In another century it’s likely a lot of people will say the same about terms like “actress” or “waitress.” “Stewardess” is one that pretty much went extinct in my lifetime.
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A post was split to a new topic: China: Consumerism vs. Ethics
A couple of loose, barely connected thoughts.
When Liu was faced with a situation that offered the opportunity to experience what one could call the Fan Bingbing treatment, she declined.
For the young, ignorant and/or adverse to knowing history, Hong Kong 2019 is still a far cry from Tiananmen 1989 — that was brutal. Hong Kong isn’t that yet.
Some cheap irony: American capitalists boast how off shoring — impoverishing Americans — is awesome because it enriches workers in oppressive third world nations. But China enriches the Chinese masses while remaining as oppressive as any nation. The PRC is investing in itself, which is more than one can say about America’s off shoring businesses.
As for oppression, really it’s like the 1984 vs. Brave New World thing: Which is less awful. The correct answer is that the ends are pretty much the same, only the means differ.
So the PRC can be brutal; we kill our own with kindness. Decades of an extractive, exploitative economy where, for a sizable minority, getting a living wage from a single full time job is impossible; a “democratic” vote that means nothing thanks to partisan disenfranchisement, gerrymandering and fucking around with votes (not much easier thanks to easy-to-hack e-voting). Where the slightest crime by an African-American can result in capital punishment.
Sure, we’re much freer than people in China. But agency-wise, we’re not significantly better off.
You know; he who’d cast the first stone and all that.
Takes a shit ton of hubris to make this some sort of black and white thing.
All that spewed, the preceding is no way an endorsement exactly of how the PRC’s handling Hong Kong. Except I’d add this small thought experiment: What if Texas was allowed to govern itself independent from the laws of the US and one day the feds decided that since it’s a state like the other 49, it should be treated like the other 49. Problem?
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The chances that anyone at Disney pushed her to “by all means please weigh in on an explosive political matter” are zero. No way. Those with money on the line would prefer that the film do well not just in mainland China but also in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and parts of the world whose populations are inclined to line up with the protesters.
But it’s possible she’s exposed to a lot of mainland views on the subject and has made up her mind, or that she’s been told by mainland management that anyone wanting to have fans in China needs to speak up and toe the party line.
Having heard my mainland friends views on Tibet and Xinjiang, it does feel like the state’s view carries a lot of weight. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if most people inside mainland China -even those who express occasional skepticism of their country’s politics, more or less thought the protests in Hong Kong were small and the work of a bunch of foreign-funded miscreants. That’s how it’s likely to be framed.
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“Far cry from Tiananmen?” And “America kills its people with kindness while China enriched its people with oppression”. Everything you said is a giant load of horse relativistic nonsense.
I meant to say Heil, Drumpf!
Seriously, I’m thoroughly enlightened by your comment, specially how well you document my errors. Thank you.
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