

Google and China: Flowers for a funeral - seldo
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15267915

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chrischen
People in China are quite aware of the fact that the "thought police" are out
there, and poke fun at it all the time. They also know they are a developing
country. I hypothesize that the government gets away with this only because
it's still developing, and not enough people care about political stuff like
this... yet.

~~~
potatolicious
You're right, people in China are aware of this - and they bring it up all the
time... but God help you if _you_ (as a foreigner) do.

It's a common mentality with the Chinese (speaking as one myself)... only you
are allowed to criticize your kind, any outside criticism is presumptuous and
arrogant. This attitude pisses me off, since it prevents us from learning from
everyone else on this rock.

~~~
est
> only you are allowed to criticize your kind, any outside criticism is
> presumptuous and arrogant. This attitude pisses me off, since it prevents us
> from learning from everyone else on this rock.

Well it's generally true, one important factor is the Chinese way of thinking
& culture is very different from the western. Chinese has their own definition
of good and evil. It's easy to understand western beliefs, but it's damn
_hard_ to practice them.

Currently there's a trend on the Internet, that it's patriotism to damage
foreign companies, no matter what kind of dirty method you use. For
patriotism, any kind of line can be crossed.

Another example is Chinese people _actively reject_ the idea of universal
values no matter what content they are. I remember not long time ago a Party
official speaks to media , calls 'human right' an American thing, even though
it's ridiculous and laughed at after this made public, but it largely reflects
part of Chinese subconscious mind. There's no extend of human rights in
Chinese history & culture, or rarely advocated.

In my theory, this is a language barrier. Universal Values, human rights,
democracy are all looks clumsy foreign concepts, it's not native at all, it
looks like you are running a GTK app on Windows. It functions but it looks
_odd_.

To pass these ideas and stuff to China, I think direct porting (aka,
translating and interpreting) is very ineffective, it has to be rewritten from
the source code level, and use native Chinese APIs :)

~~~
chrischen
However on issues like Tibet, pretty much all my Chinese friends, whether they
grew up there or in the US, backed the government.

I think despite everything they're still quite patriotic. Probably due to a
lack of understanding that an illegitimate government is an entity seperate
from the Chinese people. They almost back the government as if it's a duty tof
being Chinese.

~~~
est
> Probably due to a lack of understanding that an illegitimate government is
> an entity seperate from the Chinese people. They almost back the government
> as if it's a duty tof being Chinese.

Yes, most people back the government because they think it's a duty of being
Chinese, even without any second thinking.

However, I don't quit agree with the 'separate entity' part. My theory is the
Chinese government is not a singularity of Communism or stuff, it's organic
instance of a class derived from Chinese culture. I assume even if aliens kill
_all_ Party members in a instance and establish a new government, years later
the government will do no better than the current one. There are really some
fucked shit in Chinese official-civil relationships. I can't explain it
completely but there's definitely a serious problem there. The government can
not be saved with democracy or whatever, it can only be cured by the Chinese
people itself.

------
netcan
It kind of caught me off guard hearing Techcrunch quoted in the Economist.
Kind of like having your mother buying Twilight stickers.

