Any flowers laid for memorial of people killed are removed by security.
China tries to keep their image of a safe country.
Hit to kill. Very popular in China AND Taiwan.
How petty is that. I don’t know how they missed the memo that it actually makes the situation look worse by doing this.
Attempting to erase / manage memory. This also has a cost.
Here’s an anecdote related to this point. My mom lives in a medium sized city in North America, and she volunteers quite a bit, including with her alma mater where quite a few international students study—she helps them get settled and is sort of a community volunteer who can trouble shoot some issues as students get used to life in a new city. One of the students she’s met recently is from southern China. My mom met her for coffee, and learned a few things. Will she go back home after she finishes her degree? No way. Does she miss how things work in China? She told my mom she refuses to be called “Chinese” any more. She can’t stand how things are done there and will not be going back.
Guy
On a lighter note
I’m sure a lot of Chinese people have same feeling, and vice versa, a lot of people are doing well in China and won’t leave regardless.
Yes no doubt we’re dealing with a host of variables in my anecdote: someone who is educated and getting more education; someone who has elected to go abroad; someone from the south (which has always been oddly placed in relation to Chinese nationalism as declared from Beijing); and also gender.
Put otherwise, this woman’s case is not generalizable, but it may be illustrative of the some of the long-term costs of state-directed suppressions of memory.
Guy
Very good points.
Selection bias yes! But when people who go abroad end up hating their home country and culture, maybe an adjustment is in order.
Guy
Plenty of Chinese become more nationalistic when they go abroad to study too.
Are you sure it’s not that they are scared of the fucking tattletale sitting across the table from them?
Some is, but I think it’s mostly a natural reaction to having your country attacked by a bunch of foreigners.
I am imagining one billion people waking up, reading Afterspivaks ‘two legs good - China bad’ post of the day and concluding oh gosh look he’s right!
I have taught and worked with students from the PRC.
I am not trying to persuade them here on forumosa. That would be silly. But I am talking about the costs of suppressing public memory.
Guy
What is this?
I have no idea. That’s why I posted it.
I mean it looks like the guy’s having vacuum cups put on his back, and I think this is popular chinese medicine thing in Taiwan too. They heat the air in the cup then put it on your skin. I have no idea what medicinal benefit it has, but it sure looks like some kind of BDSM stuff.
But why are there tables and chairs under shower heads?
Is the sculpture anatomically correct? Do you have to drink your tea watching at his dingdong?