Really shook up lol, like its just insane whats normal to us is just… so alien to some others, i have a feeling of being blessed every time i open youtube or lemmy rn😭
People can just pack their bags and move to another state, or in case of Schengen, move to another country entirely.
To a Chinese, this would sound so strange. Like, on phone calls back to friends/relatives in China, I heard my mother constantly say things like “Omg did you know in America, you can just move to another State whenever you want?”… I mean, I’m 1.5 gen, so that always seemed normal to me, I never was old enough to actually experience Hukou and movement restrictions firsthand, so yeah, hearing my parents accounts of their experience… it was like a whole different world for them.
They’d talk about the Free Public Libraries, free school lunch thing (at least in NYC, some places didn’t have it), and the very few holidays they get from work. Like… people be complaining about not getting enough (which is a fair complaint btw, not trying to dismiss these concerns), but to someone from a place so deprived of these “normal” everyday stuff, “normal” seems like luxury.
Like, a random small house in some average/shitty American neighborhood still looked more beautiful than that slum apartment I used to live in, or worse, the villages that I was actually supposed to be. Living in Guangzhou wasn’t a right, it was a privilage. Any change in government policy means you could be kicked out back to your villages. Even though I was born in Guangzhou, I speak Cantonese like any native Guangzhou Resident (and obviously also Mandarin because its the national curriculum), I didn’t have the right to live in Guangzhou, Hukou is Taishan. No independent courts to challenge anything.
Also, we never had internet in China not in 2010, when we left. Americans had it since the 90s? Lol the digital divide. 20 years behind.
Also, did I mention already how I wasn’t supposed to be born lol. The fucking one child policy lol. My existence was illegal. My existence costed my parents a huge fine. But its funny how like if you are willing to pay the “fine”/“bribe” your problems go away. Weird as hell lol.
Which I am grateful for… cuz Imagine if parents were shittier, I would’ve probably have beenleft me behind with my maternal aunts or something. US Consulate isn’t gonna let some kid with no legal identity documents get a visa.
The 黑孩子 (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heihaizi) of China… a very depressing thing. (I think they have since changed the law since 2015, now I don’t think they do that anymore.)
I can’t think about PRC without thinking of this legal rejection of me.
Rejected.
Rejected.
They don’t want me.
Like okay lol, fine, I have no allegiance to PRC lol. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Taiwan #1 xD
Wow that 黑孩子 is super messed up. Thanks for sharing about this 🙂
2012年我也去過了廣州，讓我真令人懷念 了
不好意思我好久沒用中文啊 有天想回去
Yeah that seemed the most brutal to me as well… no matter how shitty your place of residence might be you can always hope to leave…
I remember watching a testimony from a North Korean who escaped south. The thing that finally convinced them they need to leave was finding a discarded plastic water bottle. That something so useful would be carelessly discarded confirmed everything he had suspected about how shit life was in the North compared to the South.
saw a bunch, alleged cannabalism was prevelant because of the lack of food, and the woman had to use prostiution to survive. and then theres the soldier filled with to the brim with intestinal parasites when he defected to the south.
If this realisation feels too bad, just hang around on .ml until you realise that North Korea = Best Korea
You’re going to be banned from !pyongyang@lemmy.ml !
I’m sure I have a place reserved for me in the gulag after their Revolution anyway
Now imagine the norms you believe in being propaganda based and some other person learning about how you live and feeling this same way.
What’s the propaganda?
Read Manufacturing Consent (1988)
“Why We Fight”, Cointelpro, Mockingbird, War on Drugs, any PSYOP by definition, military interventions in middle east, subsequent French bashing because of their refusal to follow in Iraq, US vs Communists, US vs China, US vs South America, US vs Europe, US on any issue really… and whatever the current POTUS shares on social media which is kind of the culmination of it all
What isn’t?
What do you think propaganda means?
The views of an authority forced on a people?
What are the views of an authority forced on people in this case?
Um North Korea as a whole?
What’s the propaganda?
Use words and speak what you mean.
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Haha that was a great video, but nopes i wasnt freaking about over the government supposedly regulating haircuts or its nuclear powers or anything… the most destabilizing and dangerous country in the world today is literally US backed… it was more about the insane level of censorship and freedom of expression and tbh the biggest one being totally cut off from the outside world… Also US isnt the only country in the world…
Speaking of haircuts, in Qing dymasty, I think men had to wear like a weird ponytail thing. Older societies do regulate how you look and dress.
I’m glad that shit is gone and now people can wear shirts and shorts… imagine being in Qing dyansty and like… its summer… jeez that’s so much suffering… a tiny bit of exposed skin is indecent… fucking “traditional” ideals lmao.
Like CCP is bad, but when you look at Qing dynasty, its like a whole another level of shittiness.
Seen North Korea from space?
At least they can see some stars, I guess.
It really is about as backwards as you imagine. People defending them generally attack claims that were never made. For example, direct from the state propaganda machine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_trim_our_hair_in_accordance_with_the_socialist_lifestyle
In the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang, hidden cameras were placed to catch citizens with improper hairstyles. This was part of a television programme broadcast at the same time as Let’s Trim Our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle. The offenders would then be interviewed by the presenter and asked to explain themselves. Their name, address and workplace would be announced to embarrass them in the hopes that fear of such social ostracism would influence others’ behavior.
