China question

[Opo]

@erik8lrl How do you feel about forcefully aborting uighur children? 

[erik8lrl]

@Opo There are a lot of misconceptions about child policies in China. First, the origin of the child policy was first created because the generation of Chinese when the country was founded were mostly uneducated farmers and workers. They have no knowledge about birth control, so they were having kids all the time. It's not uncommon to have 5-6 kids in a family. But at the time they were extremely poor, and the government was just starting to try to build a communist society(It didn't really work) and people were dying of hunger. Kids were born into suffering and death, and the population kept on growing, they simply can't keep everyone fed. So the one-child policy is created to stop people from having too many kids irresponsibility and save lives. Of course, it has changed into a two-child policy for Han Chinese and three-four for ethnic minorities in recent years because the country is much wealthier and families can support having more kids. Now, if you have more kids than the policy allows, there are few scenarios. If you have twins, triplets or quadruplets(very rare), they are okay. If you are pregnant and can still go through an abortion, when you go to the hospital they will recommend that. However, if you can't/don't want to do an abortion you will be fined by the government for breaking the policy and will need to prove that you can support the child. If you are rich, you can have as many kids as you want. The hospital won't force you to have an abortion, but they might report you. So some people just go to the countryside and have the child and then go back to the city. Very rare tho, kids are expansive. The policy is just there to make most people more responsible. All these killing kids stories you hear in the west are not true. And as for Uighurs, they are treated equally as everyone else, aside from being able to have three-four kids. Tho I heard there are extreme Uighurs families that breaking the policy and having 5-6 or even 7 kids while living in poverty, the kids will be starved and not allowed to go to school, but I think they are rare.   

Edited October 7, 2020 by erik8lrl

[Opo]

@erik8lrl In that vice video a woman said that if government finds out that you are pregnant they terminate the baby. 

I was referring to that. 

[erik8lrl]

@Opo That is false.

[erik8lrl]

@Opo I mean, if you are extremely poor, and already have a lot of kids, and you try to have more, of course, the hospital will report you and try to stop you because you can't support the kid and that's irresponsible. Of course, you can still just have the kids privately, but you will be fined.

[Opo]

47 minutes ago, erik8lrl said:

@Opo I mean, if you are extremely poor, and already have a lot of kids, and you try to have more, of course, the hospital will report you and try to stop you because you can't support the kid and that's irresponsible. Of course, you can still just have the kids privately, but you will be fined.

Oh i guess that's understandable. 

Is there anything a foreigner should know before visiting so we don't accidentally get into trouble? 

I know drugs are a no no. 

[erik8lrl]

@Opo Yes, absolutely no drugs! Right now it's hard to enter as a foreigner because of covid, but everything will open up again probably next year. Learn some Chinese if you don't have guides. Be ready for culture shock and have an open mind. Download WeChat, you can pay everything with it and its basically all your apps combined into one. Buy a good VPN before you go. Do some research about the place you are going, every part of China is completely different. 

Here is a good video on that:

 

[PurpleTree]

^^why are you defending china and the ccp so much?

[Opo]

5 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

^^why are you defending china and the ccp so much?

He seems to be Chinese. 

[PurpleTree]

8 minutes ago, Opo said:

He seems to be Chinese. 

well he seems very "brainwashed" regarding the subject imo

 

i'm not saying i'm not brainwashed either in some ways btw. we probably all are in some form or another

[ajai]

@erik8lrl Grateful to have you here bro, thank-you for nuanced insights about China.

[Opo]

7 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

well he seems very "brainwashed" regarding the subject imo

 

i'm not saying i'm not brainwashed either in some ways btw. we probably all are in some form or another

He seems like that from your perspective. Because we from the west grew up (you could say we were brainwashed) with different values. 

And there are a lot of lies about China going around so we need someone like him for balance. 

@erik8lrl thanks for explaining this stuff to us. 

[PurpleTree]

1 minute ago, Opo said:

He seems like that from your perspective. Because we from the west grew up (you could say we were brainwashed) with different values. 

And there are a lot of lies about China going around so we need someone like him for balance. 

@erik8lrl thanks for explaining this stuff to us. 

Ok you convinced me, the "concentration camps", throwing people in jail for criticising the government, tibet, persecution of falun gong, christians etc. not allowing artistic freedom and freedom of speech are actually a good thing.

 

 

 

not  

[Opo]

3 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

Ok you convinced me, the "concentration camps", throwing people in jail for criticising the government, tibet, persecution of falun gong, christians etc. not allowing artistic freedom and freedom of speech are actually a good thing.

 

 

 

not  

This is your perspective from a Chinese person that looks at the West. 

Starting wars for money and killing civilians, killing each other for minor differences, allowing people to walk around without a mask and spread a disease for "freedom", basically allowing pharmaceutical companies to get people hooked on heroin because capitalism is a good thing. 

[erik8lrl]

@PurpleTree Please don't believe anything I say, believe what you want to believe, but until you see it with your own eyes, it's all just hearsay.  All of those things you mentioned are heavily exaggerated by the media or are thrown out of context. Dig deeper into those stories and don't just listen to one side if you wish to have a better understanding. All nations have some form of brainwash. Just try to think about when was the last time you heard something positive about China on the news? Probably never. How is it possible that almost 1/3 of the global population has done no one good thing in all these years? 

 

 

I am Chinese but I grew up in Canada and studied in the States. 

[PurpleTree]

45 minutes ago, Opo said:

This is your perspective from a Chinese person that looks at the West. 

Starting wars for money and killing civilians, killing each other for minor differences, allowing people to walk around without a mask and spread a disease for "freedom", basically allowing pharmaceutical companies to get people hooked on heroin because capitalism is a good thing. 

see the funny thing is i don't really defend my government or country if it does dirt around the world.

 

we should call that stuff out and bring it to light.

 

on the other hand we should also aknowledge the good things from each region.

 

also tibetans etc. aren't westerners so they're not looking at it from a western perspective, i know quite a few of them.

 

If you feel the need to defend your countrys and governemts dirt, well maybe then you're kind of "brainwashed"

[erik8lrl]

Part of the reason why China and the US's tension has been rising over the years is mainly due to the lack of communication between China and the west. More specifically:

1. Most Chinese don't care about politics; they are only focused on making a living and live a good life. Thus there is no reason for them to use a VPN and explore outside media because there are so much hate and misinformation that it feels pointless. 

2. Even if they do care and try to go on, most are not good at English, so they don't. And if they are good at English, the moment they speak, there will be a wave of people saying that they are brainwashed and choose not to believe in anything they say. 

3. The western population's only way of getting information on China is from the media, which is heavily biased towards western ideology and believes. 

4. The fear fundamentally comes from the lack of understanding of Chinese history, culture, and politics. Chinese history is not taught in school in the west, so people have no idea. And the political system in China changes all the time, so it's hard for ideology heavy countries to understand how it works. You can't use the left or right lens to look at China because it doesn't believe in left or right when it comes to practice. 

5. Due to that fear, any positive information about China is censored on the media. Resulting in more misunderstanding in the general public. 

6. For the States, this benefits greatly. You get an easy scapegoat while trying to maintain world dominance by creating hatred so you can easily demonize the Chinese. When war comes, you will have no problem getting solders, and if you win, you get all their resources. 

7. The truth is, what the Chinese want is not that different from what the west want. And people all over the world are all the same people who are just trying to survive and live a happy life. But our collective ego simply cannot see the other side, so we have conflict, and then through bloodshed and death, we can then maybe be hurt enough to see why everything happened the way it did.    

[erik8lrl]

@PurpleTree I'm not defending. The CCP has made plenty of mistakes. I'm simply saying they are exaggerated or thrown out of context, you can only have a better understanding when you know the narrative on both sides. 

[electroBeam]

2 hours ago, erik8lrl said:

@Opo Yes, absolutely no drugs!

Here in Shenzhen, we take drugs all the time?

But yeah if you're a foreigner and don't know much about china, better to stay away from drugs. 

[PurpleTree]

4 minutes ago, erik8lrl said:

@PurpleTree I'm not defending. The CCP has made plenty of mistakes. I'm simply saying they are exaggerated or thrown out of context, you can only have a better understanding when you know the narrative on both sides. 

How many people were killed/died during the great leap forward and the cultural revolution alone?

How many Tibetans were killed? over a million and thousands of monasteries destroyed?

Exaggerated i think not

 

Also obviously a lot of people were led out of poverty (which is great), but for what price?