Fuck, you aren't kidding about the comments, I lost a bit of my soul reading those.

I'm Currently living in Guangzhou, which is fairly close to Hong Kong. Over here everything is business as usual and only a bit of word of mouth exists to evidence that this is even happening. I was going to go to Hong Kong this week but was denied at the ticket office (taking a train) due to this.

By the way, if you are wondering how I watch this, it's just a simple VPN.

Guangzhou is a really interesting place. My take is that they have enough power to thumb their nose in part to the central authority. Do they really continue to use a lot of traditional Chinese text? I remember reading about protests in Guangzhou on language use. I can't ready any Kanji and can't make heads or tails about it.



The strangest conversations I had on my last trip through China involved 2 topics:

Edward Snowden - the official story in china is that he's a traitor, but the more enlightened locals believe there is more to it, but don't know what. Very interesting to pick at those ideas.

The Malaysia Airlines Flights (MH17 and MH370) - the most common story, the US shot down the first one because Malaysia started to support China (refine Saudi oil headed for china. The second one was shot down by Russia, but no clear reason why.

Hmm. Well, I can only speak from the perspective on an English speaker, meaning the majority of folks here I can't talk to, and even those that know English are usually keep it to the non-contriversial stuff. I've just started hanging out with a girl that is from Heibei and is fairly fearless in what she'll say and she claims that it's usually only those that study things like language that get anything other than the state-run news, and that among those, it's only the younger folks that care about whats up, their parents mostly just wanting to stay out of harms ways (to be fair, some of those older folks lived through the cultural revolution and had fear beating into their skulls.)

I haven't heard anything about Snowden from anyone, but I haven't brought it up either. I'll pop it up as conversation topic in my next group discussion class (my company does let me use controversial topics to teach so long as it's not the three T's: Tienanmen, Taiwan and Tibet.)

Malaysian Airlines, the state run medias line on that is that it was lost due to mechanical failure, which the Malaysian government is liable for. The Anger about it is all pointed at Malaysia, not America. If there is some American theory on it, I've not heard it, but I'll ask my friend about it. I've experienced no American-specific hostility here (foreigner hostility, yes, but not particualarly anti-american.) Now, GZ is a little less than on-board with Beijing, so this might not reflect the overall feelings of the country, it's just one city, and I'm just one guy in it, so I could be oblivious.

China is a beast and almost impossible to view as a single country. My experience is that the big coastal cities are all unique areas with different attitudes, morals and ways of doing business.

No need to rock the boat... I visit a few times a year, in and out. Talk with whoever will talk with me, but I still never bring up anything too crazy, certainly not the big 3.

Really like China, fascinating place, interesting people. Wish I could have lived there for a few years, but I made my bed. Barring a divorce, the best I'll do is continue visiting.

Next time you are in GZ, mention it on the PoETV facebook group, we'll meet up for a beer.

Can't believe I joined facebook... for you Aelric, for you. Am listed as Lefanu.

Will prob visit again in November, and if anyone is in Shanghai, Xiamen, Beijing or Haikou let me know!

Don't be so sure.

the US state department loves spending money to spread democracy to the world, to the tune of billions. Others may call it creating and funding agit-prop organizations to destabilize whatever politically inconvenient country it is that moment, but democracy!

Question is if they've gone crazy/stupid enough to try destabilizing the worlds largest country and Americas biggest debt holder.

This stuff is not new in Hong Kong, guys. If America is throwing money their way, they have been for a while.

Leaving The Caliphate, you mean.

However, I do agree that Hong Kong was better off under the Queen, if for no reason other than the fact that the British government is currently too ass-backwards to oppress anyone living outside a day's car-trip from Higham-on-the-Hill. *Within* that radius, of course, you've got ASBOs, CCTVs, Ingsoc nanny staters, and Piers Morgan, but outside of that radius, colonized peoples might almost nearly believe that the British government would no longer shoot them out of cannons.

It's the same as having 'the nations fastest network' and only able to download one jpeg before you're over the cap and get throttled/fined.

I'm sure that is top of their priorities.