Don’t ask a Chinese what’s your dream, instead, you should ask them what’s your fear. Because being able to and being allowed to pursue your dream is such a privilege that only applies to a small number in China. In reality, most is driven by fear. To a Chinese, to fully realize their fear and overcome it is such a big step in their life. Such a step demands courage, which is a rare trait even among all the human beings.

So, to figure out, of which the Chinese people is fear, can give you brighter insight than asking their dream, which is always secondary. For example, on the last day of October, when people in the democratic countries were enjoying the Halloween with spooky or funny costumes, the most sighted costume in every street in the major cities of China was the police uniform, especially in Shanghai, the setting of police car was full fledged in every major gathering spot . Policeman would stop anyone in whatever costume using the same language like, ‘Halloween is a western holiday which is not for China, we don’t celebrate it, go undress yourself right now’. Then the cosplayer would be quote ‘accompanied' by the police to remove their make up. Can you imagine it? On the street of China, what scares people most is not the sight of a devil or monster, but the Chinese policeman. At the same time, our general secretary, Xi Jingping was watching G-dragon’s show in APEC’s banquet with typical unreadable expression on his face. If you know that South Korea’s entertainment industry has been banned over a decade in China, you would understand how Chinese were amused when seeing such a view on the social media.

You should make it personal, whatever it is. This is the latest lesson that Chinese people showed on their action to Chinese government. It can apply to your world as well. Ditch those five w journalistic neutral crap. Every action is initiated by a person, not an institution, nor a company, nor an organization. If you read a news but in the end you don’t find a single person accountable, you’re just fooled by the so-called journalist. The fall of traditional media is often lamented by those soft elites who’s indulged in their good old days of privilege. I don’t like TikTok and all those short videos, neither do I use them. But I am happy to see those traditional media being rejected by the trend of the world.

So imagine when traditional media disappeared, what’s next ? Here’s the case of China, which allows you have a preview. On September 3rd, Reuters accidentally captured and broadcast on live the the conversation between Putin and Xi Jinping walking on the red carpet towards the stage in the forbidden city. Their small chat is about age, as both of them are in their 70s. And they’re joking that with nowadays’ technology, they could live up to 150 years. If they were just two normal grandpa talking on the bench in the garden downstairs your apartment. You’d laugh it out and maybe feel a little pity about these two ignorant old men. But, we all know who they are, we made it personal, at least, on Chinese side, Chinese people dig up an ads of a military hospital in Beijing around 7 years ago, which is about promoting their research on extending the leaders’ life into 150 years old. The blatant ads was took off within a week, as it irritated the non-leaders mass majority. But you can find a clue why Xi Jing pin pinpointed the exact number of 150 in his small chat.

What’s the color for August? In China, I can guarantee you, it’s red. Because historically Japan announced its surrender at mid-august in WWII, ending its invading and colonization in China. Also, the army of Chinese Communist Party , called The people’s Liberation army usually celebrates its anniversary on August first . It’s a month of force and victory. Coincidentally, we did see several interesting fights during this month in China Mainland, starting from August 5th. A school bullying in Jiangyou, a city in Sichuan province, triggered a mass protest in the streets, ending up curfew collaborated by the police and the liberation army. This is a rare scene you could see in China. The last time you can imagine such a view should be in 1989, on the Tiananmen Square. You may wonder why this school bullying made such a difference ? The answer is the image, a short video showing the parents of the victim bend their knees to the ground at the feet of the chief of the police, begging him to give justice to their daughter, and the highlight is, the mother is a mute and the father is disabled. Such a family combination could be viewed as the weakest group in the Chinese society. So in Chinese people’s eyes, the whole family was bullied by this privileged authoritarian system. The gesture to bent their knees at the feet of the power is utmost submissive sign, they’re begging, and they have no defense, but the police and the government shows no mercy only the usual indifference that most Chinese were used to see in common case. This crossed the line. The bottom line of Chinese people’s moral standard. Or, let’s say in another way, it’s how blatantly that they showed in public that they don’t care like the image presenting the parents kneel down at the feet of the chief of the police. And common Chinese people realized that privilege and injustice in such a view which made them surround the government building and protest in the downtown streets. What hyped this protest was coincidentally in the neighbor city, the capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu was holding the World Games 2025, you know China, such a disgrace, a slap in the face. So the government wants to crack it down fast. They did, over night, they beat up everyone in the streets, arrested several and sent them away by camion for pigs. You heard it right, the protesters were standing in the camion, usually for shipping pigs. If you read George Orwell, animal farm, you would understand how sarcastic this view is.

July 2025. It’s been almost two years since I left China. But I have never been able to distance myself from the Chinese society due to the Internet and the social media. Or more profoundly speaking, since I’m a Chinese, I only care about what’s happening in China. It relates to my interest, my identity, my link to collective memory, thus my relationship with my fellow Chinese. It’s our story, I don’t wanna privileged foreigners or domestic dictator control the narrative, yeah, I can’t help messing up with them. So let me share you my personal Monthly China, on what’s happening and how do we common Chinese feel about it.

To summarize July 2025 in China, I would use one word: Indignation. If you check the dictionary: indignation means anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment.

The funny thing here is that you can see unfair treatment fairly befall on the head of Chinese average person. July started from Kindergarten in Gansu, over 200 children were poisoned by addictive used to colorize their steamed bun. Honestly, I was not surprised at all by this kind of news, food security is never secure in China, which is sort of common sense. But this piece of news keeps bugging on my social media because the local government was so used to cover it up than do their job. So the news like parents of the poisoned children got arrested or their social media got shut down kept alive until a man dressed up as a woman doing free hooker and got laid with more than 1600 Chinese guys in Nanking.

The news of Uncle red occupied the headline in the second week of July because of the hilarious absurdity. Videos and voice record of this suspected gay lied to straight men of every kind, assuring them that he has a vagina went viral. He single-handedly proved to all Chinese women who still have princess dream how stupid and horny their husband or husband-to-be are. It sounds vulgar, but a lot of women just realize that they /the Chinese guy just need a hole. So uncle red simply proved that an asshole also counts. This is a huge slap to Chinese patriarchal society. I can’t help laughing the whole day, and spread that news to my international friends who has Asian fever. While I’m writing, my Portuguese friend told me that this Uncle red outfit has evolved into some funny foreplay between couples on TikTok. Sending gift as watermelon or half bottle of oil, you can only get the punchline if you share the collective memory of Chinese people.

Today, April 10th, BBC China just posted an interview on Chinese’s People responses towards Trump’s Tariffs. None of the interviewees are really worried, to be honest, so am I. I’ll explain it to you as a Chinese myself, and I hope this episode would reach some decision-makers who’re hesitating and tortured by the anxiety and uncertainty.

First of all, I want to mention something interesting about the interview on BBC’s Youtube Channel, the first review showed in the comments section got more that 2000 likes. Surprising, it’s a quote from Chinese classical literature, an essay written by Su Sun a thousand years ago. It’s an essay on how the sates of Qing defeated the rest six sates altogether and established the first unified empire in China’s history . The name of this essay is called ‘On the six fallen states’. And the quote on the comments section is as follows: Cut five cities today, then ten cities tomorrow, only for a calm sleep overnight. Starting to look at the four realms, the Qin soldiers had already reach our boarder. However, our land is limited, but the desire of the Qin is insatiable.

I bet every Chinese would laugh when reading this review. That’s why the moment that Trump threaten to raise 50% more tariffs on China. I instantly preview Chinese government’s answer like most Chinese intellectual would. In the current situation, China, Europe, Canada, and other counties with similar status in term of economic strength are the six states in the essay, and the US is the Qin empire. Do you know what’s the conclusion from the essay ? Why six states were defeated by one state? Su Xun put it directly because each of the six was eager to bribe and lobby Qin not to invade them rather than find alliance among the six and fight direct with Qin to erase the harassment for good.

So you could imagine that China would continue to counter back if Trump keeps his strategy unchanged. Interestingly enough, I found this quote was also used four years ago by some Chinese as a comment on US government’s forcing TikTok sales. It’s kind of the same mentality, so I’ll save my words on it.

It takes me a while to realise that: I hate my cousin. But it takes me years to say this out loud to my friends and eventually to confess it to my parents.

When I use the word « hate », I mean I don’t wish anything best to this person. It may sound mental, but it’s a kind of feeling that if her life’s successful, it would prove my life’s wrong. Perhaps this is my most deeply rooted bias.

But now, I summon up curage to recognise this fact that: I don’t like her.

I’m sharing my story, because I want you to have a glimpse on what’s real Chinese family like. As Tolstoy said, Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. My unhappy family represents one type of Chinese characteristic unhappiness : the ideological conflict.

I always think in my mind that I wouldn’t dislike her that much if she hadn’t worked for the Chinese communist party. I would be more tolerant to her if she hadn’t believed and defended the propaganda made up by that totalitarian regime. In normal life, she would just be a boring person in my eyes, not my type, that’s all. She doesn’t worth my attention at all.

But due to the fact that we’re family, my father and her mother forced us to be looked like close sisters. She took it granted to meddle in my life since I never speak up for myself in that depressive Chinese feudalistic family culture. I was abused by the violence in the name of « for your own good » since the moment I didn’t even have a memory. [When you’re dragged into a war you’re not prepared, you’re the underdog at the start.If you never realise it’s a war you need to fight for your life, you’re already devoured.] For your own good, repeat this phrase to your Chinese friend, they’ll explain to you why. It took me almost ten years to get out of this shit, it’s too traumatising to recall, so I save my words on this side point.

My real point is as follows:

Well, to understand family ideological conflict, I have to give you a crash course on Chinese working system. When I say, someone works for the Chinese communist party, I mean he is either working for public institution or state-owned enterprise. Public institution means jurisdiction, administration, execution plus army, state-owned enterprise is literally how the name tells. One thing different from your understanding of SOE in China is that one major task for those state companies is political task. And employee in state enterprise could all of a sudden be sent to work for public institution, they use the jargon « borrow », like I was borrowed from this unit to that unit because as a whole it’s communist system. That’s why you see CEO of one enterprise overnight become a minister, that can happen in China. If you read the book Red Roulette by Desmond Shum published in 2021, you’ll know how this system functions at the highest level.

So my cousin works in one district level SOE, her mother works in the same district-level public institution, her father works in national level SOE. That’s in my eyes a family 100% work for Chinese Communist Party.

There are some features that you can tell them apart from common Chinese.

1. They use Huawei
2. They call Xijinping « Xi DaDa »
3. They watch CCTV everyday
4. They check XUEXIQiangguo Application as a daily basis as they have quota on it (episode 16 if you wanna get more info)
5. Often time, they prefer to speak dialect than mandarin
6. They are basically xenophobe, a chauvinist inside
7. They believe foreign force theory

I’ve been mean to read this book for a long time, but due to the censorship in China and busy life, I’ve never had the chance. Then this year, I stumbled across this book when my office was planning to move place and clearing the bookshelf, a colleague from Russia handed this book to me, said « it’s a really nice one, do you wanna keep it ?» Do you see, every elements in the scene is interesting.

The reading is intriguing and the ideas inspiring. I feel inclined to agree on the point that the world’s civilizations are going to head for a unification, as I am a Chinese, it’s probably conveyed in my DNA as ancient memory loaded by repeated trials and success. Sometimes, I felt the author is quite cynical and pessimistic as typical historian in my stereotype. However, one thing I am sure is that Mr. Harari’s major area is definitely not Chinese civilisation because I can tell his narration is accurate but text-book like, which means he’s not so into it, therefore the telling is flat.

Hereby, somehow, I just wanna fill this gap as a Chinese reader, who finished reading the original text, and who has been living in modern China for over 30 years. I’m just a common higher education graduate, and I just feel I have broader perspective to offer on the issue he’s discussing in the book. And I’m please to be rectified by any intellectual who’s specialised in this area.

But again, I haven’t seen any recognised-Chinese hold kinda optimistic view in my knowledge. So I made my step as nobody, but simply a Chinese myself.

My writing was triggered by this paragraph in the book:

Thus European right-wing parties which oppose muslim immigration usually take care to avoid racial terminology.Instead, they tend to argue that western culture, as it has evolved in Europe, is characterised by democratic values, tolerance, and gender quality, whereas Muslin culture, which evolved in the middle east, is characterised by hierarchical politics, fanaticism, and misogyny.

It may sound out of thin air, but I get my following idea from what I’ve just read.

I think, the biggest difference between China and the rest of the world is that China is not a religious country. Most Chinese will feel comfortable to say to your face« I don’t believe in God, I’m atheist » not only because of the short ruling of Communist Party of China over 70 years, moreover, before communist, before Qing Dynasty, before Ming Dynasty, over the 3000 year imperial ruling, we worship « heaven » which is not a human-like God, it’s natural law.

We wish the mother nature always be our side, let us go with the wind. That’s why you hear a lot of Chinese wish good luck every year. Luck, « yun » . We beg the heaven when there is drought or flood because we thought we did sth wrong and mother nature was angry. We wanna the luck back, we wanna it be our side. See we’re actually very of scientific respect at the burgeoning era.

Do you think China will become democracy?Recently, more than one asked me this question. By answering them, I find my own belief as well. But before answering this question, I need make it clear for someone who bought the saying that China is democratic. I don’t know how far away you live, or how stupid you are. But I use my Chinese nationality and my 30 years life swear to God, there is no such thing as democracy in current china since the establishment of the Chinese government by Chinese communist party. It’s in a state quo better than North Korea, but worse than Russia, and right this moment closing to Russia, period.

One thing interesting is that all the people who asked me the question are young in their 20s. They are the Z generation in Europe and I’m the millennia from mainland China, and surprisingly, we get along very-well. And recently I got some feedback and I just realised that I’m probably a unique Chinese. Unique in the way of my thinking, which surprised a lot of my foreign friends. But I promise you I’m not the only one. It’s my chance that I become the representative to talk to you. And it’s your chance as well to hear the voice of the new generation of Chinese rising for sure because we outnumber the old generation in China in terms of energy, intelligence, experience, and life span.

I found a lot of you western people really has truly limited experience or zero experience on China. You really don’t know us, American might be better, but the channel of your way to know China already biased you a lot. Because most of your Channel were led by Communist party whether you noticed it or not.

I have to tell you something from a Chinese perspective, a sensation that a lot of Chinese people in the mainland are sharing at this moment, and I leave this message in June 2024, in case our worry comes true.

The sensation is that « we’re going to invade Taiwan soon » .

There are two things underneath this phrase: 1. the percentage is high, I mean, the chance of invading Taiwan is big now in our eyes 2. The time is very short, in the past, we’d talking about it like « some day » « one day », you got the feeling? A bit chill, like talking sth not related to the stake. Now we’re nervous, and we’re wondering the exact moment for planning our daily life.

This is no exaggeration. It’s the inner voice of many quote middle-class Chinese. Most middle class have shut up right now on Chinese social media. If you’ve listened my episode on Chinese Cultural revolution, you’ll understand why. And they are watching the extreme-nationalists taking the lead, and societal conflicts accelerating day by day with abhorrent news pop out in WeChat shortly and then deleted.

Have you heard of a book called « The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II » written by Iris Zhang. The book recorded the accurate atrocity committed by Japanese army during Nanjing Massacre. I don’t recommend any weak-willpower to read. It’s traumatising. And the author took herself after the book. But what left me a great impression is the documentation and analysis of Japan’s propaganda education before invading China. A whole generation since elementary school had been quote « educated » that Chinese people were not human, every Japanese people serve their life for the rejuvenation of Japanese empire. I think German people are bit familiar with this storytelling. That’s how Nazi treat Jews.

Every time I talked about propaganda in China, my western friends always responded that yeah, they have the same issue as well, propaganda is everywhere, there’s no real freedom of speech in their countries neither. Both a British and a French, a master and a phd, majored in social science and science. I was a little disappointed to see, even them, they don’t understand. China is another level. It’s not comparable. There is no equivalent in your world now. Every time they said it, I wish they could exchange life with a Chinese one day. Like I would never say that to a North Korean, I would never say I understand their life. It somehow gives me a feeling of irrespect or indifference.

In this episode, I’m going to tell you something sneaky. It’s bad, the value within is distorted, it’s simply sneaky, and no Chinese would tell you foreigners for the sake of decency. It’s bad again, but it’s damn useful. So I’ll play the bad guy here to let you know, in the hope that you can make good friends with the right Chinese you imagined.

First how many Chinese overseas?

Let me quote a mainland report to you:

Generally speaking , there are approximately 60 millions Chinese living overseas in 2022.

And here are the top 10 countries for their destination:

No. 10 Peru 1.3 million

No.9 Philippine 1.35 million

No.8 Australia 1.4million

No.7 Myanmar 1.63 million

No.6 Canada 1.77million

No.5 Singapore 2.98million

No.4 America 5 million

No.3 Malasia 7.4 million

No.2 Thailand 10 million

No.1 Indonesia over 10 million

Alright, here begins my theory, again, it’s simply personal biased with no scientific ground but my own pure experience. I’m just a young woman living my whole life in mainland China, and I’ve just been to Europe over six month. But when I was in China, I’ve already had experience dealing with foreigners from almost all the continents. And here in Europe, I sort of working and living in an environment of little UN. So it could be useful for a group of foreign friends I guess.

Okay, first thing first: class

I mean marxisme term: class

Most Chinese you meet overseas are either from the bottom or the top, which means either they’re extremely poor or extremely rich. And most of them are from Guangdong province, the Provence sits just near east sea of China.

The extremely poor, they don’t need apply for visa stuff, they just swim. I’m joking, they are, you know, the main force for stowaway. I feel sorry for them, it’s the damn surviving issue here.

The extremely rich, you need be careful here, my dear subscribers, they’re 99% related with Chinese Communist Party, in a good way, or in a bad way. A number of the family of Chinese Communist Party themselves live overseas and stay in low-profile. It doesn’t need any investigation for you to ask where does their money come from. Are you sure you wanna get involved? It’s more dangerous than you think.Imagine the film GOD father, and double or triplet the violence.