Very interesting history and culture, plastered over with bland authoritarian turbo-capitalism that disguises itself as communism.

winnie the pooh

Uyghur people in concentration camps while tourists invade their homes

A ruthlessly effective technocracy that has achieved very impressive outcomes for their citizens¹ while also being a cultural / societal system I never want to live in. For some reason super obsessed with outside appearances.

1:

From 1995 to 2025:

• GDP/c: 603 to 13973
• Literacy rates: 77% to 96%
• University graduates per year: 900K to 10M
• Life expectancy: 33 to 77
• Railway km: 54616 to 160000 (50000 high speed)
• Urbanization rate: 29% to 67%

etc.

Massive cities with LED buildings, beautiful mountains with paved hiking trails all the way to the top and gondolas to get down, Long queues that are still orderly and move quickly, families eating large meals outside, friendly and very curious people.

I've spent a lot of time there. Compared to the west the cost of living is super cheap especially for all the options and amenities you get. Even in the hippest part of Chongqing I could rent an apartment 2x the size of my house for half the mortgage. If the US is headed towards a permanent authoritarian regime I would trade life here for over there. At least their dictator appreciates science and education.

Complicated. Big.

A collection of a wide range of geography, languages, and peoples. Held together by a mix of national pride, iron fist, and a solid record of on the whole very good for most people improvements in life quality in living memory.

Big. Brazen. Splashy. But with an inability to face problems, and a resignation to the world as is. An almost fatalistic attitude paired with naïve or blind optimism on its dexter side.

A place filled with potential, as well as already existing food, culture, history. But hard to find much of it as modernity does a speed run towards uniformity and mass production, while historical sites are rebuilt as poured concrete facsimiles.

Their authoritarian form of government which is definitely making me not want to ever visit China.

I am sure China is otherwise a wonderful country, I don't have a negative opinion of Taiwan at all, but the PRC needs their Gorbachev to come to power and liberate them.

Technology city of Shenzhen, mountain range, great wall, Mulan, winnie the pooh, three kingdom, wuxia story, and mala peppercorn.

Ohh and it's my ancestral land.

Eh, it's a country. I do dig American Chinese food, I know it's not the same.

Chinese slave-workers helped build the American West, their contribution and sacrifice is rarely recognized.

Order. Conformity. Mystery. Impenetrable language. Impossible writing. Eating anything that moves. Mindless nationalism. People who don't talk or even care about politics. Depressed single young people obsessed with shopping. Security cameras. Police. Airport-sized train stations. Electric scooters. Electric cars. Utopian-dystopian sci-fi.

Yes, I have been there multiple times.

PS: to be clear, I was very, very impressed by those trains and especially by the electrification of city transport. In Shenzhen the air is now cleaner than any big city in the West and with all the greenery and silence it really does have a utopian feel. The progress there is genuine, it's amazing, it deserves lots and lots of credit.

Proper tea.

Thiefs, low quality, dictatorship, murders, will probably try to fuck up my life in the future.

Very rich culture, and the government.

The sets of fancy expensive-looking porcelain plates and cups my older relatives all had on display in a glass-fronted cabinet for use on some theoretical special occasion, but no occasion was ever actually special enough to allow anyone to use it.

The internet has really fucked my brain, because the first thing that comes up in my head is an old meme of The Orange One (back when he hadn't been president yet, and so was funny instead of scary) saying "CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA" (sorry)

AFTER that -- Disney's Mulan, and all the orientalist aesthetics that come with it (sorry²)

And AFTER that -- Years of internet discourse trying to convince me that a growth in Chinese international power would be worse than the US holding that position alone, which I find EXTREMELY hard to believe as a third world citizen whose home nation has been fucked in the butthole by the Americans like seven different times in lived memory (NOT sorry)

Then AFTER that -- The stories told by my one friend who lived there for a few months. To be honest they made China seem like a pretty cool place to live in. Or at the very least, a fun experience as an exchange student.

And AFTER all that -- Bootleg video games. They are interesting!

I always think about visiting due to the amazing natural and historical areas but simultaneously, how much I don't want to visit due to other issues.

Tofu Dreg.

I'm into Taoism, so I think of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and Chinese philosophy. I love their sense of humor, and humility. I often daydream of a different life, being raised a monk in the Himalayas. A place I like to imagine when mediating

Dragon Kilns. I am addicted to their live porcelain opening channels lol.

Rice field to magalopolis in a generation. Absolutely wild speed of seismic change.

Edit: megalopolis

Horrific dictatorship that commits atrocities.

People that have been subjugated and oppressed and have little to no value as humans to the CCP.

Became a world power by exploiting the working class.

Beautiful country and amazing history.

I think of China as a country that pretends to be communist while making cheap products that vary in quality. I also think of the nice people that live there though.