To feel I've been lied to about China

I don't think anyone's mentioned yet the state executing people - they'd say 'criminals', whether they've actually done anything criminal is highly debatable - to meet the demand for donor organs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights

@beAsensible1 "America is having an outbreak and can’t eat fresh veg because their farms are covered in human waste due to torturous conditions for their farms workers"

where did you hear that? I thought they were looking for the source of the contaminated water. That's going to be a sewage issue.

I’m sorry this just does not ring true. After living in China for two years, you will have many friends there - probably both Western and Chinese if you’re in a major city, as you seem to be.

Surely you talk about China with them pretty much all the time? Why would you be coming on mumsnet to “check yourself?”

but China isn’t some specialist outlier boogieman that’s worse than the rest.

It really is. Do you know of any other country that has detained 1.5 million people in concentration camps over the last nine years, simply for being the 'wrong' ethnicity, @beAsensible1 ?

I love China I love a lots of Asia. I love infrastructure, ease of tech use and it’s seamlessness.

lots of peoples understating of foreign country outside of their continent it’s stuck on the last time they saw them in the news. No people or country is perfect.

but China isn’t some specialist outlier boogieman that’s worse than the rest. No country has a moral high ground. It’s extremely naive to pretend they do.

America is having an outbreak and can’t eat fresh veg because their farms are covered in human waste due to torturous conditions for their farms workers.
The UAE is funding mass civilian murder in Sudan. The USA is forcing societal collapse in Cuba. France in decimating Central African economies by forcing the use of CAF and storage of a percentage of those countries funds in French banks.

countries do bad shit daily.

What I can't get over is the fact all my friends seem to be indoctrinated into thinking China is this 1984 style hell hole where you can't criticise the government or do anything without being in constant fear.

In Xinjiang that is absolutely the case. If you're a Uighur, simply existing is enough to be in constant fear. Look at a han soldier or official funny (or have one claim that you did) and you'll be detained in the camps.

I can only assume that you're teaching in a large city in the east of the country. Because you sound stunningly naive about the country. Yes Shanghai and Beijing etc are modern metropolises where life can almost seem Western. But the bulk of the country (and particularly any non-Han regions) are very very different.

Well done on toeing the Party line. 🙄 You might want to talk to some Uyghurs, to name just one persecuted group. I recommend reading the extremely powerful memoir by the Uyghur poet and filmmaker Tahir Hamut Izgil. It might be eye-opening for you.

To add, there is indeed plenty of excellent infrastructure spread across the country. Trains in particular are great. But clearly a lot of corners are cut, a lot of parts of the country are neglected or actively oppressed, a lot of rural people are living 19th-Century lives while Shanghai’s elites are all the way ahead of us in the 22nd Century.

Not sure where you're going with this

Having worked with Chinese students, yes a lot of it really is that bad and were you expecting your colleague to be seized in imprisoned immediately?

I don't know what you mean about the infrastructure because I never heard that - by default the Chinese students tend to be quite well off but usually they think their infrastructure is better than ours.

I have never heard the like from a Western person who lived in China. It’s impossible that this is real. Even people who like lots about China - and I do - get culture shock over the absolute lack of freedom of expression.

I’ve visited China many times. In terms of infrastructure there is huge disparity across the country. If you are living in Shanghai I can see why you might think it’s incredible but, again, I’ve never met someone who lives in China and believed Shanghai was in any way representative of the whole country. Two years in you’d know that for sure.

Try harder next time!

Apologies for the duplication of my post upthread. I don't know how that happened.

There is the slightly strange thing once you leave big cities of people constantly wanting to be photographed with a white person,

We spent 3 weeks in China in April this year and this happened to people in our group in Tiananmen Square! I suppose as that is the place most Chinese people want to visit in Beijing then the people requesting the photos may have been from smaller, more remote, places.

Ever so many Christians from Hong Kong have left since it went back to China because of the repressive way the government has treated the since HK returned to Chonese ownership. Many have been unable to take all their money with them because of government bureaucracy. Their experience of HK China vs HK under Britain has been very negative.

Except you're expanding your personal experience to the whole, vast country.

My experience of China was very different from yours. The first time I was in rural Yunnan and having to use communal toilets every day (communal as in squatting over a hole or trench alongside several other people, with no dividing walls).

The second time I was in Xinjiang. It was just after the Urumqi riots, when the government had shut down the internet and to the area about with closing all international phone lines. To remain in touch with my family, I had to call another friend in China (outside Xinjiang) and he would pass on my messages.

Every town square was filled with soldiers drilling. There were convoys of military trucks with soldiers standing around the edges, their guns pointing ahead at us. I couldn't find accommodation because it had nearly all been taken over my the army. And when I did find a room, I discovered that every channel on the TV was only broadcasting propaganda. It was insane.

And now the Uighurs in the province are in concentration camps. I quote:
Between 500,000 and 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained or imprisoned in China's Xinjiang region since 2017. Human rights researchers and advocacy groups estimate that roughly 500,000 are currently held in formal prisons and high-security detention facilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China

But yes, China is absolutely fine. We're all completely wrong about it 🫤

Except you're expanding your personal experience to the whole, vast country.

My experience of China was very different from yours. The first time I was in rural Yunnan and having to use communal toilets every day (communal as in squatting over a hole or trench alongside several other people, with no dividing walls).

The second time I was in Xinjiang. It was just after the Urumqi riots, when the government had shut down the internet and to the area about with closing all international phone lines. To remain in touch with my family, I had to call another friend in China (outside Xinjiang) and he would pass on my messages.

Every town square was filled with soldiers drilling. There were convoys of military trucks with soldiers standing around the edges, their guns pointing ahead at us. I couldn't find accommodation because it had nearly all been taken over my the army. And when I did find a room, I discovered that every channel on the TV was only broadcasting propaganda. It was insane.

And now the Uighurs in the province are in concentration camps. I quote:
Between 500,000 and 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained or imprisoned in China's Xinjiang region since 2017. Human rights researchers and advocacy groups estimate that roughly 500,000 are currently held in formal prisons and high-security detention facilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China

But yes, China is absolutely fine. We're all completely wrong about it 🫤

I have visited China several times on business and so have a very limited experience, but I have to say I have really enjoyed everything about all of my visits. The cities I have visited have been clean and well-ordered, trains were easy to navigate for a foreigner with zero Mandarin/Cantonese, and I never felt under threat or in danger as I do in some European (and British) cities.

There is the slightly strange thing once you leave big cities of people constantly wanting to be photographed with a white person, including when I would be in a shop and realise that there was a family standing next to me to pose for a selfie with me without asking my permission, but to be honest that was mild compared with my Indian colleague who was treated like Hollywood royalty the number of people who were photographed with her. Presumably they saw even fewer Indians than Europeans.

But all that said, there was a compliance about people that seemed odd, even if they are allowed to grumble as you say @Sulettamercury. China is a huge country and generalisations are impossible. There are definitely parts that are not a third world country as we are led to believe, but I do wonder if people are encouraged to speak their mind rather than merely permitted to.

This reminds me of all the post World Cup posts about how the US isn't all bad.

Of course not! But it's a place where corruption is rampant and human rights abuses occur daily.

My son went there and loved it. He was in the big cities mainly and thought it was very modern and clean and interesting.
My other friend was half Chinese and traced her relatives back to a remote region in China. They had to get special permission to visit from the town official because free travel is restricted for foreigners in some areas. They found the relatives who were living in abject poverty farming rice. China is wealthy on the coast but has many problems in the country areas.