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Leo Leo, Notre Dame MBAer, love movi... (more) 

625 Votes by Richard Kulczak, Dennis Ferguson, Leung Kwan Pang,

and622 more.

I graduated from one of China's top universities 3 years ago. I would like to

share a personal story to present you a glimpse of China.

It was 2010, my junior year. One day, all junior students were summoned and

demanded to attend a lecture. The speaker was a senior propaganda official of 

the Party, very high position. He was also a personal friend of the assistant dean.

The topic was about the necessity of media censorship and regulation(crazy,

huh? ). It was absurd, boring, and full of self-righteous ideology dogma.

The official mentioned the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989*. And he tried to

 justify the military suppression and claimed that those college students who died

in the suppression deserved it.

I raised my hand and stood up, trying to refute his opinion and speak out my

standpoints. I spoke with politeness. I still remember my voice was trembling a

 bit that day. I got a big round of applause from the other students. The officialwas furious by my confrontation and refused to answer me. So was the dean.

Along with this confrontation came a two-year long nightmare. Every school in

China has a political instructor, who is in charge of ideology education. It’s a

representative of the Party. The instructor of my college defined me as the key

target of her political education and ordered me to write an apology letter to

confess what I did. I refused.

Then she threatened me, in a hinted manner, that if I refused, I would lose my

 position in the college basketball team and my opportunity to be recommended

to one of China’s top graduate schools. I hesitated, almost gave in. But after 

many inner struggles and with the support of my parents, I held my gr ound. I

gave up my graduate study opportunity. I quit from the basketball team. It was

really hard and painful.

As for the question, well, I think such misconception results from a lack of 

knowledge about what is really going on in China. Is China evil? Absolutely not.I am not saying this out of any blind or misguided love to my motherland. (In

fact, I am a follower of Oscar Wilde on patriotism).

rom your digest email. 3h ago

China: Given that the USA has s tarted many wars while China has bee n at

peace for decades, why do many countries (or people) still regard China as

evil while USA not?

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I am trying to be honest and objective here. It's true that there is massive

corruption among the privileged government bureaucracy. People are still

imprisoned because of political belief. Social injustice is present in every corner 

of China.

It's also true that countless people: lawyers**, young students***,

scholars, journalists, obscure vendors****, even some officials from theParty itself...are risking their freedom and lives to bring light to such

darkness. And they did. Their fortitude, struggles, sacrifices, and

accomplishments deserve much more recognition and admiration.

The more the world know about them, I believe, the more thought they will put

into this misconception about China.

 

*Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

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**Chen Guangcheng

***Lin Zhao

There is a video about her made by a brave director Mr. Hu Jie:

Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul

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****Street Vendor’s Execution Stokes Anger in China

 ______________________________________ 

Update:

I want to put an extra point into this topic. I once read some writings of ThomasJefferson and really admired his perspective on Democracy and Politics. It's a

very popular view that any government, either in democracy or in autocracy,

cannot be trusted. Many Chinese scholars and ordinary people like me have also

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embraced this belief. The government is evil, I once believed, it stands opposite

of the people it rules and oppresses.

 

The reality, however, is much more complicated than this "black or white"

 perspective.

Almost 1/3 of college students in China are the Party members (for the record,unlike many other countries, it takes a lot of complex procedures to join the

Party. Loyalty and obedience are the priority metrics).* This year, 1,520,000

college graduates (that is a roughly 20% of the total number of college graduates

of 2014, and this number is still soaring) took the civil service examination, to

contest for 15,000 government positions. **

 

Why such craziness? Because we all want to be a part of the "system".

Once you are in the government, you have job and life security, you have

higher social and economic status, you are among the privileged ones. If 

you are a guy, you have an advantage of getting yourself a “better” wife, since

many parents in China want their children to marry those who work for the

government.

 

This consensus is even more popular among the uneducated, underprivileged,

 poor people. Due to their low cogitative capability, they are much more likely to

accept the omnipresent political propaganda.

 In China, corruption is not limited to the government. It has been a rule

we live by, a way we somehow all agree to more or less.  Young parents

have to bribe their way to get their children to be admitted in a better 

kindergarten. Family of hospital patients have to bribe their doctors to ensure

they can get full medical attention. Corporate giants pay their way to delete

online negative reports of them.

 

People do hate this “evil” government, only when they face direct

oppression and violence against them. Meanwhile, they are eager to be a

part of it like crazy. Such consensus, this grey area, has disturbed me for 

years. The French philosopher, Joseph de Maistre, once said, “Every nation has

the government it deserves.” This quote might make some sense to explain the

 paradoxical situations in China, although I feel reluctant to agree with it.

Data resource:

* The actual percentage is 40% last year, according to The Economist: Rushing

to join

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You can also check it up in Chinese websites, for example: for Peking

University , it's 27.5%; for Tsinghua University , it's 29%, for Renmin

University of China , it's 36.2%.

Resource:

1.北京大学“精致化”推进大学生思想政治教育 _ 高等教育 _ 中国教育新

闻网-www.jyb.cn记录教育每一天 )

2.青春与信仰 聚焦中国大学生党员群体

**高清：2014“国考”开考 152万人抢“饭碗”

 ______________________________________ 

Update:

Thank you for all your votes and comments. Thank Shubham Garg for grammar 

checking.

1. I regard my story as an unpleasant and torturing experience, not heroic in any

sense of any definition. I am proud of myself though, not because of the

confrontation (it’s irrational and warm blood; I acted on impulse), but because of 

standing my ground when it’s so easy and tempting to give up.

 

2. For those who slander that I fake the story and statistics, who justify the

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Party’s suppression (that “the party made the right decision”), who cheer “纯种

中国人/Pure Chinese”(This is new; I never thought there would be this Nazi

“pure race” /White Supremacist sort of thing in China):

Admittedly, I felt 1/3 offended, 1/3 astounded, and 1/3 amused by your 

comments. Thank you for your perspectives though. Please feel free to express

your standpoints (or rudeness of any kind), because Quora is such a wonderful platform, you can always defend the Communist Party without worrying it

censors and blocks your discussion (Irony intended. ^_^).

 

3. Great thanks to Michael McGraw-Herdeg, Kumar Mayank Jha,Gary

Goodman, and Bikash Upadhyaya.

Your comparison between China and US/India is agile, inspiring, and a little in

tune with the Frankfurt School's critical theory. One point you might need to

know is that problems/confrontations/oppression we face every day in China are

relatively superficial, stupid, and less subtle than those in your countries. To

 better understand or even change China, all you need is common sense (so rare

in China now), and all you need is love (quote intended, big Beatles fan. :) ).

4. Also, for those who wants to get a big picture of China, here is some

recommendations for a starter:

1) All movies from Jia Zhangke , especially his latest masterpiece work Tianzhu ding (2013)

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2) Philip Pan 's book Amazon.com: Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for 

the Soul of a New China (9781416537069): Philip P. Pan: Books

3) Peter Hessler  's China trilogy, especially River Town: Two Years on the

Yangtze (P.S.): Peter Hessler: 9780060855024: Amazon.com: Books

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4) All works from Jonathan Spence , especially Amazon.com: The Death of 

Woman Wang (9780140051216): Jonathan D. Spence: Books

5) Red Pine (author) 's Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits:

Red Pine: 9781582435237: Amazon.com: Books

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