It's the kind of unverifiable story that we would like to believe, but there's almost zero way of having independent confirmation. The photos could be from anywhere. The author seems likeable and writes an interesting story, but who knows how much of it is true.
The story seems almost tailored to cater to HN, with secret projects, nuclear power, China, and secrecy.
If I told you stories from my childhood as an 10-year old child of an undercover operative in West Germany in 1962-1963 I think many would claim “fiction”. If I did not have my sister as an independent memory backup, even I might have doubts. She was lucky and unlucky and had a big brother.
Almost all of the stories we get told in the West are from the US perspective, so there's that: anything from China feels fresh in comparison.
The US...what sort of stories do you get told? Are they experiences that Gen X had in general, or just outliers that perhaps were glamorized by Hollywood? Let me tell you, we really didn't have much going on in general.
Yet these happened in the US. Bizarre and secret government projects also happened. Executions also happened.
That you didn't witness them doesn't mean much. I'm sure most Gen X Chinese, as you call them, had pretty uneventful lives without any massacres either. I do think this is a case of laser-focusing on those who had more "interesting" lives, much like focusing on US antiwar activist who got shot or imprisoned during Vietnam war protests, or KKK activity: interesting, but surely not the norm.
> I never had to apply for travel permits to leave my town, nor did I need an exit permit to travel abroad.
Doesn't seem too exciting to me. It does reinforce the narrative that China = bad, US = good (though this is harder to believe in the Trump era). But it's not something particularly interesting to read about, plus every HN reader "knows" this is life in China, they are authoritarian, etc etc.
Are you confusing GenX with Baby Boomers?
> I'm sure most Gen X Chinese, as you call them, had pretty uneventful lives without any massacres either.
Most? Maybe, I've never met one that hasn't though. So maybe the selection of people I meet is biased?
> It does reinforce the narrative that China = bad, US = good (though this is harder to believe in the Trump era).
Something that was true pre-1995 hardly says anything about China today. Stop reading into supposed western bias where there is none. You would never compare China to North Korea today, but 30 years ago there were some remaining resemblances that quickly dissipated as China hit 2000.
> plus every HN reader "knows" this is life in China, they are authoritarian, etc etc.
Again, you are just projecting some sort of insecurity with this statement.
Maybe it was Baby Boomers, indeed.
> Most? Maybe, I've never met one that hasn't though
I'm sure you acknowledge you're not an expert on general Chinese experience. You were an expat, surely while your first-hand experience was valuable it was also heavily limited to what a Westerner in China would see and be told?
> Something that was true pre-1995 hardly says anything about China today.
"Hardly says anything" is a bonkers statement. The recent past of any country definitely says something about its present. We agree China 30 years ago was different from China today, but what does it have to do with anything?
Do you disagree there's a strong anti-China bias on HN? (Whether justified or not).
> Again, you are just projecting some sort of insecurity with this statement.
Insecurity? I think it's an accurate assessment of groupthink about China here. I may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say though, in which case I apologize.
I lived in west Richland Washington as a kid, my dad worked at Hanford which is a giant nuclear reservation in the western USA. It was mostly typical American kid life, so nothing on your experience, except my dad eventually died of a rare cancer and we got a settlement from the US Department of Energy.
I spent 9 years living in Beijing but first visited in 1999 when thinks were kind of still brutaleski. I’ve had a couple of experiences with the PLA (living in a building where I wasn’t supposed to be living and some off limit areas on the border for foreigners that they don’t tell you about).
It also caters to the usual biases of the HN crowd: China, nuclear projects, secrecy, etc.
How come the Chinese post is from 2016 and complete but now we're getting it in English and in parts?
Of course, none of it means this is fake. It's just, like the parent commenter said, "slightly off".