is anyone else here as fascinated by China as me?

[Anonymous No.17224419]

is anyone else as fascinated by china as me?
ive read several books on chinese history, from the ancient times to the beginning. the first one covered the entirety of chinese history, though mostly dedicated to the ming-qing dynasty and especially history of 20th century china. then i read:
>a book covering the general history of ancient china
>a book covering the tang & song dynasty & alternative dynasties in the region
>a book covering the great & northern yuan. & ming
>book on the qing dynasty and china's downfall
>book on 20th century & modern china
>general book on china & its geography & demographics
>tons of wikipedia articles, esp. about china's administrative issues, districts, economy, demographics
>watched over a dozen of mainland chinese movies
>learning chinese
>not listening to chinese music though - the only thing that is completely offputting about chinese culture
i wish i could visit china.
china's growth genuinely impresses me. look at the soviet union and youll realize the soviets never stood a chance. the chinks just got somethin in their brains that makes them so much more fuckin smart & effective than any other commies in history

how about you anons?

[Anonymous No.17224426]

>>17224419
>not listening to chinese music though - the only thing that is completely offputting about chinese culture

I like Imperial China, too, but I could never tolerate chinese music. I think its use in commercials and other places made me associate it with unending kitsch.

[Anonymous No.17224434]

>>17224426
the movies are not very good, either. i blame mao for that.
any and all chinese movies that are good come from either hong kong or taiwan.

[Anonymous No.17224486]

>>17224419
I find them terrifying and fascinating. I've been reading a Chinese history book, their culture is just too deep and too alien for me to feel like I can get a real grasp on it the way I can with Western culture. I think as they start to become more and more of a regular topic in the West people are gonna become more interested in them.

[Anonymous No.17224503]

>>17224419
I can't remember who or when, but at some point they invaded Korea and like put iron spikes in the ground to mess with the geomancy or the flow of energy across the land. It's just something that is so outside the assumptions of understanding for someone like me.

[Anonymous No.17224519]

>>17224419
The records of the grand historian is quite a head scratcher. Its almost like a worldbuilding fantasy novel.

[Anonymous No.17224525]

i too am a chinaboo, though with some caveats:
>no interest whatsoever in modern chinese culture
>no interest in revisiting China (lived there before)
>not impressed by their race to the abyss against the west

but i love ancient chinese eccentrics, the hermits, the monks, the poets etc.

[Anonymous No.17224571]

>>17224519
Best English edition?

[Anonymous No.17224647]

this rings very true re: my own interactions with westernized Chinese culture, their music, movies etc.

>The human soul and body are capable of adapting themselves to inhospitable conditions, provided the worsening of the environment takes place gradually. Europeans and Americans have a certain immunity to the malign influences of the modern environment, and a familiarity with it which enables them to make value-judgements... People elsewhere have no such immunity and their past experience of life gave them no opportunity to develop standards of taste applicable to these products. The outcome of this situation is exactly what one would expect, people who, only a generation ago, lived amongst things that were beautiful and entirely fitting to their way of life now live amidst trash which they cannot even recognize as trash.

[Anonymous No.17224964]

lmao weeb

[Anonymous No.17225017]

>>17224503
There are some tales like that in vietnam too. Chineses like to mess with geomancy of other nations.

[Anonymous No.17225096]

>>17224503
>>17224486
>their culture is just too deep and too alien for me to feel like I can get a real grasp on it the way I can with Western culture
This is absolutely true. I always believed China is the closest thing in existence to interacting with a sentient alien species. Everything about them - the language, writing system, culture, traditions, philosophies, mindset, is obviously a work of very intelligent design but so alien to the western mind it might as well be from another planet. Other East Asian countries are like this too, but to a somewhat lesser extent because of openness to and western influence in Japan and South Korea.

[Anonymous No.17225123]

>>17224434
>>17224426
I like certain forms of Chinese music, but holy FUCK is Chinese opera and that "official" style of singing just grating. It's incredibly plastic. It reminds me of those hyper-airbrushed portraits made out of cheap red plastic you see festooning everything in China.

[Anonymous No.17225131]

>>17224419
Everything I've ever read about China has made me hate the CCP more and more, and while the people themselves aren't at fault, I resent them for allowing themselves to be trampled on.
However I realize this is a biased opinion. Which of these books should I read to get a more sympathetic viewpoint toward the Chinese state?

[Anonymous No.17225140]

>>17225096
Are you retarded? It’s not even that different

[Anonymous No.17225168]

>>17225096
People who have lived in China always say their sense of humor is very similar to that of Americans. I think that counts for a lot. Conversely I think that's the most perceptible divide between us and the Brits.

[Anonymous No.17225217]

>>17224503
A sort of corollary happened with the Christianization of the Germanic world.

Pre-Christian Germanics would bury their dead in mounds ("barrows" in English) in some ritual manner. This would essentially bind the soul of the dead to the area as a guardian. Seeking wisdom from your literal ancestors was a common practice, and a lot of Scandinavian magical systems essentially amounted to "taking a walk in the woods while your ancestors whispered secrets to you". Sleeping on barrows is an attested Anglo-Saxon practice that exists to this day (in the modified form of sleeping in a graveyard), with the goal of getting your ancestors to tell you things in your dreams.

Christianization undoes that, and tries to kill this off. In Scandinavia, it results in laws essentially making being alone in the woods, or just being alone for too long, a crime punishable by burning at the stake (the only reason to be alone "for too long" was that you were a witch). Small wonder why things like the Law of Jante develop. In England, barrows become places of evil, because your pagan ancestors were buried there. The church starts demanding executions and hangings be done at these barrows as a way of making them evil (the logic was that the criminal's soul would be housed in the barrow, smothering the influence of your pagan ancestors). The end result of this is the church coming up with the idea that a gentile being buried in an area pollutes the land, whereas a Jew being buried in an area makes it sacred and holy (this is why Israel is the holy land, you see, it has lots of dead Jews buried there).

It's really easy to think that people hold the same basic assumptions about how reality works that you do, but in truth that's probably really fucking unlikely. Especially for people who lived a completely different lifestyle at every level than you do.

[Anonymous No.17225220]

>>17224419
I hope Xi sees this bro

[Anonymous No.17225237]

>>17225131
the Chinese state as it stands right now is:
>a product of its people
>nothing new in chinese history
>makes exceptional progress and chinese people are rightfully proud
that's it

Mao sucked ass BUT culturally, even though he was brutal and i resent his destruction of traditional culture, laid important ground for the development of the modern chinese state, detached from age old, long-rotten roots.

[Anonymous No.17225238]

>>17225217
To make this about China, one really interesting example of this "foreign people don't think like you do" example is the entire idea of "hell money". Consider how strange the idea that not only is there an economy in the afterlife that your ancestors can buy and sell in, but they are apparently strapped for cash and need you to give them some of your income.

[Anonymous No.17225250]

>>17224419
Im reading Journey to the West and Im enjoying it, but sometimes I get lost with the amount of gods and places in their heaven, any tip for this? is there any decent adaptation of this?

[Anonymous No.17225252]

>>17225237
He's also responsible for the ending of the PRC as a serious political force. If it weren't for Mao, we'd see a pozzed "Liberal Democracy" in China, in place of China.

When people get upset about China being "ruined" by Mao, as compared to Taiwan, they're really upset that (mainland) China is too Chinese, as opposed to Taiwan which is just enough Oriental to make it seem exotic, but has enough (((Western))) influence to make it not really foreign in any meaningful sense.

[Anonymous No.17225271]

>>17225123
It would probably help if you understand Chinese since it's a theatrical form and not just music for listening. I find a lot of their instrumental classical music very enjoyable
https://youtube.com/watch?v=435b9PjeOoc

[Anonymous No.17225304]

>>17225271
That's an entirely fair point as I do not speak Chinese.

[Anonymous No.17225316]

>>17225237
I wonder what you think about the CCP's insecurity complex. If the Chinese state is legitimate, why does it suppress criticism? How can they excuse persecution of journalists?
(I'm NOT trying to start a debate; like I said, I see my one-sided beliefs as problematic and I want another perspective)

[Anonymous No.17225338]

>>17225316
read about the CCP's (or, well, Xi's) 4 comprehensives. basically, China is not insecure about *itself* but about possibly following the Soviet Union's footsteps. Xi steps back on several (but not all) of his predecessors' liberal policies because he sees liberalization and decentralization as key factors of the desintegration that destroyed the USSR

[Anonymous No.17225352]

>>17225316
>If the Chinese state is legitimate, why does it suppress criticism?
Not him, but China isn't a Liberal state. China has its own political tradition. The idea that a "legitimate state" has to be "open to criticism" is one created for the purpose of allowing mercantile interests to control the state under the veneer of "dialogue". The CCP prevents Westerners and Western-backed interests from interfering in Chinese affairs. If you have a problem, there are channels to make those problems heard.

Would you let someone else, from another country, come into your home, and tell your family how evil you are, and that this evil can be fixed by them buying vacuums from the company that is funding this stranger to come into your home and tell your family how evil you are? No? Then why should China?

[Anonymous No.17225365]

>>17225338
>because he sees liberalization and decentralization as key factors of the desintegration that destroyed the USSR
He's not wrong about that at all. And considering what great leaps in reducing poverty/crime, growing the economy, and scientific and technological feats China has achieved under his rule, him and CCP are doing the right thing

[Anonymous No.17225380]

>>17225365
the USSR was a great lesson for china. china is the literal definition of
>slow and steady wins the race
they waited decades out now all competition is dead and they can learn from their mistakes. like einstein said - it's good to learn from
own mistakes but wiser to learn from the mistakes of others

[Anonymous No.17225402]

>>17224419
I want too but for some reason it just doesnt grab me. I've tried history, poetry, philosophy, literature but none of it has hooked me like say reading Greek philosophy did or reading about Mongolian history or Iranian poetry.
They have such deep civilization that it bums me the fuck out that i cant get interested in it. The closest interest i have is the language but i dont want to commit to learning to read chinese until have other interests in Chinese.
Please give me some recommendations.

By the way check out ctext.org its a digital library that has a ton of chinese pre-modern texts.

[Anonymous No.17225408]

>>17225352
>>17225338
Thanks guys. There are rabbit holes in both these posts which I plan on going down.
To be clear, I plan on throwing myself off a bridge if I end up agreeing with either one of these insidious, patently evil points of view, but like I said I value these challenging perspectives.

[Anonymous No.17225412]

>>17224419
What are some books you recommend? I grew up in China (not Chinese) and I really want to learn more about it. Having trouble finding anything worthwhile

[Anonymous No.17225473]

>>17225402
Starting with the 20th century and working backwards worked for me. I too was so daunted by the scale of Chinese history and its breadth of culture that I couldn't bring myself to get interested in it. But modern Chinese art and art theory is relatable enough that I was able to get a sense of the culmination of the Chinese phenomenon, and then understand the structure and values that underlie it all.
Personally I started with Bei Dao's poetry and Simon Leys' critical essays (available on b-ok) but there's so much, you could start anywhere.

[Anonymous No.17225474]

>>17225338
which book/texts of Xi do you recommend?

[Anonymous No.17225486]

>>17225412

China in Ten Words by Yu Hua is an excellent introduction to how Chinese people think about things. It's basically a very interestingly-structured memoir and my favorite modern work of Chinese literature/art.

[Anonymous No.17225488]

>>17225473
Here's an essay by Leys on Chinese calligraphy:
https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/one-more-art

[Anonymous No.17225514]

>>17225412
>What are some books you recommend?
pic related: entire history of China, tho mostly focuses on the Qing and post-qing china in the 2nd half and concentrated on PRC's history more than on ancient china's history BUT it's a great intro to ancient chinese stuff (which in the book serves as a background to the Qing, which serves as a background to what we have now)

[Anonymous No.17225550]

China, even the concept itself of China, is nearly incapable of translation into Western thought. The Western geopolitical experience is a universal empire collapsing into personal rule of private fiefs, and then the ruled subjects of those fiefs identifying with the fiefs instead of their rulers. The Chinese empire is a permanent feature of Asia. Even when foreigners conquered China they became Chinese. China is basically a living fossil, a civilization from antiquity, but it is not safely locked in a museum. I have met Chinese people who think of themselves and their families as hundreds of years old, who know and care enough about what jobs their ancestors had in the middle ages to tell you about them. Every Chinese person to be sure, is not like this, but how many Westerners conceive of themselves, their families, or their countries as some sort of eternity? The dominant Western country, the United States, is almost entirely descended from people who elected to divorce from their homelands, cultures, communities, and so forth. An American and a Chinese person might as well not even be considered nationalities. An American is stateless (even the name of his country is plural) and a Chinese is the state. In other words, China has been breeding its people for thousands of years, while the average Western government emerges from some catastrophism or other of the last few hundred years. That is not to say China is without catastrophic traumas, but the result of these is always to reinforce China as an idea. Even the Maoist dynasty are clear on this, they demand all highways of trade are routed to the center of the universe, that any breakaway provinces be brought back under the fold. On the surface this is mistaken for nationalism because again China does not really translate to Western thought—the truth of the matter from a Chinese view is non-dual, that the world is China and China is the world.

[Anonymous No.17225566]

>>17225550
You really think that after the political revolution and Cultural Revolution, there's any continuity whatsoever between modern China and its past?

[Anonymous No.17225611]

>>17225566
absolutely. the cultural revolution, as with anything "communist" in china was deeply superficial and mostly just a political tool used in party infighting among the top dogs

the true soul of china, which lies in the heartlands of its rural areas, has never died

[Anonymous No.17225684]

>>17225566
What did the Cultural Revolution get rid of that was essential to China-ness? Sparrows? See this is the Western mind in action, that because something appears to have changed that there is a break between then and now.

[Anonymous No.17225723]

>>17225096
Can you give some examples?

[Anonymous No.17225883]

>>17225566
The Chinese had many uprisings with millions dying in their history. For them the Cultural Revolution is just one of many periods of hardship and the CCP and its apparatus are just another form of an autocratic ruler like the many emperors they had before.

[Anonymous No.17225962]

>>17225883
>>17225684
So are you saying the entire Mao era was superficial and a failure at that? I admit I know nothing about Chinese history prior to the 20th century but I find that hard to believe.

>What did the Cultural Revolution get rid of that was essential to China-ness
The Four Olds, i.e. literally everything that was essential to China-ness?

[Anonymous No.17225981]

>>17225566
China has these sort of events every century or two. It's one of the weird things about reading Chinese history. The world wars completely destroyed Europe's confidence in itself, China has them all the time yet keeps on ticking.

[Anonymous No.17225998]

the Cultural Revolution was a civil war caused by leftist purity spiralling (we're the true Maoists... nuh-uh fascist, we are!), they caused a huge amount of property damage and tortured and killed many people, but the dawning of modernity in China was more radical in its lasting effects than a decade of ideological idiocy

[Anonymous No.17226034]

>>17225981
See >>17225962

Narratives like that are too tidy for me to take seriously.

[Anonymous No.17226036]

>>17225962
>superficial and a failure
Maoism was fundamentally a rejection of Western Liberalism in favor of native Chinese politics. The Chinese took Communism, and repurposed it for their own ends. Understand that China came first. Every so often, a great leader arises and purges weakness from China. This involves trashing lots of Chinese culture. But Chinese culture is not just a series of arbitrary propositions, it arises directly from the Chinese People. The Chinese People are, and China is. Anything that Mao seriously managed to destroy that mattered (which was very little) could easily be rebuilt. The Chinese (and the Japanese) have traditionally built things from wood for this very reason: China will remain, and China will be able to rebuild. China is an organic whole. China is capable of ensuring the long-term continuation of China such that things like "doing maintenance on a building" are possible.

There's a quote by Mao that goes something like:
>Some people have compared me to Qin Shi Huangdi (the founder of China), who buried alive 10,000 Confucian scholars. To this, I say no, I am not: I will bury alive 10,000,000 Confucian scholars.
China's FOUNDER is a guy going around trashing the Four Olds (Confucius, after all, claimed to have innovated nothing).

Mao's revolution was hardly superficial, and it was a great success: he succeeded in ousting Liberalism and ending the Century of Humiliation. Communism was a tool to do that. Understand that the Chinese consider "China" to be far more fundamental to themselves and the world than Communism, or Fascism, or any -ism. Westerners, beaten down by Protestantism and Abrahamic rationalism, see the world in terms of a series of arbitrary propositions. The Chinese don't.

[Anonymous No.17226060]

>>17225962
The Red Guards basically vandalized symbols of China. That doesn't make China disappear. China was ruled once by Mongols for two hundred years (Yuan dynasty) and as you may know the Mongol conquests were some of the most destructive man-made events in human history.

[Anonymous No.17226063]

>>17225217
>The end result of this is the church coming up with the idea that a gentile being buried in an area pollutes the land, whereas a Jew being buried in an area makes it sacred and holy (this is why Israel is the holy land, you see, it has lots of dead Jews buried there).

Whoah, almost got me. 3/10.

[Anonymous No.17226077]

>>17226036
The specific quote you're referring to is:
>He [Qin Shi Huang] buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.

[Anonymous No.17226080]

>>17225252
Do you think so? When people think of China it's usually Imperial China that springs to their mind. The Empire had dozens of crises and periods of reform, surely the decaying Qing could have been reformed as well instead of uprooting the Empire completely?

[Anonymous No.17226086]

>>17226063
>the clergy told peasants silly things to make them shut up
Woah... Next you'll tell me that Heaven isn't actually a physical place, and that Aquinas' Five Ways aren't actual arguments but are rhetorical tools to demonstrate to Jews and Muslims that Christians aren't polytheists...

[Anonymous No.17226096]

>>17225566
>what is the the burning of books and burying of scholars

[Anonymous No.17226115]

>>17226036
>Mao's revolution was hardly superficial, and it was a great success: he succeeded in ousting Liberalism and ending the Century of Humiliation.
I agree, moreover this is remarkably misunderstood by Western observers, who are attempting to judge the success of 'communism' from the perspective of communism, instead of viewing the success of China as China. The question of whether communism succeeded is immaterial; one only need study some Chinese or Chinese-assimilated philosophies to understand the degree of contingency or relativity in Chinese thought. All of the success of China at present has a direct relation to the 'excesses' of Maoism rebalancing China. The thought is so completely monstrous to Western thought that the only analogous attitude that comes close is accelerationism, which of course, is most famously touted by someone who relocated to China.

[Anonymous No.17226138]

>>17226086
Heaven is China and China is heaven. Abrahamoids will never recover

[Anonymous No.17226165]

>>17226115
>the perspective of communism
I don't disagree, but I'll quibble about this: Americans don't see Communism as an economic doctrine, but as a form of utopianism that fits (as they see it) snugly into the mold of any other Protestant utopianism. I'd cite as evidence the fact that Americans gobble up the "once Communism happens we'll all be telepathic and able to fly" shit that some of the more air-headed PoMo types come up with, whereas Euros are quick to discard such silliness. For Americans, Communism is fundamentally a mystical doctrine about preparing for the Second Coming rather than worldwide wildcat strikes.

[Anonymous No.17226209]

>>17226165
Based hyperprotestantism poster. Have you been in the Buddhism threads?

[Anonymous No.17226230]

>>17226036
Cool post, thanks

> All of the success of China at present has a direct relation to the 'excesses' of Maoism rebalancing China.
Kek no it fucking isn't; it's due to Deng opening up to pseudocapitalism. Xi is still riding that wave.

[Anonymous No.17226235]

Chinese didn’t build the Great Wall of China, Russians did. That architectural style is decidedly European, not Eastern.

[Anonymous No.17226259]

>>17226230
And where did Deng originate from? What shaped the present attitude of domesticating Western investors to Chinese interests instead of being some dogmatic confucio-marxist literary state that gets isolated and starved into geopolitical implosion like the USSR? If not for Maoism would China still have dying Western pensioners and their nursing home governments sending them cash to build up China? China is consuming death to build itself.

[Anonymous No.17226281]

>>17226259
I'll take these ravings seriously if you can prove you're not Chinese. A timestamped photo of a >4-inch penis will suffice.

[Anonymous No.17226291]

>>17225238
>not only is there an economy in the afterlife that your ancestors can buy and sell in, but they are apparently strapped for cash and need you to give them some of your incom
This weird chinese materialism (I don't have a better word for this) of extending deeply worldly affairs to the afterlife is extremely interesting to me.
Other example would be the Celestial Burocracy

[Anonymous No.17226303]

>>17226235
Uh, oh, looks like you've posted cringe.
You're gonna loose social credit points for that, sweaty

[Anonymous No.17226323]

>>17226281

[Anonymous No.17226325]

>>17225238
Didn't the ancient Greeks do the same thing? I remember reading something about placing silver coins on the eyes of the dead

[Anonymous No.17226353]

>>17226325
The truth of the matter is that you cannot even finance your debt to your ancestors; it is so overwhelmingly massive that you have no hope of repaying it, ever, and token rituals are more of a reminder of this than anything else.

[Anonymous No.17226357]

>>17226325
That's to bribe Charon, the ferryman. I know that it's technically the same sort of thing, but it seems to me that you only have to do that once. It's not like there were repeated infusions of silver to the ancestors. On the other hand, maybe someone could find some attestation of feasts done to the ancestors with the idea that they eat the food.

>>17226291
Why exactly is the Celestial Bureaucracy in place? Some kind of taxing of energies by heaven?

[Anonymous No.17226358]

>>17226235
I thought it was built by phoenician-descendent atlantis from hyperborea with hy-brasil slaves

[Anonymous No.17226374]

>>17226235
WE

[Anonymous No.17226403]

>>17226358
Europeans built it for sure. Just look at Eastern architecture and compare it to that. It’s 100% European style, Chinese just took credit for it. This is what Eastern architecture looks like; completely different.

[Anonymous No.17226434]

>>17226357
Generically speaking, there wasn't a Greek polis that didn't see itself descended from some founder or protector god or goddess, or from the (h)ero born of such a god. Since there were cycles of festivals and holocausts and hectacombs offered up to these divinities, it is not unlike giving your ancestors sustenance.

[Anonymous No.17226435]

>>17226357
>Why exactly is the Celestial Bureaucracy in place
I'm no specialist, but if I remember correctly, it's something like this:
If you were a good boy in life, you can do some exams in confucianism and whatnot after you die and become a small deity. if you do your job well, you can do more exams and go up in ranks, just like in the earthly chinese government.

[Anonymous No.17226477]

>>17226403
Hmmm. And I thoght it was the tibetans all along...

[Anonymous No.17226535]

>>17226477
That looks nothing like the wall. Just look up Eastern architecture, Japanese, Chinese, whatever. They build stuff completely different than Europeans. The Great Wall of China was built by Europeans, Chinese never build in that style.

[Anonymous No.17226541]

>>17224419
Yeah, I think China is pretty interesting but I’m ironically, pretty put off by the fact that everyone else is also interested now and China is loved in pseud spheres like /int/. To be fair though, I am extremely into Japan and the weeb trope or it’s popularity has never dissuaded me. Maybe this is cringe to admit, but there’s an impulse that’s just there inside for Japanese culture not so for Chinese although they’re obviously similar.

[Anonymous No.17226601]

>>17226541
The Japanese were fellow China-admirers. Your Japan-admiration is a simulacrum of Japan's China-admiration.

[Anonymous No.17226622]

>>17226601
A bit of a reductionist way of putting it, don’t you think?

[Anonymous No.17226647]

>>17226622
Sure but the same culture you admire had a long period of admiration for a culture you say you aren't as interested in.

[Anonymous No.17226660]

>>17226541
You will never be a jap.

[Anonymous No.17226679]

>>17225352
Great way to avoid the guy's question.
On an individual level, how do you justify persecution of journalists and peaceful protesters? If you admit such persecution is not just, how can the perpetrators claim legitemacy?

[Anonymous No.17226691]

>>17226647
And your point? Germany had an admiration of Rome at one point and yet if you said you liked German culture more than Roman, no one would bat an eyelash. They’re different.

>>17226660
Thank you for the absolutely shocking and surprising revelation. Really opened my eyes.

[Anonymous No.17226712]

>>17226535
The fancy segments of the Great Wall used in media are all from the Ming period iirc, and following the Yuan dynasty's importation of Muslim populations from other Mongol territories it is not unreasonable to conclude Persian or Arab engineers were involved in some way, nor would it be the first time non-Chinese were involved in China's development. Big blocky towers with crenellation are not unique to Europe.

[Anonymous No.17226738]

>>17226691
The Japanese took such an interest in Chinese culture that they imported Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, and still have an Emperor. Modern Germany and Ancient Rome is a poor comparison. Japan autosinicized in real-time.

[Anonymous No.17226755]

>>17226738
And the Germans took such a fascination in Rome that they became Christians and eventually, the Holy Roman Empire. It’s not remotely a poor comparison. I think you may just be a sinophile and want to nitpick with me for some reason.

[Anonymous No.17226762]

>>17226679
>On an individual level, how do you justify persecution of journalists and peaceful protesters? If you admit such persecution is not just, how can the perpetrators claim legitemacy?
China has an entirely different notion of legitimacy than the Washington Post.

[Anonymous No.17226786]

>>17226535
Have u seen any Chinese city wall anon I.....

[Anonymous No.17226802]

>>17225486
>>17225514
Thanks

[Anonymous No.17226811]

>>17226755
>And the Germans took such a fascination in Rome that they became Christians
Countless numbers of Germans served as well-paid mercenaries in the late Roman army and were acculturated to Christianity (which they adopted a heretical version of anyway) and eventually disposed of the Roman state because it was more efficient and advantageous to rule such decrepit people instead of being their help.
>and eventually, the Holy Roman Empire
Yes several centuries after all the little German warlords who had conquered Gaul and Italy were brought under one man he made the pope call him the Roman emperor
It's really not a great comparison

[Anonymous No.17226818]

>>17226762
If they're 'Democratic' only in name, I guess that's true.
Also nice job dodging the question again. Amazing the hoops you monkeys will jump through to avoid having to self-criticize. Don't trust your VPN to keep you safe from your legitimate government?

[Anonymous No.17226822]

>>17226601
so weebs are just proxy sinologists?

[Anonymous No.17226832]

>>17226811
Okay, dude. You’re just getting unnecessarily semantic. The whole point stands that there’s cultural overlap. I don’t know why you’re taking issue with me anyway. Sorry, I’m a giant Chinaphile but if this is the hill you’re going to die on you should go to Japan and proselytize because I think they’re on the other side of the fence from your thinking.

[Anonymous No.17226839]

>>17226822
Well, no. As far as I know, weebs just like anime, which is different from the culture as a whole.

[Anonymous No.17226843]

>>17226541
It's okay so long as you're not autistic about it. India, China, Japan, Iran, I'm interested in them all.

[Anonymous No.17226845]

>>17226832
I’m not*

[Anonymous No.17226853]

>>17226786
That’s completely different. Notice the crude smooth surface, the specifically Eastern-style building on top, the thickness. It is completely different to the wall of China.
>>17226712
Persian and Arab sounds more reasonable, although it’s more likely Persians than Arabs. It’s still a distinctly European style though so it’s Slavs from modern Russia most likely. Either way, Chinese didn’t build it, they just took credit for it.

[Anonymous No.17226866]

>>17226818
Personally I find human rights based criticisms of China to be extremely boring and unhelpful for understanding China. They say much more about what Westerners value. The idea of compliance with universal human rights as the standard for evaluation and that all states should comply with an international consensus (mediated by Euro-American dominated think tanks, NGOs and courts) is not going to last. Do I personally think it's gross that you can't speak your mind in China, sure why not? But Western countries have all the technology in place to enforce the same rules and merely haven't because of an aging opposition. Polling suggests younger people are more in favor of restricting speech, especially if offensive? How do we decide what's offensive? The state or media will educate us! We are almost Chinese, give it 20 years.

[Anonymous No.17226875]

>>17226818
not him, but, as far as I understand it, the chinese censorship is not that different from the US blocking Huawei or Tiktok. The key distinction is that so far the CCP has been punching upwards against the west, so harsher measures are inevitably necessary.

[Anonymous No.17226881]

When I came home from living in China, I thought to myself, at least I'll get to watch the news now and know it's not propaganda. True story.

[Anonymous No.17226899]

>>17226832
The point is—if you want to understand Japan you need to study China. Imagine studying the United States without bothering to study England or France, or Mexico without Spain.

[Anonymous No.17226908]

>>17226881
>and know it's not propaganda
Silly, silly boy.
At least in China you knew it was propaganda.

[Anonymous No.17226909]

poland

[Anonymous No.17226932]

>>17226899
Who are you even arguing with? I never said anything to the contrary of this. You have a bone to pick for some reason I do not understand.

[Anonymous No.17226939]

>>17226853
>That’s completely different
Only minor differences like smooth or the thickness of roof
>smooth surface
of course, it's 13000KM long wall, It cant be well-polished and repaired constantly like city wall
>the thickness
It's defence system so It gonna be thick and It's north china way of building
>pic is a rich ancient Chinese man' mansion from north china

[Anonymous No.17227007]

>>17226932
Are you not the person up the chain saying he was a weab but not really interested in China?

[Anonymous No.17227023]

>>17226866
I follow your logic, and I agree with it. But I don't agree (this isn't a strawman; this is how I interpret your post) that the Chinese don't value human life or freedom of thought. I think evaluating, for example, the Liu Xiaobo case, by 'western' humanist standards I'm probably coming to the same conclusions as 90% of the Chinese people who are aware of the facts.
That makes your assertions simply sound like the typical circular logic the CCP uses to avoid taking responsibility.
I don't think the importance of free speech in the Western world is as temporal as you think. The only reason young people in America are able to brush off these ideas as outdated is because they've never experienced a true autocracy.

[Anonymous No.17227053]

>>17226875
>not that different from the US blocking Huawei or Tiktok
Did the US put Tiktok in a reeducation camp and refuse it access to cancer treatment until it died? Because that's what the CCP does to Nobel laureates.

[Anonymous No.17227057]

>>17227007
I never said I was a weeb but yes, that is what I said. I never said there wasn’t cultural relevance to Japan in China. I only said that my impulse is to Japan and not China.

[Anonymous No.17227059]

>>17226939
You’re just dumb if you think that looks anything like Western architecture.
The wall of China is built in a European style — maybe you can say it’s a Persian style if you reach. Chinese are genetically coded to build in one style, and Europeans are genetically coded to build in another. We don’t see Chinese styles in Europe and we don’t see European styles in China, except for the Great Wall. Ergo the Great Wall of China was not built by Chinese.

[Anonymous No.17227071]

>>17227059
What do you mean by 'European style'? Can you get more technical?

[Anonymous No.17227096]

>>17225412
What ethnicity are you?

[Anonymous No.17227104]

>>17224419
I do find old Chinese history very interesting. I'm especially into Taoist philosophy. My main interest is Japanese religion (wrote my master's thesis on Japanese sacred forests), so seeing how Chinese culture influenced Japan is very interesting to me.
Maybe someone knows a good book on Sino-Japanese relations?

[Anonymous No.17227110]

>>17227059
>Chinese are genetically coded to build in one style, and Europeans are genetically coded to build in another.
You have to go back

[Anonymous No.17227125]

>>17227071
Why? Go on google images and type European architecture and then do the same with Chinese/Japanese architecture. Then compare both to the wall of China.
>>17227110
It’s not /pol/ it’s a well-accepted fact that different cultures have different architectural styles.

[Anonymous No.17227167]

In my experience with people, fascination with Chinese culture is born from ignorance.
I respect it, but Chinese culture and values are some 1000 years behind European

[Anonymous No.17227188]

>>17224419
Yes, I've been hooked on chinese short stories, so much magic, spirits, and even necromancer that you don't even touch in western stories. I especially love all their superstitions they have and how life was centuries ago.

[Anonymous No.17227210]

>>17227188
Can you give some recs?

[Anonymous No.17227220]

>>17224419
Based Sinophile. I've been studying Chinese language/culture/history for a few years now. Even visited for a few weeks back in early 2019 on a university-funded cultural exchange/trip thing. Assuming the border restrictions ease up somewhat by the time May rolls around I'll be moving there in a few months to teach English, which should be interesting. Currently reading pic, which is a neat (though not positive) look at pre-Communist China though the eyes of an American.
>>17225514
ehh I read this for 2 Chinese history classes in uni.

[Anonymous No.17227225]

>>17227167
Or more recently, politics. Sad to say but true. I do disagree with the behind thing though. I think there’s valid reasons to admire any culture.

[Anonymous No.17227255]

>>17227023
Oh I don't deny it's circular or that it's what the Chinese government believes (or implies). But the real lesson of the USSR is that the state needs self-confidence more than anything. Public approval is part of that, but only a state that loses the will to live dies. China never really does, and part of how it accomplishes this is quite simply by believing in itself in a cosmic sense. Freedom is not the metric, never was, and if it were it would not be China anymore. Could the freedom lovers hit that critical mass and honeycomb the state enough to make China into westernizing state? It's possible. But would the hyperreality of an eternal China recolonize this revolutionary state and domesticate/dynasticize it as it did to Mongols and Maoists? As for free speech in America, go turn on your TV and learn about how the words of the president literally turn into violence and that major communications platforms have muzzled him to save democracy. If democracy is going to normalize suppressing speech to save democracy, that is China with extra steps.

[Anonymous No.17227262]

>>17227210
Strange tales from a Chinese studio by Pu Songling

[Anonymous No.17227264]

>>17227110
>cultures have different architectural styles.
That's not what you said; you said it was genetically determined what buildings people construct.

[Anonymous No.17227272]

>>17227262
Is that one of the ones with the magic, spirits, necromancer items? I like that stuff.

[Anonymous No.17227284]

>>17224419

Enjoy it while you can. Globalization will destroy what made China so great. One generation left before it is totally unrecognizable in spirit and character. They will open to immigration like the United States did. Then it will all be over.

>The panting civilizations exhaust themselves faster than those that loll in eternity. China alone, thriving for millennia in the flower of her old age, offers an example to be followed; China alone long since arrived at a refined wisdom superior to philosophy: Taoism surpasses all the mind has conceived by way of detachment. We count by generations: it is the curse of scarcely century-old civilizations to have lost, in their rushed cadence, the atemporal consciousness

[Anonymous No.17227311]

I started reading Cat Country by Lao She and am enjoying it so far. I am mostly unfamiliar with what he's criticizing but you can feel his disgust coming off of the page.

[Anonymous No.17227314]

>>17227272
yes

[Anonymous No.17227372]

>>17227053
I'm not describing *how* they do it, but *why* they do it.
If your argument is "oh look how the chinese are cruel!", just look at the American foreign policy. The west doesn't need to be harsh on freedom of speech because it's at the base of its whole society. Free speech cannot hurt the western establishment. Other things can, though, thus all the very gentle treatment of the third world by America.

[Anonymous No.17227470]

>>17227372
>Western devils are making China lose miànzi
>Better switch to focus to America
The fact that America is literally the devil doesn't absolve anybody else of moral crimes. Fuck off with your tu quoque argument. I thought the Chinese valued self-criticism?

[Anonymous No.17227503]

>>17227470
I'm not chinese, nor am I defending China's actions. I'm here just to attack free speech.

[Anonymous No.17227525]

>>17227470
go outside

[Anonymous No.17227534]

Did anyone here read The Dream of the Red Chamber? How is it? I've been meaning to read it for years, but its size always made me pick something else...

[Anonymous No.17227561]

>>17227525
I'm waiting for the cadre to unlock my cage.

[Anonymous No.17227569]

>>17227470
>I thought the Chinese valued self-criticism?
who says they don't? there's like 1 billion people in china, if it's such a hellhole they can figure that shit out themselves, not some dude on the otherside of the world who's only information they get about china is from news headlines

[Anonymous No.17227694]

>>17227569
Am I wrong in thinking that most Chinese people suffer under a debilitating persecution complex? As I understand it, the idea that China is somehow an underdog has been carefully, strategically curated ever since 1948 with a view toward galvanizing people against foreign meddling. What ever the *intent* of that has been, the result has been to create more obedient sheep who are blind to the crimes being perpetrated at their own doorstep. I've never lived in China but I have lived in former colonial countries, so I know how powerful a handicap postcolonial inferiority can be.
The fact that nobody seems able to defend Chinese crimes against morality without saying "what about America?" makes me believe that these crimes are indefensible. I'm open to have my mind changed about the extralegal killing of journalists if you can discuss it without referencing the West.

[Anonymous No.17227759]

The Contest are just like any other race of man. Stupid, selfish, doomed. Everything and everyone is going to swallowed by global capital. The globe will be homogenized in rapid time. China has only three options left:
1. demographic disaster in our lifetime, total failure return to 3rd world status
2. open the borders to immigration and slow erasure of everything Chinese
3. genetic engineer ubermensch / automate *everything* to just barely compensate for their demographic catastrophy (there's no way they'll complete this project in time but putting it here for argument's sake)

India will outshine them. America will simply let in more immigrants. China only has option 2 if it wants to remain relevant. I have a feeling they will cave. China ends in our lifetime, and with it, the eventual end of nations as global capital continues to search out inefficiency across the globe.

[Anonymous No.17227776]

>>17227759
China doesn't have to open its borders because accusations of racism carry zero weight for them.

[Anonymous No.17227788]

>>17227759
Why would the youth bulge of India be anything other than an existential threat to the Indian state? It has to vomit those people out of the country or else they will overthrow the government one day because they felt bored.

[Anonymous No.17227794]

>>17227534
It's one of the comfiest novels ever written. Every page of it is pure kino, and you'll fall in love with a large variety of characters by the end of it.

>>17224419
>not listening to chinese music though - the only thing that is completely offputting about chinese culture
That's a massive mistake. Classical Chinese music is incredible. I have a GuQin on my desk and hope to be able to play it competently one day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmc9nQKJX20

[Anonymous No.17227811]

>>17227694
>I'm open to have my mind changed about the extralegal killing of journalists if you can discuss it without referencing the West.
not him but why do you venerate journalists? 99% of them serve as ready mouthpieces for elite power. the remaining "independent" journalists are just grifters selling whatever distorted truth their customers crave. and don't say Glen Greenwald. He might have a moral foundation but he's no angel. Everything he does is as calculated as the next man.
So, why are they special? Why is a journalist protected? The purpose to journalism is to program the populace. Get them upset or proud of whatever is preferred but the journalist's master. I think it is fully justified for a state to murder a journalist, as they would a spy, a drug smuggler, or a serial killer. The state has an obligation to survive in order to protect it's citizens. Or, conversely, the state has an obligation to keep its cattle docile and productive, which is the darwinian imperative of international politics between states

[Anonymous No.17227864]

>>17227776
>China doesn't have to open its borders because accusations of racism carry zero weight for them
it's about vast sums of money. the same reason we have immigrants here in America. "racism" is just social programming for the cattle. we don't want the different breeds fighting in the pastures

>>17227788
>Why would the youth bulge of India be anything other than an existential threat to the Indian state
cheap labor and tax base. same reason we're taking immigrants here. if you have a top-heavy population you future is stagnation and failure. it's not pretty but that's the dynamic. yes infinite growth is impossible. doesn't matter in the short term

[Anonymous No.17227941]

>>17227759
>>17227776
>>17227864
Both of you are right. China will simply create a non-han underclass. Yes they will have to import labour, but they wont give that labour the same rights as Han workers. There will be a perpetual underclass like in the Middle Eastern countries made up of south/east asians and african workers who will get sent home whenever they cause too much trouble or are no longer needed. .

[Anonymous No.17227981]

>>17226679
how do you justify persecution of journalists and protesters when the idea of journalists and protesters don't exist? What is a protester to you and what is a journalist? Hell, what is persecution? If you see things from the persepctive that these ideas are Western language for Western events, then why would you consider using them for a culture that wants to reject the west? There isn't a universalist "journalist" there might be universal evil and suffering, and I think it would be better to ask how you can justify a state that causes suffering and evil, but i think that that is every state. So, to answer your question, how can you justify persecution? You can't, you're applying western ideas to a Chinese thing.

[Anonymous No.17228025]

>>17227864
>cheap labor and tax base. same reason we're taking immigrants here.
We are much more 'balanced' than the impending social crisis India is incubating. A billion plus is not cheap labor in an increasingly automated world it is a massive liability since they will consume more than they are capable of producing. Tax base is a meme; high taxes come from wealthy citizens not armies of laborers.

[Anonymous No.17228027]

Im very interested in China too, currently going through Greeks and learning greek but after that I really want to learn about the chinese

[Anonymous No.17228041]

>>17224419
I'm not interested in China, I just want a chink girlfriend bros :(

[Anonymous No.17228053]

>>17228041
Same

[Anonymous No.17228091]

>>17227059
>Chinese are genetically coded to build in one style, and Europeans are genetically coded to build in another.
YIKES

[Anonymous No.17228143]

>>17227981
That might make sense if not for the fact that the journalists/protestors/activists in question are Chinese with Chinese minds. These criticisms I'm parroting aren't mine; they originated in China.

[Anonymous No.17228386]

>>17227759
Neo-China sends you a "Hello" from the future.

[Anonymous No.17228396]

>>17224419
>chinks just got somethin in their brains that makes them so much more fuckin smart & effective than any other commies in history

Because they're not commies, they're an authoritarian regime with state-run capitalism. The "Chinese Communist Party" is about as communist as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is democratic.

[Anonymous No.17228733]

Do you guys think it’s possible for a Westerner to learn and eventually write in Chinese?

[Anonymous No.17228753]

>>17228733
Yes the Jesuits did in the 1500s

[Anonymous No.17228776]

>>17228753
Not exactly what I mean. I mean, could a Western write a novel in Chinese and have it be well receptive in China, for example.

[Anonymous No.17228856]

>>17228776
If it's positive of the Chinese system then maybe

[Anonymous No.17228868]

>>17228856
Good point but also not what I was asking...

[Anonymous No.17228978]

>>17228733
Yes? I'm not perfect at all but I can read and write a good amount of Mandarin.

[Anonymous No.17229003]

>>17228776
Yes. Chinese isn't some kind of magical bastion knowledge forever limited to the vile waiguoren.

[Anonymous No.17229137]

>>17228978
How did you learn it and how long did it take?

[Anonymous No.17229160]

>>17229137
I took two intensive double credit courses in university and then let my language proficiency atrophy for two years . Currently studying again...

[Anonymous No.17229194]

>>17229137
>>17229160
I should note that even with those classes I was probably only a 3/10 if 0 was non-speaker and 10 was native.

[Anonymous No.17229199]

Mao succinctly summed up thousands of years of Chinese history in one word—"Cannibalism". Hope that can help.

[Anonymous No.17229416]

>>17226077
holy shit, mao was savage. it's basically like religious folk telling atheists
>you'll go to hell
and atheists, naturally, not giving a SINGLE fuck

[Anonymous No.17229445]

>>17228978
>>17229003
What I mean is do you think a non-Chinese writer could ever be popular in China?

[Anonymous No.17229491]

>>17229445
Yes if their books weren't politically sensitive and their Mandarin was excellent. I'm sure there are one or two foreign-born Chinese-second-language authors who've found some level of success, though I don't know any off the top of my head.

[Anonymous No.17229510]

>>17225486
Reccing this. Also;
Hungry Ghosts
Grass Soup
A mother's ordeal
Ancient Chinese Power, Modern Chinese State

Anyone read 30 Years in the Countryside?
Im looking to buy a copy...

[Anonymous No.17230606]

bampu

[Anonymous No.17230630]

I am interested in China but I also understand that since they’ve been around so long they probably think much differently than I do

[Anonymous No.17230892]

>>17229199
I've been hunting for a book called Cannibalism in China by Key-Rey Chong for years but it doesn't seem to exist

[Anonymous No.17231431]

>>17224419
china's literary tradition fucking sucks, just endless repetitive garbage. their history is mildly interesting solely to gleam how their sociopathic traits are a reflection of today.

[Anonymous No.17231449]

>>17227284
>China alone long since arrived at a refined wisdom superior to philosophy: Taoism surpasses all the mind has conceived by way of detachment.
Oh fuck off.

[Anonymous No.17231652]

>>17227264
Yes and what is the difference between those statements?

[Anonymous No.17231678]

>>17224419
the traditional China, Taiwan, yes

[Anonymous No.17231685]

>>17224419
reluctant chinaboo here
i was already kinda interested in china in like, high school when the economic miracle really started cranking, but i ended up doing a lot more research after i started dating a chinese girl
pretty sure half of the shit that i had to re-learn about china was result of a mindset where people imagine it like a regular normal country like it's Sweden or some shit and they have the same limitations as most countries, while they're sitting there with 1.5b people and 4k years of history and are subject to basically no limitations that mean anything

>>17225238
makes anthropological sense from the perspective of showing devotion to the departed by sacrificing something that has token value to you (but is replaceable in that the ritual can be repeated). imo it's unwise to take mythology at face value

[Anonymous No.17231695]

>>17229199
i mean, from an iconoclast coming at the end of a corrupt and anarchic period, looking to unify china under a single vision, that line isn't history, it's politics. 'china' as a single monolithic nation is a concept that requires some justification, and that was Mao's

[Anonymous No.17231890]

>>17225238
You've had your brain rotted by Marxism

[Anonymous No.17231939]

>>17225316
I honestly think the CCP suppressing freedom of speech is understandable. Just look at the west and how in just the last 5 years so many people have been radicalised and brainwashed into believing crazy and harmful conspiracy theories like Qanon or voter fraud.

[Anonymous No.17231941]

chink zipperhead faggots

[Anonymous No.17231948]

>>17231939
Go back to R3ddit

[Anonymous No.17232538]

>>17224419
Reading Kissinger on China atm. Really only wanted to read for an american geopolitics entry, but now I'm going down the China rabbit-hole - any good recs on Chinese cosmology/celestial mandate/history???

[Anonymous No.17232774]

>>17232538
bump for this

[Anonymous No.17233163]

>>17224419
>look at the soviet union and youll realize the soviets never stood a chance
Yea, the chink cucks went first human to space and still uses soviet made rockets (renaming doesnt make they chinkcrap made) and they fought in the fucking most hoorible war in history and ended in enemy capital (not the americans did all job in pacific, chinkcuck only suck japanese cock)
Chinks were lucky to have ussr in their backdoor and US who invest fucking billons to their economy and gave them tech - thats all "chinas smartneASS"
USSR at least did and improove something by yourself and have some sense in his existence and history
China is literally noncense fucking uselles peace of garbage

[Jesus No.17233317]

>>17224419
please, visit china, moron deserves it.

[Anonymous No.17233367]

>>17225217
You should take your meds

[Anonymous No.17234074]

Bump for recs

[Anonymous No.17235236]

Where should i start for translated chinese literature? I tried Romance of the Three Kingdoms but i was too name-y for me.