Aside from its portrayal of Chinese people as having a “collective insecurity” and a “chip-on-your-shoulder,” which are the only 2 parts that I agreed, this article’s depiction of Chinese people as a group is simply not true.
At its core, it is a kind of projection along the lines of: “I’m an enlightened, worldly Western person who is almost immune to propaganda, and Chinese people are a mixed bag, but overall they are xxx.”
This is not the social reality in China. As the author’s background indicates, this is the imagining of an American who moved to the States at the age of four and has some interest in China due to ancestry.
Just to give one example—because there isn’t enough space here, and I can’t be bothered to write out more:
> Here is the first verse of a popular children’s song: ...
And yet, in more than twenty years of my life interacting with people of different ages from all over China, I have never once heard of this supposedly “popular children’s song.”
After all this article is just another BS about “It is concerning how much China blablabla...” Actually, on _Social Reality in_ Chinese American is they consider those “Chinese Chinese” as basically gorillas, parading them in front of other European Americans as if to say: “Look, these Chinese Chinese are my ancestors! Let’s study them together—and just look at how much further we Chinese Americans have evolved compared with them.” It IS a fancy imagination for those who really don't know zero about what's the reality of the people in the GFW.
> And yet, in more than twenty years of my life interacting with people of different ages from all over China, I have never once heard of this supposedly “popular children’s song.”
how often have you talked about your own childhood songs?
I could have agreed with argument "children songs are regional/vary family-to-family", but personal second-hand experience is definitely not it
In fact, the reason I know this can’t be any kind of “popular childhood song” is that all genuinely popular childhood songs have themes like “blow up the school,” “git rid of your mom and dad,” “skip school,” and kids’ dirty jokes. It’s the same all over China.
And we do talk about it often.
This “childhood song” example is completely out of step with China’s social reality, just as you can easily recognize at a glance “an old British poem” forged by an American.
There’s a whole market for explaining other cultures to Americans wrongly but in terms that they can understand.
They’ll prefer to listen to that because this kind of communication is done using the language and concepts they understand. They’ll confidently and arrogantly tell other people what they are based on this „knowledge”.
Sha1rholder · · focus · HN ↗
At its core, it is a kind of projection along the lines of: “I’m an enlightened, worldly Western person who is almost immune to propaganda, and Chinese people are a mixed bag, but overall they are xxx.”
This is not the social reality in China. As the author’s background indicates, this is the imagining of an American who moved to the States at the age of four and has some interest in China due to ancestry.
Just to give one example—because there isn’t enough space here, and I can’t be bothered to write out more:
> Here is the first verse of a popular children’s song: ...
And yet, in more than twenty years of my life interacting with people of different ages from all over China, I have never once heard of this supposedly “popular children’s song.”
After all this article is just another BS about “It is concerning how much China blablabla...” Actually, on _Social Reality in_ Chinese American is they consider those “Chinese Chinese” as basically gorillas, parading them in front of other European Americans as if to say: “Look, these Chinese Chinese are my ancestors! Let’s study them together—and just look at how much further we Chinese Americans have evolved compared with them.” It IS a fancy imagination for those who really don't know zero about what's the reality of the people in the GFW.
NooneAtAll3 · · focus · HN ↗
how often have you talked about your own childhood songs?
I could have agreed with argument "children songs are regional/vary family-to-family", but personal second-hand experience is definitely not it
Sha1rholder · · focus · HN ↗
And we do talk about it often.
This “childhood song” example is completely out of step with China’s social reality, just as you can easily recognize at a glance “an old British poem” forged by an American.
kubb · · focus · HN ↗
They’ll prefer to listen to that because this kind of communication is done using the language and concepts they understand. They’ll confidently and arrogantly tell other people what they are based on this „knowledge”.
People ITT are loving it and enjoying it.
Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗