khazalid wrote:ah, the smoke clears. perhaps the group of wealthy, educated professionals in your cosmopolitan enclave know something of note about NK, but they are nothing like the majority of the population - not even close. 2000 kuai a month (zuoyou) for teachers, construction workers, haulage - normal jobs. what you say about world events being reported is true, to an extent, but objective reporting is a luxury that simply does not exist here. look at what just happened to 'under the dome' - this in spite of the CCP appointing a minister of smog and Jinping pledging to wave his fists at the particulate matter until it disappears. the narrative is controlled. always. the people know nothing but work, dust and noodles - they don't have time or energy for much else.
Under the Dome is a whole other issue, given that it is about reporting on China's internal situation. The question here is how much people know of the world outside China.
Regarding this, I stand by what I said about that sort of ignorance being true of people in most countries. Hell, I've spoken to a British guy who couldn't locate France on a map. Some people simply don't care in the slightest about anything happening outside of their immediate vicinity. Like you say, people around you specifically know very little of the outside world not because the information is not available but because they lack the energy and/or inclination to spend the time reading up on the outside world.
And objective reporting is a luxury in pretty much any part of the world. Your average Chinese news portal doesn't editorialize any more than news portals in America. Sure, you have totally crazy outfits like the People's Daily, but then America has FOX News so we can call that 1-1.
aside: inner mongolia is quite well developed in places. we have starbucks and ck and all that jazz too. it produces almost all of the dairy consumed in china, and it's chock full of coal etc. i think the government are pushing development here pretty hard at the moment, as I presume they are with all second-tier cities.
Does that mean your air is just as bad as ours? lool.
no, pollution here isn't bad, most of the time. blue skies today. there is heavy industry here but the sheer size of the province means it's not so concentrated.
on the other hand, it is a desert, so springtime = dust storms, which are probably even worse for the respiratory system. ho-hum.
had i been wise, i would have seen that her simplicity cost her a fortune
mrswdk wrote:There is an official version of what happened, which includes the fact that the army and students clashed in the square and a bunch of people died.
And the "bunch of people that died" were hundreds of thousands hundreds to thousands who wanted democratic reforms. They were unarmed.
The part your narrative appears to miss out is that the soldiers suffered casualties as well. This was not a case of students sitting in a circle singing 'Kumbaya' before soldiers were ordered to turn machine guns on them. This is a case of the army being ordered to clear the city center of the protesters who had been blocking it up for weeks, and the clearance descending into violence in some instances, and on both sides. We all know that protesters died, but did you know that military vehicles had to break through barricades of burning buses on some roads leading into the city center, and that some soldiers were dragged from their vehicles and beaten to death/set on fire? This was not a simple case of innocent kids being mown down by evil tank drivers just for the hell of it. These were clashes between soldiers whose job it was to clear the streets and protesters who were refusing to comply.
Anyway, why do you think that many people in China are very keen to chase up the 1989 incident in the public arena anyway?
Because it happened in living memory. And the Chinese government "countered" the protesters' arguments with tanks and bullets.
That doesn't really answer my question. What would be achieved from having a big public debate about June 4th?
The British army massacred peaceful protesters in Manchester, UK during the 19th century. The British government's immediate response was to crack down on the media and reformers, throwing a whole bunch of people in jail. No soldiers were ever prosecuted. But do British people still talk about that? All information relating to that event is freely available online, and yet I bet you about 0.5-1% of British people even have a clue that the a massacre took place.
And there's the stickler here. The UK government isn't trying to cover it up or anything like that. It's out there for anyone to look up. In China, it's heavily censored by the government.
The point is that British people are not interested in discussing an old incident, even though it was never actually resolved. Why would Chinese people be any different?
The country and society have changed since then, and people have moved on. Likewise, China has changed enormously since 1989 and most people have much better things to worry about than an old incident that took place in Beijing. They have lives to live, kids to raise, they have preoccupations with things that actually affect them, such as air quality and food safety... discussing some old clash between the army and protestors in 1989 simply isn't much of a priority. What would even be gained from having a public debate about it?
Because of WHAT the protestors were protesting.
Something which I have already pointed out that very few people actually care about.
By the way, when you're referencing all those Western sources don't forget that the suppression of information relating to the June 4th incident means that foreign journalists are also working with very imperfect information. There is no reason to assume that the accounts given by foreign commentators are especially accurate or objective.
mrswdk wrote:There is an official version of what happened, which includes the fact that the army and students clashed in the square and a bunch of people died.
And the "bunch of people that died" were hundreds of thousands hundreds to thousands who wanted democratic reforms. They were unarmed.
The part your narrative appears to miss out is that the soldiers suffered casualties as well. This was not a case of students sitting in a circle singing 'Kumbaya' before soldiers were ordered to turn machine guns on them. This is a case of the army being ordered to clear the city center of the protesters who had been blocking it up for weeks, and the clearance descending into violence in some instances, and on both sides. We all know that protesters died, but did you know that military vehicles had to break through barricades of burning buses on some roads leading into the city center, and that some soldiers were dragged from their vehicles and beaten to death/set on fire? This was not a simple case of innocent kids being mown down by evil tank drivers just for the hell of it. These were clashes between soldiers whose job it was to clear the streets and protesters who were refusing to comply.
The soldiers were told to clear out the protestors using any means necessary. And it was hundreds of thousands in the most conservative numbers. If your government told you otherwise, it further proves my earlier points. This was quite a major event in China, and the fact that the government there is trying to marginalize to such extremes when video evidence exists showing the huge numbers of protestors should make you wonder.
Anyway, why do you think that many people in China are very keen to chase up the 1989 incident in the public arena anyway?
Because it happened in living memory. And the Chinese government "countered" the protesters' arguments with tanks and bullets.
That doesn't really answer my question. What would be achieved from having a big public debate about June 4th?
Debate? Well, right now it's showing how much the Chinese government covered up and marginalized it, when in fact it had quite a large number of protestors all over China. In China though? It should be remembered for the people that wanted democratic reforms, but were attacked, quite viciously, by the very soldiers that were supposed to be there to protect the country.
The British army massacred peaceful protesters in Manchester, UK during the 19th century. The British government's immediate response was to crack down on the media and reformers, throwing a whole bunch of people in jail. No soldiers were ever prosecuted. But do British people still talk about that? All information relating to that event is freely available online, and yet I bet you about 0.5-1% of British people even have a clue that the a massacre took place.
And there's the stickler here. The UK government isn't trying to cover it up or anything like that. It's out there for anyone to look up. In China, it's heavily censored by the government.
The point is that British people are not interested in discussing an old incident, even though it was never actually resolved. Why would Chinese people be any different?
Because the incident in the UK is not covered up and marginalized like what the Chinese government has done with Tienanmen Square. It's out there in the open for anyone to look up and accurately inform themselves. Whereas, just by going off what you posted, a major protest not that long ago in your country's history (similar to the civil rights protests in the US in the 1960s), is spoon fed to you in ways where you think upwards of a million people are reduced to only thousands.
The country and society have changed since then, and people have moved on. Likewise, China has changed enormously since 1989 and most people have much better things to worry about than an old incident that took place in Beijing. They have lives to live, kids to raise, they have preoccupations with things that actually affect them, such as air quality and food safety... discussing some old clash between the army and protestors in 1989 simply isn't much of a priority. What would even be gained from having a public debate about it?
Because of WHAT the protestors were protesting.
Something which I have already pointed out that very few people actually care about.
Because your government made sure of that. Those people wanted the everyday person in China to have a better life and wanted an end to corruption in China's government offices. Tell me, how much of that, today, has changed? How many government officials are still taking kickbacks, abusing their authority, and other such crimes of corruption?
mrswdk wrote:By the way, when you're referencing all those Western sources don't forget that the suppression of information relating to the June 4th incident means that foreign journalists are also working with very imperfect information. There is no reason to assume that the accounts given by foreign commentators are especially accurate or objective.
Except those journalists were AT the protests, live. And were reporting from those, live. Video evidence shows the massive numbers of protestors. Not just hundreds to thousands, but easily hundreds of thousands. I'll take those videos words over the people that actually went in, guns a blazing. Am I calling their journalism perfect? No, but far more reliable than a state run media whose best interest would be in covering up/marginalizing it, which obviously, from your own words, they have done.
That's one of the huge differences between the West in general, and places where the government controls the media. The West, although not having the best history either, does not cover it up, as the media is run by independent groups, and often times, from multiple viewpoints. Certain things, like publishing/reporting where troop locations are, is not allowed, but short of such things, the West is quite open with media. Yeah, there are fringe elements that are crazy, but there are others that are quite reliable. BBC, one of the videos I linked, being one of them.
mrswdk wrote:There is an official version of what happened, which includes the fact that the army and students clashed in the square and a bunch of people died.
And the "bunch of people that died" were hundreds of thousands hundreds to thousands who wanted democratic reforms. They were unarmed.
The part your narrative appears to miss out is that the soldiers suffered casualties as well. This was not a case of students sitting in a circle singing 'Kumbaya' before soldiers were ordered to turn machine guns on them. This is a case of the army being ordered to clear the city center of the protesters who had been blocking it up for weeks, and the clearance descending into violence in some instances, and on both sides. We all know that protesters died, but did you know that military vehicles had to break through barricades of burning buses on some roads leading into the city center, and that some soldiers were dragged from their vehicles and beaten to death/set on fire? This was not a simple case of innocent kids being mown down by evil tank drivers just for the hell of it. These were clashes between soldiers whose job it was to clear the streets and protesters who were refusing to comply.
The soldiers were told to clear out the protestors using any means necessary. And it was hundreds of thousands in the most conservative numbers. If your government told you otherwise, it further proves my earlier points. This was quite a major event in China, and the fact that the government there is trying to marginalize to such extremes when video evidence exists showing the huge numbers of protestors should make you wonder.
Maybe there was just a confusion in the wording. To me it reads like your original statement is that hundreds of thousands of people died.
I never said the number of people on the streets was tiny. The number my professor gave me was around 1 million at the peak. That said, there is simply no way in hell that there were ever 100,000+ people on Tiananmen Square protesting at any time. On National Day, the Square gets so packed that from front to back it is a solid mass of people, shoulder-to-shoulder like a packed subway car, and even then there are only 50-60,000 people there. And from the footage I've seen, the Square was not packed shoulder-to-shoulder at any one point during the 1989 movement.
Anyway, why do you think that many people in China are very keen to chase up the 1989 incident in the public arena anyway?
Because it happened in living memory. And the Chinese government "countered" the protesters' arguments with tanks and bullets.
That doesn't really answer my question. What would be achieved from having a big public debate about June 4th?
Debate? Well, right now it's showing how much the Chinese government covered up and marginalized it, when in fact it had quite a large number of protestors all over China.
That's not an answer to my question. What would be gained from having a big public debate about it?
In China though? It should be remembered for the people that wanted democratic reforms
And again, you're over-representing the number of people who were calling for democratic reforms. Once the vigil had morphed into a protest movement, people were whining about a whole bunch of things. Amongst them, the economy was a far bigger issue than democracy. Western commentators just refer to it as a pro-democracy movement because a) they're too lazy to bother investigating and explaining all the nuances, and b) nasty anti-democracy China is an easy narrative to trot out that the Western public will connect and engage with.
The British army massacred peaceful protesters in Manchester, UK during the 19th century. The British government's immediate response was to crack down on the media and reformers, throwing a whole bunch of people in jail. No soldiers were ever prosecuted. But do British people still talk about that? All information relating to that event is freely available online, and yet I bet you about 0.5-1% of British people even have a clue that the a massacre took place.
And there's the stickler here. The UK government isn't trying to cover it up or anything like that. It's out there for anyone to look up. In China, it's heavily censored by the government.
The point is that British people are not interested in discussing an old incident, even though it was never actually resolved. Why would Chinese people be any different?
Because the incident in the UK is not covered up and marginalized like what the Chinese government has done with Tienanmen Square. It's out there in the open for anyone to look up and accurately inform themselves.
The point is not that the UK did not cover it up. The point is that the British government murdered civilians, then in the aftermath prosecuted a bunch more, hounded reformists and declined to punish any of the soldiers who had killed civilians. None of that was ever resolved, and yet the British do not feel the need to complain about it or even pay any attention to it whatsoever. They simply have more important things to think about.
The country and society have changed since then, and people have moved on. Likewise, China has changed enormously since 1989 and most people have much better things to worry about than an old incident that took place in Beijing. They have lives to live, kids to raise, they have preoccupations with things that actually affect them, such as air quality and food safety... discussing some old clash between the army and protestors in 1989 simply isn't much of a priority. What would even be gained from having a public debate about it?
Because of WHAT the protestors were protesting.
Something which I have already pointed out that very few people actually care about.
Because your government made sure of that. Those people wanted the everyday person in China to have a better life
Don't be dense. People who care about an issue don't stop caring just because public discourse on it is restricted.
The truth is that if you were to come to China and really immerse yourself in Chinese society, you would find very few people who want democratic reforms. Even my friends who have nothing but negative opinions about the government do not say that democratic reforms are the answer. Maybe this will come as a surprise to you but not everyone in the world values the same things as Americans.
and wanted an end to corruption in China's government offices. Tell me, how much of that, today, has changed? How many government officials are still taking kickbacks, abusing their authority, and other such crimes of corruption?
It's funny you say that, given that China is currently in the midst of an absolutely mammoth clampdown on official corruption.
Funny how if anyone presents a story other than the Western propaganda version, Westerners all rally around and declare that the person speaking is either brainwashed or an agent of the state.
No need to take it from me, let's see what the Chinese community on Quora is saying:
I know something about Tiananmen incident. Absolutely it is a tragedy, many students and soldiers dead. But it is more complicated than you think. The world is not black-and-white, you can not judge things in one view. Though Chinese government has made many mistakes, I think Deng XiaoPing did the right thing in 4/6/1989.
It is hard to say whether China will be better if someone else could replace CCP. Maybe yes. But it is very risky and we do not have a second chance.
For now, things are not that bad. We have no reason to overthrow the government, it is nothing good for China.
Even though China Communist Party (CCP) is facing many serious problems now, for which most ordinary Chinese show great concern, such as corruption, air pollution, inequality, income gap etc, the approval rating of CCP is still high.
Also in our discussions, another student said, "even though I don't like CCP so much, I really cried excitedly during I watched National Day Parade." Then many of us expressed the same feeling. Behind the kind of feeling, I think, is a sense of pride for a increasingly strong and prosperous China under the CCP's leadership.
I'm 17 years old and I have been living in China for 17 years. I know the incident, although superficial, and I dare say almost all of my classmates know what happened in that day, although most are like me, only know it a little.
I knew the issue when I was 13 or 14, which in an accidental situation, that I read a poem wrote by Wang Dan, one of the leader in the incident, and this poem was later be adopt into a song by Zhang Yusheng. Wikipedia told me that the poem was wrote in jail, but I can't remember if it mentioned June 4th. Without using VPN, I found limited information about the issue.
Btw, in today's China, a problem that is growing more severe is the unreasonable inclination to KMT or just hating CCP. They're only following a stupid trend, putting forward some no use slogan without consider if it is possible or practical. In this way, many thought themself to be "independent thinkers" which I just consider to be fenqing 愤青 (young cynics).
I feel funny, as many of you may feel the same, that the Party still consider the matter as so sensitive even at today, after 1/4 century. But the reason may not be agreed by all, especially those not Chinese: at present time, more and more people are actually leaning toward the Party's stand, and the impression of "6.4" to Chinese people has really changed a lot.
Please allow me to first repeat the fact many people just do not know till now, that no one was dead on that day on the Tiananmen Square. NO ONE. It was repeatedly confirmed by many witnesses in many books, documentaries, etc. All the casualties were killed on the streets through which the army marched into the center of Beijing. They tried to stop the army, and the army refused to be stopped by force. This fact does not change the level of the tragedy, but could be a clear mirror for us to see how little someone stating "massacre on the square" is respecting the history.
There is also plenty of shared information among college communities. People upload videos and articles about the event to some servers for university students. If anyone is interested he can get easy access to those resources. But there are also people who don't know and don't care, and they may not be the minority in China.
Kaiser certainly given a great answer already. Chinese people do know Tiananmen incident and it was always and will always be a controversial and critical topic. Despise the fact that there is no absolute right or wrong decision and movement, most Chinese do believe there was something awful happened in this incident. And this leads to your question as "still support the communist party". This reminds me one thing I learned from sociology class: which is worse? Tyranny of market or tyranny of government.-----> Of course tyranny of market, because you can always topple a government.
Here what I'm trying to say is, people will never be stupid enough to support a tyranny when they live in dystopia. If we want to topple a government, it's only because we're living in hell right now but not what the government or party technically, did in the past. You may not agree with me but, everyone's wishing for an economic and societal stable living condition and never will try to revolt when they truly doing well.
you do know how many people are employed by the CCP to post on behalf of party lines of social media, right?
it's (generally) wu mao a post - i hope you're making a little more on account of being a special laowai.
even beyond that you have the problem of self-censorship and confirmation bias. but don't let reality get in the way of what looks suspiciously like broad-lensed subjectivity. if it's fat, veiny and insistent, chances are it's a cock.
2d - not good. half of them are probably fuckin' radioactive. blinky style (RIP sam simon)
had i been wise, i would have seen that her simplicity cost her a fortune
khazalid wrote:you do know how many people are employed by the CCP to post on behalf of party lines of social media, right?
Are you suggesting that all those people on Quora are wu mao?
If you knew much about the wu mao then you'd know that their primary role is to guide opinion in China. They post on Chinese websites, in Chinese. The other thing to note is that they generally either parrot the government's line or throw out silly straw men to derail conversations about sensitive topics. Either way, most of what they say is just nonsense. I don't think there is any valid comparison between what the people on Quora and I are saying, and a wu mao post.
even beyond that you have the problem of self-censorship and confirmation bias.
Nope. You just have the problem of not really thinking about what I'm saying, as evidenced by the fact that instead of engaging with the content of my posts you have chosen to just accuse me of being a government agent instead. Good going.
now now, i think you're stretching it somewhat to frame that as an 'accusation', given that my assumption (incorrect) was that you are non-native. my point was merely that there's a vast cottage industry of obfuscation and double-think embedded in social media to stand alongside the more overt censorship and selective reporting of the traditional media.
in any case, i guess it is apparent that there is some geographical variation in regards to the original question..
had i been wise, i would have seen that her simplicity cost her a fortune
khazalid wrote:now now, i think you're stretching it somewhat to frame that as an 'accusation', given that my assumption (incorrect) was that you are non-native. my point was merely that there's a vast cottage industry of obfuscation and double-think embedded in social media to stand alongside the more overt censorship and selective reporting of the traditional media.
lol, yeah the message boards do take quite a lot of getting used to.
in any case, i guess it is apparent that there is some geographical variation in regards to the original question..
Re the amount of actual, detailed knowledge that people have then yes, I imagine it is true that Beijingers will know more than people from most other parts of the country.
I can't link to individual photos, but there are plenty of banners calling for Democracy and Liberty.
The showing was quickly labeled a democracy movement by western media, and to some extent that was true. Students spoke of bringing minzhu (democracy) to China, and trumpeted the idea on painted banners (some, including a group from the China Academy of Fine Arts, even had T-shirts printed up). But the students were not just calling for one-man, one-vote politics. They called for intellectual and social reforms such as a freer press; recanting by the government of campaigns against “spiritual pollution” and “bourgeois liberalism;” more funding for education and the recognition that their movement was patriotic and not counter-revolutionary; and, presciently, the disclosure of wealth and assets of leaders and their families to avoid corruption. “Down with nepotism, fight corruption,” went a song sung by students at Tiananmen to the tune of “Are You Sleeping?” “We ask for democracy, we ask for freedom. Forward!”
Then surely you know of the Goddess of Democracy statue that was erected then. It's very famous. Several of the university campuses here in Hong Kong have copies of it.
Click image to enlarge.
Back to Jones's account:
The following night, the PLA shot its way into Tiananmen, killing scores of people — mostly workers and citizens out to kan renao. I was out filming video, but when I went back to my room at the Beijng Hotel to use the phone to file radio reports, I was accosted in the lobby by a group of police led by a Public Security Bureau officer whose given name I still remember: “Jianhua,” or “build China.” My two-hour videotape, full of recordings, was confiscated.
I’ve long wondered if Jianhua was his real name. Chinese authorities hint subtly at blame and heroics by the names of people involved. Three PLA soldiers, said to have been killed and then burned or hanged by enraged mobs, were hailed as martyrs, and makeshift memorials were immediately set up where they died. Their names, according to government-controlled media, were Li Guorui, Liu Guogeng and Cui Guozheng. “Guo,” the middle character in the names of all three, means “country.”
The buses were used as barricades by the crowds. The army smashed through them, leaving them burning.
I find people from mainland China woefully misinformed about June 4th. Some people laugh, thinking that I'm joking when I talk about what happened. One person thought something happened back in the 1960s, having no idea that June 4th happened in 1989.
Again, from Jones:
One who speaks out is Zhang Xianling, a co-founder of the group Tiananmen Mothers — parents whose children were killed that night in 1989. “If the government is sensible, next year is the 25th anniversary and they could designate a spot where we could march,” Zhang, 76 at the time, told me a year ago. She and families of other Tiananmen victims are closely watched, and kept from gathering together at Wan’an Cemetery, where several of their children are buried. Zhang’s son was shot across the street from the Great Hall of the People, where he went to kan renao and take pictures. He bled to death. Although it’s a sad anniversary, “if you want to commemorate it, you should be able to commemorate it," Zhang told me. "That would be an enlightened government."
Such permission is unlikely anytime soon. The “6-4 incident” is mentioned only in passing in reference material as a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. “I never heard anything about June 4,” a friend in her late 20s told me by text from China this week. “All we learned in school was what Japan did to us,” she said, referring to the Chinese preoccupation about being wronged by Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. “I’ve never learned anything bad about China, ever … in my whole life.”
College students in the U.S. from China, seeing video I took in 1989, are flabbergasted. “Just … wow!” said one last week, who was floored that students her own age would actually care about the direction of China, and dare to criticize Communist Party leaders by name (especially Deng Xiaoping). “All people care about now is making money and buying an apartment,” she said. I heard the same sentiment many, many times from locals in China.
This week I spoke by phone with another friend in China, a young person of 25 who was born in 1989. “We can’t talk about that!” this friend said about this week’s anniversary with a laugh. “But it’s important to discuss because the government of China is not confident, and doesn’t like discussing things openly such as 6-4,” said the friend. “Making it so mysterious means no one can assess it. It shows a lack of confidence by the world’s second-largest economy.”
Here's an article from Christopher Beam:
Awareness of the Tiananmen incident among young Chinese tends to correlate with education level, exposure to the world outside China, and general curiosity. Wang, a goofy 26-year-old from Lanzhou who works in finance, didn’t learn about June 4 until he was in college and saw The Gate of Heavenly Peace, an American-produced documentary about the student protests and the ensuing crackdown. It was only then that he started to understand the motivations behind the movement, the tensions between liberal and hardline factions within Deng Xiaoping’s government, and the infighting among students and workers that ultimately doomed their cause. Liu, who is 31 and works at a Chinese media organization, saw the same documentary after graduating college, and had a different takeaway: “The government is an asshole.”
Most Chinese parents don’t talk about politics with their children, said Amy, a bright 26-year-old from Guangdong province who works for a tech company in Beijing. But she was an exception: she heard about the incident from her father. “He hated Deng Xiaoping,” she said. “He thinks Deng caused China to have no morals, no beliefs. I asked why, and he said, ‘Deng Xiaoping ordered tanks to run over college students. Do you think that’s what a good person does?’” Later, when she was attending a top university in Beijing, one of her professors showed photos and videos from the protests. “The teacher told us not to mention it outside class,” she said.
“When I heard about [the crackdown] I was so shocked,” said Susan, 27, over a latte at a Costa Coffee in Beijing. She spoke fluent English and wore big blue contact lenses that make the wearer look like an extraterrestrial. She was two years old when the tanks rolled through her neighborhood in northern Beijing, but it wasn’t until college that she learned what happened, after an American classmate raised the subject. “I don’t know how the government could do that to its own people,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to—it was too crazy.” But even now, she’s not completely clear on the details, partly because it’s so hard to get information. “You can type ‘1988’ into a search engine, and you get nothing,” she said. I asked if she meant 1989. “Yeah, ’89, sorry.”
Here's an interview from NPR's Louisa Lim about the current understanding of the famous Tank Man picture, one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century:
But I want to touch on your recent reporting because it's incredible, even though we are handwringing over what's happening to people in China, there are people being detained. There are people there who really don't know what the fuss is about. You went to four universities. You brought along a copy of that image that we were speaking of - the iconic picture of Tank Man. What did you find?
LIM: Well, I was very surprised to discover how few students actually recognized that image. I mean, at first I hadn't really known what to expect. But you read so much about Internet penetration in China and how that's breaking down the government control over information - the fact that China now has 618 million Internet users.
These kids who are at the top universities, for sure they'll be on the Internet and for sure they would know how to get around government controls and find out about things like 1989 if they wanted to do so. And yet, when I produced the picture of Tank Man and showed it to them, there were a lot of very blank faces with no flicker of recognition whatsoever.
YOUNG: Let's listen to some of that interaction.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LIM: Have you seen that picture before?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: No.
LIM: Never?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Is it from South Korea?
LIM: Have you seen this picture before?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I'm sorry, I don't know.
LIM: Never seen it?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: It's not in China, right?
LIM: It is in China.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: It is in China. Where?
LIM: Have you seen this picture before?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: No.
LIM: Never?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: I have no memory about it.
****************
YOUNG: Well, Louisa, I want to ask you more about that experiment, taking that picture around. But as I was hearing your reporting, I was wondering how was she able to take that picture around? I mean, was there security? I mean, were you nervous during that?
LIM: I was quite nervous. I mean, I actually had a journalist card. So, you know, I had absolute license to be walking around asking people questions. And there was no security around. But it was astonishing the extent to which I myself had internalized government censorship, that I actually got quite worried that perhaps someone would turn me into the university authorities and that I might get detained just for showing a picture in public.
And, I mean, I should say, only 15 out of the 100 students that I interviewed could recognize that picture. So actually the chances of being turned in weren't really that high. But it was just how nervous I was. And it made me realize how difficult it is for people who know what happened to talk about it. If I who has a card has a license to talk about it and I'm feeling so nervous, what would ordinary people be feeling?
YOUNG: Well, let's listen to one of those 15 that actually knew what you were showing him. Let's listen.
LIM: Have you seen this picture before?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Oh, my God, yes.
LIM: I'm surprised how few people know here.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Actually, in this school, in this university, many students actually know this.
LIM: But many don't know. More people don't know that know. Many kids have never seen this before.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yes, government does not let us know.
"Hundreds of thousands" is too high an estimate of the deaths, though.
The number that generates the most discussion around the Tiananmen massacre, which began 25 years ago today, is typically the death toll. China's official statistic is 241 dead, which virtually no one believes. Two eyewitness accounts, by a Swiss ambassador and the Red Cross, estimated that 2,600 or 2,700 were killed in Beijing alone, just one of the cities where Chinese troops mowed down peaceful protesters. Both estimates were withdrawn under Chinese government pressure.
Surely mrswdk is not wu mao. For one thing, his English is far too good. Many wu mao post on English-language websites critical of China, but their English is obviously broken.
Here's a list of Japan's apologies for WWII from Wikipedia:
Japan’s conservative government will abide by official apologies that the country’s leaders made two decades ago to the victims of World War II in Asia, top officials said Tuesday, backing away from earlier suggestions that the government might try to revise or even repudiate the apologies.
Japan formally apologized in 1993 to the women who were forced into wartime brothels for Japanese soldiers, and in 1995 to nations that suffered from Japanese aggression during the war. Both apologies rankled Japanese ultranationalists, and there were concerns that the hawkish current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, would try to appeal to them by whitewashing Japan’s wartime atrocities, a step that would probably infuriate Japan’s neighbors.
What did you find out? Is Japan as unrepentant about its past as its neighbors claim?
Yes. But it’s not as simple as that.
It’s true, Japan has not been as repentant as Germany or other countries that have faced up to the darker sides of their past. Japan has apologized for waging aggressive war and oppressing its neighbors, but those apologies have fumbling and awkward, and often been undercut by revisionist statements from senior politicians. Japan has offered relatively little compensation to the victims. And to this day there are no nationally sponsored museums or monuments that acknowledge Japanese aggression or atrocities.
But Japan has been far more repentant than is often credited. Prime ministers have repeatedly offered apologies for their country’s misdeeds. Japan has sponsored joint historical research with both South Korea and China. Most Japanese school textbooks deal with issues like the Nanjing massacre and the colonial oppression of Koreans in a fairly open manner. Opinion polls suggests that most Japanese feel their country did things in Asia for which the country should apologize.
The “history” debate that constantly attends Japan postulates that the country has never apologized for past aggression within the region. In fact, Japan has provided Asian countries with assistance that was a form of compensation. The Asian Women’s Fund lacked clarity, but Tokyo offered payments to victims of sexual slavery. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama declared in 1995 that Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression (…) caused tremendous damage and suffering,” expressing his “remorse and (…) heartfelt apology.”
Earlier, in 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono spoke of “the involvement of the military authorities” in the “comfort women” issue and added that “Japan would like (…) to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those (…) who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable (…) wounds.” Several prime ministers wrote to surviving sex slaves noting that “with an involvement of the Japanese military (…) [it] was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women. (…) our country, painfully aware of its moral responsibilities, with feelings of apology and remorse, should face up squarely to its past.”
I've had a number of Japanese friends over the years, starting at university and now in Hong Kong, and I can say they, along with Koreans, are the kindest, most thoughtful people I have known. That's not to take anything away from Chinese people, either, who I also love and respect deeply. Mrswdk, it bothers me greatly to hear you denigrate an entire people group over actions that have been repeatedly admitted and apologized for. I haven't yet read the CCP's apologies for June 4th or the Cultural Revolution.
A couple of points about those Tiananmen articles.
I was accosted in the lobby by a group of police led by a Public Security Bureau officer whose given name I still remember: “Jianhua,” or “build China.” My two-hour videotape, full of recordings, was confiscated.
I’ve long wondered if Jianhua was his real name. Chinese authorities hint subtly at blame and heroics by the names of people involved. Three PLA soldiers, said to have been killed and then burned or hanged by enraged mobs, were hailed as martyrs, and makeshift memorials were immediately set up where they died. Their names, according to government-controlled media, were Li Guorui, Liu Guogeng and Cui Guozheng. “Guo,” the middle character in the names of all three, means “country.”
The author implies that these are made up names on the basis that they are patriotic. I'll be generous and assume that he merely knows very little about China or Chinese culture - such naming of children was fairly common under Mao, especially during the Cultural Revolution era (mid-60s to mid-70s). Assuming that all the policeman and soldiers mentioned in this article were grown adults in 1989, it is highly likely that they would have patriotic names. There is no reason to assume that any of those names were made up in some sort of bizarre attempt at propaganda.
“I never heard anything about June 4,” a friend in her late 20s told me by text from China this week.
I'm going to straight up say she's lying. I doubt I'm mistaken.
“All people care about now is making money and buying an apartment,” she said. I heard the same sentiment many, many times from locals in China.
This one is rather the point I've been making. People are not interested in grand political debate or overhauling the system - they are more concerned with just living their lives.
But I want to touch on your recent reporting because it's incredible, even though we are handwringing over what's happening to people in China, there are people being detained. There are people there who really don't know what the fuss is about. You went to four universities. You brought along a copy of that image that we were speaking of - the iconic picture of Tank Man. What did you find?
LIM: Well, I was very surprised to discover how few students actually recognized that image. I mean, at first I hadn't really known what to expect. But you read so much about Internet penetration in China and how that's breaking down the government control over information - the fact that China now has 618 million Internet users.
These kids who are at the top universities, for sure they'll be on the Internet and for sure they would know how to get around government controls and find out about things like 1989 if they wanted to do so. And yet, when I produced the picture of Tank Man and showed it to them, there were a lot of very blank faces with no flicker of recognition whatsoever.
I have no idea what this genius was expecting. Walking around a university campus with the Tank Man photo, stopping random people in the street and asking if they recognize it? Of course everyone will say no.
And besides, even if they genuinely don't recognize it, that doesn't prove that they know nothing about June 4th. Maybe some American students wouldn't recognize the Abu Ghraib photos, but that doesn't mean they have no idea what happened in Abu Ghraib. What a fool.
And lastly, to address one of the things you said:
I find people from mainland China woefully misinformed about June 4th. Some people laugh, thinking that I'm joking when I talk about what happened. One person thought something happened back in the 1960s, having no idea that June 4th happened in 1989.
That depends on several things, including the age of the person you speak to and, in your case, the fact that you are foreign (and especially that you are a Westerner).
Age. For someone who is currently 25 or under, this is something that happened before they come from. As far as I recall you teach English in HK, generally to university students. That would put most of the people you come into contact with in the demographic of people who are too young to really have much of a clue anyway. How many young (25> years old) Americans would be able to tell you much about the US invasion of Panama in 1989?
The fact you're foreign. Even if the way in which you start discussing the issue is fairly sensitive, it is entirely likely that a Mainlander who knows all about the June 4th incident would still act oblivious. Most people simply don't want to discuss stuff like this with foreigners. Culturally, they're not going to want to criticize China in front of foreigners and certainly won't want to encourage foreigners to criticize China. Unless you're good friends with them, or unless they are looking for any excuse they can get to bad mouth the government, don't expect a Mainlander to give you any ammunition for criticism of the government or even of China in general. Everyone in the world seems to be queuing up to take a pop at China, and Chinese people abroad are fairly sick of having to listen of it. If they don't know you very well, or if there are other foreigners also listening, they're going to err on the side of caution and just avoid the subject.
To use another American analogy: imagine you're an American in Europe and someone you don't really know starts trying to talk to you about what the American government did in Vietnam. Would you be keen to have a big debate with them?
Mrswdk, surely you can use more persuasive rhetoric than ad hominem attacks like "she's lying" and "this genius." When the facts don't fit a person's understanding/worldview, then either more facts are needed, or one's perspective needs reevaluating.
You're probably right about the Abu Ghirab photos. But I'm willing to bet that if you show 100 university students JFK in Dallas ion November 22, 1963, at least 90% will be able to tell you who the man is and what is about to happen to him.
Well, maybe it depends on where you are. Some folks in Mississippi don't actually know that New York is in the same country.
As an American, I've been more than willing to talk about what the US did in Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, Japanese internment camps, and the Trail of Tears.
This was a bright, engaging young woman, and she thought Tienanmen Square happened in the 1960s. The Hong Kongers present couldn't believe it. You're certainly right that Chinese students, both from Hong Kong and the mainland, are not keen to discuss China's human rights issue, and no mainland student I've met has ever been critical of the Communist party. What's been surprising to me is Hong Kong students' criticism of the party. I didn't expect to find that.
macbone wrote:Mrswdk, surely you can use more persuasive rhetoric than ad hominem attacks like "she's lying" and "this genius." When the facts don't fit a person's understanding/worldview, then either more facts are needed, or one's perspective needs reevaluating.
The point about that girl lying links back to a bunch of other stuff I've already posted. The fact that something happened is not hidden, and indeed is widely talked about by a lot of people (including young people). For her to know literally nothing about any June 4th incident is rather incredible. Then add in what I said about people being highly unwilling to talk to outsiders about this stuff (especially when they're are sending texts to foreign numbers) and the chances that she is lying are pretty high.
I addressed the Tank Man journalist directly in my previous reply. I did not simply chuck in some ad hominem and leave it at that.
You're probably right about the Abu Ghirab photos. But I'm willing to bet that if you show 100 university students JFK in Dallas ion November 22, 1963, at least 90% will be able to tell you who the man is and what is about to happen to him.
I'm not denying that the government here has censored information relating to June 4th.
As an American, I've been more than willing to talk about what the US did in Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, Japanese internment camps, and the Trail of Tears.
Well maybe that's just a cultural difference then. Like I said, start talking to a mainlander about pollution, free speech, Xinjiang or whatever and they'll clam up. They're just not going to discuss those things with an outsider, and will quite possibly be suspicious of your motives for asking.
This was a bright, engaging young woman, and she thought Tienanmen Square happened in the 1960s.
Meh. What that says to me is that she simply wasn't curious enough about what had happened to try and find out. Like I said, plenty of people just aren't interested in turning over those kinds of stones.
What's been surprising to me is Hong Kong students' criticism of the party. I didn't expect to find that.
Really? What sort of views did you anticipate HK students expressing?
The thing in all this is that it's very easy to sit there, somewhere else in the world, criticizing a culture and society that one knows very little about and has no stake in, but it's something else entirely to really understand that society, and to make a call about that society's future when your future is actually intertwined with its success.
A lot of Western commentators don't understand why Chinese people have little interest in pursuing Western-style democracy or why the wounds of imperialist expansion into China are still raw. By the same token, a lot of Chinese people can't understand how the UK could allow Scotland to vote on independence, or how the French president could support Charlie Hebdo cartoonists when they drew Muhammed and provoke an atrocity. It's just two groups of people who have very different perspectives of the world around them.
And if China were to open up public speech, start holding some sort of elections etc., and China were to go the same way that the USSR did as a result, then what? American observers could just shrug, say 'oops' and go about their lives. On the other hand, Chinese people (and their children, and their grandchildren) would have to suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives. To some, the question of China's development is just a theoretical game for a rainy day; to others, its a question on which their whole future is staked.
June 4th, 1989 is a historical irrelevance already. Chinese society has moved on. Would today's government send tanks on to the streets to drive out crowds of protestors? No. So what would be learned from discussing June 4th? That a previous government born of an old era messed up? There's simply no need to open that box, and most people here have no inclination to do so. It's like the wife who suspects her husband may have cheated on her when they were younger - he doesn't cheat on her now, so why pull at that thread? The pair of them have their lives to get on with and make the most of. China is growing rapidly and people's lives are improving dramatically as a result. What else matters?
mrswdk wrote:A lot of Western commentators don't understand why Chinese people have little interest in pursuing Western-style democracy or why the wounds of imperialist expansion into China are still raw. By the same token, a lot of Chinese people can't understand how the UK could allow Scotland to vote on independence, or how the French president could support Charlie Hebdo cartoonists when they drew Muhammed and provoke an atrocity. It's just two groups of people who have very different perspectives of the world around them.
does anyone in your circle of friends actually care about the self-determination of other nations that are not within a circle of chinese influence? even in respects to taiwan, hk.. - it's just not something that people generally have a strong opinion on unless the govt. choose to make it an issue. the chinese (as a generalised whole) are by far the most insular people i've come across, with all of the baggage that comes with that (namely casual racism, which is so insidious that i've almost stopped noticing it). i do know a nigerian guy studying here who speaks fluent mandarin, and he has some real horror stories.
in regards your charlie hebdo reference - the marginalisation and mistreatment of the uyghur minority, much? my chinese is not good enough to follow cctv broadcasts, granted, but i'd be absolutely floored if there was any mention of them being anything other than black and white terrorists, a la GWB's axis of evil. how can what's happened to them be termed any other way than 'provocation'?
most (certainly not all) chinese people have little interest in pursuing western style democracy because it has been systematically ground out of them over the course of the last 30 years. for all it's advances and successes, this is still a totalitarian state where draconian punishment for not toeing the line is the norm, and the vast majority of the populace are kept willfully ignorant of themselves and the world around them.
disclaimer: i like chinese people! there are faults in every society and system of governance.
had i been wise, i would have seen that her simplicity cost her a fortune
mrswdk wrote:A lot of Western commentators don't understand why Chinese people have little interest in pursuing Western-style democracy or why the wounds of imperialist expansion into China are still raw. By the same token, a lot of Chinese people can't understand how the UK could allow Scotland to vote on independence, or how the French president could support Charlie Hebdo cartoonists when they drew Muhammed and provoke an atrocity. It's just two groups of people who have very different perspectives of the world around them.
does anyone in your circle of friends actually care about the self-determination of other nations that are not within a circle of chinese influence? even in respects to taiwan, hk..
If you started wittering about how Taiwan is a country then you would irritate most people here within about 5 seconds.
No one would ever advocate telling France or the UK how to deal with those issues. I'm just saying that people here observe and they don't understand the way France and the UK have dealt with those issues, much as you don't appear to understand why a Chinese person would not be bothered about having suffrage. My point is that people from different places see these issues in a different light, and have different values and different ways of running their respective societies.
in regards your charlie hebdo reference - the marginalisation and mistreatment of the uyghur minority, much? my chinese is not good enough to follow cctv broadcasts, granted, but i'd be absolutely floored if there was any mention of them being anything other than black and white terrorists, a la GWB's axis of evil. how can what's happened to them be termed any other way than 'provocation'?
I don't see the connection. A lot of people here would say that it is irresponsible and callous to draw pictures of Muhammed if you know that doing so is highly offensive to Muslims. I don't see how wishing for Xinjiang to integrate culturally and linguistically with the rest of China contradicts that. It's not like anyone here is advocating going to Xinjiang and behaving or speaking in a way that is derogatory to Islam.
most (certainly not all) chinese people have little interest in pursuing western style democracy because it has been systematically ground out of them over the course of the last 30 years
It couldn't possibly be because they're indifferent and don't care? Most people have a mind of their own, ya know. The government doesn't just write whatever it wants on people's brains and that's what they think.
This takes us straight back to what I said earlier, about people's values differing from culture to culture. You clearly value suffrage enormously, other people don't. They're not brainwashed, and you're not brainwashed. You just have different value systems.
I ascribe no inherent value to suffrage, it's just objectively better than disenfranchisement.
the aforementioned minorities would probably have integrated better, had they not been marginalised, persecuted, and had their cultural and historical identity systematically eroded from on-high, but that's just an optimistic guess - it hasn't always worked that way in the west.
had i been wise, i would have seen that her simplicity cost her a fortune
Taiwan is a country, mrswdk. It's not part of China. It has an elected president and its own military. Have you talked to Taiwanese people about Taiwan?
(Granted, if China wanted to take back Taiwan officially, they'd be able to overwhelm Taiwan's military easily. Nobody wants to see that happen, though - not China, not Taiwan, and not the U.S.)
Surely you're familiar with the old adage that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. History is studied to learn from the mistakes of the past and improve. Ignoring historical events is not the mark of the wise. It's quite Orwellian, actually.
I'll give you another example from recent history, the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, where unarmed marchers were beaten by state police, and one civil rights activist, James Reeb, was killed that night by a white group. The movie Selma is playing right now in Hong Kong. The US doesn't cover that up, doesn't pretend that Alabama state police attacked the protesters. Then-governor George Wallace refused to do anything to protect the marchers. I worked with a guy who was one of the state troopers there that day. He straight-up admitted that he had been on the wrong side of history, and he was honestly sorry.
The 50-year anniversary of the march was this year. In attendance were President Obama, former Prez George W. Bush, and one of Governor Wallace's grandchildren.
Here's what Obama said:
"So much of our turbulent history — the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war, the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow, the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher — met on this bridge," Obama told the crowd before taking a symbolic walk across part of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the 1965 march erupted into police violence.
"We just need to open our eyes, and ears, and hearts, to know that this nation's racial history still casts its long shadow upon us," Obama said.
Yet, he said, "if you think nothing's changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the '50s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing's changed. Ask your gay friend if it's easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago. To deny this progress - our progress - would be to rob us of our own agency, our responsibility to do what we can to make America better."
