Quote:
Originally Posted by Henbaka
"Just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in..."
Well. In my mind you came off as saying "I was there for a few weeks, so I know how it is there". Why even mention it when it doesn't really give you any extra credibility when discussing the problems of such a (as you also point out) massive country?
Let me just ask you this; is media free in China? Can reporters report on and write stories about any topic they please? Because in western countries they can. (I'm not trying to make this east vs west, plenty of eastern countries have free press I'm sure). What about Tiananmen Square? Do you think reporters can speculate and write articles about that?
You tell others to not prejudge, but people aren't prejudging, they are listening to what they believe to be credible journalists' accounts, rather than taking the official word of a single-party state that "everything's fine".
Ehh barbaric because they rode bikes? First I've heard of that.
Anyways I actually didn't wanna get stuck in a China discussion, but I guess I failed a bit there.. But I will never ever trust a single-party state to be a working (in the sense beyond just economic growth) solution.
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It may not REALLY give me extra credability, but it does give me a better insight on life in china compared to what you see on TV. Most people are scared of China, even I was slightly worried from all the stories on TV. BUT, being there opened my eyes, so it IS important that went there, but I NEVER said it made me an expert.
I don't think you should talk for the people. In my experience, most people I see are pretty racist against the chinese, especially when China appears on the news. I've witnissed this mainly in France. England doesn't seem too bothered, but that might have to do with the fact that most people in England don't really care what the news tells them, especially about what doesn't really concern England. But then again, that might just be the people I hang around with...
Is the media free? I don't know, but I don't see why it shouldn't be. Like the question Ronin4hire so convinienlty dodged earlier in this thread, if the chinese recieve news from abroad (proven, because they boycotted french products due to french protests), wouldn't they do something about their so-called lying/hiding media? I cannot give you a definate yes or no, as I don't know any chinese dialects to check, but if you watch CCTV english or french, they seem to show everything that the west shows. Sometimes, they even talk about what other channels have said. Sometimes, they agree (for instance, Chinese should be more considerate and cue up instead of pushing to be first), and sometimes they disagree (i.e. Tibet issue. you know what the west say, the Chinese say it was an organised thing from Anti-Chinese government groups within Tibet and surrounding areas).
Can reporters, report........ Same answer as above. I wouldn't dare say anything for SURE, same as I wouldn't say anything for sure about western media.
Tiananmen Square... Well, I don't know what answer you're looking for, but different people have different feelings about it (Chinese I know). Whether they write about it or not, I wouldn't know...
I'm not surprised that you haven't heard about it. I doubt it'd ever be mentioned on western news or tv. Just like you'll hardly ever hear about how people were talking about a global cooling a couple decades ago. The only people you'll hear that from is anti-(human made global warming) fenatics...
As for the last part... Whatever floats your boat I guess... I'm not gonna argue with that... That's your opinion and you're fully intitled to that...