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56860

56860

Senior Member
Registered Member
Chevalier said:
A Shitcoin.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1657600923827593216

A bit of historical perspective from a Chinese migrant labourer of the 1840s; how times change, how the wheel turns...

If Indians of all people can assume false superiority over Chinese, is it far fetched to see the same from the Thais and filipinos who aspire only to become 'LBFM' of the white anglo, so as to escape the crushing poverty which was caused by white anglo led austerity and the white anglo led financial system.
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This hit deep. My great-great-great grandparents migrated from Fujian to SEA in search of a better life for their descendants. At that time, China was suffering greatly under Western and Japanese imperialism.

The english translation of the poem fails to fully convey the feeling of sorrow and hopelessness. Since then and now, how many generations of patriots have sacrificed their lives and blood to bring China to where it is today? I am ever more convinced that it is my generation's mission to rejuvenate China and return it to its rightful position at the apex of human civilization.
 
Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

Major
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
Americans talk about Chinese movies all the time - to trash talk them.

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Mostly critics are the trash talkers, just look at the split between viewer reviews (97% positive) vs. professional reviews (71% positive)

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This is actually spectacularly backfiring as people will now watch them just to see if its actually bad. Wandering Earth got $5 million box office sales in North America itself. That's small compared to $600 million in China but its rare for a non-English film in the US.

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The reality is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

You can put out all the attractive cultural products that you want, but some people will just refuse to see it. No reason, they just won't. What are you gonna do about it?

The real soft power isn't movies, music, TV, anime, books... its news. Everyone knows movies are fake, but is news fake? And that is where China can't compete, because its Xinhua vs the entire news agency empire.
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I'm gonna get alot of stick for saying this. But this my own personal opinion. The Wandering Earth I & II, and Moon Man pretty much sums up a problem with Chinese sci-fi genre today. It has not matured yet. While the stories are conceptually ok, there is always a sense of cringe when watching these movies. It resonates well with Chinese-speaking audiences, but for audiences who grew up on Hollywood, its difficult to take in. I know that they wanted to implement traditional Chinese values like the family, the home, and sacrifice into the sci-fi genre. But I just think that it can be written better. Still, I'm optimistic that they'll improve in due time. Nevertheless. Chinese cinema are excellent in making historical, drama, and martial art films. Some of their films, are considered classics among foreign audiences.

But you're right, movies are fake, but news is real. Its the news that drives people's opinion, and the Chinese news media is just outclassed by its Western counterpart. China would have to up their game, but the task is monumental. The Chinese media is just too rigid. It's gonna take a long time to catch up. China has little choice but to play with economic and hard power for now.
 
eprash

eprash

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
I also noticed that HK and Taiwan used to have their own pop culture industry but since the mid 2000's they're dead. Those who are pro China follow Chinese pop culture, the rest went to US pop culture, nobody talks about their local pop culture.

I must point out that Japan doesn't have hard censorship of the US cultural products yet they've maintained an independent pop culture with 8/10 movies being non-US.

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China also has 8/10 movies being non-US with hard censorship. However, the allowed US movies are still quite low at rank at #5 and #9 so it shows that even in the absence of censorship, they wouldn't be doing too good.

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My hypothesis is that Chinese and Japanese culture are too different from Indo-European cultures and highly resistant to their cultural influence if there's a strong alternative. Its much easier to overwhelm HK or TW culturally than to overwhelm mainland China.

I'm just surprised that Thailand is so easily brainwashed if it has its own pop culture. I'm also surprised Malaysia has no pop culture anymore. I guess I'm still thinking of the Malaysia of Fish Leong and Michael Wong.
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Any specific reason Japanese prefer local movies their choice seems "natural" so to speak since they don't have any censorship in place
 
56860

56860

Senior Member
Registered Member
Sardaukar20 said:
I'm gonna get alot of stick for saying this. But this my own personal opinion. The Wandering Earth I & II, and Moon Man pretty much sums up a problem with Chinese sci-fi genre today. It has not matured yet. While the stories are conceptually ok, there is always a sense of cringe when watching these movies. It resonates well with Chinese-speaking audiences, but for audiences who grew up on Hollywood, its difficult to take in. I know that they wanted to implement traditional Chinese values like the family, the home, and sacrifice into the sci-fi genre. But I just think that it can be written better. Still, I'm optimistic that they'll improve in due time. Nevertheless. Chinese cinema are excellent in making historical, drama, and martial art films. Some of their films, are considered classics among foreign audiences.

But you're right, movies are fake, but news is real. Its the news that drives people's opinion, and the Chinese news media is just outclassed by its Western counterpart. China would have to up their game, but the task is monumental. The Chinese media is just too rigid. It's gonna take a long time to catch up. China has little choice but to play with economic and hard power for now.
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Culture gap. The west emphasizes the individual over the collective. The scene in Wandering Earth 2 where
the elderly sacrifice themselves to blow up the moon will probably come off as cringy.
 
O

OppositeDay

Senior Member
Registered Member
Pop culture ranks pretty low as a form of soft power. And movies rank low even among pop culture products. Friends has probably produced more American soft power than the entire Marvel universe.

eprash said:
Any specific reason Japanese prefer local movies their choice seems "natural" so to speak since they don't have any censorship in place
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They like animated stuff and they manufacture their drug of choice.
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Eventine said:
Again... It's a propaganda weakness inherent to authoritarianism.

Young people rebelling against the establishment and embracing the idea of democracy is an age old story. It is the perfect demographic for Western influence campaigns to target because it fits the psychological profile so well. Young people every where resent the fact that they lack political power, believe they know more than everybody else, and yearn to be free of all authority. These facts make them very susceptible to the promises of liberal democracy, because liberalism is all about empowering the individual, rebelling against authority, and pursuing freedom above all else.

It's not until people get into their thirties and forties that they realize the world doesn't work that way; and that the "freedom" offered by the West is nothing more than a different form of enslavement. When the thrill of protesting on the streets and throwing rocks at the police wears off, they will realize no, you can't survive off of pride parades and smoking weed and "revolution in our time." That there are objective power dynamics at play, which Western media actively attempts to hide in an effort to fool people into acting against their own interests.

Unfortunately, young people must be taught the hard way about these lessons; and the failure of their societies is the price they must pay. Look at the Arab Spring - that was an attempt by the West to rally the Muslim youth to the cause of liberal democracy. It brought little more than chaos across the Arab world, didn't move them up in the world what so ever, and failed in pretty much all of its goals.

The same will repeat, else where. Liberal democracy doesn't bring freedom to countries - it makes them vassals to the West. Look at the Koreans and their president's shameful display in Washington; or the Japanese and their commercial interests getting wrecked by US sanctions. Look at the pathetic birth rates across East Asia, and the South American countries run by drug lords. But democracy is a hell of a drug - by the time their young people wake up to the state of their societies, it'll be too late. The worst is yet to come.
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The young being foolish and gullible is universal and has nothing to do with form of government, religion, race, gender or anything else. To think otherwise is to fall for western MSM propaganda yourself.

The key guardrails against foreign corruption and manipulation of the young are down to domestic institutions and society at large, not propaganda.

The power of propaganda is that it can be all a pack of lies. This is why it will always win out if given free reign since its infinity easier to make empty promises that are impossible to fulfil just to get votes/support compared to giving people reality based options on what is actually possible.
 
H

Hitomi

Junior Member
Registered Member
Current Thai election results certainly do not bode well for China but we should not be betting on a Bolsonaro esque flip in foreign policy for this guy since he toes the "politically correct" line of the American MSM and not a pariah to either party in the USG but rather he will mellow out or even flip once he is in the driver's seat and learns of the benefits China gives Thailand economically.

Best hope would be the Pheu Thai party restraining him within the alliance to not make any rash moves as I see them as a more moderate force within the assumed alliance(maybe those with more insight into the Thai political landscape can enlighten me if I am wrong).

As for China's diplomacy, I can see them making inroads through the same Pheu Thai party as they have dealt with them before the military takeover though things might have changed since nearly a decade has past since they were last in power.
 
P

PanAsian

Major
FairAndUnbiased said:
I also noticed that HK and Taiwan used to have their own pop culture industry but since the mid 2000's they're dead. Those who are pro China follow Chinese pop culture, the rest went to US pop culture, nobody talks about their local pop culture.

I must point out that Japan doesn't have hard censorship of the US cultural products yet they've maintained an independent pop culture with 8/10 movies being non-US.

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China also has 8/10 movies being non-US with hard censorship. However, the allowed US movies are still quite low at rank at #5 and #9 so it shows that even in the absence of censorship, they wouldn't be doing too good.

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My hypothesis is that Chinese and Japanese culture are too different from Indo-European cultures and highly resistant to their cultural influence if there's a strong alternative. Its much easier to overwhelm HK or TW culturally than to overwhelm mainland China.

I'm just surprised that Thailand is so easily brainwashed if it has its own pop culture. I'm also surprised Malaysia has no pop culture anymore. I guess I'm still thinking of the Malaysia of Fish Leong and Michael Wong.
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Some segments of HK and TW populations are easy to manipulate by external forces because they take it personally that they are on the "wrong/losing" side of their heritage's internal history (Chinese history) and their inability (whether organic or groomed) to personally choose to be on the "right/winning" side means personally choosing (whether organic or groomed) to be on an external side is the only acceptable option. No segment of PRC's nor Japan's populations are in a comparable position. As has been brought up in other discussions, the mentality of some South Vietnam emigrant communities or anti-Castro Cuban emigrant communities are more comparable. Don't forget the colonial oppression of these populations either.

On another level, local entertainment industries are businesses and incomes. HK and TW markets are just too small to sustain truly local entertainment industries, it just doesn't make sense for business capital nor personal career choice compared to other available options. Quantity, quality, and distinct local flavor all suffer for it.
 
D

Dark Father

Junior Member
Registered Member
56860 said:
This hit deep. My great-great-great grandparents migrated from Fujian to SEA in search of a better life for their descendants. At that time, China was suffering greatly under Western and Japanese imperialism.

The english translation of the poem fails to fully convey the feeling of sorrow and hopelessness. Since then and now, how many generations of patriots have sacrificed their lives and blood to bring China to where it is today? I am ever more convinced that it is my generation's mission to rejuvenate China and return it to its rightful position at the apex of human civilization.
Click to expand...

The book of Yung Wing is freely available on the internet. Not a good writer by any means but good to read how our ancestors experienced their live during the 19th century.

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Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

Major
Registered Member
56860 said:
Culture gap. The west emphasizes the individual over the collective. The scene in Wandering Earth 2 where
the elderly sacrifice themselves to blow up the moon will probably come off as cringy.
Click to expand...
Actually I don't think the scene where the elderly sacrifice themselves is cringy. It is actually quite meaningful. The problem is the odd decisions by certain protagonists, sabotaging the mission because they got too emotional. The biggest problem I have with Wandering Earth is the concept of moving the entire planet itself to escape the Sun. If this was a Star Wars fictional universe, then fine, do it. But this was supposed to be a universe in our near future, with an actual PRC in it. The Chinese writers wanted to do a hard sci-fi movie, but using Star Wars fictional science. This for me, is difficult to take seriously. It does not respect hard science and the laws of the universe. Hence this movie for me, becomes another CGI spectacle like Guardians of the Galaxy. There is so much potential in Chinese sci-fi films, but the current crop of writers and directors are just not there yet.

Moon Man was also similar. They wanted to do a hard sci-fi film, but they had to include a cartoon kangaroo character in it. I get it, that there should be some creative freedom with sci-fi, but the Chinese way of doing it is quite cringy. There is still too much hangover from the Steven Chow style of movies. Some might argue that Avatar had many cartoonish creatures in it too. But they were quite maturely designed, portrayed, and explained. That is the one big factor lacking in Chinese sci-fi movies: Maturity.
 
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