[agumonkey]

Few years ago I talked on people on omegle. Chinese girl pops up. We talk, like many many Chinese, she asks quickly what I think about China.

I grew up fond of Asia: Martial Arts, Bruce Lee, asian food, spiritual ideas, that simplicity in art, architecture, clothing; Japanese culture too.. anyway I was very very positive about her culture.

She responded right away: cool but well you know.. it's not all rose here; with a few mild comments about economy and politics. Then a long silence, followed by panick-ish excuses around the fact that she shouldn't have said this and she disconnected.

Note that this was about the big firewall thing. Surely it didn't help for paranoia. Still it was the first time I ever talked to someone scared about her country as a whole.

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Recently with the growth of international chinese tech brands, some news about raising wages, using robots instead of armies of exploited people .. I thought China would get a stable and peaceful rise. I did not envision this.