Fluff blog 2014
2014-04-23
What's happened to the new China Daily Forum blog site?
In the past it has been a place where political ideas and opinions would be expressed.
Since the beginning of the year it's more like a supermarket tabloid stand full of fluff and tacky right wing opinions
about China, the Chinese people, and the Chinese government.
I realize this forum is a showcase for western propagandists to make fools of themselves in full view of Chinese citizens
if they care for some light amusement.
But what happened to the self respect the blog section of this forum had?
If the blog section wants to be nothing more than a tabloid for expressing right wing opinions then it should be
renamed to something like "blog-o-mania" or "blog your socks off".
Maybe points or gold stars can be given to those who have the best suggestions for China to become more like
the west.
Nobody can accuse this new blog section of having any self respect or decency to the sensibilities of the Chinese people.
I think most people have not studied with North Koreans. There are not so many here. I do usually try to observe without judging and I am more interested in people's life and situations. I never talked with my NK classmates about their government or politics, unlike most of the foreigners. I know that the ones I met worked for the government, they never mentioned negative things about their own country.
I am from Austria, a very small (still) neutral country in Europe. Many people in Austria have quite critical views on the role of USA and NATO in world politics, intervention policies, etc.
I try my best to be see things from many different angles, to understand the complexity of this world. I think we should all try that. It also includes understanding that the West is not one homogeneous group of countries.
And you tip your hand.
Of course you've studied with the North Koreans. Who hasn't?
And what's more because you suspect they were studying for
their communist government they couldn't come out and say
they hated communism and their government.
Nice try. You're no less predictable than the rest of the western propagandists in this forum.
I see. I was lucky enough to have some classmates from North Korea in the past, and the university where I studied has an excellent centre for North Korean studies. Unfortunately, it is hard to make friends with them in a relaxed way, they do have certain restrictions. But that might also be, because most North Koreans who come to China for study purposes are working for the government.
That would never work. People in this forum lie about where they're from all the time. You'd get a tons of ghosts claiming they are from
North Korea and complaining about everything having to do with North Korea. You can see the one coming a mile away.
Forums are good for ideas but totally useless in verifying claims.
It's a competition for expats in China to blog... maybe your can encourage some foreigners from other countries like North Korea to write about their experiences in China? I mean that totally serious, it is not a joke! It would balance opinions in the forum and it is very rare to get to know their opinions. I had some classmates from North Korea and I want to travel there since a long time.
So, I was right after all. Thanks for letting me know for sure so I can avoid this from now on.
Dear Robert, thanks for your careful observation and suggestions(even though some may take it as complaints), Yes, that's true, we have more expats in our blog platform talking about their daily life and understanding about China. That's one goal of our blogging contest and hope you could bear that cause we may have more this kind of blogs in the future. As for the political opinions you mentioned , we don't ban that part if you write about that in your blog. But we hope make this blog platform more fluffier and funnier rather than straight, disputive and arrogant one. That's the function which our forum or bbs could undertake completely and successfully we think. Anyway, thanks for your advice, looking forward to hearing more later.
So as they learn English they also get indoctrinated with the
right wing ideas of redneck America and have to be told they
are scum and ought to abandon their national heritage?
Lovely.
Robert, one of the goals of the blog is to encourage Chinese English improvers to contribute posts and quite a number of English teachers are encouraging this. We cannot expect these guys to suddenly develop the political incisiveness that you have! That is a genuine compliment. Let's find most of those on the BBS - there is room for a broader range of topics here IMHO.
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