shanlung
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By Chris Nortje comparing his China with HK and his stay in the US ( or Australia ).
I’m obviously not Chinese or from Hong Kong but I worked for a company in Nanjing, Mainland China, for several years, and the owner was from Hong Kong. His wife is from Mainland China and they have two children (one still in school and the other studying in Australia). My ex-Hong Kong boss is still one of my friends on Facebook. At no point has he ever complained about life on Mainland China. He and his children all speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. They often travel between Hong Kong and Mainland China, but they prefer to live in Nanjing. They have several companies there.
Now here’s something you may not know.
The living conditions on Mainland China are far better than in Hong Kong. The apartments are bigger, rent is cheaper, public transport is cheaper, groceries are less expensive, and the internet is cheaper. You have no idea how modern, convenient and open Chinese cities are. If you want to visit foreign websites like Youtube, you simply get a VPN. If you want to watch Comedy Central, you get satellite. However, Chinese people watch Chinese TV. They have no interest in English channels because they are Chinese.
I lived in China for several years and also visited Hong Kong. My brother and his fiancée still live and work in Shenzhen, right next to Hong Kong. They also often go to Hong Kong to look around and get some sort of rare prescribed medicine for diabetes.
That’s about it. Hong Kong is more like a tourist destination in my view. The real problem Hong Kong has is that it’s slowly losing its economic relevance in the region. Shenzhen sits right next to Hong Kong and now has a higher GDP than Hong Kong.[1] The fact is that Hong Kong is slowly moving backwards and it’s not going to make a comeback. The living conditions of the average Hong Kong citizen have deteriorated. Ordinary workers in Hong Kong sleep in cramped rooms with beds stacked on top of other beds, and they are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the real concerns people have. If you visit Hong Kong now, it’s more like taking a cruise. You see all the nice and shiny spots but you don’t see where the crew lives. When you’re a tourist, the trip is nice but you don’t actually want to spend your life on a cruise ship.
To be honest, I’m not even aware of anyone living on Mainland China who wants to live in Hong Kong. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s just too expensive for the Chinese middleclass. In fact, a few years ago I had a job offer in Hong Kong and turned it down. It was for a higher salary, but if you deduct the living expenses of Hong Kong, it’s just not worth it. Their apartments are about as big as my wardrobe while the rent is the same or even higher.
I don’t think anyone in the world cares about politics if they get a job somewhere else. If I moved to France today, I wouldn’t be thinking, “Gosh, I’m not too sure about this because I won’t be able to vote in their elections as a foreigner. Therefore, I’ll have no freedom in France.” It’s irrelevant if you move anywhere. It’s irrelevant in China. If Mainlanders move to Hong Kong, they can’t vote anyway. They have different passports.
I returned from China in February 2020 to write an exam. Then the borders closed and I’ve been stuck here outside China for more than a year now.
So this is my experience of my “freedom” so far in my own country: I’m depressed like never before in my life. It’s slowly killing me.
We live in a completely different reality bubble with this illusion of “freedom” we have. The western world is a mess compared to China. The reports I see on the news covering western countries sound and look like dystopian horror stories compared to China. How do you feel free if some lunatic with a gun can mow down a crowd of people because of some crazy idea he has about freedom? How do you feel free if you get mugged or robbed by gunpoint? How do you feel free if the streets are filled with homeless people?
There seems to be an anti-China virus that affects people’s brains, and I’m not talking about the strains of coronavirus currently in circulation. I’m talking about western media. Perceptions about China are so far removed from reality that it feels like I somehow ended up in a parallel universe when I took the flight back home. I speak to others and they all sound like brainwashed idiots, just parroting what they heard on the news about China. The West has taken such a huge departure from reality that it borders on mental illness.
But this question is about freedom.
Well, being stuck outside China feels like I’m locked outside my home with the key lying on a desk inside. Meanwhile, brainless zombies are plodding around aimlessly behind me, incoherently mumbling about China, virus, genocide, China, virus, genocide…
Personally, I just want everything to open up again so I can go back to my life in China and switch off the mindless noise. My own people make no sense to me anymore.
Although I’m not Chinese, I hope this answer helps you to understand what a lie we’ve all been living. Freedom is to live without fear. That is not the western world. The western world is currently so paranoid about China that people are going insane.
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I’m obviously not Chinese or from Hong Kong but I worked for a company in Nanjing, Mainland China, for several years, and the owner was from Hong Kong. His wife is from Mainland China and they have two children (one still in school and the other studying in Australia). My ex-Hong Kong boss is still one of my friends on Facebook. At no point has he ever complained about life on Mainland China. He and his children all speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. They often travel between Hong Kong and Mainland China, but they prefer to live in Nanjing. They have several companies there.
Now here’s something you may not know.
The living conditions on Mainland China are far better than in Hong Kong. The apartments are bigger, rent is cheaper, public transport is cheaper, groceries are less expensive, and the internet is cheaper. You have no idea how modern, convenient and open Chinese cities are. If you want to visit foreign websites like Youtube, you simply get a VPN. If you want to watch Comedy Central, you get satellite. However, Chinese people watch Chinese TV. They have no interest in English channels because they are Chinese.
I lived in China for several years and also visited Hong Kong. My brother and his fiancée still live and work in Shenzhen, right next to Hong Kong. They also often go to Hong Kong to look around and get some sort of rare prescribed medicine for diabetes.
That’s about it. Hong Kong is more like a tourist destination in my view. The real problem Hong Kong has is that it’s slowly losing its economic relevance in the region. Shenzhen sits right next to Hong Kong and now has a higher GDP than Hong Kong.[1] The fact is that Hong Kong is slowly moving backwards and it’s not going to make a comeback. The living conditions of the average Hong Kong citizen have deteriorated. Ordinary workers in Hong Kong sleep in cramped rooms with beds stacked on top of other beds, and they are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the real concerns people have. If you visit Hong Kong now, it’s more like taking a cruise. You see all the nice and shiny spots but you don’t see where the crew lives. When you’re a tourist, the trip is nice but you don’t actually want to spend your life on a cruise ship.
To be honest, I’m not even aware of anyone living on Mainland China who wants to live in Hong Kong. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s just too expensive for the Chinese middleclass. In fact, a few years ago I had a job offer in Hong Kong and turned it down. It was for a higher salary, but if you deduct the living expenses of Hong Kong, it’s just not worth it. Their apartments are about as big as my wardrobe while the rent is the same or even higher.
I don’t think anyone in the world cares about politics if they get a job somewhere else. If I moved to France today, I wouldn’t be thinking, “Gosh, I’m not too sure about this because I won’t be able to vote in their elections as a foreigner. Therefore, I’ll have no freedom in France.” It’s irrelevant if you move anywhere. It’s irrelevant in China. If Mainlanders move to Hong Kong, they can’t vote anyway. They have different passports.
I returned from China in February 2020 to write an exam. Then the borders closed and I’ve been stuck here outside China for more than a year now.
So this is my experience of my “freedom” so far in my own country: I’m depressed like never before in my life. It’s slowly killing me.
We live in a completely different reality bubble with this illusion of “freedom” we have. The western world is a mess compared to China. The reports I see on the news covering western countries sound and look like dystopian horror stories compared to China. How do you feel free if some lunatic with a gun can mow down a crowd of people because of some crazy idea he has about freedom? How do you feel free if you get mugged or robbed by gunpoint? How do you feel free if the streets are filled with homeless people?
There seems to be an anti-China virus that affects people’s brains, and I’m not talking about the strains of coronavirus currently in circulation. I’m talking about western media. Perceptions about China are so far removed from reality that it feels like I somehow ended up in a parallel universe when I took the flight back home. I speak to others and they all sound like brainwashed idiots, just parroting what they heard on the news about China. The West has taken such a huge departure from reality that it borders on mental illness.
But this question is about freedom.
Well, being stuck outside China feels like I’m locked outside my home with the key lying on a desk inside. Meanwhile, brainless zombies are plodding around aimlessly behind me, incoherently mumbling about China, virus, genocide, China, virus, genocide…
Personally, I just want everything to open up again so I can go back to my life in China and switch off the mindless noise. My own people make no sense to me anymore.
Although I’m not Chinese, I hope this answer helps you to understand what a lie we’ve all been living. Freedom is to live without fear. That is not the western world. The western world is currently so paranoid about China that people are going insane.
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