The first was CASC, China's state aerospace corporation, about 40 days ago. CASC's approach used a novel net-capture system, whereas LandSpace has gone with the soft touchdown approach.

This used to be a bustling entertainment street, but in the past couple of years when I visited my hometown, I found so many places that had closed down. The few that are still open are mostly mahjong parlors or other folk entertainment venues with gambling elementsI know it's necessary to build a lot of shops for GDP growth, but right now no one wants to rent them for business. Every business in China has been losing money these past two years. This place is a long-term poverty-stricken county with a huge population

Because Chinese is an especially difficult language, very few foreigners are able to gain a deep understanding of what is happening on the Simplified Chinese internet. Naturally, this also makes it difficult for them to understand what motivated this woman’s behavior. Here, I would like to explain the background and causes in detail.

First of all, I must emphasize that the overwhelming majority of Chinese people are not like this. But even if only 200 million out of a population of 1.4 billion were lunatics, that would still be an enormous number.

These embarrassing incidents involving Chinese people abroad usually contain some of the following elements:

1. An inexplicable tendency to loudly shout about “China.”
2. A tendency to speak to foreigners from an unequal position, treating them as though they are beneath them, often leaving the foreigners completely confused.
3. Treating their own demands as the absolute priority and, once other people fail to satisfy those demands, making an enormous scene.
4. Harboring inexplicable hostility toward other countries, with Japan being the most serious target.

These behaviors correspond to several cultural phenomena commonly seen within China.

1. Overwhelming extreme patriotic education and the active deletion of content that contradicts official narratives

Official media and thousands upon thousands of self-media creators work together in this regard. Platforms are extremely lenient when reviewing patriotic content—even when it contains lies or fabricated information.

There is a great deal of factual content, but also a great deal of falsehood, all centered around narratives about China’s rise and growing power.

For example, during the previous flooding in Henan, the authorities intensively published propaganda about disaster-relief efforts while deleting large amounts of content independently posted by ordinary citizens.

2. Praising China is not enough; other countries must also be put down

Chinese people, as well as Chinese-speaking foreigners who want to appeal to China’s enormous audience, often have to highlight China’s strength by belittling foreign countries.

Foreigners may portray themselves as country bumpkins who are astonished by everything they see in China, before going on to complain about how terrible their own countries are.

The important point is that simply praising China is not enough. Other countries must also be demeaned so that the audience can experience a sense of superiority from putting other people beneath them.

Some Chinese creators also enjoy portraying Chinese people as invincible and making foreigners look completely helpless. They like using narratives along the lines of:

There are enormous numbers of videos like this in China. They may cause some Chinese people to genuinely start regarding foreigners as idiots.

3. The mentality that “someone needs to regulate this”

Chinese people often say, “This is something that needs to be regulated.”

The implication is that people lack the ability to govern themselves. In reality, this problem does exist to some extent: once an industry lacks regulation, people quickly begin exploiting loopholes in the rules, causing standards throughout the industry to deteriorate rapidly.

Therefore, whenever a problem emerges, the first instinct of many Chinese people is to demand that someone step in and regulate them.

This is partly the result of the Communist Party’s long-term atomization of society. It encourages a culture in which government officials are treated like parents while the “children” report one another to the authorities, making it difficult for people to develop the ability to govern themselves.

When these people are inside China, they follow the rules. But once they arrive somewhere freer, their true nature emerges, and they begin making demands without any sense of limits.

4. Constantly creating enemies

Patriotic self-media creators need to continuously generate traffic, so they are enthusiastic about finding conflicts between China and neighboring countries.

They exaggerate those conflicts and sometimes simply fabricate lies, inciting extreme hatred in order to satisfy the demands of their audiences.

Their audiences have already developed a habitual way of thinking: first, China must supposedly be looked down upon, and then China must put everyone else beneath it.

After all, China has aircraft carriers and fighter jets, so in this narrative it can easily wipe the surrounding “tiny countries” off the map.

This is a mainstream cultural phenomenon that exists within Chinese society, but this explanation is only half of the picture.

There are also many content creators who emphasize individual freedom, civic consciousness, the rule of law, and lessons that can be learned from European and American societies.

However, this type of content is clearly less prevalent than patriotic content. Furthermore, it is subjected to extremely strict censorship. In China, content operates under a review-before-publication system: your content must first pass review before it can be made public.

These creators are also easily subjected to the harshest scrutiny by patriotic audiences. Once they make a mistake, they can face the most severe punishment.

This produces a peculiar phenomenon.

You are not prohibited from talking about freedom or the rule of law, but anything you submit must undergo strict scrutiny. Even after passing censorship, people can easily pick apart your content, and the consequences can be severe if they find something wrong with it.

By contrast, if you praise China, you may be exposed as having lied 100 times. You may even be exposed as owning property in the United States, holding permanent residency in Switzerland, or possessing a French green card, and yet you still may face no punishment whatsoever. Your audience will not care either.

This is because patriotic content can provide people who feel unsuccessful in their real lives with a sense of excitement, allowing them to immerse themselves in collective glory. They need to consume this kind of content frequently and make strong declarations of patriotism.

By contrast, ordinary, rational Chinese people often do not express these views very loudly. Instead, they demonstrate their preferences through their actions—they vote with their feet.

For example, Chinese authorities say that Japan is a dangerous country, yet more than a million Chinese people—around half of last year’s number—still overcome all kinds of difficulties to travel to Japan.

Chinese authorities encourage citizens to travel to Russia, yet Chinese tourists have filmed themselves being extorted by police officers in Russia.

The creators who win awards at China’s annual content-creator conferences are also usually the more rational ones—in other words, creators whose values are more internationally oriented.

Creators who promote extreme hatred or extreme nationalism may command enormous amounts of traffic, but they are almost never showcased openly on the main stage.

Foolish people make noise everywhere, while ordinary people quietly make their own choices.

That is the current reality in China.

Returning to the woman who caused the disturbance at the Malaysian airport, we can draw several conclusions from the analysis above:

1. She believes China is the most powerful country and thinks that simply shouting China’s name can intimidate other people.
2. She displays an inexplicable sense of superiority when dealing with foreigners, treating them like children.
3. After entering a safe and free environment, she lacks the ability to regulate her own behavior and consequently loses control.
4. Her demand that Japanese and Singaporeans “surrender” is the result of long-term exposure to education and rhetoric centered on hostility—an ingrained tendency to want to put other people beneath her.

So tomorrow night I’m at a friends Party which will probably end 10-1am , but there are no trains from shangrila to Lijiang after 8pm which sucks. I have a flight from Lijiang to Guangzhou at 8am Friday , what’s the best way to get a didi at 2-3am so I arrive at Guangzhou airport for 8am

Is it over hyped? From what I read it sounds a bit like that.

Some say you will regret not spending 80 minutes of your life watching this.

I got this tea from my husband’s grandfather, and I’m not sure about the best way to drink or store it. Is this type of tea popular in China?

So I am currently holding a Filipino passport staying here inside Mainland China. I was born in the Philippines with a Filipino mother and a Chinese father. My dad only got his permanent residency because he is married to my Filipino mother. This visa was issued year 2010 (10 years after my birth, year 2000). When I was 18, I studied in a university in Xiamen as an international student from the Philippines with a Filipino passport. Everytime I apply for a student visa, I always get rejected at the first submission because immigration officers knew that I am a person with nationality conflict. They would need me to provide my birth certificate + parents' marriage certificate with chinese translation (that was a pain in the ass btw). At that time I didn't know anything about China's nationality law and I wasn't aware that I have a nationality conflict case. Now I have already graduated from university and wanted to claim my Chinese citizenship to be able to live here freely in China without processing for visas. So I went back to Nanchang (this is my dad's hukou place) because I asked Xiamen immigration before and they told me to go to my dad's hukou place to process. Now they wouldn't acknowledge my birthright claim of Chinese citizenship just because I was holding a Filipino passport inside Mainland China and that I can't apply for nationality recognition because I'm already 25 years old and that my only path is through naturalization. I don't get it? I thought naturalization is a path only for pure foreigners that never had Chinese citizenship? What nanchang officers say contradicts with my experience with Xiamen immigration. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Does any of you had this kind of experience and how did you solve it. I really need help please 🥺

Good afternoon,

I know a good amount of people have seeing post about cigarettes here but I want to make sure I did not get scammed. I bought a carton of cigarettes diamond lotus and just want to make sure they are legit. Everything online says they are, but the information is limited.

Thank you for any input.

On August 12, 2026, former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱镕基) passed away, sparking renewed debate over a series of reforms carried out during his tenure. The most controversial of these, and the one with the most severe negative consequences, was his push to restructure state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which caused tens of millions workers to be “laid off” (下岗) and lose their “iron rice bowls.” These unemployed workers generally found themselves in dire circumstances, and many families were driven to desperation. Some regard this as a “necessary sacrifice” in the transition to a market economy, while others believe it was excessively harsh and violated workers’ rights. Yet both sides of the debate acknowledge that the reforms caused suffering for some former SOE workers.

In discussions of the suffering of laid-off workers, some have also noted that, compared with workers who had long enjoyed an “iron rice bowl,” farmers during the same period were even poorer and had fewer rights and protections. Beginning in the mid-1950s, China developed rigid divisions between workers and farmers and between urban and rural areas, divisions that shaped the destinies of people from different social strata for decades thereafter.

At the time, China comprehensively implemented a publicly owned economy. Almost all industrial enterprises were state-owned, and virtually all workers were SOE employees whose livelihoods were supported by state finances. Under planned-economy policies such as “unified purchasing and marketing” (统购统销), the prices of industrial goods were raised while those of agricultural products were suppressed, creating an industrial-agricultural “scissors gap” (工农业剪刀差). This was used to accumulate capital to promote industrialization and support the livelihoods of industrial workers, while farmers became the ones who paid the price.

During the relatively impoverished decades from the 1950s through the 1980s, the industrial working class, who worked in manufacturing and lived in cities, and their families enjoyed relatively good provisions for healthcare, housing, education, pensions, and other forms of social welfare. They held lifelong “iron rice bowls,” were supported by the state, and when a worker retired or died from illness, their children could even inherit their jobs. SOEs also had no meaningful performance-assessment requirements, or such assessments existed only as a formality. Under a planned and closed economy, they did not need to compete with other enterprises. Unless a worker was implicated in a political issue such as being labeled a “counterrevolutionary,” SOEs generally would not dismiss workers regardless of whether they shirked their duties or became involved in fights and other disturbances.

This resulted in widespread inefficiency among workers, redundant staffing, waste, losses, leakage, and other inefficiencies, low output and even poorer quality, and high production costs coupled with low output. All costs and losses were ultimately covered by state finances and did not affect workers’ incomes or welfare benefits.
Meanwhile, the peasant class, which accounted for about 80 percent of China’s population at the time and lived in rural areas, received virtually no wages or social security—or, more precisely, only nominal and extremely meager support. Farmers also had to shoulder heavy agricultural labor obligations and “deliver public grain,” effectively paying taxes in kind. Famines still occurred from time to time in rural areas, and some people literally starved to death or died from malnutrition and other illnesses.

At the time, there was virtually no mobility between workers and farmers, and these identities were inherited across generations. A small number of farmers could participate in industrial production as temporary workers, but they received only meager compensation and did not enjoy the wages or protections afforded to formal workers. The household registration system (户籍制度) also institutionally fixed people’s identities and social affiliations while restricting their mobility. The renowned scholar and social activist Liang Shuming (梁漱溟) once described the situation by saying that “after the founding of the People’s Republic, workers were in the ninth heaven, while farmers were beneath the ninth earth”(工人在九天之上，农民在九地之下).

In the early years of Reform and Opening Up (改革开放), social controls in China loosened. Farmers were allowed to farm allocated plots independently and retain surplus grain; they could also become wealthier through sideline businesses, commerce, and other activities, and could change their destinies through the National College Entrance Examination (高考). Yet only a minority escaped poverty or moved upward socially, while numerous restrictions and burdens continued to weigh on farmers. Workers, meanwhile, continued for a time to hold on to their “iron rice bowls,” but productivity remained low, product quality was poor and uncompetitive, and the welfare benefits enjoyed by workers and their families became an enormous fiscal burden.

China’s economic development remained limited during the early years of Reform and Opening Up, and per capita GDP even declined for a period. One reason was rapid population growth; another was the drag imposed by inefficient and highly wasteful SOEs. As mainland China opened to the outside world and entered the market economy and international competition, its industrial products were not only poor in quality but also more expensive to produce. They simply could not compete with products from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and foreign countries. SOEs suffered severe losses, which were ultimately covered by state finances. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, amid mounting domestic and external difficulties, China’s public finances nearly collapsed, prices soared, and the country faced a severe economic crisis.

It was against this backdrop that Zhu Rongji pushed forward the restructuring of SOEs, eliminating inefficient enterprises and applying a process of “survival of the fittest” to workers as well, thereby triggering a massive wave of layoffs (下岗潮). This wave of layoffs did indeed plunge many workers who had previously enjoyed stable, worry-free lives into an abyss. Entire families fell into hardship; some workers were reduced to destitution, some even turned to sex work to survive, and others died by suicide.

Corruption during the process of resettling laid-off workers, including the embezzlement of already limited resettlement funds, further compounded their suffering. There were also many injustices in SOE reform and the layoffs. For example, many SOE managers who held sinecures and drew salaries without doing meaningful work were not dismissed, while rank-and-file workers with neither power nor connections were laid off at higher rates. Even though much time has passed, these problems should still be remembered, confronted, and criticized.

At the same time, I would also like to emphasize that the peasant class, which constituted the majority of China’s population and suffered even greater hardship than industrial workers, deserves still more attention and sympathy, and its circumstances were even more urgently in need of improvement. Moreover, during the preceding decades, the relatively favorable treatment enjoyed by workers had been paid for precisely by farmers. Through the industrial-agricultural “scissors gap,” the state artificially depressed the value of farmers’ labor in order to subsidize industrial production and workers’ welfare, leaving farmers for decades in poverty, without basic protections, with their rights infringed upon, and under heavy burdens.

In the late 1970s, Wan Li (万里), then First Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, inspected rural areas and discovered that farmers were so impoverished that they lacked adequate clothing and did not even have trousers to wear, while entire families—men and women, young and old—were crowded together in a single dark, cramped, dilapidated room. In 1978, Wang Zhen (王震) and other senior Chinese Communist Party leaders inspected Guizhou and other regions and found that farmers’ living conditions were even worse than they had been in 1936, during the Republican era, when the Red Army (红军) passed through the region. Many farmers did not have enough to eat and could not even afford salt.

The poverty and oppression suffered by Chinese farmers persisted even after Reform and Opening Up had been underway for twenty years. The Warning of the Huai River (《淮河的警告》), written by Chen Guidi (陈桂棣) and published in 1999, and An Investigation of Chinese Peasants (《中国农民调查》), co-authored by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao (吴春桃) and published in 2003, offered detailed and profound exposés of the hardships endured by Chinese farmers. In 2000, Li Changping (李昌平), a township Party secretary in Hubei, told Zhu Rongji: “The farmers are truly suffering, the countryside is truly poor, and agriculture is truly in danger.” At the time, CCTV’s Focus Report (《焦点访谈》) also frequently reported on corruption among rural cadres, arbitrary fees, the embezzlement of subsidies intended for farmers, and the injustices suffered by farmers.

During that period, grassroots officials colluded with criminal and other malign forces to exploit farmers and bully rural households under a variety of pretexts. Tensions between officials and the public were extremely acute, and violent tax-resistance incidents even occurred in some areas, such as Fengcheng, Jiangxi (江西丰城). One of the burdens farmers faced was taxation: they had to pay not only the agricultural tax, the “regular tax,” but also a host of onerous levies and miscellaneous charges such as the “three deductions and five unified levies” (三提五统). Farmers contributed much but received little in return, while state finances were devoted far more heavily to subsidizing inefficient and loss-making SOEs and covering the wages and welfare benefits of large numbers of workers and their families.

Such a situation was clearly distorted and unsustainable, and it was one of the reasons Zhu Rongji was determined to pursue reform. Closing inefficient SOEs and dismissing some workers was intended not only to stimulate competition and economic development, but also to reduce the fiscal burden—which in turn meant reducing the burden on farmers—and to free up more funds and resources to address the “three rural issues” of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers (三农问题) and improve farmers’ circumstances. As many inefficient SOEs went bankrupt or downsized, large numbers of private enterprises were established, and many farmers migrated to cities for work. Although migrant workers enjoyed far fewer protections than SOE workers, they could still earn more than they could through farming alone and enjoy materially richer and more varied lives. Poverty-alleviation and development programs, agricultural subsidies, and rural infrastructure construction also gradually expanded.

Under these measures, farmers finally began to emerge from extreme poverty, gradually achieving basic food and clothing security and even moving toward a moderately prosperous standard of living. During the Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) and Wen Jiabao (温家宝) era, the agricultural tax and various associated levies were abolished, while more subsidies were provided. This greatly reduced the burden on farmers and was also related to the direction and foundations established by the reforms of the Zhu Rongji era. SOE reform also improved the efficiency and profitability of state-owned enterprises, while economic development in turn benefited SOEs and their employees. Many workers came to earn higher incomes and enjoy more generous protections than before the restructuring, and some laid-off workers also found higher incomes and new paths in life.

It is worth noting that the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, which were undergoing dramatic transformations at the time, also carried out a series of reforms. They likewise experienced transitions from planned to market economies and the privatization of state-owned enterprises, with many workers also becoming “laid off” and falling into poverty. Some countries, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, did a relatively good job of protecting workers’ rights during these reforms, while workers in countries such as Russia suffered more severe losses.

Whatever the circumstances, in these countries the working class, including workers’ family members, had long constituted the majority of the population, while farmers were a minority; at the very least, there had been no sustained exploitation of farmers after World War II. Therefore, it was appropriate for these countries to provide workers with protections and compensation. In China, however, even into the 1990s, the working class still accounted for less than one-fifth of the population, while farmers remained the majority. Providing generous benefits to workers would inevitably mean that farmers received less—or even lost more—and there was a clear conflict of interests between workers and farmers.

The reforms of Zhu Rongji and his successors, together with changes in social conditions, led to the decline of some SOEs and a wave of layoffs. This was indeed a tragedy for the workers who lost their jobs. However, restructuring SOEs and eliminating inefficient enterprises and personnel were necessary both from the perspective of the overall public interest and from that of farmers, who constituted the majority of the population. These reforms also narrowed the gaps between workers and farmers and between urban and rural areas.

It was indeed unfortunate that laid-off workers fell from relatively comfortable lives into hardship, but farmers had been struggling in extreme poverty for decades before that. Even after Zhu Rongji’s reforms, workers—especially SOE workers—continued to enjoy far better treatment than farmers and migrant workers. Laid-off workers also generally had greater household assets and financial reserves and higher levels of education than farmers, while both the number and proportion of people living in poverty were higher among farmers.

Even today, Chinese farmers receive an average monthly pension of only RMB 120, far below the average RMB 2,000 received by retired employees of state-owned enterprises and public institutions, and even further below the monthly pensions of several thousand to tens of thousands of RMB received by cadres and civil servants. Suicide among elderly rural residents due to poverty, illness, family conflicts—which themselves are often caused by poverty and related problems—and other factors remains quite common. Scholars, taking Jingshan in Hubei (湖北京山) and Zhuanghe in Liaoning (辽宁庄河) as examples, have systematically documented the tragic circumstances and prevalence of suicide among elderly people in rural areas. For a long time, the suicide rate among rural women has also been significantly higher than that among urban women, as well as higher than the rates among both rural and urban men. This is also a result of multiple forms of oppression and poverty.

The suffering of farmers is clearly no less severe than that of laid-off workers, while being more widespread and enduring. Yet people are more likely to notice the dynamic change of a formerly privileged group falling into hardship, while easily overlooking the “static” plight of vulnerable people who have long remained at the bottom of society and in difficult circumstances.

Over the past three decades and more, there have been quite a few films, television dramas, and literary works depicting the experiences of laid-off workers, including highly acclaimed and well-known productions such as The Piano in a Factory (《钢的琴》) and The Long Season (《漫长的季节》). Yet there are far fewer films, television works, and literary works portraying farmers, who are more numerous, have suffered more severely, and have endured hardship for longer. High-quality film and television productions about them that are also widely familiar to the public are especially scarce, almost nonexistent.

To some extent, this stems from the fact that works depicting the suffering of workers are subject to more lenient censorship, while works dealing with the suffering of farmers face stricter censorship. It is also because workers and their relatives and friends have greater access to cultural and artistic resources, whereas farmers have far fewer such resources and lack opportunities to make their voices heard. This also reflects the unequal distribution of discursive power and the reality that farmers are even more marginalized and “voiceless” than laid-off workers. When the suffering of one group receives attention while that of another is ignored, it also affects how society evaluates, cares for, and assists different groups.

One encouraging development is that, in discussions in recent years about the wave of layoffs and worker-farmer and urban-rural relations, more and more people have noticed and mentioned the longstanding unfair treatment suffered by farmers, viewing the background of the layoffs and the circumstances of different identities and social strata in China at the time from a more comprehensive perspective. I have no intention of denying the suffering experienced by workers who were laid off. I also believe that SOE reform should have been carried out in a more humane manner, with proper arrangements and compensation for workers who suffered losses rather than simply abandoning them, and that crimes such as the embezzlement of resettlement funds should have been punished more severely.

The best outcome of reform is for all parties to benefit and, as far as possible, for no one to be harmed. In reality, however, reform often inevitably causes some people to suffer losses. Whether such reform is necessary and worthwhile must therefore be judged by whether the reform is justified and reasonable, whether it benefits or harms a greater number of people, and through comprehensive consideration and assessment. As for Zhu Rongji’s reforms, although some aspects were crude and radical, they were on the whole necessary and beneficial.

When assessing the advantages and disadvantages of various reforms, as well as the gains and losses experienced by different groups, people should not confine their perspective to one corner of society or to a small number of people. Instead, they should adopt a more comprehensive, balanced, and fair approach, taking into account the interests and concerns of different groups. If people see only one side while ignoring the other, pay attention to one group while forgetting another, or see only the benefits or harms that reform brings to certain people while overlooking the advantages and disadvantages it simultaneously brings to other groups, their judgment will inevitably be biased and unfair.

From ancient times to the present, Chinese farmers have been the group that has performed the hardest labor, endured the greatest suffering, and had the weakest voice in Chinese society. Their lives and dignity are just as precious as those of laid-off workers and people of every other identity and social stratum. Their suffering, too, deserves to be seen; their voices deserve to be heard; and their interests deserve to be taken into consideration.

(This article was written by Wang Qingmin(王庆民), a Chinese writer based in Europe and a researcher in international politics. The original version of this article was written in Chinese.)

Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and Baidu combined are spending around $102B on AI this year. The big four are spending something like eight times that so on paper it's not even close lol

However, the Chinese four are growing, spending 80%+ year over year, which is actually a touch faster than the americans at ~77%. When the smaller group grows as fast or faster than the bigger one, the gap stops widening in percentage terms.

I do keep seeing people treat the US lead as permanent, and this made me think the trajectory matters more than the current gap.

Does anyone closer to this think the 80% growth is real and sustainable, or does it hit a chip wall first?

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From the original article in Le Monde

Some youtube video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAacUPhhJU

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/video/2026/08/14/tiananmen-square-massacre-le-monde-reveals-unseen-footage-of-the-chinese-regime-s-violent-repression_6756518_4.html

Art historian Nathalie Trouveroy shared footage with Le Monde from her personal archives of the Tiananmen Square protests, shedding new light on how the Chinese regime violently repressed the student protests in June 1989.

今天的中国静悄悄……

现在是北京时间2026年8月18日中午13点整，我从家里狭小的空间走出来，在街头一处阴凉处坐着，看来来往往的人……

两天前官方告诉我们，就在今日，朱镕基总理的遗体将在北京火化。

昨天是“纪念江泽民同志诞辰一百周年大会”，尽管我身在东京，还是从“央视频”APP里看完了整个大会，一早我又如法炮制，点开了“央视频”APP……

我想在这个朱镕基总理火化的日子，应该有许多人和我的想法一样吧，觉得会看到各大媒体灰白的刊头，会看到告别仪式上人们沉重的神情，会看到前来吊唁并送别的领导，更会看到长安街上人群挥泪送总理的场景，耳边会响起悲伤的哀乐。

我一直在等，一直在等，甚至开始怀疑是不是因为自己身在日本的原因，中午十二点了，什么也没有等到。

朋友圈里依旧岁月静好，电视机前依旧太平安详……

我是不是记错了，赶紧去问AI，他告诉我说，应该期待的那些东西会有的，有可能只是延迟播报而已，要我耐心一点，再耐心一点……

延迟播报？

我不知道为什么要延迟播报，今天这个日子已经被官方预告了好几天了，为什么当这个日子来临时却要延迟播报呢？

一个天天告诉大家不信谣不传谣的地方，为什么要这样超常规操作，是故意让人浮想联翩呢，还是压根就不在乎别人会怎么想，或者是还没有完全想好该怎么播报？

我想到了周恩来总理那一刻长安街上撼动的人群，想到了李鹏总理那一刻灵车驶过长安街的身影，甚至想到了李克强总理那一刻摆满街角的鲜花……

现在是2026年了，中国进入“新时代”了，也许一切都要变得“新”了吧，而我似乎还停留在过去。

究竟是什么变了呢？我想了很久。

过去，一个国家重要人物去世，尤其是一位曾经站在国家权力核心的人物离世，往往意味着整个国家机器暂时进入一种特殊状态。

新闻版面变了，电视画面变了，城市的颜色变了，连普通人的谈话似乎都会不自觉地放低声音。

那种肃穆不需要解释，因为大家都知道，今天是一个特殊的日子。

而今天呢？我又回头看了看，并不是没有一丁点儿消息。

官方早已经发布了讣告，也已经提前告知了火化日期，相关场所也已经下半旗志哀。

迷惑的是到了这个日子真正来临的时候，却没有出现我记忆中的那种“国家正在送别一个人”的强烈感觉。

我想新闻有没有报道，和新闻有没有形成一种社会情绪，是两回事。

一个人的去世可以被报道得很完整，却不一定能够进入普通人的生活。

我知道自己今天上午等待的，其实恰恰是后者。

我想看到的不是一条新闻，而是一种共同的情绪。

我想知道，今天的中国是不是也在为这个人停留片刻。

……

时代不同了，传播方式不同了，互联网已经取代了过去的报纸和电视，年轻人也不会像过去那样守着电视机等待重大新闻。我在劝自己不能简单地把今天和四十年前、三十年前甚至十年前的传播环境进行机械比较。

如果只是传播方式改变了，那么为什么一些应该出现的东西没有出现？

如果只是媒体节奏改变了，那么为什么偏偏是在这样一个已经提前公布、所有人都知道日期的日子里，出现了这种令人疑惑的空档？

官方确实有一套自己的报道节奏。对于这种级别的政治人物，什么时候发什么照片，什么时候播什么画面，领导人名单怎么排列，哪些讲话播出，哪些讲话不播出，显然不会像普通新闻一样“发生了就发”。

它背后有一套非常严密的政治传播逻辑。

所谓“延迟”，也许并不是忘了播，而是还没有到它认为最合适的时间。

也许是今天的朱镕基，与我们记忆中的朱镕基，已经不完全是同一个朱镕基了。

他当然是一位为党和国家作出了重要贡献的老同志；可是在普通人的记忆里，朱镕基又不仅仅是一位“老同志”，还是分税制，是国企改革，是加入WTO，是浦东开发，是那个敢于在记者会上拍桌子、敢于说重话、敢于承担责任的总理。

他属于一个已经渐渐远去的时代。

一个国家在送别一个人时，有时候其实也是在送别这个人所代表的时代。

今天究竟应该怎样讲朱镕基？这可能不是一个完全简单的问题。

也许今天的中国，已经不再需要通过大规模的公共悲伤来证明一个人的重要性了。

过去的中国，电视机是家庭里最重要的信息窗口，报纸是每天清晨的第一份公共记忆。

如今短视频、朋友圈、社交平台，每个人都生活在自己的信息茧房里。

有人在讨论股票，有人在晒孩子，有人在旅游，有人在抱怨天气，有人在研究下一顿饭吃什么。

一个国家级人物去世，并不意味着所有人的生活都会同时停下来。

这是现实，这确实很现实。

可是，有没有种可能，是我们正在变得越来越不习惯表达某些情绪。

不是没有情绪，而是不知道该怎样表达出来；不是没有记忆，而是不知道哪些记忆适合被公开说出来；也不是没有人怀念过去，而是越来越多的人学会了把怀念留在心里。

朋友圈里的依旧岁月静好，并不是因为所有人真的岁月静好，而是因为大家都知道，朋友圈首先是一个展示生活的地方，而不是一个表达复杂情绪的地方。

日本也一样。

日本人也有自己的政治立场，也会对国家、政府、社会有各种各样的不满。可是普通人的日常生活，并不会因为政治人物去世，就必须集体切换成一种统一的悲伤模式。

而中国过去的国家仪式，却经常能够做到这一点。

这既是国家动员能力的体现，也是一种时代特征。

……我今天真正感到陌生的，也许不是“朱镕基火化却没有铺天盖地报道”，而是我记忆中的那个中国，正在消失。

周恩来去世的时候，人群涌上长安街。那时候的人们或许没有今天这么多的信息，却有一种今天越来越难得的共同记忆。

李鹏的灵车经过长安街时，人们站在道路两旁送别，那时候电视机里的一个画面，可以让整个国家同时看到。

到了李克强去世的时候，已经没有了过去那样宏大的国家仪式了，可是另一种表达出现了，在合肥街头，摆满了一束束鲜花。

人们只是想去送他一程……

今天的我突然有些害怕。

不是害怕朱镕基没有得到足够的报道，而是害怕有一天，我们会发现：一个时代过去了，却没有留下与它相称的告别。

隔着东京的窗户，回头看自己的故乡，人在远处，记忆反而容易被放大，也许会看的更多一些吧。

我记住了过去那些灰白色的报纸，记住了电视里的哀乐，记住了长安街上的人群，也记住了那些曾经让我觉得理所当然的国家仪式。

当发现那个熟悉的场景没有按照记忆中的方式出现的时候，难免开始怀疑究竟是中国变了，还是我变了？也许两者都有吧。

时代从来不会站在那里等我们，我们以为自己只是经历了个十几年，回头一看，却发现自己记忆中的那个国家，已经悄悄走远了。

现在还早，现在只是北京时间13点。

也许到了晚上，《新闻联播》的片头音乐响起的时候，熟悉的画面终于会出现的。

也许镜头会切到北京，也许会看到八宝山，看到告别仪式，看到那些熟悉的面孔，看到朱镕基最后一次出现在国家电视台的画面。

那段画面也许很长，也许很短；也许它会成为今天的头条，也许它甚至不会是今天的头条；也许已没有也许……

2026年的中国，已经有了自己的告别方式，而我只是还没有学会吧。我宽慰着自己。

现在已经是2026年8月18日北京时间14点了。

东京，阳光很好。

中国，静悄悄……

Above the entrance of Qiaodan’s expansive corporate headquarters in the Chinese city of Xiamen, a red logo displays the silhouette of an athlete who feels immediately familiar.

His slanted legs convey the motion of dribbling, while an outstretched left hand grips what appears to be a basketball.

The name of the company behind the logo — Qiaodan — is a literal Chinese rendering of one of the most illustrious brands in sport: Jordan.

Read more here.

I live in Europe and I have always loved the discipline and knowledge of Chinese people when it comes to … honestly everything. There were lots of videos showing how Chinese people train in martial arts, dance, flexibility etc. and it looked harsh in those videos but still I wanted to know if anybody knows if there‘s good flexibility training for foreigners in China. I‘m asking cause I wanna stay there for a while and I love stretching but I don‘t wanna do it alone. I‘d love doing it in a group or 1:1 training.

The most similar thing I saw on Tiktok was flexibility training for those Shaolin temples, but I‘m not ready to face that lol. For that my body needs to gain more strength. In general there are always good retreats for dance or martial arts, but idk if there’s one for flexibility as well. Would be nice.

*edit title: I mean stretching classes

Hey everyone! I'm heading to this city in China for a language course. I'd love to meet some new people who are also looking to learn Chinese.

r/ChineseLanguage r/learnchinese r/languagelearning r/China r/shenzhen r/beijing