nadiatims Wrote:Tiantian, ......

-Tiantian, do you now understand why some find chinese demands for apology/reparations from the japanese laughable?

In an ideal world, we love our enemies like our families but in real world they are treated very differently. Like it or not, we are more ready to reconcile with a family member who used to do us harm. Sure I understand why you think it is laughable because you obviously take a more detached position. But being a mudane human being myself, I can also understand the bitterness felt by some Chinese towards Japan and their demand of a proper apology.

-And what good did Mao do exactly?
The wiki entry of Mao is pretty informative if you care to read through it. But I suppose your question is why we don't hate Mao. It's beyond my means but I will try my best to explain.

Chinese history is divided into dynasties, with the last one ongoing and being ruled by CCP. We were not bestowed with a Gandhi or a Mandela as the founder of this nation , but the fact that this country is in much better shape now than in 1949 makes CCP's rule bearable. No matter how ragged and bloody the opening episode was, moving on as a nation, hopefully for the better, is our main concern.

Perhaps Chinese won't be detached enough to judge Mao's deeds fairly and thoroughly until next dynasty.

Guoguodi Wrote:Tiantian, are you really Chinese ? I only ask because the way you write leads me to believe (based on seeing similar, very convincing 'trolls' on other sites like Reddit) that you are actually not a Chinese person but are pretending to be one. Go back and read through your posts and pay attention to the native-like control of phrases and wording combined with some very odd and out of place grammatical mistakes. I am quite familiar with the way Chinese people of various skills write English as a second language, and your style really stood out to me the more I re-read your posts.

Forgive me for questioning you so bluntly (!), but I thought it appropriate to raise this since you ostensibly are espousing the thoughts of a Chinese person.

No offense taken here my friend. Mimicking the native speaker/writer is part of the learning process but obviously I need to work on my grammer. I know it might be too much to ask but I would really appreciate it if you could tell me more about the grammatical mistakes in my post. My intention coming here is to improve my language skill rather than to convince anyone of anything, particularly on some political issues.

Well, to answer your question, yes I am indeed a Chinese, as authentic as any Chinese you've met. It takes all sorts to make a world and you might want to add species like me to your sample set of Chinese, just for completeness' sake. And are you saying that there are some guys on Reddit trying to impose as one of us? That's very weired to say the least, because his opinion will instantly be dismissed as biased, which wouldn't help his cause (of trolling) that much.

Tiantian

Your answers are not satisfying. What is your opinion of the kmt? Can they be forgiven as family? If not why not? Because ccp says so? What about the mongol and Manchu (ie non chinese) yuan and Qing dynasties? What if the Japanese had won? Would they be less legitimate than the other foreign dynasties? Why?

tiantian Wrote:No offense taken here my friend. Mimicking the native speaker/writer is part of the learning process but obviously I need to work on my grammer. I know it might be too much to ask but I would really appreciate it if you could tell me more about the grammatical mistakes in my post. My intention coming here is to improve my language skill rather than to convince anyone of anything, particularly on some political issues.

Well, to answer your question, yes I am indeed a Chinese, as authentic as any Chinese you've met. It takes all sorts to make a world and you might want to add species like me to your sample set of Chinese, just for completeness' sake. And are you saying that there are some guys on Reddit trying to impose as one of us? That's very weired to say the least, because his opinion will instantly be dismissed as biased, which wouldn't help his cause (of trolling) that much.

Well, I'll take your word for it. It's not like you'd admit to it if it were true anyway. I was more looking to see if anyone else was thinking the same thing I was. I think I'll stay out of this thread.

By the way, I'm Chinese myself, and no, I am not racist against Chinese. =)

nadiatims Wrote:Tiantian

Your answers are not satisfying. What is your opinion of the kmt? Can they be forgiven as family? If not why not? Because ccp says so? What about the mongol and Manchu (ie non chinese) yuan and Qing dynasties? What if the Japanese had won? Would they be less legitimate than the other foreign dynasties? Why?

If you care to look back through my posts, I did list Kublai Khan and Nurhaci among the talented and brutal generals and dictators in Chinese history even though neither was of Han ethinicity. If Japan had won the war and the regime had been able to hold on to its rule in China long enough to allow itself merge with China both in culture and in economy to a sufficient degree, it would have become legitimate. And it would have been easier for Chinese to reconcile with them.

In the case of KMT, the old bitterness has mellowed down to a large extent. The founder of KMT, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, has always been referred to as the (only) founding father of our nation and Madame Sun Yat-sen is held in extremely high esteem. On the forum I frequent, the topic about Madame and her sisters never gets old. Every poster will inevitably be mesmerized by her beauty. I know, we are a bunch of shallow people. And there is not doubt that KMT was the leading force of fighting the Japanese invasion. The drama my mother recently follows avidly is about the improvised and unwilling cooperation of a bunch of agents from CCP and KMT in Manchuria. BTW, my mother used to be quite a fan of President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan because of his style of being "gentle, nice, humble, thrifty, yielding". I would be lying by claiming that every Chinese in mainland fell in love with KMT overnight. But people in mainland are ready and eager to move on, together with people on the other side of the strait.

I'm afraid i fail to give a satisfying answer again but that's the best I can do.

Here is a side thought that just came to mind. The seed of reconciling with KMT might have been planted a long time ago. There is this message drafted by Mao on the monument on Tiananmen Square to memorize "people's heroes". ( i know that the names will raise negative feeling but please bear with me for a moment). "Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who from 1840 laid down their lives in the many struggles against domestic and foreign enemies and for national independence and the freedom and well-being of the people!". Chiang Kai-shek wouldn't be happy about it but a lot of KMT soldiers and party members are honored with this monument.

Guoguodi Wrote:Well, I'll take your word for it. It's not like you'd admit to it if it were true anyway. I was more looking to see if anyone else was thinking the same thing I was. I think I'll stay out of this thread.

By the way, I'm Chinese myself, and no, I am not racist against Chinese. =)

Fair enough.

Another Japanese politician visits the Yasukini shrine.
And like clockwork, other Asian countries (mainly China and Korea) are outraged again.

Thoughts?

This article's tone and content are right up nadiatim's alley.

Japanese Begin to Question Protections Given to Homegrown Rice

Admin: moved from "Inappropriate stories" topic.

sholum Wrote:With the kind of agenda Faux News has, I doubt the headline would look like that. It'd be much more believable if the the headline went like this:
USERS OF A LEARNING SITE ATTEMPT TO DEFEND THEIR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH
Not to make them look good, but Fox is much more likely to ignore what the issue actually is and make it something to do with the Bill of Rights and the poor people who just want to say what they want without people getting butthurt.

To be more precise on Faux News's agenda I think it's more like:
If a Rupublican says sexist speech, then he is exercising his right to freedom of speech.
If a Rupublican says racist speech, then he is exercising his right to freedom of speech.
If a Rupublican is anti-poor people (wants to lower taxes on rich people), then he has the economy's best interests in mind and everyone (poor and rich) will benefit (from lower taxes on rich people).

If a Democrat says sexist speech, then he is a sexist and/or hypocrite.
If a Democrat says racist speech, then he is a racist and/or hypocrite.
If a Democrat is anti-rich people (wants to raise taxes on rich people), then he has the economy's worst interests in mind and there will be a great depression or whatever.

Basically, Faux News is pro-money (for themselves) and the party most supportive of that is the Republicans so indirectly, Faux News is pro-Republican. So when a Republican does a bad thing, it's okay. But when a Democrat does a bad thing, it's not.

Perhaps this should go in the debate/politics thread.

What's with http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/ right now?

It seems more anti-Japan than usual. The not one but TWO current top stories are both Japan related:

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/commen...in_second/
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/commen...x_boycott/

Both topics have significantly more upvotes than other news and most surprising of all, both have 4000+ and 3000+ comments. The next highest commented news is sub 1000. Everything else only has at most a couple of hundred comments. The former Japan news is understandably controversial but the latter is a throwaway news item that no one will remember 3 days from now.

It seems to have reached the point where the vitriol (some reasonable, some simply crass/uneducated) against Japan is even stronger than ones against Islam. Maybe anti-Islamism is getting played out? Or is it just a continuation of the dolphin/whale hunting saga?

your first mistake qwerty is that you are giving reddit any credit.
It is none other than a self-righteous pseudoliberal minded forum infested with megalomaniac illiterate electronic activists that think they some how have any smear of influence on the world, or even more laughable; that by reading these petty paragraph length posts with 'source: I am from there' gives them any more nuanced an understanding of whatever social problem that lives briefly in one of their web browser tabs before being CTRL-W'ed to norm that is the neighbouring porn and youtube tabs to the left and right of them.

Dont get me wrong, there are good posts out there, but for the most part, don't take it seriously, it is the same noise that you hear in the realworld.