I’m Gen Z, was born in China after the CCP failed to terminate me under the One Child Policy, which resulted in my birth. Parent had to pay a massive fine for my existence. Even politics aside, economy was shit at the time, hard for my parents to find stable jobs. My mom told me that work was just brutal, I remember my maternal grandmother had to take care of us often times because both parents were either at work or looking for work from morning to late at night.
Government is so corrupt, they didn’t even enforce food safety regulations (not even sure if such regulations even existed). I remember my mom constantly warning us about food safety. Also you need to boil the water cuz its toxic. Steets were dirty, well at least the neighborhood I used to live in. Other areas might have it better.
Hukou system meant that since my parents were from rural areas, they didn’t have all the rights of someone living in the city. Even though me and my older brother were born in the city. So the city didn’t even allow us into their public schools.
And if we had stayed in the country, it’d be a struggle to get outside information. Like not just for political information and stuff (which honestly, probably doesn’t even matter when you’re struggling and you can’t change the system), but most importantly the entertainment would be limited, anything considered anti-government would be much harder to find, if not impossible, in mainland China. Unless you get lucky and somehow, as a local, manage to find a VPN if you never stepped foot outside the country. (Not sure if I’d even find out what a VPN is if I remained in the country)
Like imagine you’re under a “rat race” for money then you go home and can’t find anything interesting to watch, because its “too political” and blocked.
So yay, jumping from one boiling pot to another. Life is amazing! The universe do love its trolling.
(Tbf life did get better in the US, for us, at least from around 2014 to now. But I’m now more of fearing for the future, such as a Chinese Exclusion Act v2: Electric Boogaloo)
More like “You’ve been banned from PRC, you fucking 汉奸 (Han Traitor¹)”
(¹Nationalists like to label anyone criticizing the government as race traitors, it’s kinda like the Magats label anyone anti-trump to be “Anti-American”)
Funny enough, the origin of that character is 姦 - which goes all the way back to the earliest forms of Chinese writing (the bronze inscriptions) and was a pictogram of 3 women together (see here), which represented “evil, treacherous, scheming, traitor, adulterer” and similar. 奸 was a later variant form with same meaning (the 干 was added as a phonetic component, and 3 女 were reduced to just 1), which was later adopted as the simplified form of traditional 姦.
Is this like a roundabout way of asking which country is it better to be born in?
The thing is:
If you are born an American citizen, it’s implied that you probably speak English so you’d have a better shot at immigrating to another anglosphere country, and since you’re probably already westernized so you’re more desirable to the immigration authorities (but then again, you’ll still need an actual eligible reason to go, like you have a “skill” in demand or like have family there)
Being a born a Chinese citizen implies that you probably don’t speak English, or any foreig language for that matter. So you have more difficulty in trying to move abroad. (I mean the only other place that uses Mandarin is Taiwan, or maybe Singapore.) But if you wanna go to Canada, Australia, or Europe, you are now facing both linguistic and cultural issues.
As for me personally…
I’m actually not quite sure.
But I honestly just despise the ruling party of China so… there’s that. That really skews my judgement against living under their rule.
As for actually living there (assuming I don’t get harassed by the government for all the thing I’ve said overseas), I’d have to re-learn Mandarin, I can speak basics but I’d need to speak slower for my brain to catch up. I also can’t really write except by typing pinyin. And I also have trouble expressing thoughts since I’m so used to English at this point. I’d also no longer have citizenship there, so I’d essentially be like a foreigner, I mean I am a foreigner to them, legally speaking.
And this fucking censorship thing. I’d have to figure out how to use VPNs… and like… at any time the VPN could stop working… that would really make me sad if I can’t watch certain stuff, I mean like…
it would really be bad for mental health if I know a thing exist, but I can’t access it due to a stupid firewall.
Also the air quality… ugh… that air would be very annoying to deal with.
So… I don’t really wanna live there.
Really hard to find jobs, I think the lack of stable jobs was like one of the reasons why my parents brought us to the US.
I mean, the US isn’t exactly he most desirable place either, but if I were to move somewhere…
I wanna go to like Canada or Australia something (cuz Norway aint gonna take me, they are very strict on immigration).
Canada and Australia has a very big Chinese Diaspora population, so I feel more confortable there compared to like EU which I don’t think there are many ethnic Chinese living there.
I don’t want to like stand out in a crowd and I’m the only one that looks like me, know what I’m saying.
Over the past like decade or so since we’ve been here, my parents have like… financial assets invested in the US. Took like 5 years to save up money for that stuff. That’s all I’ll say, not gonna give any specific details for privacy reasons.
So… I’m not talking on behalf of other Chinese Americans… I’m just saying for us speficially, I only see a path of the future in the US, unless I get lucky and somehow obtain an immigration visa for an anglosphere country. And it’d still be a pain to transfer stuff out of the US.
In the US, my (or technically my parents’) house is fully paid off¹. And honestly I just like this house way better than that shitty apartment we had in Guangzhou, China. That placed sucked, it was urban hell.
¹My mom had to borrow a lot of money from family and friends, took like many years or something to pay it off. My mom had to work overtime a lot. Also btw China doesn’t have 1.5x overtime pay like the US does, also China has much lower pay, less work safety (no OHSA²), less breaks, no individual unions.
²Although, this admin is really trying to ged rid of OSHA too, RIP
China doesn’t have “suburbs”, not really, if you want a job, you have to live in a crowded city.
I like the “suburb” areas. Think of like Brooklyn, NYC, or Philly.
Like if I have kids, I wouldn’t really want them to grow up in China… that education system is gonna cause so much anxiety and depression.
I still remember being held after school hours in like 1st or 2nd grade because I couldn’t memorize a story word for word.
As long as they don’t actually pass Chinese Exclusion Act 2.0, I don’t think we’re leaving any time soon.
But it really depends on what happens in 2029.
For example: In Vietnam, Chinese Diaspora had to flee when the North Vietnam government won the Vietnam War.
That type of stuff could happen here.
Ideally I would try to flee to Canada if that happens, but its hard to say, if they don’t accept us, I could end up in China if nobody else is willing to take Chinese Americans.
Tldr: Kinda rambled a bit, but US is still better than China, for my family at least, for now at least. We don’t have any assets back in China.
Thanks, I’ve been trying to figure outu the truth about China. Western culture made me think it’s a hellhole and it seems to agree but only in part, not to the degree I’m used to seeing online.
Nah, not just to the US. We do have problems with emboldened neonazis in Europe, too. While not to the extend you might experience in the US, I wouldn’t want to be black or southern/eastern mediterranean here either.
And in the US it wasn’t? Set aside how non-whites were treated and exploited as cheap labor, how were asians treated during and after WWII, Korea, Vietnam? How are latin americans treated? How are middle eastern people treated since 9/11?
Don’t make the mistake believing this is new. It’s just getting turned up to eleven.
This is not supposed to be a blame game or a pissing contest. That both Europe and the US have a track record of xenophobia and racism is exactly my point.
i have seen people that probably have relatives that work in a different country than the one they were born in complain about immigrants coming to their country
I have a family member to whom this happened three separate times during their youth. They are fairly unsurprised by what is going on in the US as it’s all very familiar for them.
I feel especially bad for the immigrant gen-z.
Imagine you just fled a political dictatorship with your family, and now you watch a new political dictatorship form but with AI and racism.
At like fucking 15.
No need to imagine. I am that guy.
I’m Gen Z, was born in China after the CCP failed to terminate me under the One Child Policy, which resulted in my birth. Parent had to pay a massive fine for my existence. Even politics aside, economy was shit at the time, hard for my parents to find stable jobs. My mom told me that work was just brutal, I remember my maternal grandmother had to take care of us often times because both parents were either at work or looking for work from morning to late at night.
Government is so corrupt, they didn’t even enforce food safety regulations (not even sure if such regulations even existed). I remember my mom constantly warning us about food safety. Also you need to boil the water cuz its toxic. Steets were dirty, well at least the neighborhood I used to live in. Other areas might have it better.
Hukou system meant that since my parents were from rural areas, they didn’t have all the rights of someone living in the city. Even though me and my older brother were born in the city. So the city didn’t even allow us into their public schools.
And if we had stayed in the country, it’d be a struggle to get outside information. Like not just for political information and stuff (which honestly, probably doesn’t even matter when you’re struggling and you can’t change the system), but most importantly the entertainment would be limited, anything considered anti-government would be much harder to find, if not impossible, in mainland China. Unless you get lucky and somehow, as a local, manage to find a VPN if you never stepped foot outside the country. (Not sure if I’d even find out what a VPN is if I remained in the country)
Like imagine you’re under a “rat race” for money then you go home and can’t find anything interesting to watch, because its “too political” and blocked.
So yay, jumping from one boiling pot to another. Life is amazing! The universe do love its trolling.
(Tbf life did get better in the US, for us, at least from around 2014 to now. But I’m now more of fearing for the future, such as a Chinese Exclusion Act v2: Electric Boogaloo)
You have been banned from Lemmy.ml
More like “You’ve been banned from PRC, you fucking 汉奸 (Han Traitor¹)”
(¹Nationalists like to label anyone criticizing the government as race traitors, it’s kinda like the Magats label anyone anti-trump to be “Anti-American”)
My Mandarin is fairly mediocre, but it’s fairly interesting that the 汉字 for “traitor” or “evil” has the “woman” component in it.
Funny enough, the origin of that character is 姦 - which goes all the way back to the earliest forms of Chinese writing (the bronze inscriptions) and was a pictogram of 3 women together (see here), which represented “evil, treacherous, scheming, traitor, adulterer” and similar. 奸 was a later variant form with same meaning (the 干 was added as a phonetic component, and 3 女 were reduced to just 1), which was later adopted as the simplified form of traditional 姦.
Thanks for your comment. I feel like I learned a lot from it. I didn’t know about the Hukou system, for example.
For what it’s worth, I’m glad you exist.
Do you think that right now it’s better to live in China or the US? (as yourself of this age)
I like one order of Norweigian Citizenship pls.
But seriously, idk.
Is this like a roundabout way of asking which country is it better to be born in?
The thing is:
If you are born an American citizen, it’s implied that you probably speak English so you’d have a better shot at immigrating to another anglosphere country, and since you’re probably already westernized so you’re more desirable to the immigration authorities (but then again, you’ll still need an actual eligible reason to go, like you have a “skill” in demand or like have family there)
Being a born a Chinese citizen implies that you probably don’t speak English, or any foreig language for that matter. So you have more difficulty in trying to move abroad. (I mean the only other place that uses Mandarin is Taiwan, or maybe Singapore.) But if you wanna go to Canada, Australia, or Europe, you are now facing both linguistic and cultural issues.
As for me personally…
I’m actually not quite sure.
But I honestly just despise the ruling party of China so… there’s that. That really skews my judgement against living under their rule.
As for actually living there (assuming I don’t get harassed by the government for all the thing I’ve said overseas), I’d have to re-learn Mandarin, I can speak basics but I’d need to speak slower for my brain to catch up. I also can’t really write except by typing pinyin. And I also have trouble expressing thoughts since I’m so used to English at this point. I’d also no longer have citizenship there, so I’d essentially be like a foreigner, I mean I am a foreigner to them, legally speaking.
And this fucking censorship thing. I’d have to figure out how to use VPNs… and like… at any time the VPN could stop working… that would really make me sad if I can’t watch certain stuff, I mean like…
it would really be bad for mental health if I know a thing exist, but I can’t access it due to a stupid firewall.
Also the air quality… ugh… that air would be very annoying to deal with.
So… I don’t really wanna live there.
Really hard to find jobs, I think the lack of stable jobs was like one of the reasons why my parents brought us to the US.
I mean, the US isn’t exactly he most desirable place either, but if I were to move somewhere…
I wanna go to like Canada or Australia something (cuz Norway aint gonna take me, they are very strict on immigration).
Canada and Australia has a very big Chinese Diaspora population, so I feel more confortable there compared to like EU which I don’t think there are many ethnic Chinese living there.
I don’t want to like stand out in a crowd and I’m the only one that looks like me, know what I’m saying.
Over the past like decade or so since we’ve been here, my parents have like… financial assets invested in the US. Took like 5 years to save up money for that stuff. That’s all I’ll say, not gonna give any specific details for privacy reasons.
So… I’m not talking on behalf of other Chinese Americans… I’m just saying for us speficially, I only see a path of the future in the US, unless I get lucky and somehow obtain an immigration visa for an anglosphere country. And it’d still be a pain to transfer stuff out of the US.
In the US, my (or technically my parents’) house is fully paid off¹. And honestly I just like this house way better than that shitty apartment we had in Guangzhou, China. That placed sucked, it was urban hell.
¹My mom had to borrow a lot of money from family and friends, took like many years or something to pay it off. My mom had to work overtime a lot. Also btw China doesn’t have 1.5x overtime pay like the US does, also China has much lower pay, less work safety (no OHSA²), less breaks, no individual unions.
²Although, this admin is really trying to ged rid of OSHA too, RIP
China doesn’t have “suburbs”, not really, if you want a job, you have to live in a crowded city.
I like the “suburb” areas. Think of like Brooklyn, NYC, or Philly.
Like if I have kids, I wouldn’t really want them to grow up in China… that education system is gonna cause so much anxiety and depression.
I still remember being held after school hours in like 1st or 2nd grade because I couldn’t memorize a story word for word.
As long as they don’t actually pass Chinese Exclusion Act 2.0, I don’t think we’re leaving any time soon.
But it really depends on what happens in 2029.
For example: In Vietnam, Chinese Diaspora had to flee when the North Vietnam government won the Vietnam War.
That type of stuff could happen here.
Ideally I would try to flee to Canada if that happens, but its hard to say, if they don’t accept us, I could end up in China if nobody else is willing to take Chinese Americans.
Tldr: Kinda rambled a bit, but US is still better than China, for my family at least, for now at least. We don’t have any assets back in China.
Damn
Thanks, I’ve been trying to figure outu the truth about China. Western culture made me think it’s a hellhole and it seems to agree but only in part, not to the degree I’m used to seeing online.
the immigrant gen-z that fled to the usa
Nah, not just to the US. We do have problems with emboldened neonazis in Europe, too. While not to the extend you might experience in the US, I wouldn’t want to be black or southern/eastern mediterranean here either.
but that’s an always has been situation there imo
And in the US it wasn’t? Set aside how non-whites were treated and exploited as cheap labor, how were asians treated during and after WWII, Korea, Vietnam? How are latin americans treated? How are middle eastern people treated since 9/11?
Don’t make the mistake believing this is new. It’s just getting turned up to eleven.
Remind me of your famously warm welcome of the Roma
This is not supposed to be a blame game or a pissing contest. That both Europe and the US have a track record of xenophobia and racism is exactly my point.
mine as well. that’s what I meant with that. it’s always been there, even in Europe, being the ‘region’ in my previous comment.
that’s right it’s not, because us racism and xenophobia is casual compared to european and you know it. would you like me to bring the receipts?
If you need to believe such things to feel better about something, fine. I’m not gonna discourse on such levels of stupidity. Bye.
i have seen people that probably have relatives that work in a different country than the one they were born in complain about immigrants coming to their country
Countries should make Americans eligible for refugee visas
I have a family member to whom this happened three separate times during their youth. They are fairly unsurprised by what is going on in the US as it’s all very familiar for them.