lemmygrad is scarred from many battles, but I find beauty in it

They are?

Either proof that God doesn’t exist, or proof of his infinite mercy, as nothing less than infinite mercy could allow such a thing to exist.

lmfao. gonna call this “Damarcus’s Paradox”

This double down burger used to be popular in South Africa along with the KFC winter bowl, which was a mix of KFC crumbed chicken strips, mash, gravy, corn and cheese. Sadly KFC no longer carries those meals anymore.

Huge claims, new account, and not a single link. Yeah, I smell anecdotal bullshit time.

All of this is stuff I learned, witnessed or experienced as a reporter working for state media.

They weren’t surveilling the people and controlling them, they were keeping an eye on a foreign propaganda agent.

Some guys on the lemmy.ml instance try to pretend China isn’t just North Korea with positive cash flow.

The DPRK is an amazing country, so that is a compliment.

I’m not going to lie, aside from the hyperbolic tone of it, most of this sounds pretty ordinary to me, with just a few points that don’t seem to match the evidence.

All housing is designed to be a prison, locking in entire neighborhoods at the snap of a finger. See what happened in Shanghai last year. All apartment complexes and blocks of houses are behind gates and walls, with guards at each entrance. Older buildings are retrofitted to comply. These compounds are cheerfully called “communities”.

Every apartment building I’ve ever lived in has had multiple locking entrances and exits. Gated communities with guard booths are everyhwere in the US and many other countries. Many of the places I grew up had walls or high fences around them to deter crime and reduce road noise. The street ai live in now does at either end. You also say that every building and neighbourhood is like this, but there’s tens of millions of people who live in different architectural styles and layouts. Plenty of larger towns and smaller city districts have medium density mixed use apartment buildings and low density houses, all accessible from the street. I have a professional curiosity in architecture and even aside from following various projects, reading about China’s changing architecture etc, I watch a lot of walking videos of places I haven’t been yet and while I’ve seen occasional instances of gated communities or walled courtyards between apartment blocks, most haven’t shown what you describe. Do you have any more definitive examples of what you mean?

All housing communities have a party member who is given an office on-site. These individuals do nice things to foster community (my local lady organized an annual musical talent show) but they also know the residents and can report on them if needed.

Like Homeowners Associations do, or the people condo boards appoint, or ‘block captains’, or building ambassadors in apartment blocks I’ve lived in, or Community Watch captains when I was growing up in England.

All public schoolteachers are required to maintain what we call “permanent records” of children, up thru university. All behavior is recorded. Romance and dating are officially discouraged by the CPC until after college. If a teacher knows a student is dating, it will be recorded and could harm that person later in life, especially if going for government jobs or attempting to join the party.

Students all over the world have permanent records kept by schools and increasingly the details listed are a lot more than just grades and bad behaviour. And while ‘dating’ itself might not be against the rules in all schools here in the UK (it is in some) for example, a lot public displays of affection still are. I was genuinely curious about you point about the attitude towards dating and it potentially being harmful to their reputation later, so I went looking. Most anecdotal evidence, articles, and more seem to imply that dating in China is pretty similar to anywhere else, most people start dating in high school, and certainly by college. The closest I found to the idea of it doing reputational damage was the very poor way dating multiple people at once is looked upon (although that’s true in lots of places too). I couldn’t find any reference to the fact you dated in school harming your prospects later. If you’ve got some evidence for that I’d be interested in seeing it. Likewise, I read this academic paper from 2016 on attitudes to dating in China and it makes no mention of that. It does support that since the 90s Chinese dating culture has been modernising a fair bit to become more and more like it is in a lot of the ‘West’ although some cultural trends around family remain and young people seem to have sex for the first time slightly older (around college).

All public school classrooms thru college level have a class monitor. This student facilitates communication and represents the students to the teacher. This student also is expected to provide information about classmates. For example, Boy A is dating Girl B. Boy C didn’t study hard for his test because he went to a movie. Etc etc.

We had / have a whole hierarchy of these in the UK too; class captains, prefects, head boy and girl etc. Some were nosy little snitches, some were chill and just student representatives. From what I hear from my many teacher friends that dynamic hasn’t changed all that much, although the positions themselves are less formalised in some schools, more so in others.

Do you want to ride the subway? You must line up even at rush hour and have your belongings scanned. This is every subway station I ever went through, in at least six cities, including remote and rural stations.

New York and Los Angeles have not just metal detectors, but face scanners and body scanners at some metro stations. Most modern mass transit systems use extensive facial recognition programs with their cameras. Scanning your bags is different, I’ll grant you that, but from what I’ve seen it seems pretty fast and cursory. Not nearly as intensive, lengthy, or invasive as going through an airport for example. Plenty of metro and transit systems all over the world have security or police that can and will do random bag searches and spot checks too.

Do you want to travel to a neighboring city? You must receive official approval from the government before you can purchase train tickets. Driving? You’ll need to show your papers.

Can you link some evidence for this? Because honestly from the Chinese people I’ve known and everything I’ve ever read this sounds like total bullshit. Chinese citizens travel freely, although there can be certain restrictions or arrangements related to specific jobs where you’re some kind of representative like certain civil service jobs and obviously there’s still hurdles around travelling in Tibet. Everything I’ve read about train travel in China states that people with a Chinese credit/debit card linked to WeChat or other apps just book tickets that way, while foreigners or older people without smartphones use ticket kiosks or offices on stations. As a foreigner you may have to show your passport as ID when buying tickets, much like checking into hotels all over the world for example, but that’s it. Basically every country on the planet requires you have papers (a licence) to show you can drive and you can be asked for it randomly, if stopped, at tolls etc. Again, not to mention traffic cameras and number plate readers.

Do you want to move to another city and find work? You must apply for a permit and hope you’re allowed to leave. Did you lose your job in the big city? If you don’t get a new work permit soon, you’ll need to return to your hometown. Your hometown is an officially designated place that you must reside in if you have nowhere else to be. Hometowns may recall residents, or so it seems to have happened to my friend.

Do you have any evidence for this? I’ve never heard this. Much like elsewhere in the world you’re required to keep your current residential address and other information up to date for things like legal and tax purposes. Obviously if you’re a foreigner you need visas and work permits just like in other countries, but apart from some very specific potential restrictions in certain jobs and sensitive areas, all available information states they work just like anywhere else. Likewise for student visas.

All apartment complexes and blocks of houses are behind gates and walls,

As opposed to tent cities where the you people keep your underclass. Fuck off sexpat. Go bitch about being an illiterate parasite in an Asian country somewhere else. The horror, walls!

It was so weird watching the do an about face and start praising the cops! And they made so many excuses for the entire DC police apparatus hanging them out to dry. I guess they got the message?

Why would cops kill each other?