In 2007 or so, I was having a conversation in a bar with a bunch of student friends, one of whom was newly arrived from Beijing to start her graduate studies in the US.
For reasons I don't recall, someone made a Tienanmen Square joke. She flat out didn't get it. Had _no_ idea what we were talking about.
This was mostly pre-smartphone, so one of us dug out a laptop and showed her the wikipedia page.
The look of utter horror on her face, followed by pain and grief and rage, was a little much for a friday night out with the gang...
On the other side, I know people living in china who have known all the tricky ways to get around the censors since forever, and are totally up to speed on things.
My very limited experience with Chinese "commoners" outside China is that they view Xi Jinping as an adored celebrity, if not a god figure. "Very very great man!"
Same with some Filipinos' opinions of Rodrigo Duterte, who said all the bad news being posted about him were "American propaganda."
Have other people here asked a Chinese expat what they thought about their government back home? What kind of answers did they give?
For reasons I don't recall, someone made a Tienanmen Square joke. She flat out didn't get it. Had _no_ idea what we were talking about.
This was mostly pre-smartphone, so one of us dug out a laptop and showed her the wikipedia page.
The look of utter horror on her face, followed by pain and grief and rage, was a little much for a friday night out with the gang...
On the other side, I know people living in china who have known all the tricky ways to get around the censors since forever, and are totally up to speed on things.
So it's probably a mixed bag.