I couldn't resist this - a marvellous graphic analysing what Chinese bloggers talk about. (I'm a little slow to pick up on this [via the regularly fascinating Imagethief]: it was on the Wall Street Journal's China blog last month.)We self-centred and somewhat paranoid laowai are apt to suppose that Chinese bloggers spend 90% of their time bitching about us; but, hey, what do you know, they actually spend most of their time bitching about their own government!
I was - briefly - quite encouraged by this. But then I pondered the figures a little more closely. In a country where the government is as fucked up as this, having 25% of blog opinion devoted to criticism of it really isn't that much. Notice also that most of this criticism is only "implicit"; and just about none of it is directed at the leadership.
Still, it's nice to know that they're really not just having a go at us foreigners the whole time. As I observed in one of my weekly bon mots some time ago: "We'd be a lot less worried what other people think about us if we realised how seldom they did."
Still, it's nice to know that they're really not just having a go at us foreigners the whole time. As I observed in one of my weekly bon mots some time ago: "We'd be a lot less worried what other people think about us if we realised how seldom they did."
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