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  • Very interesting history and culture, plastered over with bland authoritarian turbo-capitalism that disguises itself as communism.

  • Massive cities with LED buildings, beautiful mountains with paved hiking trails all the way to the top and gondolas to get down, Long queues that are still orderly and move quickly, families eating large meals outside, friendly and very curious people.

    I've spent a lot of time there. Compared to the west the cost of living is super cheap especially for all the options and amenities you get. Even in the hippest part of Chongqing I could rent an apartment 2x the size of my house for half the mortgage. If the US is headed towards a permanent authoritarian regime I would trade life here for over there. At least their dictator appreciates science and education.

  • The internet has really fucked my brain, because the first thing that comes up in my head is an old meme of The Orange One (back when he hadn't been president yet, and so was funny instead of scary) saying "CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA" (sorry)

    AFTER that -- Disney's Mulan, and all the orientalist aesthetics that come with it (sorry²)

    And AFTER that -- Years of internet discourse trying to convince me that a growth in Chinese international power would be worse than the US holding that position alone, which I find EXTREMELY hard to believe as a third world citizen whose home nation has been fucked in the butthole by the Americans like seven different times in lived memory (NOT sorry)

    Then AFTER that -- The stories told by my one friend who lived there for a few months. To be honest they made China seem like a pretty cool place to live in. Or at the very least, a fun experience as an exchange student.

    And AFTER all that -- Bootleg video games. They are interesting!

  • Authortarianism and censorship to the point where I can never return to my former homeland until that changes for the better. No worker's rights. Human rights issues in the north and west in areas that weren't part of China historically.

    Possible conflict with Taiwan (if that happens than I'd be sent to the camps to die by orange cheeto, unless I leave).

    1.4 billion people & had the One Child policy for the longest time.

    Lots of enviornmental problems, air pollution (and apparently much of the country has really really hot heat indices in the summer, avg high of 40C and low of 30C already.... no thanks).

    Really difficult language to learn (tried to learn it back when I was in school, couldn't really and basically forgot it all).

  • Thiefs, low quality, dictatorship, murders, will probably try to fuck up my life in the future.

    • Dude that is the USA. They do have knife guys occasionally but nothing is as terrifying as being a US grade student with an active shooter warning on campus. Besides Japan I've never felt safer that over there.

      • Do you folk have any other talking points than "but USA bad"? This question is not about USA, it's about fucking China.

        You sure nothing's as terrifying? I think being an Uyghur in a Chinese concentration camp might be even worse.

  • I think of China as a country that pretends to be communist while making cheap products that vary in quality. I also think of the nice people that live there though.

  • My stance is kind of 50/50 with China.

    For one, they're going to flame out even faster than America did. As time moves forward great powers last less and less time. America only held the crown for 80 years. Chinas got its own issues, especially with the population issues.

    Yes, China has a laundry list of human rights abuses. We know all of them, I shouldn't have to list them here. China also is an aggressor country, harassing their neighbors and intimidating them for often no reason at all, and when there is a reason, it's territorial expansion. They steal IP, they steal identities and secrets (yes I know, stealing secrets is an everybody issue, and I'll get to that, but it's usually done with more class) and they gave our kids toys with lead in them. You could seriously go on for days on the bad stuff about China. The belt and road? Fuck, that's so, so bad... However

    They're also leading in science and especially the environment. They've spent big money on their science, and it's paid off in spades for them and it's commendable from an international standpoint. No country on earth is fighting climate change harder than China. From advances in solar panels bringing the cost of clean energy down, and giving the ability to electrify places of the world that have never experienced it? That's pretty dope. Plus their electric car tech is blowing up so hard that it's actually kind of reasonable to tariff it, because they're so far ahead.

    Now the gre(a)y, I'm an American. Half the shit that china does that's bad, was shit that we have been doing for generations. So yeah, china sucks shit. But does it suck more shit than America right now? I say no, but not by much, and mostly because a lot of the problems people try to put on China (i.e. pollution mostly) is because we facilitated that. If not them, it'd be our polluted air and water. And now, he wants to bring that manufacturing back here while deregulating pollutants AND enforcement. He saw 1990s Beijing and said "I want that for us". But basically, other than China's climate and science goals, were the same country. So the nod (barely) goes to China for being a more honorable or good country.

  • I'm into Taoism, so I think of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and Chinese philosophy. I love their sense of humor, and humility. I often daydream of a different life, being raised a monk in the Himalayas. A place I like to imagine when mediating

  • The sets of fancy expensive-looking porcelain plates and cups my older relatives all had on display in a glass-fronted cabinet for use on some theoretical special occasion, but no occasion was ever actually special enough to allow anyone to use it.

  • Eh, it's a country. I do dig American Chinese food, I know it's not the same.

    Chinese slave-workers helped build the American West, their contribution and sacrifice is rarely recognized.

74 comments