To feel I've been lied to about China

[Sulettamercury]

I'm well aware the country is far from perfect but no where is and I've just come back for the summer after spending 2 years there working as a teacher I'm going back in a few weeks.

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.

I have to say living there really opened my eyes and I was shocked when in my first months of teaching one of the Chinese workers (now a good friend) started openly moaning about government policy and I'll admit I was nervous at the time but soon realised nothing would happen and that despite what I was told no one came after her and she didn't disappear and that every one was moaning about government policy if it didn't suit them with no consequences.

The infrastructure is also wonderful and far from the cheap rubbish you're told it is and housing isn't all on the verge of collapse or at least no worse than some of the rubbish I've seen here in the UK

Again it's definitely not perfect but AIBU to say I I feel like we're lied to in the west about how bad China really is and that some of the things we accuse them of we either do ourselves or we blow out of proportion?

A lot of online wumao'ers tend to mention that China 'never tried invade anyone'...so what were all those Maoist guerillas in the 1950s and 1960s in Malaysia,Indonesia,Nepal and India who fought and died for a Communist Asia?

Interesting, unquestionably. But safe? I guess it's safe if you're not a Uyghur, a Christian, a Tibetan, LGBT, anyone who expresses dissenting views. . .

Are you struggling with nuance?

Nice attempt at deflection, but it doesn't wash. Nobody's saying other regimes are perfect - and the US certainly isn't. But attempts to position them as two peas in a pod is absolutely laughable. These things are relative, much as the Chinese authorities would like us all to believe otherwise.

Yes. I am an average straight female and I've found china to be safer than many other countries for females and children.

I misread.

Are you trying to be funny?

O, I don’t think so! 🤣😆🤣

I notice OP disappeared some time ago.

I think a Chinese government sponsered cyber unit was testing their new "soft power language software" out on live sites..wumao a pop.It adds up if you're a hard up spy with limited English wanting a Freddo chocolate bar at the end of a hard shift typing pish.

Yes, the English teacher who has never used a comma?

I guess the safety of other populations doesn't concern you at all. I'm all right, Jack.

Chinas ambassador is now denying they own state media outlets that have been portraying Filipinos as monkeys

https://nitter.net/ABSCBNNews/status/2079743900886155526#m

https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2026/7/22/chinese-envoy-distances-beijing-from-china-daily-s-monkey-video-on-filipinos-0008

The Chinese public will joke about racial things and about themselves in a good humoured way...but the state thinking is of the lines of the Han race being an extant race that is competition with the 'other'.A lot of scientific eugenics going on the state media-they clearly understand the implications of what they term 'laobaiming'-'old hundred names'.That they lack variation in genes and it will cause further issues on a large scale,so they promote selective breeding (for cash prizes in some areas) in their ethnic areas and abroad for this reason...westerners would call it 'transactional slavery'...and how they promote it.. is well...they are doing the 'lesser races' a favour.

Selective breeding!?

I know there's a trade in foreign brides as a long term effect of son preference and the one child policy.

There's also one in the western states of India because son preference.

Chinas favourite trade ally Pakistan has been a source for women alongside Vietnam and Thailand
https://www.newarab.com/news/hundreds-pakistani-girls-sold-brides-china

Inner Mongolia is a fairly recent example where Chinese men are paid and supported if they can marry a ethnic Mongolian female.Its like a hideous gameshow level over there-"Win a an electric car'".
They are expanding this to pretty much anywhere they can.Transportation and sale of mainly poor females to a strange country where they can t speak the language on a mass scale under the guise of economic expansion.
Bear in mind, China has a very strong national fear about what we term 'inbreeding'-

"Around 2,000 Han Chinese surnames are currently in use, but 19 of these surnames are used by about half of the Han Chinese people. About 87% of the population share 100 surnames."

Some of that is adoptive clan fostering,but you see why westerners think Chinese people look similar?

I hope the original poster has given up their ambition/past time to spy and post for the C.C.P.

"more chins than a Beijing phone book" has some truth in it then