7/23/2019 China-The Hidden Side of Bad http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/china-the-hidden-side-of-bad 1/10 30/4/2014 Home - Quora http://www.quora.com/ 1/10 Leo Leo, Notre Dame MBAer, love movi... (more) 625 Votes by Richard Kulczak, Dennis Ferguson, Leung Kwan Pang, and622 more. I graduated from one of China's top universities 3 years ago. I would like to share a personal story to present you a glimpse of China. It was 2010, my junior year. One day, all junior students were summoned and demanded to attend a lecture. The speaker was a senior propaganda official of the Party, very high position. He was also a personal friend of the assistant dean. The topic was about the necessity of media censorship and regulation(crazy, huh? ). It was absurd, boring, and full of self-righteous ideology dogma. The official mentioned the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989*. And he tried to justify the military suppression and claimed that those college students who died in the suppression deserved it. I raised my hand and stood up, trying to refute his opinion and speak out my standpoints. I spoke with politeness. I still remember my voice was trembling a bit that day. I got a big round of applause from the other students. The official was furious by my confrontation and refused to answer me. So was the dean. Along with this confrontation came a two-year long nightmare. Every school in China has a political instructor, who is in charge of ideology education. It’s a representative of the Party. The instructor of my college defined me as the key target of her political education and ordered me to write an apology letter to confess what I did. I refused. Then she threatened me, in a hinted manner, that if I refused, I would lose my position in the college basketball team and my opportunity to be recommended to one of China’s top graduate schools. I hesitated, almost gave in. But after many inner struggles and with the support of my parents, I held my ground. I gave up my graduate study opportunity. I quit from the basketball team. It was really hard and painful. As for the question, well, I think such misconception results from a lack of knowledge about what is really going on in China. Is China evil? Absolutely not. I am not saying this out of any blind or misguided love to my motherland. (In fact, I am a follower of Oscar Wilde on patriotism). rom your digest email. 3h ago China: Given that the USA has started many wars while China has bee n at peace for decades, why do many countries (or people) still regard China as evil while USA not?
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625 Votes by Richard Kulczak, Dennis Ferguson, Leung Kwan Pang,
and622 more.
I graduated from one of China's top universities 3 years ago. I would like to
share a personal story to present you a glimpse of China.
It was 2010, my junior year. One day, all junior students were summoned and
demanded to attend a lecture. The speaker was a senior propaganda official of
the Party, very high position. He was also a personal friend of the assistant dean.
The topic was about the necessity of media censorship and regulation(crazy,
huh? ). It was absurd, boring, and full of self-righteous ideology dogma.
The official mentioned the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989*. And he tried to
justify the military suppression and claimed that those college students who died
in the suppression deserved it.
I raised my hand and stood up, trying to refute his opinion and speak out my
standpoints. I spoke with politeness. I still remember my voice was trembling a
bit that day. I got a big round of applause from the other students. The officialwas furious by my confrontation and refused to answer me. So was the dean.
Along with this confrontation came a two-year long nightmare. Every school in
China has a political instructor, who is in charge of ideology education. It’s a
representative of the Party. The instructor of my college defined me as the key
target of her political education and ordered me to write an apology letter to
confess what I did. I refused.
Then she threatened me, in a hinted manner, that if I refused, I would lose my
position in the college basketball team and my opportunity to be recommended
to one of China’s top graduate schools. I hesitated, almost gave in. But after
many inner struggles and with the support of my parents, I held my gr ound. I
gave up my graduate study opportunity. I quit from the basketball team. It was
really hard and painful.
As for the question, well, I think such misconception results from a lack of
knowledge about what is really going on in China. Is China evil? Absolutely not.I am not saying this out of any blind or misguided love to my motherland. (In
fact, I am a follower of Oscar Wilde on patriotism).
rom your digest email. 3h ago
China: Given that the USA has s tarted many wars while China has bee n at
peace for decades, why do many countries (or people) still regard China as
****Street Vendor’s Execution Stokes Anger in China
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Update:
I want to put an extra point into this topic. I once read some writings of ThomasJefferson and really admired his perspective on Democracy and Politics. It's a
very popular view that any government, either in democracy or in autocracy,
cannot be trusted. Many Chinese scholars and ordinary people like me have also
embraced this belief. The government is evil, I once believed, it stands opposite
of the people it rules and oppresses.
The reality, however, is much more complicated than this "black or white"
perspective.
Almost 1/3 of college students in China are the Party members (for the record,unlike many other countries, it takes a lot of complex procedures to join the
Party. Loyalty and obedience are the priority metrics).* This year, 1,520,000
college graduates (that is a roughly 20% of the total number of college graduates
of 2014, and this number is still soaring) took the civil service examination, to
contest for 15,000 government positions. **
Why such craziness? Because we all want to be a part of the "system".
Once you are in the government, you have job and life security, you have
higher social and economic status, you are among the privileged ones. If
you are a guy, you have an advantage of getting yourself a “better” wife, since
many parents in China want their children to marry those who work for the
government.
This consensus is even more popular among the uneducated, underprivileged,
poor people. Due to their low cogitative capability, they are much more likely to
accept the omnipresent political propaganda.
In China, corruption is not limited to the government. It has been a rule
we live by, a way we somehow all agree to more or less. Young parents
have to bribe their way to get their children to be admitted in a better
kindergarten. Family of hospital patients have to bribe their doctors to ensure
they can get full medical attention. Corporate giants pay their way to delete
online negative reports of them.
People do hate this “evil” government, only when they face direct
oppression and violence against them. Meanwhile, they are eager to be a
part of it like crazy. Such consensus, this grey area, has disturbed me for
years. The French philosopher, Joseph de Maistre, once said, “Every nation has
the government it deserves.” This quote might make some sense to explain the
paradoxical situations in China, although I feel reluctant to agree with it.
Data resource:
* The actual percentage is 40% last year, according to The Economist: Rushing