Interesting China

A few days ago this statement was made in a private Chinese Law forum: “ many of the most ‘progress’ inducing trials in human history were trials in which the progressive side actually lost (indeed, the trial of the gang of four itself could easily be seen as an example of this)” This seriously confused me…
I wrote this in response: Growing up in China during the 80s, I always hear my mother’s story about the GOF. My mother’s family was deeply communist and sincerely believed in the party’s agenda. My mother’s father had been an orphan and the poorest of the poor. After 1949, he slowly rose to being a party representative of a local factory in the remote northwestern parts of LanZhou. He passed away when I was 10, I miss his optimism very much.

My father’s side of the family had been targeted during the CR, my father had some rather unpleasant memories that he won’t discuss in detail. But he is opening up a bit lately fearing for old age I guess. I am shocked to learn some of the things he recalls. I welcome his pessimism about China gladly.

Back to the point you raised, my mother and father had always argued about this as well. My mother had always attributed the whole CR on the GOF. My father always insisted on the guilt of others in the party and hold the GOF as simply the unlucky few used as scapegoats. I was barely a teenager back then and their bickering escaped me. Now I understand the importance.
I think the problem here may be that events like the CR, or what happened in 1984 (Beijing), in Modern Tibet, etc., is never documented accurately and is never openly reported to the Chinese people and others. This is of course in the interest of the State, and this does form a opinion base in its people, for the State. The good thing is China is at least willing to do the right thing sometimes, but not doing the right thing all the time is causing internal problems. The ripple effect is confusions I had when I first read your passage.
This made me appreciate the scope of the disinformation problem we have in China and the troubled times is yet to come in China’s future. All criticism of the government aside, I think the State is doing itself a disservice now by denying its own people and denying them the lessons of history. Well, it at least caused my family many nights of bitter arguing and the deterioration of my parent’s communications. In the long run, the Chinese people is crippled by this lack of coherent view of its own past. Then again, all nations suffer from such fate and the best we can hope for is history will be written by people with law books, not guns.

I apologize for not keeping this completely professional, and thank you for the enlightening conversation.

A few days ago this statement was made in a private Chinese Law forum: “ many of the most ‘progress’ inducing trials in human history were trials in which the progressive side actually lost (indeed, the trial of the gang of four itself could easily be seen as an example of this)” This seriously confused me… I wrote this in response: Growing up in China during the 80s, I always hear my mother’s story about the GOF.
My mother’s family was deeply communist and sincerely believed in the party’s agenda. My mother’s father had been an orphan and the poorest of the poor. After 1949, he slowly rose to being a party representative of a local factory in the remote northwestern parts of LanZhou. He passed away when I was 10, I miss his optimism very much.
My father’s side of the family had been targeted during the CR, my father had some rather unpleasant memories that he won’t discuss in detail. But he is opening up a bit lately fearing for old age I guess. I am shocked to learn some of the things he recalls. I welcome his pessimism about China gladly. Back to the point you raised, my mother and father had always argued about this as well.
My mother had always attributed the whole CR on the GOF. My father always insisted on the guilt of others in the party and hold the GOF as simply the unlucky few used as scapegoats. I was barely a teenager back then and their bickering escaped me. Now I understand the importance.
I think the problem here may be that events like the CR, or what happened in 1984 (Beijing), in Modern Tibet, etc., is never documented accurately and is never openly reported to the Chinese people and others. This is of course in the interest of the State, and this does form a opinion base in its people, for the State.
The good thing is China is at least willing to do the right thing sometimes, but not doing the right thing all the time is causing internal problems. The ripple effect is confusions I had when I first read your passage. This made me appreciate the scope of the disinformation problem we have in China and the troubled times is yet to come in China’s future.
All criticism of the government aside, I think the State is doing itself a disservice now by denying its own people and denying them the lessons of history. Well, it at least caused my family many nights of bitter arguing and the deterioration of my parent’s communications.

In the long run, the Chinese people is crippled by this lack of coherent view of its own past. Then again, all nations suffer from such fate and the best we can hope for is history will be written by people with law books, not guns. I apologize for not keeping this completely professional, and thank you for the enlightening conversation.

Learning Chinese

Plugin for translation

Simply put, this is the #1 ultimate online tool for learning Chinese! Just install the plugin, turn it on, go to a site with any Chinese (it handles both Simplified & Traditional), and hover over any of the characters to see the pinyin, tones, and English translation. It’s like surfing the web with x-ray glasses!

Google Translate

What can I say? Google is pretty much awesome at whatever they do and Google Translate is no exception. Not only can it handle English -> Chinese & Chinese -> English, but any other language combination as well. I must say however, that I don’t recommend this tool for translating more than simply words or phases, especially if you’re thinking of sending someone a note in your foreign language – they’d could probably decipher your intended meaning, but it will not be spoken like a native speaker. So is there room for improvement? Certainly, but seeing as how they’ve already made cars that can drive themselves it’s only a matter of time before they figure this out too.

Chinese Video Websites

Here in the West, we have YouTube and Vimeo, but China has its own set of popular video hosting sites such as YouKu and Sohu. Whether you prefer watching movies or TV shows, here not only can you watch them in Chinese, but you can be sure that they’ll all have subtitles (Chinese subtitles that is, not necessarily English!).