solarz
Brigadier
Look maybe it's true that for the older generations they had some Cold War mentality in their lifetime, but you really shouldn't think that modern generation's negative perception of China = Cold War mentality. Even the oldest Gen Y would be only 11 years old when the Iron Curtain came down, which leaves their entire adolescence to learn from school, experience it on their own in campus, and early years working and raising their family in a Cold War free environment and exposure to the world. It's most likely that they didn't experience much of China anyways, and professors and teachers still taught them of Communist China, but definitely none of those mean much because their lives didn't grow up under the shadow of living in a Cold War environment. I myself grew up just in time of one year before the Tiananmen event, and then had only 2 more years of Cold War which I won't remember a slightest bit as I was still too young to remember anything, and before I knew it, it's gone. And certainly even kids who are born earlier than me and were 6-7, or even 11, won't have cared or given a single bit about Communist China in their toddler and preteen years. That said, the new generation doesn't think or continue to live in a Cold War mentality. No one even puts these 2 words next to each other these days, and the last time that happened, it was from Black Ops.
And if Cold War mentality of China you mean green uniform armed police, corrupted bureaucracy with human rights violations and Communist regimes, then yes many do still think that way. However, other than the green uniforms, everything else remained factual of modern day China. Maybe more Chinese are wealthier off now, and Shanghai looks better, but the last thing on people's minds of impressions of others would be wealth (unless we're talking about Wall Street bankers, stockholders AIG execs)
The only possible Cold War mentality I could imagine would be aggressive China, but that's just because of the recent rise of China and territorial disputes, not the Red scare ideology of Communist China seeking to spread Maoism as it was prevalent in Cold War.
In fact to prove a point, you can even click into that link and use the find function (ctrl+f) to look for the term "cold war" to see how many times it's been mentioned in that forum.
I dare say those South Korean and Japanese kids have had more exposure to Cold War propaganda than they've had to Chinese mainlanders. So how can you so casually dismiss the influence of such propaganda and take at face value their prejudice against mainlanders?
While there is no doubt that mainland China has a long way to go toward forming the kind of civil society that Canada has, you really need to take into account population size in order to make valid comparisons. New York, for example, is far more similar to Shanghai in terms of common etiquette than it is to Vancouver. Even Toronto is a lot more "ill-mannered" than Vancouver.
I find the idea that mainlander Chinese need to "have more manners in order to be accepted" to be, quite frankly, offensive. How would you react to the following statement: "black people need to commit less crimes in order to be accepted"?
I hope I don't have to explain why both are wrong!
I guess my point is, ignorance is not to be respected, no matter where it's coming from, and how many people share it. The opinion of those kids on that Asian forum is no more valid than the opinion of kids from Chinese forums who believe all Japanese are unapologetic warmongers.
Last edited: