Anti-mainland media

[cqhk]

Last week we were watching tv. I left for a few minutes to take a shower. When I returned, I found my wife writing chinese on a pad of paper, saying out loud repeatedly, "Wasai". I asked her what was wrong. She didn't answer me, but asked me, "What station is this?"

 

I look at the tv, saw a chinese man, speaking chinese, in what appeared to be a newstation. I naturally assumed it was CCTV4 broadcasting on the International Channel. I told my wife what I assumed, and she told me it couldn't be, because a chinese wouldn't say such bad things about China. The man was speaking chinese, and I had no clue what he was saying. She thought it might have been american propaganda against China. I asked her what the guy was saying, she told me he was saying very bad things about China. She was writing down what he was saying. She read back some of the things he said. I was a little shocked myself. He was talking about how hoodlums were running rampant in the cities of mainland China kidnapping women, raping them and forcing them to be their wives. He also said the mainland government was some how supporting the hoodlums.

 

After a few minutes, there was a commercial. Turns out it was the public access channel. We also figured out by a crest and some symbols on the screen that it was a Taiwanese broadcast.

 

I explained public access tv to my wife, and how a lot of alternative groups broadcast things using it. I also explained freedom of speech, and also how most people here can see through the half truths. She took it really hard, because this guy was saying some really unbelievable stuff. She's proud to be Chinese from mainland China. I told it shouldn't be any other way. All I could do was hold her while she was crying.

 

To make it worse, a couple of days before seeing the broadcast, we were at a 99ranch market here and picked up some free periodicals. I don't read chinese either, so I have no clue what the articles say. The night we were discussing the broadcast, she mentioned that one of the newspapers had a similar article in print. She got the paper and read the article to me. She couldn't believe how harsh the article was, again she felt filled with half truths that painted mainlanders in a bad light.

 

I told her it was probably in response to the recent law China passed about the use of force against rogue states.

 

Anyway, my wife is an optimistic person and always so full of life. That broadcast and the article she read really took a lot out of her. I've worked with Taiwanese before, and know that some of them believe they are still part of PR China, and one day will reconcile with the PR China government. Of course, I've met others who totally believe they are a sovereign nation.

 

I let my wife know that mainland China is a beautiful place, and all the goodness and love she feels for China should never be lost. I know she gave up a lot to be here with me. I just want to make her as happy as can be.

 

I don't want to offend anyone, especially Taiwanese. My wife doesn't have any animosity toward Taiwan our the Chinese people there. She just wishes people could know the China she knows and grew up in.

 

Anyway at least she's smiling again. Just thought I'd share this experience.

[hypoclear]

hmmm pretty harsh.. but if you want one for the true definention...

the gov saw fit to cut reports on the Popes death from HK tv stations.

 

Barbaric is one of a numer of words that comes to mind along with insane and heartless.

 

Now, why is it they call this the middle kingdom?.. ohhh yeah..

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[Dan R]

We live in a country which has free speech without any requirement to be truthful or nonmalicious unless proven libelous in court or promoting specific violence within the U.S.

 

Now if the broadcasts resulted in atttacks on mainland Chinese they could be stopped if it was proven in court that they had promoted such attacks.

 

I am not making light of this. I do take it seriously. In many parts of the country

cities and states require that libraries buy books that claim the holocaust never happened and is a Jewish play for sympathy. This supposedly balances the historical events for freedom of speech. It also brings great pain to the remaining holocaust survivors in this country.

 

In the protection of freedom it is better to err on the side of excess.

[hypoclear]

They have done it again!! this time the HK tv station was reporting on the Mass being held in HK and how many people were there and they would not turn people away.

 

I'm Irish and I'm Catholic and not much of a church goer, but I am aware enough to know the significance of the passing of this man and still do belive in many of the churchs teachings.

 

As I ask my wife... why are they cutting this all she can say is a hollow and sad.. "I don't know." My only thoughts are that one priest in HK is and has been very vocal in his pronouncements regarding Beijing.. erhaps they fear the 1 billion catholics?

 

As I said before.. "Ask a fish about his enviorment and the last thing he will tell you about is water." well add to that.. "You can't miss what you never knew."

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[Dan R]

Mark

Bejing regards the Pope in a similar way to the Dali Lama. You don't talk about him because The Catholic Church is not licensed. This is because they will not allow Chinese to have first allegiance to a foreign leader. There is a Chinese Catholic Church that is licensed as a local religion. They have done the same with Judaism because the head Rabbi is sent from Israel.

 

It is the legacy of fear of Imperialism. The Western nations all led the seizing of territory by encouraging local converts. Japan in the early 1600's martyred all the converts to avoid China's fate. They shut out the west for 250 years while the rest of Asia was carved up.

 

It is not hard to understand the paranoia but things will as always change.

[frank1538]

Jingwen has yet to learn to filter information from the TV. To her everything that she hears is the absolute truth. Just the other day, she asked me why NYC had so many rats in people's homes. Found out that there was a segment on the news about rat infestations in the South Bronx, but she didn't know how to differentiate the information. I saw the same thing coming from KK, our step daughter, when she asked why Americans don't want Taiwan to be part of the mainland. She had just finished watching one of the Chinese TV stations where there was essentially a pro Taiwan editorial commentary on China Taiwan relations.

 

I suspect that the lack of differing opinions coming from state run media may have something to do with this.

[BuffaloPaul]

Good opportunity to explain the decidedly anti-US bias on CCTV.

[lele]

hmmm pretty harsh.. but if you want one for the true definention...

the gov saw fit to cut reports on the Popes death from HK tv stations.

 

Barbaric is one of a numer of words that comes to mind along with insane and heartless.

 

Now, why is it they call this the middle kingdom?.. ohhh yeah..

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

I do not see it as being too barbaric.

 

Due to the pope's and bush's pushing China, China was forced to spend more than 100,000,000$US of its own money on contraceptives after people pulled aid back from the UN Population fund.

 

Now, what about all of the poor African nations who can not afford even that money.

 

There was an article published that states that the pope still has never offered the money for the more than 40 million Chinese herion addicts that became addicted in part due to the missionaries dissemination of herion to people as a prelude to the opium wars.

 

The church was also responsible for helping the French to barbarize many people in Southern China as they expanded north from Vietnam.

 

And John Paul the 2nd, did he not help to pay from his coffers for his Church's past support of Adolf Hitler (and hence Japan) and their repression of the Chinese people?

 

Or of his continuation of support for the US Occupation of Taiwan province since 1949?

 

I wonder why this was not all included in the broadcasts?

 

Well, I guess that if someone broadcasts something which is not representing all facts as they are, that one way to deal with it is to block the broadcasts. This sounds logical.

 

I would prefer to publish the truth in its entirety. But this position makes sense to me.

 

Sorry, I do not mean to offend, but the entire coverage of the pope's good points, but not his support of the US wars in Vietnam and in Taiwan Province, and his support of the rising HIV levels in Africa and other places due to his opposition of condoms, really piss me off.

[se_lang]

I would guess the tv show was put on by the "Fa lun gong" we also get free papers here in China town that speak bad about China just have to learn to read betwen the lines, I always say if you want the full truth get chinese news, american news remove the BS and there is the truth.

[kfman]

hmmm pretty harsh.. but if you want one for the true definention...

the gov saw fit to cut reports on the Popes death from HK tv stations.

 

Barbaric is one of a numer of words that comes to mind along with insane and heartless.

 

Now, why is it they call this the middle kingdom?.. ohhh yeah..

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

I do not see it as being too barbaric.

 

Due to the pope's and bush's pushing China, China was forced to spend more than 100,000,000$US of its own money on contraceptives after people pulled aid back from the UN Population fund.

 

Now, what about all of the poor African nations who can not afford even that money.

 

There was an article published that states that the pope still has never offered the money for the more than 40 million Chinese herion addicts that became addicted in part due to the missionaries dissemination of herion to people as a prelude to the opium wars.

 

The church was also responsible for helping the French to barbarize many people in Southern China as they expanded north from Vietnam.

 

And John Paul the 2nd, did he not help to pay from his coffers for his Church's past support of Adolf Hitler (and hence Japan) and their repression of the Chinese people?

 

Or of his continuation of support for the US Occupation of Taiwan province since 1949?

 

I wonder why this was not all included in the broadcasts?

 

Well, I guess that if someone broadcasts something which is not representing all facts as they are, that one way to deal with it is to block the broadcasts. This sounds logical.

 

I would prefer to publish the truth in its entirety. But this position makes sense to me.

 

Sorry, I do not mean to offend, but the entire coverage of the pope's good points, but not his support of the US wars in Vietnam and in Taiwan Province, and his support of the rising HIV levels in Africa and other places due to his opposition of condoms, really piss me off.

You mean chinese prophalactic increase is due to Bush? Whahahhahha.. man for someone the left pushes as a stupid idiot, he has a fortune in oil because of his ujust war, and now he probably has money in condoms.. so he personally caused china, one of the worlds most populated nations to spend 100,000,000 us dollars on condoms? Wow... a genius, brilliant.

 

 

Geesshhhh... anything that happens in the world NOT Bush's fault?

 

[Jay]

The use of the media to demonize your adversaries has a long history. Read Mein Kempf and then read Karl Rove's words about managing the message during the election. The similarities about the use of propaganda are chilling. The U.S. print and broadcast industries are a good examples. The major networks and newspapers actively promoted the Iraq war. They did not ask the obvious questions. If you read european newspapers then you would have had good reason to doubt the claims of WMD, buying uranium from Africa, and any connection to Al Quaeda. I am under no illusions about the media in the PRC. They generally just avoid controversial matters. But when they do want to make a point they are just as biased as anything on this side of the pacific. When you read news or see it on TV you have to consider the source. There is usually an agenda attached. Just my two cents worth.

[Dan R]

propoganda from any viewpoint is still propoganda. Citizens of earth beware of what you are told.

[Feathers268]

I'm not Cathollic but I very much admired the man, I'm also conservative and do not completely agree with everything out of the Bush administration but I do support it, and yes, I would vote for him again, as I did his father, if I had to do it all over again. and as the left would complain abot FOX News, talk radio, and the religious right, I could complain about the networks, news papers, and universities. But that is a whole other topic.

I had a couple of similar chances to talk to Jennifer about this in addressing things she heard of from media sources in China as well as concerns about bias against Chinese here in the US. I tried explaining that with our feedom of speach and the state of technology around the world today, even the smallest voice can be heard and often the most radical and hateful will be the loudest. We can not forget that China is a totalitarian form of government and although many changes for the better have been happening, there is still a lot of work to be done.(I didn't tell her that part) In the run up to Iraqi Freedom, she was concerned that the debate here was bringing the US close to civil war. Pictures of protests taken out of context lead to a very different view of what was happening. I know I will have to deal with this as a lot of views about China are still harsh at times and she is not always going to like what is said in the media. Our freedoms allow us to change the channel, put down the paper or tell someone that "I think you are wrong, and here's why" It's ok that she would be upset about hearing such things about her home. I get upset hearing such things about the US and there is certainly a lot of America hating to go around. The first part is to not hate the messinger but just agree that he is wrong.

[hypoclear]

hmmm being dead is harsh also. It's a pretty straight lay either you are or are not. This is not a reflection on a person, being dead or alive.

 

When you are dead.. well you are not of much use to others or yourself.. hmmm so in looking at life from the backend so to speak I'd say it's a good thing to be alive and some of the things involved with being alive are not so pleasent.. but the alternative is being dead.. see above thesis.

 

So between the devil and the deep blue sea.. I'll take life and all it's premunitions and not turn away from the harsh but neither support it.. "Hey!! you brought that wet cat into the house.. now you clean up after it!!" coz the harshest harsh is being dead and you don't even know when you are.. sigh

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[chinadave2001]

Two things:

 

1. There was a lot of press about women being kidnapped and sold into marriages last year in the New York Times. Apparently there is real shortage of women in some parts of China, which in turn had had led to an increase in Kidnappings etc. This is not propaganda per se, although a Tawain TV station may in fact being using it that way. There have also been press reports of Chinese natinals being kidnapped and sold to those who use them in sex trade industry in other countries. In some parts of China there are a lot more boys being born than girls - as high as 1.4 boys per girl. I think this problem will only get worse in the future.

 

2. I imagine that given the state of the economy in China, the government there can afford to buy their own condoms if they want to for the people of China.