get off people like him. In China I've seen a lot of very strange Western types who scream "there is no Democracy in America!," and then ran to China out of all places to find a big surprise.
a139 5y ago
dathinab 5y ago
> Forced labor in Xinjiang has made headlines in recent months, but in reality, it happens everywhere in China. And beyond. The question is more about the conditions of work/live in the prisons. And at least some of the US prisons don't look so much better. Better sure, but by a to small margin to be proud of it.
- thevagrant 5y ago
  Who said people are proud of US prisons?
- AsceticBear 5y ago
  I am Chinese. For this matter, I just want to say that the Western media has been smearing the real China. This is not the real situation.
  - thevagrant 5y ago
    What is the real situation? Do you live in Xinjiang? Curious to hear what's really going on. I've seen videos from Xinjiang taken by Chinese themselves and the content appears alarming. It's a misunderstanding?
    - AsceticBear 5y ago
      I am not in Xinjiang, but I have some friends studying in Xinjiang. I remember that some bloggers went to Xinjiang to shoot videos on youtube, which are more authentic. The security maintenance in the area may be stricter, but there is no such thing as forced labor.
      - philliphaydon 5y ago
        You mean the YouTubers who were shuffled around together to specific areas, restaurants, etc and who all show the exact same things? They are not authentic.
        5y ago
bamboozled 5y ago
> You might wonder how China’s economy is able to grow at such a blistering pace despite the huge number of arguably inefficient government programs. The answer is rooted in East Asian culture: work ethic. Blue collar Chinese workers are willing work 60+ hour weeks while sustaining themselves on ramen and $1.5 cigarette packs every day just to ensure their kids can get the best education and an improved quality of life. I don't think this it's this simple...even if it was, it doesn't sound very sustainable / appealing to me.
- wolpoli 5y ago
  This sounds very much like work harder, not smarter, which is the complete opposite of what they should do.
- eunos 5y ago
  > it doesn't sound very sustainable / appealing to me It's like looking at the high achiever students studying ungodly hours in Law schools or Medical schools. Similarly unappealing and less sustainable, but the rewards will be sweet (aside from the debt).
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Also ignoring the consequences on those who don't make it, or have literally anything happen to them (injury, sickness etc.)
- archhn 5y ago
  "Work ethic" = "I don't want my children to be a poor slave like me. I must work my fingers to the bone. I must save my children." The corporate newspeak is honestly sickening.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - otoburb 5y ago
    I'm confused about what corporate newspeak you're referring to. Isn't this the sentiment and euphemism trotted out when referring to the "immigrant work ethic" across most cultures and countries? In terms of "sickening" -- as a child it was drilled into my head that my parents and other (usually similarly immigrant) families worked incredibly hard so that they could provide a better life for their children, with the implicit expectation that I might do the same for my own some day.
bluefirebrand 5y ago
I don't think I would have the courage to visit, much less live in China. Not since China imprisoned the two Michaels in retaliation for Canada imprisoning Meng Wanzhou. No thanks.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  I’m surprised how submissive Canada and Trudeau acted. The charges were made up and yet they were too submissive to secure their releases. Let’s just say I’m not sure the response would have been as mild had they kidnapped Americans instead.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    What should the Canadian government have done differently?
  - thevagrant 5y ago
    You think Trudeau commands the judicial system?
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      No, but surely he has some say in foreign relations, aka how Canada responded to China.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    Everything I have seen out of Trudeau is that he is at the beck and call of special interest groups, not the Canadian people. I wouldn't go so far to say he's a puppet of China's government, but he's certainly timid with them.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Special interest groups aside, being... delicate... about China is a position only a few countries can afford NOT to take. Antagonizing them may play well to a certain constituency, but they'll be the same ones kicking you out of office when the economy tanks. The only reason the world has moved as quickly on Russia as they have is because Russia's economy is 1/10th the size of China's.
livinginfear 5y ago
> ...the reality is that the Chinese government cares little for storing said data long-term and uses it primarily in criminal cases. I don't doubt this at all. The problem is what the CPC considers criminal. > Xinjiang and Tibet are two exceptions to this which I won’t dive deep into. If you're going to gloss over these examples of where we know there are totally egregious uses of technology to infringe on people's civil liberties, and human rights, then what meaningful discussion is actually left to be had? > When I was still a student at Stanford, I once lost an internship opportunity because a “traffic violation” - biking at night without a bike light - showed up on my background check. In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit “blacklist” - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law. I somehow doubt this is true. Unless he's talking about some totally different kind of 'background check'. I've had numerous background checks, and in most countries they only cover criminal history. They don't cover your history of civil offenses. In many countries even relatively serious traffic offenses are dealt with as civil offenses. Let alone what he describes. Also, "just be reasonable". Just don't be one of the targeted minorities either, I guess? Just don't play too many videogames; Or play videogames they don't like; Or browse the free press; The list goes on... This really reads like propaganda. If you told me this was written by someone who grew up in China, and just moved to America. I would totally believe you.
- presentation 5y ago
  For what it’s worth, I lived in China, but am from the USA, and ended up with more or less the same opinion as OP. I live in Japan now but find the way that Americans talk about China as pretty misguided, definitely hyperbolic and often racist.
amelius 5y ago
Speaking of China, last week a relatively new Chinese colleague asked me if I was pro-Putin or pro- Ukraine. I thought it was a disturbing question, so I asked it back, but he said he didn't want to choose a side. Because I was shocked, I didn't continue the conversation. Has my colleague, who also watches western media and who has been living outside of China for over 4 years, been brainwashed by the CCP? Should I be worried?
- jareklupinski 5y ago
  don't feed the trolls, i say
- physicles 5y ago
  Perhaps your colleague sympathizes with the Russian arguments for invading Ukraine (it used to be ours, therefore it is still ours) because he believes China’s similar stance about Taiwan (it has always been a part of China, therefore we are justified in taking it by force). Is he genuinely curious and intellectually humble, or is he unusually skeptical about western media and prone to both-sidesism (e.g. does he talk a lot about NATO feeding the fire), or is he just a troll? The brainwash is real, but you’ll never help him by telling him he’s brainwashed. If he’s actually open to it, asking questions patiently and with empathy is the best way to show him where his blind spots are.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  > Should I be worried? Oh yes, definitely! Better report him to the Authorities just to be safe.
- antifa 5y ago
  I dunno, he sounds he was asking reasonable questions and he just genuinely didn't know which side to pick.
tomcam 5y ago
Why use CPC instead of CCP?
nonrandomstring 5y ago
I was hoping this might be Part II of a series we have already started discussing here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476052
- mrintellectual 5y ago
  Glad you enjoyed the article. Part II should be coming next week - stay tuned.
dng88 5y ago

93 points by fzliu 5y ago

The problem with China is that its people have never known democracy. The leader is eternal like Putin. You can see how an economic superpower with nukes and a dictator can go. So all the article goes about how nice and misunderstood things are in China without addressing the hard reality.

popularonion 5y ago
> “This ties into another common misconception about China - the idea that the government wants to track everything you do at all hours of the day” > “I was involved in a project that uses face recognition to track residents going in and out of communities … Data from such a system was also entirely managed at the local level and not automatically shared with the provincial or central governments.“ > “In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit ‘blacklist’ - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law.” It went through the whole progression from “it’s not happening” to “it might be happening but it’s not a big deal” to “it’s happening and you deserve it” in just a few paragraphs. Impressive.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  Yes will sound bad but I have no idea about Chinese culture but it's objectively a biased look as OP is himself raised by Chinese parents although in another country. It's not like an Italian guy is describing these issues from a Western point of view.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    I'm German and I lived/worked in China for several years. I don't see much bias at all in the post. The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s. In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else. And I think it's borderline bizarre if not straight up insulting to suggest that the author does not have a 'Western point of view' despite living in the US since he was three years old. Chinese parents, like the Chinese state, contrary to popular imagination do not have brain altering superpowers.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      The CCP-as-omni-scient/-potent has the same feel as 90s American conspiracies about their government. It takes Olympic level mental gymnastics to get to "all-seeing and all-powerful secret government" from "my local DMV can barely fill out a form correctly." I'm sure all world governments would function much better if there were in fact a limitless supply of extraordinarily capable employees willing to work for government salaries.
      - themacguffinman 5y ago
        It doesn't take omniscience or omnipotence or a limitless supply of extraordinary employees to effect severe oppression. North Korea exists. The KGB, now called the FSB, exists. The Great Firewall exists. Xinjiang internment camps exist. Operation Fox Hunt exists. WeChat & Douyin censorship exists. The Gestapo used to exist. American government-enforced chattel slavery used to exist. American Japanese internment camps used to exist. So tell me, how do you get there from "my local American DMV can barely fill out a form correctly"? Because it happened. And it will continue happening if we forget history.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Severe oppression wasn't the the topic of the comment I was replying to. It was regarding unreasonable fantasies of competence in government oppression. You can construct an oppressive regime simply by dedicating enough people to it, but they still can't exceed the fundamental ceiling of wage:job_tenure:performance. Consequently, every example you mentioned routinely failed. In aggregate they accomplished oppression, but emotional pleas about "forgetting history" don't change the fact that we're talking about bureaucracies. And bureaucracies only ever approach a semblance of competency via brute force, either in resources or manpower.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I don't know why he'd think that, as a foreigner, he'd be allowed to work on projects that touched state security. It's like working at BlueApron and claiming that the NSA definitely isn't spying on Americans because they aren't tracking their meal plans.
eunos 5y ago
On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. * For the west part, I recently saw an old video of Biden (still senator) mocking post-Soviet Russia for thinking to look at China for prosperity.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  The End of History comes to mind. I remember people parading that book around like it was gospel.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tiahura 5y ago
  - eunos 5y ago
    Ahahaha that clip. Chinese nationalists used that clip (among others) to show that US only friendly to you when you are unequal or incomparable to the US. When of course China is rising US reacted by showing its zero-sum mentality instead. P.S. Xi wasn't the paramount leader yet back in 2011.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. Which is insane when you look back on it. Since we didn't become prosperous under liberalism either. Nowhere in the west did liberal democracy bring prosperity. The US wasn't a liberal democracy when it became rich. We are the wealthiest nation in the world decades before liberal democracy arrived. The same goes for the british, french, etc.
AsceticBear 5y ago
What is real democracy? Is it true that only Western democracy is correct in the world? It's just a joke. It's not that China doesn't have democracy. China's democratic system was created by itself based on its own national conditions. It is completely different from Western democracy, but it does not mean that there is no democracy. It is recommended that you read the history of China objectively and understand how this country with a long history has developed step by step to today. Oh I believe your opinion will change.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  Democracy is easily defined by not having the same leader self appointed for life. You can't dance around that China is a democracy. It's ridiculous and adds nothing.
  - AsceticBear 5y ago
    Please take a look at the transition of Chinese leaders over the past 20 years, it's not what you say. China's population is too large, the Western multi-party system is not suitable for China, and the internal friction is too serious. Western systems have been explored in Chinese history, but all have failed.
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      No they haven’t. China has never attempted anything except authoritarian and totalitarian.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - shigawire 5y ago
      Sure, but democracy has a real meaning. Just because you like single party rule doesn't mean you can call it democracy because that has a better brand than autocracy.
    - deleted 5y ago
bene_legionary 5y ago
Even Sun Yat-sen, who worked his whole life off trying to bring democracy to China in the chaos of the civil wars before WW2, decided China wasn't ready for democracy. Dr. Sun's successor state of sorts, Taiwan, did manage to carry out his vision in a way (even if they don't agree with the Chinese bit). The first time China had an election was in 1912, and it was largely free by the standards of the time, although the elected president, who was a friend of Sun, was assassinated not long after (the person who ordered the assassination ended up declaring himself emperor of China)

another_story 5y ago

＞ With the current political climate and state of affairs in mainland China, many Gen Z-ers and Millenials (mostly from Guangdong Province), as I consider Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to be separate territories) who hail from mainland China but don’t refer to themselves as Chinese, instead calling themselves Cantonese. While some simply wish to preserve personal identity, there are also many who dissociate themselves simply because they believe the rest of China to be inferior. There's a lot of Chinese stereotypes being trotted out here, but I'll address this one. Those who refer to themselves as Cantonese do not feel superior, but they have generally felt pushed around by Beijing. Guangdong was, and still partially is, the economic powerhouse of China. This has made the North nervous at times. Beijing has continually pushed their political weight around to try and stifle any sense of original Cantonese cultural, from suppressing the language and media to installing leaders that are happy to oblige with these policies. For the most part they have been successful, and it's quite sad. The homogenization of China is seen as necessary to bind the country, but has destroyed the cultural beauty of the country.

baybal2 5y ago
> There's a lot of Chinese stereotypes being trotted out here, but I'll address this one. As an ethnic Chinese who been in, and out of China every year since childhood, I'd yes, it's very superficial. I do not feel he lived in China for long enough outside of the insular expat bubble. Chinese Americans have self-invented insecurities about being "identity-less," but Chinese in China have very real insecurities about being "identity-less" This "identity searching" crowd looks very strange to me. Besides us speaking languages of the same linguistic family, is as easily different as India, and UK. For me, who spent nearly all childhood in Russia, and whose parents were separate from China for 5, and 4 generations, Chinese Americans do still feel more similarly wired than mainlanders today, which are their own completely brand new type of people. It's very similar with my experience meeting overseas Russians from immigration waves from before 1917 in America. For some reason, to me they felt "more Russian" after 4-5 generations in the US than people whom I knew back home. > 1. I visited a prison in Jiangxi to discuss a potential prisoner safety solution. In a meeting with the vice-warden, he tacitly mentioned how Adidas shoes were being made in the prison that he was running. We quickly pulled out of that project. I haven’t bought Adidas- or Nike-branded shoes since. This gave me a chuckle. I don't know what to get off people like him. In China I've seen a lot of very strange Western types who scream "there is no Democracy in America!," and then ran to China out of all places to find a big surprise.

a139 5y ago

dathinab 5y ago

> Forced labor in Xinjiang has made headlines in recent months, but in reality, it happens everywhere in China. And beyond. The question is more about the conditions of work/live in the prisons. And at least some of the US prisons don't look so much better. Better sure, but by a to small margin to be proud of it.

thevagrant 5y ago
Who said people are proud of US prisons?
AsceticBear 5y ago
I am Chinese. For this matter, I just want to say that the Western media has been smearing the real China. This is not the real situation.
- thevagrant 5y ago
  What is the real situation? Do you live in Xinjiang? Curious to hear what's really going on. I've seen videos from Xinjiang taken by Chinese themselves and the content appears alarming. It's a misunderstanding?
  - AsceticBear 5y ago
    I am not in Xinjiang, but I have some friends studying in Xinjiang. I remember that some bloggers went to Xinjiang to shoot videos on youtube, which are more authentic. The security maintenance in the area may be stricter, but there is no such thing as forced labor.
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      You mean the YouTubers who were shuffled around together to specific areas, restaurants, etc and who all show the exact same things? They are not authentic.
      - 5y ago

bamboozled 5y ago

> You might wonder how China’s economy is able to grow at such a blistering pace despite the huge number of arguably inefficient government programs. The answer is rooted in East Asian culture: work ethic. Blue collar Chinese workers are willing work 60+ hour weeks while sustaining themselves on ramen and $1.5 cigarette packs every day just to ensure their kids can get the best education and an improved quality of life. I don't think this it's this simple...even if it was, it doesn't sound very sustainable / appealing to me.

wolpoli 5y ago
This sounds very much like work harder, not smarter, which is the complete opposite of what they should do.
eunos 5y ago
> it doesn't sound very sustainable / appealing to me It's like looking at the high achiever students studying ungodly hours in Law schools or Medical schools. Similarly unappealing and less sustainable, but the rewards will be sweet (aside from the debt).
- XorNot 5y ago
  Also ignoring the consequences on those who don't make it, or have literally anything happen to them (injury, sickness etc.)
archhn 5y ago
"Work ethic" = "I don't want my children to be a poor slave like me. I must work my fingers to the bone. I must save my children." The corporate newspeak is honestly sickening.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- otoburb 5y ago
  I'm confused about what corporate newspeak you're referring to. Isn't this the sentiment and euphemism trotted out when referring to the "immigrant work ethic" across most cultures and countries? In terms of "sickening" -- as a child it was drilled into my head that my parents and other (usually similarly immigrant) families worked incredibly hard so that they could provide a better life for their children, with the implicit expectation that I might do the same for my own some day.

bluefirebrand 5y ago

I don't think I would have the courage to visit, much less live in China. Not since China imprisoned the two Michaels in retaliation for Canada imprisoning Meng Wanzhou. No thanks.

908B64B197 5y ago
I’m surprised how submissive Canada and Trudeau acted. The charges were made up and yet they were too submissive to secure their releases. Let’s just say I’m not sure the response would have been as mild had they kidnapped Americans instead.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  What should the Canadian government have done differently?
- thevagrant 5y ago
  You think Trudeau commands the judicial system?
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    No, but surely he has some say in foreign relations, aka how Canada responded to China.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  Everything I have seen out of Trudeau is that he is at the beck and call of special interest groups, not the Canadian people. I wouldn't go so far to say he's a puppet of China's government, but he's certainly timid with them.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Special interest groups aside, being... delicate... about China is a position only a few countries can afford NOT to take. Antagonizing them may play well to a certain constituency, but they'll be the same ones kicking you out of office when the economy tanks. The only reason the world has moved as quickly on Russia as they have is because Russia's economy is 1/10th the size of China's.

livinginfear 5y ago

> ...the reality is that the Chinese government cares little for storing said data long-term and uses it primarily in criminal cases. I don't doubt this at all. The problem is what the CPC considers criminal. > Xinjiang and Tibet are two exceptions to this which I won’t dive deep into. If you're going to gloss over these examples of where we know there are totally egregious uses of technology to infringe on people's civil liberties, and human rights, then what meaningful discussion is actually left to be had? > When I was still a student at Stanford, I once lost an internship opportunity because a “traffic violation” - biking at night without a bike light - showed up on my background check. In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit “blacklist” - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law. I somehow doubt this is true. Unless he's talking about some totally different kind of 'background check'. I've had numerous background checks, and in most countries they only cover criminal history. They don't cover your history of civil offenses. In many countries even relatively serious traffic offenses are dealt with as civil offenses. Let alone what he describes. Also, "just be reasonable". Just don't be one of the targeted minorities either, I guess? Just don't play too many videogames; Or play videogames they don't like; Or browse the free press; The list goes on... This really reads like propaganda. If you told me this was written by someone who grew up in China, and just moved to America. I would totally believe you.

presentation 5y ago
For what it’s worth, I lived in China, but am from the USA, and ended up with more or less the same opinion as OP. I live in Japan now but find the way that Americans talk about China as pretty misguided, definitely hyperbolic and often racist.

amelius 5y ago

Speaking of China, last week a relatively new Chinese colleague asked me if I was pro-Putin or pro- Ukraine. I thought it was a disturbing question, so I asked it back, but he said he didn't want to choose a side. Because I was shocked, I didn't continue the conversation. Has my colleague, who also watches western media and who has been living outside of China for over 4 years, been brainwashed by the CCP? Should I be worried?

jareklupinski 5y ago
don't feed the trolls, i say
physicles 5y ago
Perhaps your colleague sympathizes with the Russian arguments for invading Ukraine (it used to be ours, therefore it is still ours) because he believes China’s similar stance about Taiwan (it has always been a part of China, therefore we are justified in taking it by force). Is he genuinely curious and intellectually humble, or is he unusually skeptical about western media and prone to both-sidesism (e.g. does he talk a lot about NATO feeding the fire), or is he just a troll? The brainwash is real, but you’ll never help him by telling him he’s brainwashed. If he’s actually open to it, asking questions patiently and with empathy is the best way to show him where his blind spots are.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
> Should I be worried? Oh yes, definitely! Better report him to the Authorities just to be safe.
antifa 5y ago
I dunno, he sounds he was asking reasonable questions and he just genuinely didn't know which side to pick.

tomcam 5y ago

Why use CPC instead of CCP?

nonrandomstring 5y ago

I was hoping this might be Part II of a series we have already started discussing here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476052

mrintellectual 5y ago
Glad you enjoyed the article. Part II should be coming next week - stay tuned.

dng88 5y ago