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.

In my last episode on Cultural Revolution, I’ve given my conclusion that a cyber cultural revolution is currently unfolding in China. It could be viewed as my personal observation or prediction.

And here I am, Why do I say so?

First, I have to ask you: Have you ever been attacked on the net? Seriously, like tens of thousands people commenting on your post, and most of the comments is personal judgement on you with a lot of fowl words or disdain. It’s a cyber battlefield where you versus let’s say 5000. Have you won that war before?

If you don’t have that experience, it would be a little hard for you to really understand what I’m going to explain.

Luckily, I just came across that experience last month by accident. And I feel extremely lucky that I’ve experienced it when I’m abroad, which means I’m not in China. It’s a totally stranger social media, and I’ve done a good job on my personal information. Namely, once I delete the social media app, I’m all good. By the way, the app is called little red book.

By sheer coincident, when I began to think about this cultural revolution topic, one of my post got attacked. What did I say? A very personal opinion after I randomly seeing so many people mocked that the world is a fancy sham. « The world is a fancy sham » is kinda of popular view on Chinese social media, I don’t wanna spend too much time on it. Basically it’s related with Chinese working environment where the state-owned enterprise bred a rotted worldview.

So I posted a few words on my unobtrusive account, something like « no the world is not a fancy sham. Your worldview has no impact on the world, rather it influences your choice towards the world. So be careful, you should see the world more.» But I think it’s my attack on Chinese over fifty which got me backfired. Because I put it at first « if one over fifty years old is still saying the world is a fancy sham, he/she hasn’t see the real world » On reflection, I just realised that in China one over fifty are exactly those born or grew up in Cultural Revolution. The thing surprised me is that they are also active on social media.

To give you a brief picture. This post got around 123,000 impression, within which I got 6000 attacks, 2000 supports. So I send this feedback to my friend who did media with me before in China, to understand the audience, and user image of Little Red Book. For the audience we mean to grab: 94% stay silence, 4.4% again us, 1.6% for us. In conclusion, the enemy is triple of us, but the real audience we want is that 94% silent one.

I repeat once more. I’m very lucky for this case.

Let me show you another one, to show you, for real what happened in China, last week, a vlogger name « Hu Cheng Feng » was doing live on his bilibili account, a Chinese platform close to Youtube. And somehow, one audience just asked him a question which ended his whole career.

What’s the current Chinese culture? It’s a combination of Patriarchal Confucius with Totalitarian Orwellian system. Yes, you’re right. There is no such thing as human rights in China because the totalitarian collectivism prevails. You benefit when you are in the great number, but you lose all when you belong to the small number. And your fate is like drawing lottery, 99% of Chinese have the turn to be the small number one day. Women are still be treated as the tool for sex or for baby. Living in the city makes your life as women better, but deep down, in the end, your means are the same like those living in the village. Well-educated women are still struggling in the city with layers of ceilings visible in every industry. Man will have privilege but they pay the price with being ass kisser to their superior if they wanna climb the ladder, this is the only way. Because deep down, Confucius means, everyone is born unequal, there is a rank to maintain. So people show respect to the higher rank, but also reveal disdain to lower rank. Namely, it’s a pathetic society which breeds hatred and mistrust. A world I would’t recommend you to live in right now.

But again, Pay attention, I empathise once more, hereby I just mean the current Chinese culture led by Chinese community party under it’s regime over 70 years. China has a very long history, there are a lot of things which are the gem of my culture, which I really love to share with you, which I think could contribute to make a better world for all. Just unfortunately, for now, we Chinese are still presenting you the wrong thing, because we have a wrong representative towards the world now.

In the next episode, I’ll give you my analysis. But I think you’ve already guessed my answer. Yes, cultural revolution is possible to happen again in China, actually it has already begun. But it is coming back in a new form under this new age with Internet. China is going through a cyber cultural revolution right now. Fear has already spread among Chinese in the mainland. The red guards are coming back and attacking people who speak right now. It’s coming back in a subtle but also vital way to impact Chinese near future, which could have a spillover effect towards the rest of the world if bad luck.

There was a time when every Chinese admitted that Cultural Revolution is a mistake, an abhorrent period in our Morden history. This consensus was already reached in 1980s and 1990s China. At least when I was a student, what I read in my history textbook, it was literally recorded as a « mistake ». As teenage students, teenage like me, took this idea for granted. Whenever we talked about « cultural revolution » Our first feedback would be like « That is wrong, of course »

But in recent years, the narrative has changed. The word « mistake » was corrected into « exploration », it was described as « ten years of exploration ». You can tell the difference, right? So I don’t wanna explain more about it.

Last week, with Netflix releasing its newly make TV series « Three body problem », Chinese people began a wave of discussion online, mainly out of the Great Fire Wall, namely on twitter. People were lamenting about how the history of Cultural Revolution was obscured right now. And no joking guys, we are worrying about the revival of it now.

The rumour that Xi wants to start another Cultural Revolution emerged around 2018 according to my memory. At that time, it was still regarded as a very ridiculous opinion, including me at that time held a huge doubt on it.

First, I presume that you know, there are two Tik Toks in this world. A Chinese version called « Dou Yin », then another international version called « tik tok ». They are the same, but due to different audience, and the existence of Great Fire Wall, bytedance, its mother company, separated the business. 

And, I also presume that you know the real boss of Tik Tok is not that cute Singaporean you saw on TV in the American Congress, it’s a skinny average-looking Chinese man called Zhang Yiming. 

With these two premises, I’ll lead you to Tik Tok’s story from the beginning in China. 

Let’s start from 2011, it’s the real time when short video rose up in China, and Doyin was just one of them, and at the time  no one really cared short video in general. Because at the beginning, it was mainly used among villagers to spread funny videos about their countryside life. I hate to say it, but to be honest, it was viewed as « low culture » compared with the Louvre you know. Very low, actually, near to vulgar, because most Chinese villagers don’t get education, and the village life in China is totally another story than your imagination. However, if you remember, we have the data that, there is currently 900 million peasants in China. In terms of population, they won. And that’s why short video took up within Chinese territory. I know in Europe and America, that’s not how you started. 

If you have never heard about CCTV, that’s fine. Don’t take it as the camera in front of your door. It’s an acronyme for China Central Television, namely the propaganda machine for Chinese Communist Party. Every day from 7 to 7:30 PM, the TVs across China turn into the same screen. This phenomenon still goes until today even though like the trend worldwide, people watch less and less TV. 

You think the influence is backing down. Nope propaganda catches up the age of AI. There’s an app called Xuexi qiangguo, which means « Learn to be a strong country » literally translated, reading the introduction on the app store, it’s designed to teach Xi Jinping thought. And you know what, every public official, or those working in state-owned enterprise must download it, watch, read sth on the app everyday. There’s quota for them, which means they must finish how many minutes quote,« studying », on it every day. In my eyes, it’s a blatant forced brainwashing app. Btw, it was developed by Alibaba. I know Alibaba was also forced to do so. 

I have a relative who works for government. I mean it’s quite common that almost within every Chinese family, there would be party member. According to latest data, there are 98 million Chinese Communist Party Member.  But don’t worry, 99% of them is fake. Most of the time, it’s a just a job for living, no one really buy it for real.

However, with the rising of this app, some people really fell into it. Like my relative, when I told her the news about Wagner Rebellion the day when you know, the tanks heading to Moscow. She was surprised and said « I need check on the Xuexi qiang app, why I didn’t see the news this morning ». I was like, rolling my eyes, and speechless. 

After the Covid, the news is finally dead in China. I can’t explain so much to you here, because I still haven’t reached the point that I really wanna drive home. In short, to suppress waves of complaints and challenges during the lockdown, Chinese government had shut down every possible channel to spread quote, the « news » they don’t want. And people have already found out that as well. 

So, during the breakout of the white paper movement, namely the protest against the lockdown policy, most of the news were rushing out of China, mainly to the platforms of twitter and YouTube, then were being redirected back to China through person to person message. That is to say, Chinese people are firstly sending the news to outer platform, and then people on the platform send it back, in this roundabout way, they escape the censorship and cyber police ID tracking, to get their news being seen. 

Now, here comes to the climax. On twitter, there’s an account call « Mr Li is not your teacher ». He has 1,6 million followers. And somehow, his platform becomes this news distribution center, cause too many people are sending him the news from China everyday, so he keeps reposting. Then he found it’s too many, thus this year he created a YouTube channel call « flake news », here flake means to refer a novel written by Fangfang during the Covid, to broadcast Chinese news everyday like what CCTV does. 

« Some foreigners who’re into minding others’ business, recently poked hands towards our affairs. China, first of all, doesn’t stir up revolution in other countries, secondly we don’t contribute to famine and poverty, thirdly, we don’t mind your business. Period. »

This is the speech given by Xi Jinping in 2009 Mexico when he met local Chinese community. 

The first time that Joe Biden met Xi Jinping is in 2011 in my hometown. I’m 31, and people like me can tell what’s a person like by talking over just one meal, as old as Joe Biden, I bet he’s already got to know this young man from head to toe. Before leaving China, my last job got very close to him, but I turned around and traded this « honor »quote, for 300 dollars. I joked with my friend, that he worths 300 dollars from my side from then on.

To get a common Chinese middle-aged man is easy. Basically you’d be a prostitute if you want to get along with them. It sounds radical, I know. But that’s the reason why you don’t get along with them now. Think about it. Just suddenly you figure out they didn’t treat you as dude as they claimed by words, then you snapped up. 

I know it sounds stupid to mention « love » in this discussion, but I have to tell you that’s the root problem for Chinese, including Xi. Most Chinese families don’t know what is  « love », what’s worse, they replace the sense of love by the sense of control. If you have any Chinese friends, you’ll more or less feel it. 

Millions of family tragedy can be summarised as the tugs-of-war between « controlling » and « being controlled ». If you stick to this order, you’d be praised as « filial piety » , a misunderstood version of love over China’s  thousand years history. And then let’s put it into larger picture, it’s the binary of « ruling » and « being ruled », this non-republic, feudalistic political thought is still underling China’s governing system, and the kind. It’s a backward civilisation, I say it as a Chinese myself.