#Tiananmen M

[slowtumbling]

Youth In Asia - Beijing 1989

A Monday Monday Song Youth in Asia is the eleventh and final song on my recent album Peace Colored Gown. Originally released on the Belly Hymns album. Vocals: Keith Lyndaker and Peter Sabath, Music: Live recording on a radio show in 1989. Song written soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4. Remised and remastered in 2023. You and I have paid for Tiananmens everywhere. Peace…

[justsigma-bsd]

I have met myself! I have a rather diverse mind, you know >;P

Not to imply that I"M not real, because I am. Definitely. But, I've spoken to my ... more tangible counterpart before. He was just like me, NOT TO IMPLY THAT IM NOT ME THOUGH. we're both the same amount of me and real.

I am me.

hahah. I try not to think about that day. Anyway...

Do you have any candy?

-The Jester of Tiananmen Square

"I see... and no, unless you count cookies?"

[jhavelikes]

The comments echo those made by Henry Tang, the head of the West Kowloon Cultural District, a cultural hub, when its flagship M+ gallery opened in 2021: “The opening of M+ does not mean that artistic expression is above the law. It is not.” Today, the museum advertises its collection of Ai Weiwei’s Study of Perspective series, in which the artist holds his middle finger up to various landmarks. But while several photographs in the series are advertised online, the listing for the Tiananmen Square edition, in which Beijing’s central plaza is flipped off by the dissident artist, displays only a grey square with the M+ logo. A museum spokesperson said: “M+ handles its curatorial matters in a professional and independent manner. All of its contents are in full compliance with the laws and regulations of Hong Kong while maintaining the highest level of professional and artistic integrity.”

Hong Kong artists flee as city grapples with status as arts hub amid rising repression | Hong Kong | The Guardian

[world-literatures]

just read: The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

I've read some of Yiyun Li's short stories (the whole collection of "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" and some selected stories from "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl") but never one of her novels. I've owned this one for quite a while so it was nice to finally pick it up.

One thing about this book - it's not really what the jacket says. The premise is that a woman named Gu Shan is executed after the cultural revolution for being a counterrevolutionary which sparks a protest in the town of Muddy River. While this event does happen, it isn't until part 2 of the novel.

This is more of a character study about how these characters lives are informed and impacted by the cultural revolution. It is a study of the time period itself, narrowing in on the death of Mao Zedong and democratic protests in Beijing impact this small, rural town in China.

It's very well written but it's also very bleak. It's sort of a book you have to stay with - don't expect to rush through it. Sometimes it really was a "30 pages and I'm done for tonight" kind of book. That said, I like the way the author lingers on the details, sits in the characters heads to where it's actually uncomfortable. It really felt placed in this exact moment in time with these exact characters. I really like that instead of her, observing them, it's like she lets us see how they observe the world, think and feel.

Yiyun Li is a great writer and I would really like to read her entire catalog.

genres: historical fiction

translator:  nil

rating: ★★★★

themes: politics and revolution, love and sex, power and ambition

Brilliant and illuminating, this astonishing debut novel by the award-winning writer Yiyun Li is set in China in the late 1970s, when Beijing was rocked by the Democratic Wall Movement, an anti-Communist groundswell designed to move China beyond the dark shadow of the Cultural Revolution toward a more enlightened and open society. In this powerful and beautiful story, we follow a group of people in a small town during this dramatic and harrowing time, the era that was a forebear of the Tiananmen Square uprising.

Morning dawns on the provincial city of Muddy River. A young woman, Gu Shan, a bold spirit and a follower of Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in Communism. Now a political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissent. Her distraught mother, determined to follow the custom of burning her only child’s clothing to ease her journey into the next world, is about to make another bold decision. Shan’s father, Teacher Gu, who has already, in his heart and mind, buried his rebellious daughter, begins to retreat into memories. Neither of them imagines that their daughter’s death will have profound and far-reaching effects, in Muddy River and beyond.

In luminous prose, Yiyun Li weaves together the lives of these and other unforgettable characters, including a serious seven-year-old boy, Tong; a crippled girl named Nini; the sinister idler Bashi; and Kai, a beautiful radio news announcer who is married to a man from a powerful family. Life in a world of oppression and pain is portrayed through stories of resilience, sacrifice, perversion, courage, and belief. We read of delicate moments and acts of violence by mothers, sons, husbands, neighbors, wives, lovers, and more, as Gu Shan’s execution spurs a brutal government reaction.

Writing with profound emotion, and in the superb tradition of fiction by such writers as Orhan Pamuk and J. M. Coetzee, Yiyun Li gives us a stunning novel that is at once a picture of life in a special part of the world during a historic period, a universal portrait of human frailty and courage, and a mesmerizing work of art.

[thebugaftermayakovsky]

TIMELINE

1905 - first Russian revolution, Freud's theory of sexuality, Potemkin incident 1912 - Stanislawski's acting method is created. 1914- assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, beginning of World War I. 1915- Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1916- Zurich, Cabaret Voltaire 1917 - Bolshevik Revolution 1918 - Assassination of the Tsar and the Romanov family 1922 - March on Rome and coming to power of Mussolini 1929 - Mayakovsky's bug. Prisypkin is frozen as a result of a fire during his wedding. 1930 - Mayakovsky's suicide. 1931- Second Spanish Republic 1932-33- Great famine in Ukraine, Holodomor (famine). Between 3 and 5 million people died. 1933- Hitler comes to power in Germany. 1936- Spanish Civil War. Murder of García Lorca. 1938 - Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). 1939 - Invasion of Poland and beginning of World War II. 1940 - Torutra and execution of Vsevolod Meyerhold. 1945 - The US drops two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. 1947 - For the first time, insects are launched into space: In 1947, the United States sends fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) into space aboard a V2 rocket. They were the first animals in space and were part of a series of experiments to study the effects of cosmic rays on living organisms. 1948 - Nakba, and creation of the state of Israel. 1955 - First documenta in Kassel. 1955 - First Israeli raid on Gaza. 1959 - First color TV broadcast 1960 - The contraceptive pill for women is marketed. 1961 - First man launched into space: Yuri Gagarin 1968 - Tlatelolco Tragedy, French May 1969 - Riots at the Stone Wall 1971 - Commercialization of the first Intel 4004 microchip. Abandonment of the gold standard by Richard Nixon. 1975 - Thrilla in Manilla, Muhammad Ali faces Joe Frazier. 1978 - The Russian-Afghan war begins. It will end in 1992. 1979 - Prisypkin wakes up. The Clockwise Experiment: This concept was first developed and tested in 1979 in Ellen Langer's "counterclockwise" study, which examined the psychological effects of turning back the clock on the physiological state of an older adult. The research question was, "If we set the mind back twenty years, will the body reflect this change?". 1981- AIDS crisis, Michelangelo Miccolis is born. 1989- Fall of the Berlin Wall. Tiananmen Square, protests and massacre. Francis Fukuyama publishes "The End of History". Creation of the World Wide Web. 1990 - Nelson Mandela is released from prison. 1992 - Maastricht Treaty 1997 - Death of Princess Diana of Wales. 1999 - Putin comes to power in Russia. 2000 - Y2K. Y2K was a computer glitch, or bug, that may have caused problems when dealing with dates after December 31, 1999. 2001 - 9/11 2003- Beyoncé releases "Dangerously in Love". Beyoncé is 21 and already dating Jay Z. 2007 - #metoo 2008 - War in Georgia 2009 - Ru Paul's drag race 2011 - Arab Spring. 11M 2014 - Russia invades Donbas and annexes Crimea. 2016 - Murder of eco-activist Berta Cáceres. 2017 - Hollywood's #metoo 2018 - First Fridays for Climate Greta Thumberg strikes. 2020 - COVID. Murder of George Floyd 2022 - Rihanna's son is born. Russia invades Ukraine and war begins. Decriminalization of sex work in Belgium. The first person who does not die is born. Jan Fabre is found guilty of sexual harassment. Spanish government approves trans law recognizing free gender self-determination. NOW 2030 - The increase in global temperature is irreversible. 2031 - Third Spanish Republic 2032 - There is one person left on facebook 2039- Crypto Crash 2050 - Ecological Collapse 2060- End of Capitalism 3,050 - Days lengthen by 1/30th of a second 10,000 - Extinction of humanity. The water level rises by 5 m in relation to the present.

[jungkooksbiwi]

May 16, 2017, 10:34:13 PM

[rorodawnchorus]

The Chinese journalist who’s been writing about Uyghur people

"Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.” - Uyghurs For Sale

Vicky Xu was born and raised in China. She thought the Tiananmen Square massacre was fake and she used to be very nationalistic, often standing up for the CCP. Now, she has been writing about the oppression and cultural genocide Uyghur people have been experiencing for years. In this tweet, she talks about her experience and why she was driven to do investigative journalism on human rights abuses in China, particularly Xinjiang. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/xu_xiuzhong/status/1377527819715010561

(I won’t be translating her thread word for word but I’ll translate some quotes and also the gist of the thread) 

She says she’s questioned herself about taking huge risks and writing about Xinjiang and Uyghur people. She’s wondered if it was all “worth it”. She says “no matter how difficult it is, I must report about all that has befallen on Uyghur people. The root of the oppression on Uyghur people stems from the governing authority which is held by the majority Han Chinese government and this is the destruction of Uyghur people and culture.” Using the excuse of anti-terrorism policies, Uyghur people who are just average citizens with no intention to overthrow the government, they’re being put into concentration camps that are called “re-education camps” by the CCP. “As an ethnic majority Han Chinese” she says, “I cannot sit by idly and remain silent.” 

In 2017, when she was writing for New York Times, she was told that articles written in English would more likely fly under the radar of the CCP so she decided to do that. However, her articles had been translated and she has been cyberbullied, her family and friends have been harassed in China, and deepfake sex tapes/nudes have been spread online with claims that it is her. 

When she graduated in 2018, she joined Australian Broadcasting Company. However, due to lack of funds, she was only able to interview Uyghur people who have moved to Australia (there is a community in Adelaide, as per her tweet). At first, she noted, they were reluctant to open up to her and share more with her. She says, “At that time, all I could do was to write and tell the truth. Even if no one cares about it now or what the truth is, at least I’m leaving a historical record.” She would listen to her interviewees in tears, talking about their captured relatives in Xinjiang. Then she would return to her office and draft an email asking for China’s formal response on these claims; she would always watch as her hand tremble, hesitant about sending the email. 

In 2019, she wrote a piece for the NY Times which had enough international attention which put pressure on the CCP to release the relatives of the two families in that article. Ever since then, her family and friends in China began receiving threats and were harassed. Her Uyghur friends said to her at the time: “You’ve become like us.” 

Later, she joined the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and was the lead author for a research publication, Uyghur For Sale. In that report, it was mentioned that “Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.” 

“This report” she says in her tweet, “illustrates the undeniable relation between every other person to the human rights abuses against Uyghur people: Everyone could possibly be wearing a product that was manufactured through forced labour. This research report was passed on within the journalism industry and the influence it has far exceeds the expectations which my colleagues and I initially had. I haven’t purchased any new clothes or mobile phone this year for I know that once I step into the mall, I would see all the brands involved which I have written about and I would feel guilty (about buying any one of them).” 

She says the State Security has been detaining, interrogating and harassing people in Mainland China who are close to her. They’ve also attempted to paint her in a bad light by “exposing” her sexual affairs, etc. 

Recently, she has been accused for being the mastermind behind the “fake news” of Xinjiang Cotton. She clarifies that she’s never written about “Xinjiang Cotton” specifically but have only been reporting on supply chains involving forced labour. She also emphasised that in the past years, countless journalists and scholars have been writing about these human rights abuses. This was how so many countries were able to arrive at a conclusion regarding the allegations of human rights abuses, thus making policy decisions to stop import or penalise any companies involved. 

She says “China is using “Xinjiang Cotton” to confuse the public (divert attention). The fact is that many companies, whether they are fashion houses, electronics companies or medical equipment manufacturers, or even food product manufacturers, they have all had some kind of relation to the Uyghur forced labour (through supply chains). This problem runs deeper than “Xinjiang cotton”*. The Chinese government is attempting to equate the forced labour issue in Xinjiang with the China-US trade war, completely ignoring the fact that Australian, American, European, Japanese and even some Chinese consumers are concerned about purchasing products that were manufactured through force labour.”   

“At first, I chose to become a journalist because I didn’t have the courage to become an activist. While working in the newsroom, I was less outspoken and seldom expressed my personal views. Now, I see myself being labelled “a devilish woman”, “Han traitor (a traitor to China)”; I feel helpless but amused at the same time. I started from “secretly writing in English to leave some historical record” to becoming the target of State machinations, painting me as the female monster causing disaster to befall on countless Chinese people.” 

“If I previously held onto the faint thought of remaining silent to save my own skin, I have become purged of all these thoughts after going through the cyberbullying. All I can do is to continue writing; I shall write to the day these “re-education camps” are closed down; I shall write until I see the day forced labour is put to an end; I shall write to the end of the earth. Personally, I must carry on doing what is right. The price which I must pay will all be worthy for the troubles I have caused to the people around me, I will repay them myself.” 

*** 

Note: The CCP and their 50 cent army/Little Pink movement online constantly tries to place the focus on Xinjiang cotton, pulling out a photo of enslaved Black people during a press statement, saying “Look! The US did this. We, on the other hand, use highly mechanized harvest operations in Xinjiang.” to claim that there are no human rights abuses taking place there.  

She concludes her tweet by saying she has not written in Chinese for some time and the CCP machinations has forced her to use a “translation tone Chinese” in her writing as response to the cyberbullying from C-netz. So this is basically  a translation of a Twitter thread written like a translation O_O

I would like to add, though, the way I see the CCP works is that they like to use nationalism and patriotism to inflame C-netz and cause them to “take things into their own hands”. They caused this “national boycott” of Western fashion houses within Mainland China using nationalistic sentiments and “a sign of loyalty”; to act in any other way online or in public could bring about verbal attacks. Some Chinese staff of Adidas or other stores in China are being cyberbullied as well. Some Taiwanese consumers have expressed that they feel less guilty about shopping at fashion houses like H&M since they took this stance but I wonder how many people around the world actually cared enough to take on the personal initiative to consciously choose what they are purchasing? Obviously, a Twitter thread can’t go into the complex psychological workings of all that’s going on. 

(Hopefully this adds to the voice for Uyghur people as well. Do not be confused by the whole “Western imperialism against China” talk. It does not erase or reduce the fact that there are human rights abuses happening.)  

[achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily]

in other news i’ve always been like, very flippant on this site about chinese government censorship and my need for a vpn, but the past few days have been kind of sobering because the government just...erased tiananmen from the history books. that’s not a new thing that they did, but it wasn’t real to me until now.

wikipedia was banned a few weeks ago - the chinese language version was already blocked, but they just blocked english wikipedia. wikipedia. like. what the fuck. this is terrifying.

and like...compared to most people, i’m relatively safe. i’m a foreigner, with an american passport, the government can’t do much to me. but then a classmate was telling me about a guy who just...went missing. hasn’t been seen since last week. he didn’t even do anything political, he was just teaching english without a work visa. and now the foreign student union is freaking out because what the fuck a student is missing.

don’t get me wrong. i love living here. like, genuinely, i love love love china. but it’s just...i don’t even know how to put it into words. i’m afraid to talk about some things. i never talk about chinese politics on campus (i’m a poli sci major at a poli sci focused school. it’s literally all we talk about, even at parties). at friends’ apartments, a little bit, but not too much. here, not a lot. i saw a much more comprehensive post on tiananmen and debated reblogging it but decided not to. i don’t even have my real name tied to this! the people i know irl don’t even know i have a tumblr account! and still! some things are Not To Be Talked About.

and as a fucking poli sci major one of my favorite things is talking about politics. and i can’t to that here. did you know that the government has regulations on what you can talk about in group chats in wechat? yeah. that’s a thing. you can’t criticize the chinese government in wechat groups.

hell, it’s entirely possible that some Big Shit went down on the anniversary three (two? it’s 4am and i’m tired ok) days ago, but i have no idea because the government just. blocked all information about it. (i doubt it though because my news apps haven’t said anything)

idk where i was going with this. but yeah.

[collapsedsquid]

Thus it is worth surveying more closely how Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, and Hungary, all independently engaged in the 1970s, after the oil shock and when the petro-dollars were plentiful, into large-scale borrowing from both public and private sources in the West. The borrowing responded to the desire to accelerate growth, the process that also motivated economic reforms in Yugoslavia in 1965, Hungary in 1968, and change of government in Poland in 1970 after the Gdansk riots. The idea the reformers had in mind was to borrow from the West, use the funds to build either import-substitution industries (as was indeed done in most of the world those days), or hard-currency-earning export-oriented production. In either case, they hoped, borrowings would pay  for itself. Countries would either save money they were spending on hard-currency imports by producing the “stuff” at home, or they would became exporters to the West. (Poland had its program under Gierek most clearly defined.)

In addition, borrowing was politically preferable to trying to lure foreign (Western) investors. When you borrow, you obviously retain full control over the use of such money; one can choose to fulfill other objectives like to help development of poorer regions, to garner political support, or even to use the funds for consumption. With foreign investors, one is limited to accept what they like.

That logic led, as is well known, all socialist countries into impasse. Their investments were inefficient, new companies became a burden. (There is a very nice book on the most wasteful Yugoslav investments of the period, published in 1990, that I read then and still keep on my shelf. It is called, in English translation, “Among the ruins of wasted investments” by Ratko Bošković). Thus, the rate of return on the money borrowed was lower than the rate of interest countries were paying on their Western loans. It is not impossible, I think, that the rate of return might have even been negative. In any case, it means that all socialist countries that went on a borrowing spree in the seventies, suddenly had, when the US and world interest rates increased following the Volcker shock, to transfer significant percentage of their GDP abroad.

(Volcker, it could be argued, thus ended socialism in these countries. Of course, this is a somewhat facetious comment—because what ended socialism was, among other things, that investments were inefficient. The Volcker shock just made that plain.)

[...]

China, however, avoided all of this, perhaps by sheer luck of being a late reformer and seeing where borrowing without a change in the structure of economic governance led. It escaped the Big Bang too, having come, as Weber details, three times within the hair’s breath to implementing it. Unlike the crackdown in Poland which left Jaruzelski in a limbo, the 1989 Tiananmen violence ironically shifted the energies away from political change into economic development. When Deng made his famous “Southern tour” in 1992 (which he made as, technically, a private citizen) China was ready to embrace the other way: to attract foreign and diaspora investments, to acquire foreign technology, and to emulate the East Asian “miracle” economies.

[alif615]

Week 11:  Global Social Media: China

Have you ever wondered if the government could be controlling the people? Or did you ever imagine the social networking sites that you regularly have access to, let alone have access to the histories/tragedies of your own country could be censored by your government? That has become the reality of China. According to (Spencer 2021), “the estimated number of active users in China are 930 million” and increasing “that’s three times the population of USA”. Interestingly enough, they actually do have their own unique alternatives for social media sites such as your “Google” is their “Baidu”, “Facebook” is “Ren Ren”, “WhatsApp” is “WeChat” and so on. Alongside, China also has an app that keep tabs on their citizen’s, even their thoughts! Although, China has made its mark as the ‘leader of e – commerce of the world’, the Chinese government and communist party believes that the ‘Western influence’ imposes as a threat to the unity of the citizens and further might cause them to seek liberation (why social media is banned in China? 2019).

The Great Firewall of China: “Golden Shield”

The Chinese controlled internet is already a world that is far apart from the world we live in. According to Chan (2018), “China is able to control such a vast ocean of content through the largest system of censorship in the world, aptly known as the Great Firewall.” In a nutshell, the project was initially started off at 1998, anti – china propaganda and anything that promotes or leads to the ‘western influence’ in the country or on its citizen’s is censored, which is EVERYTHING! For example, The Tiananmen Square massacre is a tragedy that took place in the year 1989, which were initially “student – led” protests for “democracy, free speech and a free press in China” that led to the arrest of “10,000 protestors and killing of hundreds and thousands (History 2020). This tragic incident was condemned by the U.S and the Soviet is still highly censored on the Chinese internet platforms (History 2020). As of now, China has hired and paid people to post positive content about the communist party policy that would win the support of public opinion (Hoffman 2017).

Besides blocking the world’s most popular social media platforms, it also blocks hate and humiliation towards the leaders, explicit sites, using abusive language, harmful information or news that would trigger the citizens or in any way exploiting their views. According to Economy (2018), “The challenge for China’s leadership is to maintain what it perceives as the benefits of the internet – advancing commerce and innovation – without letting technology accelerate political change”.

According to Denyer (2016), “As it pursues a broad crackdown on free speech and civil society, China has tightened the screws on virtual private network (VPN) providers that allow people to tunnel under the Firewall”. Yes, it may be frustrating to us but we definitely cannot relate to those living there. Although, there are hefty problems with foreign trade and business because of the censorship, China continues to excel its economic growth abroad while silencing the critics and continuing its controlled regime back at home. Chinese government have already taken steps to strengthen its digital censorship to make it all the more sophisticated, convenient, protected and advanced space.

Is China’s AI technology the answer to future?

China, the most recognized and the most populous in the world, both offline and online, that very much exists with digital dictatorship as well as internet censorship. The country is rapidly increasing towards growth in all fields with a great pace, especially in the field of technology and its innovations. AI is widespread in China, given its sheer usage of mobile phones of all ages for all tasks, it may really be the face of the future (Lee 2020). It reached its recent milestone which was the “Social Credit System”, where every citizen is under the governmental surveillance every hour of the day. The theory is where the citizens’ loyalty is tested through their activities and behavior “from all the sources” composing a score (Lo 2019). According to the score, the “loyal” citizens are able to get benefits be it financially, politically or generally in their lifestyle, but with a low score the government could impose restrictions on them, fine them and blacklist them (Carney 2020).

Today, we might look at China’s apps as copycats but they were already “building a global artificial intelligence empire, and seeding the tech eco system of the future” (Webb 2018). AI Businesses and the government have come together and seriously making progress towards becoming “the world’s primary AI innovation center by 2030” (Webb 2018). According to (Webb 2018), “China abolished Xi’s term limits and will effectively allow him to remain in power for life. That gives China an incredible advantage over the West. It also gives three of China’s biggest companies – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent – superpowers. BAT is a part of that well capitalized, highly organized AI plan. The BAT is important to you even if you’ve never used them and don’t do business in China”. People’s Republic of China will one day display enormous impact in e – commerce, “autonomous vehicles” and a prolonged “race to the outer space” (Webb 2018).

Reference : 

Webb, A 2018, China Is Leading in Artificial Intelligence--and American Businesses Should Take NoteIf you think of China as a country that copies rather than innovates--think again, INC, viewed 23 May <https://www.inc.com/magazine/201809/amy-webb/china-artificial-intelligence.html>.

History 2020, Tiananmen Square Protests, History viewed 23 May <https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square>.

Hoffman, C 2017, How The “Great Firewall Of China” Works to Censor China’s Internet, How to Geek viewed 23 May <https://www.howtogeek.com/162092/htg-explains-how-the-great-firewall-of-china-works/>.

Bloomberg 2018, The Great Firewall of China, Bloomberg viewed 23 May <https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china>.

Economy, CE 2018, Xi Jinping’s internet shutdown, The Guardian, viewed 24 May <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown>.

Denyer, S 2016, China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works, The Washington Post, viewed 24 May <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-scary-lesson-to-the-world-censoring-the-internet-works/2016/05/23/413afe78-fff3-11e5-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html>.

Shillberg, J 2021, Social Gaming- How Its Changing the Gaming Industry, Gaming, viewed 24 May <https://www.headstuff.org/entertainment/gaming/social-gaming-how-its-changing-the-gaming-industry/>.

King D L, Delfabbro PH, Gainsbury SM, Dreier M, Greere N & Billieux J2019, ‘Computer in Human Behaviour’, Elsevier, vol: 101, pp:131-143, viewed 25 May

SocialNewsDaily 2019, Why Social Media is Banned in China, SocialNewsDaily, viewed 24 May <https://www.socialnewsdaily.com/87079/why-social-media-is-banned-in-china/>.

Lee, K F 2020, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work: A Chinese Perspective, Openmind BBVA, viewed 24 May <https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-work-chinese-perspective/>.

Spencer, J 2021, Chinese Social Media Statistics And Trends Infographics, make a website hub.com, viewed 25 May <https://makeawebsitehub.com/chinese-social-media-statistics/>.

Carney, M 2020, Leave no dark corner, abcnews, viewed 27 May < https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?nw=0>.

[unpensadoranonimo]

Opiniones sobre la situación internacional (19/9/2021)

16 años de Merkel en las economías alemana y europea - Luis Aparicio

Aciago aniversario - Fernando Díaz Villanueva

Akhannouch, el multimillonario que encabezará el Gobierno de Marruecos - Ignacio Cembrero

'Bolsominions' bailando la Macarena: Brasil ya vive en la dimensión paralela de la posverdad - Valeria Saccone

Eichman en Afganistán - Jorge Urdánoz Ganuza

El gran deshielo alemán - Óscar Sainz De La Maza

El 'Zeitgeist' de la nueva era: si en Alemania solo votaran los jóvenes, sería verde - Raúl Gil Benito y Franco Delle Donne

Elecciones climáticas en Noruega: entre el coche eléctrico y la extracción de petróleo - Marta Montojo

Empieza el fuego real en la batalla por el futuro de las normas fiscales en Europa - Nacho Alarcón

Europa desarmada: por qué 1,5 millones de soldados no pueden defender la UE - G. M. Piantadosi

Europa y su poder flácido - Alejo Vidal-Quadras

¿Es de verdad Marruecos un país ‘amigo’ de España? - Alejandro Santos

¿Falló la apuesta de Merkel? Esto es lo que pasa cuando acoges a un millón de refugiado - Lucas Proto

Gas argelino y un gobierno delirante - Luis Riestra

Johnson retrasa (de nuevo) controles pos Brexit ante la falta de alimentos - Celia Maza

Juanma, calienta que sales - José Alejandro Vara

La feria del malditismo - Cristina Casabón

La fiscal Dolores, su novio Garzón y otro follón para España - Alberto Pérez Giménez

La "regla del 85": el inusitado futuro demográfico de la humanidad - Jesús Fernández-Villaverde

"La UE aprendió el 11-S que hay una ideología dispuesta a atacar brutalmente a civiles" - María Zornoza

La nueva vida 'post-Torrejón' de los afganos en España: "Lo hemos perdido todo" - Miguel Fiter

"No le importamos a nadie": con las mujeres afganas - Carmen San José y Luis M. Sáenz

Pekín quiere borrar de la historia la matanza de Tiananmen - Salvador Bernal

¿Por qué da EEUU submarinos nucleares a Australia? Las claves del AUKUS contra China - Argemino Barro

"¡Que se joda": el inesperado traidor que arruinó la noche electoral de Trump - Carlos Prieto

Qué significa la nueva alianza EEUU-Reino Unido-Australia frente a China - Jesús A. Núñez

¿Quién es Javier Milei? - Juan Ramón Rallo

Rojo contra negro: la batalla por la cancillería de Alemania ya es cosa de dos - Isaac Risco

Se nos acaba el aire en las ciudades - Maxim Romain

Turquía pide cartas para sentarse a la mesa geopolítica del avispero afgano - Albert Naya

Un conflicto ridículo - Imma Lucas

Von der Leyen marca la hoja de ruta de Bruselas para el próximo curso político - Nacho Alarcón

¿Y si la ideología que estaba en crisis no era la socialdemocracia? - Ramón González Férriz

[the50-person]

INTERNATIONAL APPEAL: Hong Kong police attempting to MASSACRE ppl trapped in HK Polytechnic University

HONG KONG UPDATE 18 NOV 2019 0015

IT'S GETTING WORSE, HELP!

Police heard saying "I want 64 (date of Tiananmen Square Massacre) to repeat!" - heard at Tai Po, 2304

Ppl inside have all written wills and declarations of non-su*c*de (which means if they are found dead, it is m*rder by gov and police).

Student journos are all trapped inside, they don't have press pass and police have specifically threatened to kill and r*pe them. The whole bunch risk lives daily to record.

[0005] Police @ Poly U: "Stop throwing petrol bombs or we will shoot with live rounds"

Police blocking HK citizens from accessing US Consulate.

Sonic weapons deployed.

Tear gas, water cannon laced with extreme toxic chemicals, rubber bullets, sponge grenades, etc etc. continue to be fired at citizens and students trapped and barricaded within PolyU campus.

No one can escape and no one can go in.Police announce that EVERYONE inside is a rioter, but it was the police who attacked and forced ppl to defend, and there are ppl inside who are not attacking, there are innocent students, press, first aiders, doctors etc.!

[2339] Riot Police outside Poly U speaking to students inside university: "You guys only have one choice left - to come out and surrender. If not, we (won't stop until) we arrest you."

Atmosphere inside PolyU and throughout the 18 Districts is very grim and heavy.

During daytime, Chinese People's Liberatiion Army seen armed with rifles with knife attached to it - bayonets. Don't know if they will be deployed. They were illegally deployed on 16 Nov 2019, violating Basic Law, Garrison Law and Sino-British Joint Declaration.

[jgmail]

EL MAIDAN AMERICANO

Por Leonid Savin

Traducción de Juan Gabriel Caro Rivera

... Tiananmen / perestroika / revolución de color / conspiración plutocracia (eliminar lo innecesario).

 Los acontecimientos actuales en los Estados Unidos relacionados con los disturbios, las revueltas y protestas son interesantes por su profundidad política, complejidad y revelación de numerosos detalles que antes no eran visibles detrás del telón de la corrección política y las construcciones mitológicas. Al mismo tiempo, por un lado, muestran el potencial de un conflicto social, las razones por las cuales están enraizadas estos conflictos en el sistema de estatal estadounidense, y por otro, revelan la debilidad del gobierno, que solía reaccionar con dureza y sin piedad ante tales disturbios.

 Cuando el reincidente negro George Floyd intentó pagar con un sospechoso billete de 20 dólares en una tienda (1), el vendedor llamó a la policía, luego de lo cual ocurrió un incidente que se convirtió en el catalizador de los disturbios actuales. Muchos no se molestaron en absoluto por la cuestión de la cadena de eventos preliminares; de hecho, una reacción en cadena comenzó de inmediato, pasando de protestas a los levantamientos. Sin embargo, según la ley actual de los Estados Unidos, la policía tiene el poder de usar la fuerza contra los sospechosos que se resisten. En otras palabras, era un caso de rutina, pero la prensa y algunos activistas lo convirtieron en un nuevo fetiche político, que se publicitó bajo la etiqueta de una campaña antirracista.

 Minneapolis, que es una ciudad feliz y próspera en comparación con las aglomeraciones similares del "cinturón de óxido", se convirtió en un foco de protestas violentas, desde las cuales estas se extendieron rápidamente a otros Estados.

 Todo esto tiene lugar en el contexto de la pandemia en curso del coronavirus con una gran cantidad de muertes, pero suceden como si el virus no afectara a los rebeldes. Los rebeldes mismos se dividen en varios grupos: grupos antisistema, incluidos negros, anarquistas y otros grupos políticos marginales como los antifa; saqueadores que roban tiendas; defensores de los derechos humanos que buscan chivos expiatorios; así como políticos y funcionarios gubernamentales que, por diversas razones, apoyan las protestas.

 Todo esto amenaza con convertirse en una nueva categoría política e histórica. En Washington, el 1 de junio, una pequeña sección de la calle se llamaba Black Lives Matter Plaza. Esto se realizó bajo la dirección del alcalde de la capital, Muriel Bowser. Mientras que en otros lugares se producen profanaciones de monumentos tanto de individuos como de monumentos colectivos.

 La campaña de protesta también alcanzó una nueva dimensión con nuevas demandas: apareció un nuevo eslogan "dejar de financiar a la policía". La prensa, que simpatiza explícita o implícitamente con los manifestantes, comenzó a publicar todo tipo de investigaciones sobre el grado de militarización de las agencias policiales en los Estados Unidos y los medios que se utilizaron en sus actividades. Se supo que la policía de Nueva York en 2019 gastó $ 187 millones en operaciones antiterroristas y otros 116 millones en capacitación policial. Probablemente, para algunos parecerá demasiado y bajo la presión de los contribuyentes, o más bien la aparición de esta presión, algunos legisladores se apresurarán a convertir esto en capital político.

 Sin embargo, varios políticos, principalmente del Partido Demócrata, ya se han apresurado a extraer los máximos dividendos del caos en curso. El candidato demócrata a la presidencia de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, visitó el lunes 8 de junio a la familia del difunto George Floyd. Se escuchan voces que dicen que Biden debe construir su campaña con el lema de desmilitarización de la policía estadounidense (2).

 Algunas agencias en realidad comenzaron a publicar manuales sobre cómo protestar de manera segura y qué se debe hacer para protegerse de la vigilancia digital, la vigilancia y las posibles consecuencias legales de tales operaciones (3).

 El funeral de este hombre negro asesinado tuvo lugar siguiendo las mejores tradiciones de las películas de Hollywood sobre familias mafiosas: un ataúd dorado, un ritual de arrodillamiento, muchas charlas patéticas sobre los derechos humanos. Si ignoramos la historia y miramos las imágenes, parece que no están enterrando a un criminal reincidente, sino a un importante hombre de negocios o a un funcionario de alto rango no inferior a un ministro.

 La violencia organizada, mientras tanto, se está expandiendo en todo el país. Si algunos arrojan a los autos de la policía cócteles Molotov, otros preparan dispositivos explosivos improvisados (4). Las bombas vuelan hacia la policía. En Richmond, un adolescente negro le disparó a dos policías (5). Ya aparecieron las primeras víctimas entre la policía por artefactos explosivos improvisados. A ese ritmo, la espiral de violencia en los Estados Unidos solo aumentará.

Aunque la policía, la guardia nacional y las compañías de seguridad privada estuvieron involucradas en casi todos estos programas: helicópteros, vehículos blindados e incluso tanques salieron a las calles de muchas ciudades de los Estados Unidos. En Washington, con la ayuda de helicópteros del ejército, se intentó dispersar a la multitud (6). Después de eso, varios estados y ciudades impusieron restricciones al uso de medios especiales por parte de la policía durante las protestas. Estos incidentes también están politizados.

 No menos interesante es el papel de las corporaciones en estos sucesos. Muchas de ellas se apresuraron de inmediato respaldar los disturbios e incluso comenzaron a brindar algo de apoyo a los saqueadores y aquellos grupos que se oponen al Estado.

 Entre las grandes compañías que han apoyado abiertamente el Black Lives Matter y los “antifa” se incluyen The Academy (que otorga los Oscar), Airbnb, Adidas, Amazon (cabe señalar por separado que esta compañía es propietaria del New York Times y que critica constantemente a Donald Trump), American Airlines, American Express, Bank of America, Bayer, BMW, BP, Booking.com, Burger King, Cadillac, Citigroup, Coca Cola, DHL Express, Disney, eBay, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, H&M, IBM, Levi's, Lexus, LinkedIn, Mastercard, McAfee, McDonald's, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Paramount Pictures, Pepsi Co, Pfizer Inc, Porsche, Procter & Gamble, Society Generale US, Sony, Starbucks, Twitter, Uber, Verizon, Wal Mart, Warner Bros., YouTube, Zara. En total, se conocen unas 300 empresas y organizaciones (7).

 Este es un síntoma característico del avance de la globalización, cuando las corporaciones transnacionales sienten que tienen suficiente fuerza y ​​dinero para desafiar a los Estados, incluso en una forma tan indirecta. Aunque muchos jefes de estas corporaciones olvidan las lecciones de la historia, en las que muchos capitalistas que financiaron revoluciones y golpes de Estado fueron eliminados debido a la inutilidad posteriormente. Y el proteccionismo estatal actual es un fenómeno residual, incluso en los Estados Unidos, el cual se convierte en un obstáculo para el capital global. Pero también se advierte esta "rebelión plutocrática" (8), cuando el capital privado en los Estados Unidos provoca el crecimiento de la brecha económica, que conducirá precisamente a un aumento de las actividades criminales y los disturbios sociales.

 Otros "accidentes" también son interesantes, ya que muestran un cierto carácter sistémico en tales protestas a gran escala, donde sea que ocurran. Durante manifestaciones públicas en Minneapolis, se vio al famoso pianista David Martello (9), que había actuado previamente en Estambul y Kiev en campañas antigubernamentales. Por cierto, en Turquía y Ucrania, el derrocamiento del poder fue apoyado por algunas de estas compañías, por ejemplo, la Fundación Pierre Omidyar de eBay.

 Los analistas en los Estados Unidos dicen que "Estados Unidos se ha convertido en un Estado frágil y no se espera ninguna estabilización en el futuro cercano" (10). Existen críticas más severas. “Somos un error atrasado, disfuncional, malvado, anti-intelectual. No solo Trump, las noticias por cable o Twitter, sino toda esta maldita cultura... y los futuros historiadores designarán el desastre de 2020 como el comienzo del fin del experimento estadounidense" - escribe Duncan Munch (11).

 Dado que todo esto sucede en la víspera de las elecciones presidenciales, a Donald Trump le queda poco tiempo para tomar decisiones efectivas y conseguir el control de esta situación. El círculo de sus oponentes está creciendo. Incluso su exsecretario de Defensa, James Mattis, calificó a Trump como nada más que una "amenaza a la Constitución" (12). Y el Día de la Independencia el 4 de julio puede convertirse tanto en un catalizador para una nueva ola de protestas como en un momento de reconciliación nacional. Pero será muy difícil de lograr. La sociedad estadounidense está más polarizada que nunca.

 Notas:

 1.https://blog.independent.org/2020/06/01/george-floyd-and-the-future-of-police-misconduct/?omhide=true

2.https://warontherocks.com/2020/06/how-to-get-started-on-rolling-back-police-militarization/

3. https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-surveillance-digital-privacy/

4.https://www.nbc12.com/2020/06/05/va-man-charged-with-lying-about-amputated-hand-possession-explosives/

5.https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/two-officers-shot-by-teenager-in-richmond-barely-survive/

6.https://thehill.com/homenews/news/500622-military-helicopters-used-to-disperse-dc-protestors

7.https://medium.com/@communismkills/here-are-the-companies-that-support-antifa-black-lives-matter-and-want-you-dead-1d79b1845f59

8.https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/plutocratic-insurgency-note-10-increasing-global-wealth-concentration-record-private-jets

9.https://jpgazeta.ru/v-minneapolise-na-protestah-sygral-tot-zhe-pianist-chto-i-na-majdane-v-kieve-v-2014-godu/

10.https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28817/the-looming-american-nightmare

11. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/great-american-break-up

12.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

[mrayhankurnia]

Cina: Entitas Negara Berperadaban yang Unik

Halo teman-teman, aku mau sedikit sharing nih tentang pendapatku mengenai konstruksi Barat terhadap negara tirai bambu, Tiongkok. Ini sebenanrnya esai buat UTS mata kuliah Asia Pasifik sih hehe, tapi semoga bisa menambah wawasan yaaa! Selamat membaca!

Memprediksi kejadian atau implikasi dari kebijakan politik dan tindakan dari suatu negara memang tidak mudah. Diperlukan pemahaman yang komprehensif, komparasi yang adil, dan pengetahuan spesifik tentang kekhasan yang ada di suatu area atau kawasan. Setiap kawasan memiliki karakteristik masing-masing, yang tentunya tidak bisa disamaratakan melalui konsep yang berkembang dan mengakar kuat pada suatu wilayah spesifik. Pada esai ini, Penulis akan mencoba menilai bagaimana argumen Martin Jacques mengenai kesalahan dalam memprediksi dan kesalahpahaman dalam mempersepsikan Cina terjadi karena menggunakan perspektif ala Barat yang sudah lama ada bahkan “memaksakan” eksplanasi yang sama dengan Barat, dan alasan mengapa Penulis setuju dengan argumen tersebut.

Pertama, Cina bukanlah bagian dari negara-negara Barat dan memiliki konsep kenegaraan yang unik. Perbedaan ini dapat kita telaah secara geografis, historis, ideologis, demografi, dan banyak dimensi lain yang secara jelas menggambarkan bahwa Cina adalah negara yang berbeda dengan negara-negara Barat. Secara geografis, Cina terletak di benua Asia. Secara kultur, muncul istilah penamaan negara Timur dan negara Barat. Negara bagian Barat dikenal dengan kultur yang lebih progresif, dan negara Timur yang lebih mengedepankan nilai-nilai ketimuran. Banyak perbedaan dimensi kultur antara negara-negara Timur dan negara-negara Barat. Misalnya negara Timur yang cenderung, pada umumnya, bersifat infleksibel dengan kepercayaan, sementara negara Barat yang lebih terbuka dengan hal-hal atau ideologi baru.

Secara historis, kita bisa memahami relasi antara Cina dengan negara-negara Barat. Beberapa studi menyatakan bahwa Cina cenderung anti-barat. Berbeda dengan negara-negara Asia pada era pasca kolonialisme, Cina memiliki sentimen tersendiri terhadap negara-negara Barat. Cina sendiri mengenal “Century of Humiliation” yaitu masa ketika Cina didominasi, dikontrol dan dikolonialisasi oleh negara Barat yang dimulai dengan Perang Opium pertama (Zang, 2001). Meski tidak dapat dipungkiri, selain menumbuhkan nasionalisme dengan melawan imperialis, Cina juga belajar dari negara Barat, dalam hal memahami national interest (Zhang, 2001, p. 64). Barat menjadi musuh sekaligus guru bagi Cina (Li, 1999). Secara demografi Cina terdiri dari banyak penduduk, sehingga pemerintah membuat kebijakan One Child Policy untuk menekan angka kelahiran di Cina. Dilansir dari worldometers 2020, penduduk Cina berjumlah sekitar 1,4 Milyar dan merupakan 18-19% dari total keseluruhan penduduk di dunia. Cina adalah negara berkembang yang besar dan menurut Martin Jacques, Cina akan menjadi negara dengan ekonomi terkuat di dunia.

Cina dipandang sebagai negara yang unik salah satunya ditinjau dari tujuan dan alasan dari ekspedisi militer yang dilakukan Cina. Berbeda dengan negara barat yang melakukan ekspedisi militer untuk memperluas wilayah dan melakukan kolonialisasi, ekspedisi militer Cina cenderung mengarah ke punitive mission atau sebagai “pengajaran” kepada negara-negara tertentu. Cina, jika ditelaah lebh dalam tidak pernah melakukan ekspedisi militer untuk menguasai dunia, seperti negara-negara lain yang cenderung melakukan kolonialisasi dan bertujuan untuk menguasai dunia. Contohnya adalah penyerangan Cina di Vietnam pada tahun 1973. penyerangan ini didasari kemarahan Mao terhadap Vietnam karena secara sepihak mengklaim Kepulauan Paracel, dan kemudian menangkap pukat ikan milik pelaut Tiongkok bahkan menahan beberapa awak kapal Cina (Mukthi, 2020).

 Kedua, Cina lebih mengidentifikasi negara mereka tidak hanya sebagai nation state, namun lebih condong sebagai a civilization state. Negara selalu dipersepsikan sebagai perwujudan kelembagaan dan pelindung dari Chinese-civilization. Hal ini yang melanggengkan legitimasi dan otoritas pemimpin di Cina, baik ketika masa dinasti atau pun saat menganut ideologi komunisme. Negara Barat, memiliki tradisi pemerintahan yang menganggap paternalisme adalah hal yang dibutuhkan dalam pemerintahan, dan tidak ada batasan yang jelas mengenai peran pemimpin. Selain konsep pemimpin, Cina juga optimis mengenai masyarakat dan human nature yang sebenarnya baik. Setiap siswa diedukasi agar memiliki perilaku yang baik, misalnya saling menghargai, menghormati guru, dan hal hal mengenai perilaku yang lain. Pemahaman Cina—akan karakter manusia yang baik—merupakan bagian dari Chinese civilization (Jacques, 2009).

Berbeda dengan negara-negara Barat yang mempromosikan gagasan nation-state yang kemudian diadopsi negara-negara di dunia pada umumnya. Cina, berasal dari kata Zhongquo yang berarti middle kingdom (Harding, 1988). Artinya, Cina menganggap negaranya sebagai pusat peradaban seluruh dunia. Kekuatan peradaban Cina menimbulkan rasa persatuan yang kuat dan kesamaan identitas serta memungkinkan pencampuran beberapa ras berbeda. Pencampuran ras ini juga menggambarkan perbedaan konsepsi ras yang berimplikasi kepada unity. Negara Barat memandang, adanya ras mayoritas di Cina, akan menyebabkan hancurnya Cina. Terlebih setelah kejadian Tiananmen Square, yang merupakan aksi protes oleh masyarakat dan berujung pada pembunuhan massal oleh pemerintah Cina ("What were the Tiananmen Square protests about?", 2019). Namun kehancuran tidak dirasakan oleh Cina. Hal ini disebabkan karena negara barat memposisikan Cina akan memiliki masa depan seperti keruntuhan Uni Soviet, atau terjadinya fragmentasi seperti yang terjadi pada proses balkanisasi. Namun kenyataannya, Cina malah semakin kuat dan bersatu, karena meski didukung oleh konsepsi ras yang berbeda, ideologi berupa negara berperadaban tadi menyatukan mereka (Jacques, 2009). Penulis sependapat dengan Jacques karena menurut Penulis, penyatuan ras yang berbeda akan memunculkan nasionalisme yang sama, yaitu atas nama bangsa Cina.

Dalam diskursus mengenai perspektif barat yang salah memprediksi Cina, dikenal asumsi yang menggambarkan bahwa hanya satu cara untuk menjadi modern, yaitu menginternalisasi nilai-nilai Barat, mulai dari institusi, ide, gaya hidup, rule of law, dan norma demokrasi. Hal-hal tersebut lebih dikenal dengan istilah westernisasi. Asumsi ini yang kemudian menjadikan bangsa-bangsa tertentu, terutama barat menganggap diri mereka lebih modern, superior, dan lebih berperadaban dari pada yang lain (Jacques, 2009). Hal ini kemudian memunculkan ignorance dari sisi negara Barat dalam melihat bangsa lain dengan sudut pandang dari keadaan domestik negara tersebut. Hal-hal seperti inilah yang sebenarnya membuat perspektif ala Barat tidak cocok memahami kawasan tertentu, salah satunya Cina.

Dapat disimpulkan bahwa untuk memahami atau bahkan memprediksi suatu wilayah, diperlukan perspektif yang adil. Adil artinya sesuai dengan keadaan wilayah tersebut dari berbagai dimensi. Baik dari segi kultur, konsep negara, historis, dan lain sebagainya.

     Referensi

 Barmé, G. R. (1995). To screw foreigners is patriotic: China's avant-garde nationalist. The China Journal, (34), 209-234.

China Demographics 2020 (Population, Age, Sex, Trends) - Worldometer. (2020). Retrieved 29 March 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/china-demographics/

Harding, H. (1988). China and northeast Asia: the political dimension (No. 12). University Press of America.

Jacques, M. (2009). When china rules the world. New York: Penguin Books.

 Li, Z. H. (1987). Zhongguoxiandaisixiangshilun [Study on history of modern China’s thought]. Beijing: Oriental Press.

 Mukthi, M. (2020). Tiongkok Kalahkan Vietnam di Paracel. Retrieved 29 March 2020, from https://historia.id/militer/articles/tiongkok-kalahkan-vietnam-di-paracel-6l7Gw

 What were the Tiananmen Square protests about?. (2019). Retrieved 31 March 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48445934

 Zeih, E. (2019). Prahara Peradaban Timur dan Barat. Retrieved 29 March 2020, from http://indonesiamengglobal.com/2019/01/prahara-peradaban-timur-dan-barat/

 Zhang, R. L. (2001). Xiandaixingyuzhongguoxiandaiminzuzhuyi [Modernity and Chinese modern nationalism]. Jiangsu Social Science, 22(3), 64–71

[asiajanuary2020]

January 9, 2020

This morning we were picked up in the lobby of our hotel by Ivy, our tour guide for the day. Our hotel is very close to Tiananmen Square, so we walked to our first destination on our tour. Tiananmen Square is a city square in the centre of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen ('Gate of Heavenly Peace') located to its north, separating it from the Forbidden City. The square contains the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, the National Museum of China, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China in the square on October 1, 1949; the anniversary of this event is still observed there. Tiananmen Square is within the top ten largest city squares in the world (440,500 m2 – 880×500 m or 109 acres – 960×550 yd). It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.

Next we crossed the street to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is a palace complex in central Beijing, China. It houses the Palace Museum, and was the former Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty (the years 1420 to 1912). The Forbidden City served as the home of emperors and their households and was the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 hectares (over 180 acres). The palace exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. Since 2012, the Forbidden City has seen an average of 14 million visitors annually, and received more than 16 million visitors in 2016 and 2017.

Our driver picked us up at the gate of the Forbidden City, and drove us 1 1/2 hours outside of downtown Beijing to the Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall of China is the collective name of a series of fortification systems generally built across the historical northern borders of China to protect and consolidate territories of Chinese states and empires against various nomadic groups of the steppe and their polities. Several walls were being built from as early as the 7th century BC by ancient Chinese states; selective stretches were later joined together by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first Emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties have built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The most well-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Apart from defense, other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

The frontier walls built by different dynasties have multiple courses. Collectively, they stretch from Liaodong in the east to Lop Lake in the west, from the present-day Sino–Russian border in the north to Taohe River in the south; along an arc that roughly delineates the edge of Mongolian steppe. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the walls built by the Ming dynasty measure 8,850 km (5,500 mi). This is made up of 6,259 km (3,889 mi) sections of actual wall, 359 km (223 mi) of trenches and 2,232 km (1,387 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi). Today, the defensive system of the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history.

We visited the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China located in Huairou District within the city limits of Beijing 70 kilometres (43 mi) northeast of the center of the city. The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is connected with Jiankou in the west and Lianhuachi in the east. As one of the best-preserved parts of the Great Wall, the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall used to serve as the northern barrier defending the capital and the imperial tombs.

Built mainly with granite, the wall is 7 to 8.5 metres (23 to 28 ft) high and the top is 4 to 5 metres (13 to 16 ft) metres wide. Compared with other sections of Great Wall, Mutianyu Great Wall possesses unique characteristics in its construction.

Watchtowers are densely placed along this section of the Great Wall - 22 watchtowers on this 2,250-metre (7,380 ft) stretch.

Both the outer and inner parapets are crenelated with merlons, so that shots could be fired at the enemy on both sides - a feature very rare on other parts of the Great Wall.

The Mutianyu Pass consists of three watchtowers, one big in the centre and two smaller on both sides. Standing on the same terrace, the three watchtowers are connected to each other inside and compose a rarely seen structure among all sections of Great Wall. One of the side watchtowers has two graffiti canvases which are replaced regularly.

Besides, this section of Great Wall is surrounded by woodland and streams. The forest-coverage rate is over 90 percent.

Today, this section of wall is open to visitors. There are three methods of ascent and four methods of descent to choose from. Besides utilizing 4000+ steps, visitors may also choose between a two-rider chairlift or four-rider gondola lift up from the foothills to the level of the wall, which runs along the ridges above. These lifts may also be used to descend. Another feature of the wall at Mutianyu is an alternate method of descent by single-rider personal wheeled toboggan. This allows single riders to descend from the wall to the valley on a winding metal track.

Seeing the Great Wall was definitely a bucket list item for us! We hiked as far as we were allowed to go. We were most surprised by the fact that they built this wall along the peaks of these mountains. So many stair climbs and descents make it hard to believe they were ever able to build it. The most memorable part of our day will be that we asked our guide if we could take the toboggan ride down from the wall, and she informed us that no one over 60 years old was allowed to ride the toboggan because it was too dangerous!!!! We couldn’t believe it! This is the first time we have been told we were too old to do something! We didn’t like that!!!! We all laughed so hard! Our guide Ivy was so much fun! We enjoyed hearing about her family and her life in China. It was a wonderful day of learning and seeing places that we had always wanted to visit! It was a beautiful, cold, sunny day. Our guide explained that it is the best time to visit the wall because there are no crowds. During the summer it is very crowded and long waits, so we just ignored the cold and enjoyed our day!