I have heard explanations like his from people who are openly racist. So, I will take his justification as seriously as I would if he said "some of my best friends are Chinese!" His implication that dishonest apologies are a more prominent part of Chinese culture than Western culture sounds a lot like someone's prejudicial twist on real Chinese culture.
Are you implying that I am racist? I find that you and your ilk are very closed minded. Frank comments about anyone and anything are considered racist. This is an attitude that has lead to the decline in frank discussions about important issues because people like yourself who can't handle the argument then use the race card. Right.. if I were racist, would I live most of my adult life in Asia and marry an Asian and take citizenship in an Asian country? As Hercule Poirot would say, "use those little grey cells."
If said redneck moved to Taiwan and still had the same attitudes I would not give him more credibility just for living amongst them. Something tells me he had his mind made up about China long before he set foot on Asian soil.
Now, you are implying I am a redneck? Again, you are making judgements without facts. Now, I know you do NOT speak Mandarin or read Chinese. You do not live here. Thus, it is very easy for me to discredit what you are saying as you don't really know what it is like. I have travelled through China EXTENSIVE and have been there several times since my time in residence in the country. With one exception (in Shanhaiguan), I had wonder experiences with people in China, but not with the bureaucrats and government officials I from time to time have had to deal with.
That you even consider it a legitimate source is the problem.
It is a legitimate source as it is indicative of the thought processes of the people and it is entirely consistent with my experience and knowledge of the history of the song and its use in Chinese propoganda.
What movie it was used in is quite irrelevant. The song has far surpassed the movie in notoriety. Perhaps one lyric might have been intended to refer to America, though it may have been intended to be more universal, but that hardly makes it an anti-American song. Rather it is a patriotic song forged out of lingering feelings regarding a war that had just ended. Taking two lines from a song that is almost entirely talking about a person's love for their country to cast the whole thing as anti-American is just absurd.
It is quite relevant in the Chinese mindset. That you don't understand that is further indicative that what you say regarding China should be taken with a grain of salt. That it was prominent in anti-U.S. propoganda (but not anti-Japanese propaganda) is also indicative of the meaning of the song in its proper context. Also considering that there are many other songs that have been used for patriotic purposes far more frequently and not in a context of propoganda regarding another country also are telling. These are things you have no EXPERIENCE with. EXPERIENCE in this case is key.
From what you have said on here I imagine you are of sufficient age to have been raised at least around the end of the Cold War. Undoubtedly you grew up with negative propaganda regarding the Chinese and "communism" so together with living mostly in Taiwan after leaving the U.S. I doubt it would be very easy to convince you of anything positive regarding China.
Ummm.. again, you are speaking from ignornace. In the 1980s, the focus was the Soviet Union, NOT the PRC. The U.S. worked with the PRC at that time as a counterweight to the USSR. Very little anti-PRC rhetoric at the time.
That was just a point about how living nearby does not give you any particular experience or insight.
Except that Taiwan is populated by people with a similar culture, I have lived there, and I speak the language, Something Governor Palin can't say. She also lived in a place FAR FROM the core of Russia. Compare apples and oranges much?
Some pro-China rhetoric has been shown to be wrong, just as some anti-China rhetoric has been shown to be wrong. I am perfectly accepting of reasonable critiques of China. Yours are not reasonable. What you say is typical of people on the right and some on the left and plenty of them I know to have no claim to experience. Hence, any contact you have with China is not sufficiently compelling.
A LOT of anti-PRC rhetoric has proven to be correct over the decades. I don't subscribe to the radical claims of organ harvesting alleged by some groups, but I do subscribe to what I have observed and has been reported by responsible and respectable organizations, one of which you have poo pooed in another thread, though its reporting on China has been VERY accurate in the past. What has happened for decades is that unrealistic and untrue accounts have come out of China from those who have either been gamed by China or went without really understanding. Tourists who go there without the language and are guided around my Chinese tour guides come back thinking they understand China. What a joke. My travels through the country were ALWAYS without a tour guide and with a functioning knowledge of the language. Can you say the same?!?!?
Yeah, I find this to be a hilarious thought. You insist this is only about the government yet make a point of saying that people in China are "LOVING" that the song was played. That makes me think of that recent political ad where the Chinese professor talks about the decline of the U.S. due to its debt and while making this evil-looking glare remarks at how "they work for us now", which excites a roar of laughter from the crowd of young Chinese students. Sure, just criticism of the Chinese government. :roll:
Except that it is true. You really have no clue. Keep on being clueless. You will learn, if you keep an open mind.
