@Quizmaster Foreign websites aren’t banned by default, they are only banned once it is found that they violate internal CCP guidelines and they become popular enough to be noticed by Chinese censors. If many Chinese citizens start using Jetpunk, then it will eventually get banned, but for now it is flying under the radar due to only a few Chinese users and the lack of direct messaging capabilities.
And it's timely, considering all the Hong Kong/NBA kowtowing and hyper-sensitivity going on right now. It boggles my mind the lengths to which the communist party there will go in order to fully control their population.
It's allowed. Kinda. Churches aren't allowed to place God/Jesus/the pope etc as being higher than the glorious party, and churches regularly get shut down as a result, and most aren't allowed to display crosses on their roofs anymore, but it's allowed.
China either bans religion when it is considered a threat to the system, or allows and controls it to help maintaining the system. You can see both aspects with Islam. Uyghurs have almost no right of worshiping because they demand independence, while in the rest of the country there are many mosques, mosques that are fully controlled by the Chinese government. Only Imams trained by the state are allowed to lead the prayer and they are only allowed to speak about purely spiritual stuff, nothing that is linked to society or politics. They also need to consistently praise the government to keep their positions, so they basically becomes tools of the state propaganda. What's unfortunate is that Muslims have been part of China history for a very long time (it entered China a few decades after Muhammad's death) and they had always enjoyed religious freedom and state protection before the communists took over.
I read the caveats, but Winnie the Pooh being banned is a complete myth. It's absolutely everywhere here. Winnie the Pooh memes/references to Xi looking like him, however, are completely banned. This quiz definitely has potential for a 10 part series though, unfortunately.
I believe the 1 child policy was only for certain families? And it wasn't exactly banned, but would exclude those certain families from benefits that they might otherwise receive if they stuck to the policy?
And what the hell is up with "banning reincarnation"?!
roleybob, watch John Oliver's episode of Last Week Tonight on one-child policy. They did quite a detailed research on the topic. People who had a second child had to pay a fine which equaled the income for a couple of years. There was also one really harrowing story about a woman forced to "abort" her baby in the ninth month of pregnancy, because it turned out that her husband had a child from a previous marriage.
I don't know whether we can get Last Week Tonight over here. Don't think I'd heard of it before anyway.
I was under the impression that there were a lot of exemptions to the policy - anyone who didn't live in a city, anyone non-Han, etc. I may be mistaken though
The one child policy applied to all Han Chinese. High fines and forced abortions still help enforce birth limits. Many families hid their unapproved children, but now millions of these internally undocumented individuals face an uphill battle for survival. In a country where you can't use public transportation, education, or health care without an ID card, it is pretty tough to get anything done.
As the standards seem to be a bit loose here, you could add "free gaming", too. Up to a certain age, govt has demanded limitations in time (per day: 90min on working day, 3 hours on weekends, if my memory serves right). It's a fairly recent addition. It could go under "form of entertainment" or something such.
Never heard of Avatar being banned but I now read it is a combination of taking too much money from domestic films and because it showed them resisting demolition which China does enforce pretty strongly so the latter would seem to be the more important reason.
Never had a problem with using Jetpunk despite the Taiwan thing and Jasmine tea is everywhere.
They say it will confuse the audience if they see the timeline being messed with in different ways. Specifically the time travel cannot refer to or especially interfere with real-world events. Any references to historical events must conform to or at least be compatible with Chinese state propaganda.
Is it that jasmine tea is not an original Chinese thing but since everyone else thinks it is and serves it up at Chinese restaurants it is now Chinese even in China?
I thought it was weird too. Some research discovered that it relates to the 2011 "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia, and the word jasmine took on associations with revolutions, freedom, democracy, and the like. I wonder how they refer to jasmine tea in China now then...?
This quiz includes some answers where only the reference to that object is known to have been censored under certain situations. Jasmine tea isn’t banned in China and you could discuss it as much as you want in person. I bet that if you talked about jasmine tea on Weibo that it wouldn’t be censored either (unless it happened to align with other references that made the government suspect that you are speaking in code). It’s mainly that in the past it was heavily censored due to worries that the Arab Spring would spread to China.
I'm not sure that they actually ban it. You just have to go through their approval processes first! In fact, they are currently ordering the current Dalai Lama to reincarnate while he threatens not to. They really want to handpick and manipulate the next one. When the last Panchen Lama was named as a child, he disappeared. And then the government named their own! Of course, Tibetans generally reject the Chinese version. It is really ironic to see the Dalai Lama--who believes in reincarnation--trying to control and resist the possibility and the Communist--who don't believe in it--demanding that it happen. The "compromise" will probably be naming someone outside of China as the successor. India, Nepal, and Bhutan all have significant Tibetan Buddhist populations.
Tibetan Buddhist here! (That is, I practice Tibetan Buddhism; I’m not actually Tibetan. Think Richard Gere, but cooler.) Basically, high incarnate lamas such as the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa have a great deal of political clout and power (the Dalai Lama had been – for many centuries – the temporal head of the Tibetan people as well as the spiritual, until the current one stepped down as political leader and told his people to get over it and embrace democracy, for crying out loud). All of these high lamas have escaped China over the decades, usually with dramatic nighttime exoduses, traveling through the Himalayas to get to India.
Now free of China, these lamas can say anything they want, like how China slaughtered most of them and burned down hundreds of monasteries, et al. In order to prevent this, the Chinese want to ensure that any new recognized incarnations are in their country, under their control (like their fake Panchen Lama), and not stir up any Tibetan uprisings.
(con’t.) So actually, AkJMB actually has it backwards: the Chinese are only going to “approve” rebirths (we like that word better than “reincarnation”) born in China.
From Wikipedia:
On August 3, 2007, China's State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a decree that all the reincarnations of tulkus of Tibetan Buddhism must get government approval, otherwise they are "illegal or invalid". The decree states, "It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas. The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country."
(Last one!) Tibetan Buddhism is actually souring on the whole reincarnate lama (aka “tulku”) system as a whole. (Buddhism in general is fairly flexible like that.) It’s had some serious problems, both historically as well as today. HHDL has been pretty bearish on his own personal future rebirth, saying that even if he did, it would NOT be under Chinese rule (and yes, there are Western tulkus). Plus he’s been preparing people for the possibility of his rebirth being a woman! There are definitely high women tulkus (including one of my teachers, Her Eminence Khandro Rinpoche), just not that high.
Other Buddhist traditions (Zen, Theravada, Pure Land, etc.) rely only on accomplishment and worthiness to elevate people to revered teacher. The Tibetans were utterly isolated until 1949, but now, seeing that system, are coming to realize that it’s a much, much better idea.
Interesting, actually read the whole thing and usually I dont like big blocks of text. But usually they are more political or minute historic details, and often written with ego and attitude and about them being right.
just informative texts without ego motivation are a much lighter read. I have learned a lot :)
Yea the worst movie ever made.. (sarcasm). I seriously don't get why people call things awful when they are not in their personal top 10. Things that are not perfect or fitting their desire are immediately awful.., makes me wonder how they treat people and their general approach to life.
out of the millions movies made, for something to be awful they really must be terribly unimaginably bad. A movie isnt awful because you find it boring or dont like the plot etc
Why are there so many people who are so proud of announcing that they haven't seen or don't like this movie? Is it just because it was the most popular highest-grossing movie of all time? Reminds me of those people wearing "Trendy people suck" t-shirts back in the 90s... irony being that those shirts were extremely trendy.
I'm soooooo proud of knowing milk to be the answer XD.
Interesting fact, most Chinese people are lactose-intolerant, nevertheless milk is portrayed as ultra-healthy (for real, who cares if it makes you puke and get horrible stomach aches, it's healthy)
Depictions of skeletons are also apparently forbidden. Magic: the Gathering cards featuring them that are reprinted for sale in China must have the artwork redone so that there is some flesh still on the skeletal form.
I thought the Canadian singer would be K.D. Lang simply for being a lesbian. The thought of banning Bieber, just seems to give to much importance to someone who is essentially a joke.
Good concept! If I was to add some it would be video game consoles since they were banned from 2000 to 2015. As for specific games I recall Hearts of Iron being banned for depicting Taiwan and Japanese satellite state as being independent.
Man what a stupid country. I hate when some kind of a dictator or a government etc. comes on top of you and decides what you can and can not do. Take away their power to enforce and all you get is an empty disgusting egoistic shell.
There are certainly some things in here that seem odd that I needed to look up. It seems that the Chinese government doesn't really like to explain why they censor things (which I guess makes sense to some extent because that would defeat the purpose of censorship in the first place).
I have a question. Why did they ban Justin Bieber? Is it because he "behaves badly", or is it because he has a lack of ability, which he most definitely does?
The Beijing culture bureau released a statement lauding Bieber's singing and musical "talent," but said that he was banned due to unspecified "bad behavior." They also said that they hoped he would mature with age so that he could be enjoyed by a wider audience.
Though it's not known for sure what behavior of Justin's put him on the bureau's radar, it has been speculated that it might have to do with him posting a selfie from a Japanese shrine that celebrates war criminals who participated in the rape of Nanjing and other atrocities in China and Korea.
really worked out for iraq and libya and afghanistan and russia and south korea and south vietnam and iran and panama and the dominican republic and chile and brazil and argentina and bolivia and congo and greece when the usa spread its great democratic principles
I believe the 1 child policy was only for certain families? And it wasn't exactly banned, but would exclude those certain families from benefits that they might otherwise receive if they stuck to the policy?
And what the hell is up with "banning reincarnation"?!
I was under the impression that there were a lot of exemptions to the policy - anyone who didn't live in a city, anyone non-Han, etc. I may be mistaken though
Never heard of Avatar being banned but I now read it is a combination of taking too much money from domestic films and because it showed them resisting demolition which China does enforce pretty strongly so the latter would seem to be the more important reason.
Never had a problem with using Jetpunk despite the Taiwan thing and Jasmine tea is everywhere.
Is it that jasmine tea is not an original Chinese thing but since everyone else thinks it is and serves it up at Chinese restaurants it is now Chinese even in China?
Now free of China, these lamas can say anything they want, like how China slaughtered most of them and burned down hundreds of monasteries, et al. In order to prevent this, the Chinese want to ensure that any new recognized incarnations are in their country, under their control (like their fake Panchen Lama), and not stir up any Tibetan uprisings.
From Wikipedia:
On August 3, 2007, China's State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a decree that all the reincarnations of tulkus of Tibetan Buddhism must get government approval, otherwise they are "illegal or invalid". The decree states, "It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas. The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country."
Yeah, so, you get it.
Other Buddhist traditions (Zen, Theravada, Pure Land, etc.) rely only on accomplishment and worthiness to elevate people to revered teacher. The Tibetans were utterly isolated until 1949, but now, seeing that system, are coming to realize that it’s a much, much better idea.
just informative texts without ego motivation are a much lighter read. I have learned a lot :)
out of the millions movies made, for something to be awful they really must be terribly unimaginably bad. A movie isnt awful because you find it boring or dont like the plot etc
Interesting fact, most Chinese people are lactose-intolerant, nevertheless milk is portrayed as ultra-healthy (for real, who cares if it makes you puke and get horrible stomach aches, it's healthy)
but rumours are that even in that small territory there are internal struggles. One part want to call it futonia and the other couchia
Though it's not known for sure what behavior of Justin's put him on the bureau's radar, it has been speculated that it might have to do with him posting a selfie from a Japanese shrine that celebrates war criminals who participated in the rape of Nanjing and other atrocities in China and Korea.
*this quiz does not suggest these things are banned in china