Dear Slate, yes there are chocolate bars in China
Lot o' Hotpot: Three Travellers
Interview: Kerry Ann Lee, culture shock = inspiration
Garbage burning protests: The online life of dissent
Coming soon to a police checkpoint near you
“Because we are in such a system, we are always
asking ourselves whether we are brainwashed.
We are always eager to get other information from different channels.
But when you are in a so-called free system
you never think about whether you are brainwashed.”
— Tang Jie, a graduate student with Shanghai's Fudan University and a fen qing (or "angry youth")
to Evan Osnos, who wrote a highly commendable piece on China's angry youth
in the New Yorker. For more on the subject, click here.
add to stumble upon
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Hey leastman, get a comb and some hair gel bro'.
But seriously, does this guy really think that critical thought is non-existent in the West just because we believe in our so-called "freedom"? Bush and company would not be getting fried by the press so badly if such a lack of freedom existed and if you want to spin it 180 degrees, how did W and Cheney come to power if the liberal media conspiracy controlled what we watched and read?
And the US Supreme Court upheld the right of individual Americans to own anti-tank weapons in their own house.
China suck, US rules.
Shanghaiist's recent posts have been crap and this "quote" from a journalistically "ancient" article only piles it on more. Can we get something a little more up to date please?
This kid is an idiot. We have a STUDENT who has never left China, never experienced "free media" somehow now imbued with the wisdom to comment on how things work outside China? This kid has NO voice at all if it weren't for the Western media interviewing him, so I guess he MUST be right that we in the West are brainwashed, never getting to hear his valuable thoughts. What a dimwit!
This is what happens when we decide to listen to people still wasting their time in school. How did this guy find time to do an interview between his sessions of World of Warcraft and thinking up new ways to cheat on his semester exams. Obviously the Chinese higher education system is doing a "heckuva a job" keeping these students busy, when they have time to goof around making childish videos. Give me a break! Maybe if the youth of China spent less time trying to figure out "if their brainwashed or not" or "fighting the western media", and more time admitting and figuring out how to fix their country's outstanding problems, they would be of some use. Otherwise, they are just sitting around in their crappy universities wasting their parent's hard-earned money.
icecat77: Have you even read the story to begin with? You don't make yourself sound smarter than any of the WOW kids that you criticize. Of which this kid is not. But you wouldn't know that would you? You just assumed he was.
nanhey:
"Bush and company would not be getting fried by the press so badly if such a lack of freedom existed"
Oh yeah.. you mean the same media that couldn't arouse the public to question Bush and his groupie's desire to go to war. The western system really worked when Bush and his groupies decided to attack Iraq to get back at Saddam for plotting assassination on Bush Sr..
Face it.. a group of old white men make all the decisions for the US government.. with a healthy influence by the Pro-Israel lobbyists. The American system disgusts me.. not as much as the Chinese commies but almost as much. I do hope Barack will get the ticket and change the face of American politics (hopefully).
Basically,this kid has a superfacial mind.
To yanrouchan: China sucks,US sucks too! hoho yanks!
icecat77,
do you know the CEO of sohu.com? he graduated from MIT, can you please check up what he thinks of western media? and what he said after Paris torch relay?
I have stayed in West for over 5 years, at the beginning, i liked 'free' media, after 2-3 years, after a close watch, i changed my mind at the end, i prefer Chinese media. many of my friends who have the similar experience agree w me.
I fully agree with what TangJie says. Those Chinese who return to China from west love China more than those locals who have never been aboard. what a failure of 'free' media!
Well, the "free media" of China is allowing Tibetans, and others, to be slaughtered as we speak. Try to imagine people being rounded up and "disappeared" in America by the hundreds, or opened fire on, and the media ignoring it.
The Chinese army again fired on a crowd on Monday August 18, in the Kham region in eastern Tibet. 140+ Tibetans are reported to have been killed.
The death report from Lhasa, since March, has reached 400. Shameful, and intolerable.
To nanheyangrouchuan,
---"Bush and company would not be getting fried by the press so badly if such a lack of freedom existed"?
I've no problem with you singing aloud the carol every time you are screwed. I applause your media every time they kept a collective silence over the war crimes your beloved leader Bushit committed. I feel comfortable that there are people on globe who alway see thru US lie much earlier than Americans like you.
Can you express "US lie?" I'd like to know, once and for all, just so I can act accordingly.
To Saulan
"The death report from Lhasa, since March, has reached 400"?
One main reason Chinese and Dalai's convoy didnt make a deal in Beijing was Dalai failed, under repeated request, to hand over a list of 200 deads he delcared, even Chinese agreed to include 22 killed by mobsters to the list, to make it easier for him.
When Dalai doesnt know how to carry the weight, you are adding more on his broken back. Seems you were wishing that more people would call him a Daliar.
But I don't accuse you a libel, since you are anyway spoonfed by the distorting media like Fox which fed you 25,000 died in Romania uprising while only 80 killed and like CNN which fed you thousands die in TAM while only 300 killed in Beijing and BBC which fed you 200 died in Lhasa while only one killed, by security.
Shall I also enlighten you that before Bastil was stormed some 200 years ago, it was rumoured 3,500 were imprisoned inside. But when it was mobbed open, only 14 were found behind the bar.
But I never expect you to seek truth like I do:
--CNN plus Xinhua devide two.
To Saulaan
Dalai denied the west distorting report and what you rumoured here that 140 Tibetens killed. Here is the fat for you to swollow:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080821/wl_afp/francetibetchinaoly2008dalaideny_080821161125;_ylt=AmC6XlOZLWckpd..z6aeeEVPzWQA
To El JEFE,
Sweet and inviting as you are, you are just not my type. So spare me and leave me alone, OK?
You could well enjoy your defeat of commie with much more silvers and bronzes than your poor Chinese enemy and try use the last 3 day for an extra gold for sling-shot event.
Actually the first two comments seem much more fen qing to me...
SauLaan,
this world is interesting because of you people who believe rumors, and believe every news from 'free' media is real.
keep on good work, which really make daily life more exciting.
Just hope there will be one day that you can grow up and have the ability to think.
"this world is interesting because of you people who believe rumors, and believe every news from 'free' media is real. keep on good work, which really make daily life more exciting. "
Who said Westerners believe every story that comes out of their media? News articles in the Western media are contradictory. That is their beauty. They come from individuals who are not following a government script. Therefore, they usually reflect the opinion of the writer. And, even more importantly, they therefore require careful readers to look at many articles by people with many viewpoints before they can make up their minds on an issue. It fosters discussion of issues.
Doubt it? Go to realclearpolitics.com and check out all of the different articles about the US presidential race and other issues alone. It is impossible to believe everything in these articles because the views are contrasting. Even about the Russia-Georgia conflict there are views split between Bad Russia and "Georgia should have known better". Now tell me, in how many ways did the officil Chinese media report on the 17th Party Congress? (Blogs don't count.)
The main flaw of the official Chinese media is that there are restrictions on what stories can be reported and on how they are reported. Sometimes someone goes outside of the lines, but that is relatively rare. So a reader has to go through much more effort to find articles that deviate from the official line.
The problem with the quoted nutcase is that he confuses the values of a society with brainwashing. They are not the same thing. You may not like the fact that Westerners support the Tibetans, but they don't support the Tibetans because of brainwashing. It is because they see a value that is important to them come under fire. You may see this as due to misinformation, but you forget that Westerners have ample exposure to the official Chinese opinion. Journlists have read the official statements and heard comments from Han Chinese. They just don't believe these comments, and in general, neither do those who stay informed. You may say that they would think differently if they saw Tibet with their own eyes. This may be, but remember, we are talking about media messages here, not personal experience.
As for why Chinese who go overseas would be critical of the Western Media, which is not really monolithic, I would say it has to do with the fact that they don't like seeing criticism of China without what they see as good considered alongside.
But "Good" does not sell stories. Most major newspapers in the West report more bad than good on most issues. And people who read these newspapers know this.
This kid DOES have a poor understanding of the Western media, as do most Chinese, including many of you it seems. It is easier to see a unified front that desires to keep China down then reading 100 articles and finding the mixed messages.
@ booggerg
"you mean the same media that couldn't arouse the public to question Bush and his groupie's desire to go to war. The western system really worked when Bush and his groupies decided to attack Iraq to get back at Saddam for plotting assassination on Bush Sr.."
Morally wrong, yes, legally wrong, that has yet to be determined.
And unlike in badirty China, the media is not responsible for nor capable of affecting the thoughts of the people. The US doesn't have a "golden shield".
@bamboos
"Those Chinese who return to China from west love China more than those locals who have never been aboard. what a failure of 'free' media!"
And yet so many more Chinese choose to stay abroad because China is so filthy and bad.
"China is so filthy and bad"? for someone who thinks this you spending an awful amount of time trolling Shanghaiist. You seem to have so much angry and spite you sound like the kid in the article.