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Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

With all due respect...

I have been there. I went on a business trip to visit our offshore development office in Beijing. A few of the devs went sightseeing with me one weekend and we ended up going to see the forbidden city. The cab dropped us off at Tienamen Square and I asked if we could spend some time there before going across the street. There was general consternation as to why I was interested in such a boring place. I said I wanted to see where the iconic photo of the man standing in front of the tank was taken, just to pay my respects to such an act of bravery. Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there. That history has been censored so completely that very few Chinese are aware of it.

You can't be democratic with that level of censorship. A functioning democracy requires and informed electorate. For proof of this, look no further than the recent US presidential election.

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The Tiananmen square incident is well known outside of China but almost nothing else about China is. The average American who can tell you a story about the tank man very likely can't name three Chinese leaders since Mao.

Inside China, educated people tend to be familiar with the event but discussing it with a tourist is absolutely the last thing they are going to do.

There are many possible interpretations of your anecdote, but I wouldn't read too much into it. With all due respect, you brought up a minor (to them) and yet sensitive point of Chinese history, and your guests, reasonably enough, declined to discuss it with you. Another way of saying it might be that you committed a social faux pas and they changed the topic in a way that saved as much face as possible for everyone.

I don't understand why every single discussion about China has to touch this issue and this is the first thing people do when they visit China.

Do you talk to Germans by starting off discussing how Hitler killed millions of people? Do you talk to Japanese people about WW2 and how was the experience being bombed by nukes after saying hello? Do you expect non-US citizens to start talking to you about the massacres of indigenous peoples of the Americas during the first meeting?

You don't go to a country just to re-visit their dark history. Regardless of how bad the censorship is, that is just rude behavior. Show some respect first, if you are really interested, make friends with them, then talk about it, they'd be happy to discuss it with a friend but not a stranger.

The difference is that if you start a discussion with Germans about Hitler, they will probably know more about it then you, because it gets taught in schools.

Yes, Germany is doing great. Not sure about US and Japan though.

The last time I heard, Japanese is trying to modify their textbook to downplay its involvement in WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_cont...

How's US history lesson? Do you all get taught about the genocides of native Americans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Americas

Bottomline is, every country has its own unpleasant history, maybe China has more of those and is not willing to share them with its citizens. But as a foreigner visiting China, is it a nice gesture to poke about it with people you barely know?

Sorry for being awfully off-topic. Just had to type this out. Won't reply to anything further.

Americans are taught about the atrocities visited on native Americans. I went to high school in the early nineties and we were taught all about it. Get some better info. Or, you know, actually verify the stuff you're conjecturing about.

True, but try talking to a Japanese about WWII, and you'll be surprised how little they know about what happened, it's NOT taught in school, not all the facts.

Government brainwash is not exclusive to communist countries.

Sadly, some Americans do.

As a Chinese I have to say it's hard to believe “Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there”, it's more likely they don't want to tell you what they really think.

When I was in Uni, the Tiananmen square videos are all over the university intranet, including the documentary shot by Hongkong journalist and some shorter documentaries made by the west in later times. Everyone in my class has watched them and we all know what happened on 04/06/1989.

The censorship power of chinese government has been greatly over estimated.

My guess is not that it's been censored, per se. I believe that it's been contextualized by the government in a way that's out of alignment with the way the rest of the world views that event. Outside of China, we view that as a symbolic event of an unknown, brave individual standing up to an oppressive government. Inside China, it's likely seen as a relatively inconsequential event. Their reactions to my interest included both "what event are you interested in?" or "why are you interested in that event?"

I don't think this is unique to China and I think it happens to some extent in the US. I think people, especially the right wing Republican voters, are shielded from the viewpoints of the rest of the world on many topics. Having been outside the US for almost the entire election cycle, I don't think most voters in the US realize just how much Trump is ridiculed outside of the US. In the US, the comparison with Clinton is roughly 50-50. Outside the US, I've yet to meet one person who doesn't believe that Trump could be a serious choice. There's recognition that Clinton isn't perfect and we should have nominated someone better, but there's general consternation that our country could have made the choice that it did. Granted, I've been mostly in Asian, Muslim countries where Trump's rhetoric about Muslims has an even greater ring of ignorance to it. But the US media has contextualized a lot of what went on in the election cycle very differently from the way the media in the rest of the world has.

The difference, of course, is that the recontextualizing in China is at the behest of the Chinese government. It's disturbing and dangerous no matter how it happens. But it's undemocratic when the government is the one doing it.

How many of OP's taxi drivers were savvy university graduates in your opinion?

Censorship being soft and porous does not help - it keeps the outrage from bubbling over as the 5% of smart potential leaders who could give a voice to discontent will (a) work around the censors in ways that the 95% can't or don't bother [VPN etc] and their discontent has an outlet, and (b) these 2% can be kept in line by offering or refusing career opportunities based on compliance to the mainstream party line... [if you speak out against current policy, you won't get that professorship or that managerial role or your company returns will be tax audited in a way your corrupt competitors aren't]

You misread the OP, he's talking to 6 dev people, not 6 taxi drivers. I'd be surprised if anyone without a uni degree can find a dev job in a foreign company in Beijing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro censorship. But you and many in the west assume people in China are all brain washed and incapable of seeing their own history. Sure, a large part of the population can't be bothered, but I'd bet it's not 95% as you assumed, and they have increasingly less influence in today's China.

And speaking of which, you don't think the west is ruled by 2% of elites and manipulate the media to tame the rest?

I doubt if they really understood which event you were referring to or if they ever told the truth. My dad was an undergraduate in 1989 in China, and he constantly tells me what he had suffered during those days. So I'm pretty clear about what happened back then. I used to discuss this event with my friends and most of them had heard about it.

Even if it's not in the history textbook and it's not allowed to be discussed in the public, most of the Chinese citizens who were alive in 1989 have heard of this event. I can't say children in next generations would remember it, but at least in 2016, Chinese people do remember it.

Other way around....it's censored but the event aren't given the historical importance...so someone might be aware a rash of protests broke out that day but not the tank dude or how big they were.

A bit like how some countries gloss over wars they lost or ended in a true....China takes it to the next level for some reason...it's not like the tank ran over the dude.

You just have the confirmation bias. That is it. I am sure most Chinese know about it. Do you know Chinese call that event way differently from the English version? Not some direct translation. Show some respect, don't try to prove how knowledgeable you are and how brainwashed Chinese are.

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