Chinese clampdown on online gaming

Thoughts?

Thats stupid... maybe they should start on something mroe addictive and definately "unhealthy" - cigarettes.

Some games u cant even level in 3 hours, so it would be a fucking waste of time... i can think of hundreds of things done for 5 hours straight that are unhealty and heres a short list

*holding your breath
*swimming
*running
*eating

but yet none of these have restrictions imposed on them by the government.

That's awesome I reckon, World of Warcraft and other videogame equivalents of nutrofen plus have consumed many friends of mine. They'll probably just d/c and reconnect and use some hack to override the Government.

in Other News, The United States is cracking down on games, with Shrilary Clinton spending her whole time bitching about GTA's hidden sex feature. Tipper Gore is probably going to re-emerge from the 80's talking about video game censorship again... eugh.

I agree with Hauser - people will probably get around the restriction. IMHO, if you can't make any worthwhile progress with a game in three whole hours, then the game is a waste of time...

Yeah, I quite liked Hillary Clinton till I discovered she was the 'government knows best' kind of democrat.

The main crackdown is to target students. The Chinese are very conservative about their children's education. Even if China is a democracy, there would more than enough concerned parents to support a similar crackdown.

Chinese students are better off working in Mao-era farms than pharming gold in World of Warcraft for a couple of bucks an hour. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution must be started, and to use a direct Chinese translation for some of their programs 'Up mountains, down rivers!'

What the f*ck was that about? The Chinese have an education system of heavy enphasis on science and maths.

What? I thought all Chinese students did was pharm in WoW/Counterstrike/that-game-that-synopsis-has-on-his-desktop-with-chinese-characters etc.

Learn maths by counting chickens, learn science by experimentation on crops. How much cooler than being inside some shithouse lab in a run-down city that is full of pollution from heavy industry is that?

Are you taking a direct insult on my culture with your 1960s stereotypes?

Hahaha this is hilarious.

The question is not about the Chinese government being a one-party state that's wanting to curb this shit. It's an issue of concern amongst many parents simply due to the Confucian views towards the supremacy of education above recreation. From my own experiences, games can be very addictive.

As for an earlier mentioning of curbing smoking, despite a very high figure for male smoking in China, at least those born after 1970-75 are less likely to smoke. Back in the days of Mao, the Poliburo had 90+% smokers.

Hey do chinese people all still wear those pointy hats?

I can confirm that pictures of Mao still get hung up in shops. No idea why.

Pointy hats?

How did you confirm it? Have you been to China recently?

As far as I can recall, few shops still have Mao portraits. Some souvenir shops may sell those, but it's only the foreign visitors that buy those.

Mao's personality cult was denounced even by himself during the Cultural Revolution as the large numbers of portraits and statues were becoming unserious to his name. He had ordered them to be taken down, which was a logical choice as prior to that, the only places that didn't have a Mao portrait would be the lavatories.

As for shops that still have Mao portraits, and are unrelated to the tourist business can mean one of few things:

- The shop owner is a hardcore commie (very few of those around)
- The shop owner believes that the image of a powerful man might be good feng shui
- The shopkeeper is probably senile and has forgotten to take it down since decades ago (just like shops in Europe that still keep portraits of deceased monarchs)

Please note that there is no current regulation that makes the display of any portraits compulsory or sacred. There's still a few Mao statues lying around but they're not landmarks.

I'm going to make this very clear that Chinese government isn't some paranoid, malevolent formation like North Korea. I am aware of the corruption and unpatriotic shit they get up to but I will correct the stereotypes and misconceptions Westerners have about the country and its culture.




*Traditional beliefs like Feng Shui, Taoism and Buddhism is returning quite rapidly.

Didn't say they were shops in China - a restaurant in Mt Albert that I visit quite often had a whole bunch of new decor put up, and in the middle of one wall was a 1960s-era picture of Mao. Exactly why that is I have no idea... is it sarcasm, pure tack or something else again?

So where do Falun Gong (spelling?) fit in with all of this?

Yes, it's called sarcasm. It's all to do with the Chinese theme. There was a controversial themed Chinese restaurant in Malaysia that had a Cultural Revolution theme. Some of the food came from recipes of that era (i.e. wild herbs that nobody would eat these days as they are no longer facing famines), the waiters and waitresses all dressed like Red Guards and the decor included many Mao slogans and portraits. The owners themselves weren't communists, which is a lot similar to the case of those Che Guevera T-shirts with the caption "This shirt was brought to you by capitalism."

Despite Mao being rather unpopular with the Deng Xiaoping generation, there is a strong market for Maoist era collectibles and antiques (primarily portraits, books and Mao pins) due to the widespread destruction of such items after his death. An original Little Red Book is a rare item as many of those were either torn or burnt. Mao memorabilia collectors are hardly communists but simply do it because those things are with a bit of money. The Chinese being a race that is rather obsessed with wealth also explains why stamp collecting is so popular in China.

I guess it may have been a sly joke on their part after all. Would you explain the recent wave of Mao portraits in Chinese taxis (a few years back, actually) in the same way? Either way, for whatever reason they did it my initial post has been proven correct.

Aren't all races wealth-obsessed?

Before I give an explanation of that group, I would like to state that I am neither supportive nor against their original activities.

The Falun Gong term themselves a "spiritual movement" and was started in the early nineties by a man named Li Hongzhi who's past is something of enigma and dispute.

It was suppose to be a new form of Qi Gong developed by the mysterious Mr. Li Hongzhi and combined with various principles of Buddhism and Taoism. Like other forms of Qi Gong, it claims to have healing properties. Li's past is a subject of debate. Some claim that he was in the military, other say he once worked in the propaganda department.

With their principles of truth, compassion and tolerance plus the claims of healing powers, the group managed to attract a rather large following in Mainland as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, this large following soon revealed Mr. Li's personal political ambitions.

With the growing number of Falun Gong practitioners, the group was denounced by a leading scientific journal as a New Age pseudo-science (Falun Gong media fail to report this). The writer was a respected medical researcher. Qi Gong (like prayer) may have healing powers, but the cases of Falun Gong practisioners dying from curable diseases (the group often maintains silence about) due to their belief that Falun Gong is 100% effective (thus a total replacement of proper medicine), has been an insult towards the Qi Gong groups (which believed that Qin Gong effects are largely supplementary). Falun Gong responded to the report by silent protests outside Zhongnanhai (the Chinese equivalent of the White House), angering Jiang Zemin, the former president.

After the group's removal from the area, they were declared a cult by the former president and considered an illegal organization. Falun Gong in the face of persecution only managed to show their true colors, with revelations of their plans for political action in China. Initially, their hate was channelled towards Jiang, but as times progressed, the entire government and some corporations became targetted in their smear campaigns.

Falun Gong's principles have also angered many Buddhists, Taoist and Qi Gong groups due to their political involvement (traditionally, Chinese religion have often kept out off politics) and perversion of their original beliefs. Falun Gong continues to produce claims of severe human rights abuses performed on its members in China, with the usual image of being an organization that campaigns on human rights. Like other Chinese dissendent groups, it exploits common Western ignorance and stereotypes of China being a place where the human rights levels are lower than Hell's. This has thus increased it's sympathies and popularity overseas. Analysts continue to believe that the group's claims to bizarre torture are high exaggerated.

The Falun Gong's media front is the Epoch Times, a global free newspaper (which can be collected at many Chinese shopping outlets here as well as an English version that is sometimes given out by its members along main streets of Auckland City). The Epoch Times was originally anti-Jiang, but has moved on to attack the government as well as the growing rise of China. Its initial phase, attracted support by overseas Chinese, but the attacks on China itself soon made caused it's popularity to decline amongst non-members. Critics (including some overseas Chinese) accuse the Epoch Times of being nothing more than traitors' propaganda sponsored by the U.S. or Japan.

Much of the Epoch Times' reports are exaggerated and untruthful, like claiming that SARS was a sadistic move by the Chinese government to release a virus just kill their own people. The Chinese editions of the Epoch are known to contain bizarre claims supporting issues of the paranormal (apparently Falun Gong believes it challenges the Chinese government’s secularism). Being an occassional reader of the Epoch (it's rather hard to get news about China, no matter how biased it may be), over the past years, it has gotten thinner (being a free newspaper, this is an indication of the decrease in advertisers, which fund it's publishing), but it continues to make wild claims of astronomical numbers of readers.

Recently, it's focus on influencing members of the Party to resign has also included falsified reports of record lows for the Party's membership growth while indenpendent reports firmly refute their claims.

Mr. Li currently resides in seclusion as a political refugee in America. He has ties to the U.S. government and it is believed that the CIA is responsible for his security. He continues to publish works for the group but the sheer volumes of politically themed materials spark questions on whether his ambitions are spiritual or political. Li is a figure of controversy, as some hardcore members worship him like a prophet or god. His changing of his date of birth to match that of Sakyamuni's (the founder of Buddhism), only further cult suspicion amongst the Buddhists.

Falun Gong is also known to 'borrow' other religions' prophesies in their propaganda, like claiming that the Chinese government is a representative of Satan, the Chinese military being a demonic army, in the context of the Biblical prophesies of Armageddon (this was from a recent campaign to attract Christian sympathies). Whatever religious material will be useful for their propaganda.

The Falun Gong are by no means as innocent as they claim, in 2003, a Taiwan based chapter of the group jammed Chinese satellites (such action in peacetime is a violation of international laws regarding satellite broadcasts), they picked the university lecture channels, causing grief for many students. In a rare case of co-operation between the police from across the Strait led to the arrest of the members involved.

Falun Gong also has several Chinese language TV channels in Europe and America funded by the U.S. government. From my own viewings, their propaganda is typically blatant. One example would be the recurring images of large numbers of their members practicing Falun Gong across the world at various famous landmarks. Their reports claim exaggerated numbers were involved in such events.

The Chinese government believes that much of Falun Gong has been supressed in their campaign of prosecuting members and is not considered a serious threat to their power. Falun Gong members are found across the West, usually amongst overseas Chinese, with a few White members. In the past five years, much of their actions are protests outside Chinese embassies and consulates as well as areas where Chinese people buy their groceries.

This post is constructed from what I know about them (sorry for being detailed). My information is from a combination of various newspaper reports over the years. Large numbers of pro-Falun Gong websites in existence contain strong bias.

The taxis are probably doing the same thing. Like any dead dictator in their countries, Mao is still a Chinese celebrity. If collecting Mao memorabilia is "classy", than a Mao cab would be "classy" too.

The Chinese are more extreme in comparison. Since you've never lived in China, you wouldn't know any of the amazing scams and business tricks the Chinese can come up with.

Here are some of the small things you might see in the open markets:

- Injecting meat or veges with water so it weighs heavier.
- Pork stomachs are considered more marketable if white, the batards use chemical bleach.
- Farm animals are fed with steroids so they grow faster, the meat is technically unsuitable for human consumption.

Having the highest population in the world and great population densities, making a living ain't easy. There's always people bending the rules.

In the NZ countryside, you see unattended produce stalls where people pay in donations to a coin box. If you have the same thing in China, within 20 minutes all the goods for sale and the coin box, plus the wood used for the stall would be stolen.

You should be thankful that you're living in paradise!

Speaking of Mao's image and the cheap bastards, China is plague by banknote counterfeiting. The original Yuan notes had too many faces (general images of various ethnicities in their traditional costumes, peoples of different professions, including an engineer). The 1999 issue decided that if they have one only face on all the banknotes, it would provide less space for counterfeiters to hide their patterns, so it was concluded for the first time, a Communist Chinese leader gets featured on money.

See what you mean....

Actually, I think I have one of the old notes with ethnic figures, but a head of Mao where the Queen is in our notes.

How did you come across Chinese notes? The Chinese have also issued banknotes of equal face value to their coins. In the city where I come from, the subway only takes coins while busses accept only notes. I don't think anyone would waste the effort in counterfeiting 2 Yuan notes.

Talking about countermeasures against counterfeiting, the latest U.S. Dollar bills have this special ink that makes its color change when viewed at different angles, it's a nice idea but it won't work in China because the counterfeiters may use blind people to spread their misfortune. The current Yuan's paper type makes a distinctive, crunchy sound upon being pulled flat, just don't pull too hard or you'll hear a rip.

Counterfeiting currency is crime punishiable by the death sentence.

You mean pay blind people for goods using the counterfeit money? Can't believe they'd let blind people handle cash like that (acting as sales clerks/etc...). Or do they do it another way?

A friend lives in Tianjin and gave me a few of them a while ago. I think they're worth even less than 2 yuan actually - what's the smallest denomination of bank notes in China?

China is actually fairly blind-friendly. Their banknotes have indentations in braille that blind folks can feel. The major problem is that the blind cannot tell whether there's a metallic strip or watermark.

The coins and cash have matching face values and the lowest has always been the 1 Fen (cent). As a note, it's size is just a little wider than cigarette paper.