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Comment by weggooi | Hacker News Reader

I've been to mainland China recently, both rural and the fast changing cities like Shenzhen.

Chairman Mao is universally revered. No one ever questions his track record on economic growth was, even though the evidence is everywhere to see.

Similarly, censorship is rarely questioned.

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In my experience I found that people from rural areas and far flung provinces were far more critical of the government than people from metropolitan areas such Beijing , Shanghai etc. Even liberal, by Western standards. Might just be a sampling error but my friends from Guangxi and Yunnan are far more sympathetic to democracy, marriage equality, gay rights etc. compared to friends from Shanghai and Beijing

Because they've not yet caught up in economic status. Once they catch up, they may become as conservative.

And cities in Guangxi and Yunan are not rural. They're just not first or second tier cities, but cities all the same. When people get to live an OK life, they will become more conservative and won't like the current situation to change too much.

Beijing and Shanghai were definitely the most outspoken cities toward Western values, as they were among the first to be exposed, and the young people gather there for higher education. The change of wind means a lot.

Chairman Mao is not revered by educated mainlanders.. It's not hard to find people criticizing him and it's not even that much of a controversial opinion that people would be careful about expressing it.

then you failed with your trip. Mao is highly controversial if not hated among all my family and friends. Censorship is laughed at on every level. where did you go?

Is your family inside or outside of china?

inside.

I think views on Mao vary a lot. Some members of my Chinese family suffered terribly under Mao, others did very well. My father in law's family owned some land, so they were crushed by the Communists as class enemies. My mother in law grew up in a city and went to university. Students back then could travel for free, so she went all over China with her friends as a young woman. She's no fan of Mao, but some Chinese do still revere him.

I saw a news report last year about some Chinese students that got arrested. They had been taught Marxism, solidarity with workers, class struggle, etc at University, then tried to put that into practice. They protested against unsafe working practices for cleaners and cooks, campaigned for workers rights and ended up getting arrested and sent to jail for challenging the very system that educated them to do this in the first place. Apparently it wasn't just an isolated incident and things like that happen from time to time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disap...

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