From NetEase:
Summary: The complete plans for the Beichuan National Earthquake Ruins Museum that has been the subject of much attention by citizens from all walks of life have been released, with a preliminary budget requiring a ~2.3 billion yuan total investment/cost. The moment the design plan was introduced, it immediately caused huge amounts of heated discussion from all walks of life in society. Some netizens have questioned whether using vast amounts of money to construct a museum amounts to an “image project.”
Comments from NetEase:
惊醒~~:
2.3 billion!! What use is there building a museum? Think about what more important things can be done with 2.3 billion yuan, how many kilometers of public roads, lay how many electrical wires?
幸福地笑着:
Why not use this money to help even more people?
This is something that officials often do: Telling other people how many good things they have done? Then, where are those good things?
If they really want to build it, then every official should take out some of their own money to build it. Our money will only be used on rebuilding the houses of the Wenchuan earthquake people.
杨一凡:
2.3 billion investment, surely what follows will be a batch of rich people! Supervise? Perfect? Effective? Is it possible for those above and those below to not collude? After all it is 2.3 billion!
The leaders want to dig money out of the people, so they use a project as an excuse to grab the money. Old routines, much too familiar! Do not TMD talk to me about supervising officials! Are those supervising humans/people?!? Even ghosts have been cheated so many times they are scared, even ghosts all know this song~~~!~!!~!
库洛小樱:
The Wenchuan earthquake left the Chinese shock, there is no need for a 2.3 billion museum to prove it!!
hunfgskfb:
It can be built, but the money cannot come from the country, suggestion: each province raids 100 corrupt officials, and get the money from them.
◆懲罰者◆:
Spend more money on proper school architecture/construction, otherwise we would not have lost that many young schoolchildren lives.
lufeng35:
When the earthquake happened, I was a student, and I also donated money, no less than three times.
Now I work, and taxes I also pay, every month.
However I never thought the money would be used on something like this.
Who knows, maybe next time I go there they will also collect an entrance fee.
A few kuai, I can endure, but these kind of things that hurt people’s feelings I cannot endure.
Had I known earlier, I should have learned from Sichuan’s volunteer corps, and only sent financial and material aid directly to those who needed it.
2.3 billion…who knows how much of it will be deducted as “service charges” in the process?
sosor:
If the officials truly fucking go against morality and nature, and build a fucking earthquake museum, then go ahead and build it. After it is finished, have another earthquake come and kill those corrupt official bastards.
平安OGC:
Little Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by atomic bombs yet they did not build a museum, they did not have money! If we want to memorialize then leaving the city’s wreckage/rubble there would be better than anything!
10.65170920
Someone said when I was donating money: I can understand your frame of mind, but your actions are a crime, because your donations will create more corrupt officials.
Comments from Tianya:
超人的短裤:
Lightly sitting on the sofa, both eyes tearful, return the money I donated back to me!
虎王子:
Really shameless…other countries will again think we live in a harmonious society.
小女人的大宇宙:
If the country approves this, it will really arouse the citizen’s anger.
酒精麻醉:
Our company just went to Beichuan yesterday…
The past few days we contacted the donation organizations to find the head of the temporary housing area, and the first thing he asked was, “how many hundreds of thousands are you guys planning on donating?” That tone of voice was cocky to the extreme.
We are but private donors, and the lowest-paid member of our staff only makes 700 kuai a month…
After donating money in the temporary housing area, the local temporary housing residents told us our donations were useless because they will not even see one fen [cent] of it…
Sigh, the money I donated last year is so regrettable.
虎头gou:
I believe Beichuan needs to move its location anyway,
and there will not be many people who will go back and live in the old location,
why not just leave it the way it is?
Would it not be even more memorable?
Insisting on spending that money to build a museum,
would not be better than building the new city better.Preserving the way it looks now would be even better at attracting tourists,
and would also not cause financial waste.
Building a museum, who would want to see it?
It would be easier to just go online and look at pictures,
why bother going to your Beichuan museum to see?
liush1984:
If they build a 2.3 billion museum, 500 million will be given to the leaders to buy cars, 500 million will be given to the leaders to have mistresses, 500 million will be gambled away in Macau, and another 500 million will be reserved as the leaders’ pocket money!
淡淡的天光:
Several millions for SUVs, several billions for a museum.
What’s next?
新来的用户名:
Build it, it is a pretty good idea, at least it can jump start domestic consumption. However, another thing I saw, if you let the public servants easily leave the country’s border, then there will be nothing left!
007同事:
MLGB, are these dog officials able to do any legitimate business, time after time disappointing/hurting me that I have already become numb.
xiao394:
The highest level of life (repost):
Receive Saudi Arabia salary, live in the English houses, use Swedish mobile phones, wear Swiss watches, marry Korean women, have a Japanese mistress, get Thai massages, drive German cars, fly American planes, drink French wine, eat Australian seafood, smoke Cuban cigars, wear Italian shoes, play Spanish girl, watch Austrian operas, buy Russian villas, employ Filipino maids, have Israeli bodyguards, take Turkish saunas, and be a Chinese cadre.
If you can become the last one, everything before it can be realized.
yehongjian:
I do not even want to yell at them anymore. CAO.
痛打落水狗2007:
At the time, I donated twice. The first time was organized by my work unit and I donated 500 kuai. Later when I saw so many poor homeless children, I donated another 1000 when our work unit organized a second donation. At the time, my wages and subsidies were only 1350 total, and I wondered whether the donated money would really be used on the disaster victims, but thinking that it was for the disaster area gave me a clear conscience. Now that I think about it I cannot avoid feeling a little hurt! If there is an unfortunate day where another national tragedy happens, I will still be pained, but I will use a different way to show my care and concern!!!
浪漫草稚京:
When old men and old women fall in Nanjing, no one dares to help them up.
When the Beichuan local government takes the money donated by the children of China to the disaster victims to buy fancy cars, build fancy museums, this is something that only happens in China.
In the future, I will never donate money again, since even if I donate it will not go into the hands of the disaster victims.
It would have been more practical to directly send food to the disaster victims.
忠诚_打飞机:
Fuck, I had felt ashamed for only donating 5 yuan at the time, because I was truly too poor while other schoolmates had donated tens to hundreds. However, it is not more and more clear, the money has been eaten by the dogs!!!
More pictures of the Sichuan Earthquake can be found at EastSouthWestNorth.
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First, woohooo
I think they should build a museum, but I think it’s too soon and I don’t think it should cost the taxpayers so much. Besides, there is already a privately-owned museum about the earthquake in 大邑县, just outside Chengdu.
2.3 billion is an outrageous amount. Pictures, stories and a memorial to the dead is all that is needed. Give the rest to Sichuan for parks and public works.
Use the 2.3 billion to build homes and safer schools.
Wow, the Chinese Government is shamelessly milking this earthquake for all its worth, and then some. How about prosecuting building inspectors that took kick-backs to overlook building code violations? How about investing in infrastructure? No, no, that would all be too honest and useful. No, what you’re going to do instead is enshrine the suffering of the Chinese people in an attempt to keep the fire of nationalism burning hot. Nevermind the parents of earthquake victims who demand to know why a disproportionate number of schools collapsed, those people are traitors!
I donated twice and I am sure many other readers of this forum has as well. This museum better not be built and especially with such a unrealistic, dodgy and incentive filled price tag. 2.3 billion is astronomical and you bet your ass this project will have no oversight or transparency (that would be a bad thing right?). If this museum really gets approved with so many opposed then China can say farewell to the new found trust, compassion, money of the ordinary people in trying times. It’s things like these that ‘forces’ many Chinese people to have a good samaritan phobia and I don’t blame them. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…
Subtract 2.2 billion and you have the real cost.
China could give this money to Italy, to help those who suffered the recent earthquake, couldn’t?
Why? Italy has decent infrastructure so it can recover swiftly, and their relieft can and should be provided by their own government, plus, I don’t think they even need foreign help, while China needs major investments in almost all areas of the society, this 2.3 billion should never go to anything other than education/healthcare/job creation etc..
I bet my odorous butt that this ludicrous sum will pry into a selection of personal accounts, preferrably in overseas banks.
It really puts it into perspective. The earthquake in L’Aquila has so far killed 260, in Wenchuan almost 70,000. Of course China is more populous, and it was a more violent earthquake, but it really makes you wonder how poorly all of the structures were built when the 500 year old buildings in Italy hold up better than the 5 year old buildings in Sichuan.
Nice observation, I suppose aging doesn’t matter for structures as long as you keep enforcing them. Newly-built houses with shoddy materials are much more fragile than good-old churches with decent maintainence.
I saw an interview with a local Italian priest who said that most of the buildings that collapsed were built in the 1970s, and that the older structures had fared better. Obviously this wouldn’t be the case all the time, but it’s interesting that newer doesn’t always mean safer.
“Someone said when I was donating money: I can understand your frame of mind, but your actions are a crime, because your donations will create more corrupt officials.”
yeah that might have been me.
They should make it out of tofu dregs.
Museums are not high priority. What is high priority is getting permanent housing back for the homeless people in Sichuan. Did the authorities in Tangshan build a museum so soon after their devastating earthquake 20 years ago? They should look at Tangshan as a lesson.
I remember donating and thinking I was helping. Now I feel like I was hurting. I like the suggestion someone else made: leave the damage as it is and let that serve as the museum and move Beichuan to a more seismologically stable location.
there are still people who need money after the earthquake make sure they are ok first.
Government for the people?
Here’s the breakdown of the cost of the museum
1. 1 billion for those official to sent their children to overseas schools /university since Sichuan has no more schools
2. 500 millions for their children living expenses
3. 500 millions to officials to stay in hotels and spa since their homes are destroyed and are waiting rebuilding
4. 200 millions for the museum
Diu La Sing – you forgot 199 million for top officials buying ‘Ernai’
So 1 million for museum which will have the same architecture as the collapsed schools
Museum is very necessary or else people will not remember that the Communist party and uncle Wen rescued the Sichuan people! 2 bn. is cheap, stop complaining! Don’t be so anti-patriotic!
I hope that is sarcasm but somehow I doubt it.
this is outraged. the purpose of the museum is that to allow us to remember the tragedy and the victims, not yet another story about how powerful we are in making an expensive and magnificent building. anything more than 4 or 5 million yuan would be too much!
Well, this is one way to remember the victims and many ways to siphon off all the donations from the people… what next.. building a 1 billion dollars carpark to park their brand new SUV?
To anybody who donated… did you *really* not see this coming?
The government in my city came to us and told us we MUST donate. We had no choice and we were told to collect from the employees too. The employees hated it, it was all very uncomfortable. I resigned myself to the idea that less than 50% of the money would even see Sichuan.
Highlights how ‘museums’ in China are just tools for the government to slap about its propaganda.
No doubt shoals of Chinese school children will be dragged along to learn about how caring the Chinese government was/is.
Just like they will be dragged along to the Beijing Tibet museum to learn how liberated and saved all the Tibetans are thanks to them.
And just like in Nanjing where they are dragged along to find out how terrible the Japanese are. The list goes on.
Hopefully a more savvy 90s generation will see it for what it is. The Chinese comments are reassuring.
Asis. You’re deluded. Your comments have no relevance for the issue at hand. Whilst the extravagance of the project angers the common citizens of China, your insensitivities to the Nanjing massacre and your ignorance to the Tibetan issue as well as China’s history is painful to see.
You are a product of a myopic world more concerned with Hollywood portrayals and selling agendas and newsprints than with the truth. Denying the Nanjing massacre to Chinese people is like telling the Jews there was no Auschwitz, there was no gas chambers. Even the most indifferent Chinese will tell you to get fucked and go home to your middle class, white suburban home to continue watching your CNN and believing in the righteous of your causes.
But then I think that for someone to read chinasmack.com you may not be all that disinterested with China and that perhaps you may want to move past all the blacks and whites and see the greys. So perhaps I could recommend starting at some basic sites such as Wikipedia, which inaccurate as it may be at times, is probably the most unbiased, easily accessible information source we have at present. Perhaps when you start the history before 1950 in the case of the Tibetan issue, you may see the a world beyond that portrayed by popular media and that the ‘rampaging, brainwashed, nationalistic’ Chinese students parading about the injustice of China’s portrayal in Western media have a right to be angered. Perhaps then you’ll realise monks aren’t monks, Communists aren’t at all that Red and evil and maybe… just maybe, you may come to the conclusion a large part of these ‘facts’ that you come to take for granted, are just smoke and mirrors.
Maybe then, you and I, the West and the East, can come eye to eye and truly begin to talk about empathy, human rights and change in this brave new world.
How are those comments ‘deluded’ with regards to Tibet? Those Chinese students getting pissy about an imaginary Western media conspiracy are if anything even more deluded than the idealistic Western Free Tibet brigade.
Seems like you’ve been swallowing the same CCP version of pre-1950s Tibetan society that academics dismiss as propaganda. I suppose that you think 90%+ of all Tibetans were serfs?
My first reaction to your post was to write something cynical in response but then I would be guilty of the same sin/mistakes as those passionate, hot headed students you speak of. This would only cause further fissures and the original issue becomes a secondary point. I realise that many of people reading ChinaSMACK live, or at least have some connection or interest in China and living in the age of information (and having come through the age of reason), we can all evaluate what’s true, what’s just and what to believe.
1) Life of Tibetans pre-1950s. I don’t know why you think mainstream academia has refuted the fact that Tibet was a feudal serfdom. Do you consider Melvyn Goldstein an instrument of the CCP propaganda machine? How about all the other Westerners in contact with Tibet in those pre-1950s periods? While academics may argue about the definition of ’serf’, not a single one refutes the fact that Tibetan society was a feudal theocratic society based on the power of the Lamas. Most ‘Free Tibet’ organisations choose to leave out this part of history, preferring to start after 1950s. Regarding the pre-1950s period they either say it was irrelevant or that it was work in progress. In the Wikipedia article I would draw your attention to the parts on corporal punishment (eye gouging, whippings), slavery and the extreme poverty. Say all you want about the Communist party but at least they were equal in their application of the law (harsh as it may be) to Han and minority people, and they certainly brought equality through land distribution and positive changes through the abolishment of these practices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy
2) Evaluate the legitimacy of the Tibetan claims. Skip the Chinese point of view if you choose and just move to the Third Party views. No government has ever acknowledged Tibet as a country in the past or the present because there has never been any legal basis for the challenge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_sovereignty_debate
3) Tibet issue portrayed in the Media. I’ve lived in Australia most of my life and UK over the past year. There is no doubt having read all the material on Tibet that the media here is extremely biased. Every single news report, news broadcast introduces the history of Tibet with something along the lines of ‘the invasion by the Communists during the 1950s’. As for the Tibetan uprising last year, most call it a brutal crackdown without going starting at the very beginning. Well there was only one western reporter in Tibet at the time, James Miles and this is the interview transcript of the events that transpired.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/20/tibet.miles.interview/
Reading that is a far cry from what news reports here would have led you to believe – a bunch of Red Commies bashing monks for no apparent reason. As for Chinese students on the streets, about 1,500 of them marched in Melbourne regarding the reporting of Western media. How ironic that the only report of them on the Herald Sun was pulled that very afternoon from the internet, yet ten Free Tibet protestors outside the gained the media attention of every news station and paper for weeks prior to the Olympics. It’s got to the point where you can approach any person on the street in an Australian city and they’ll be able to recite to you the evils of the Chinese Communists in the oppression of the freedom loving Tibetans… starting of course from beginning of history – 1950.
What do I believe?
1) Western free media should be more neutral, if not them then who can we have faith to report facts? As far as political issues go this is a big one but the current attitude is wrong.
2) I see no real backing for a righteous ‘Free Tibet’ cause other than China is a Communist country. The law (and its abuse), harsh as it may be in the eyes of the West, is applied equally to all at least. The change within China over the past 20 years needs to continue but Tibet is not a special case.
3) China needs to keep reforming – corruption is a problem, especially when it encroaches on the rule of law. The Chinese realise that but it’s understandable they get touchy because in a democracy people attack one figure – Bush, Sarkosky, etc – but when it concerns China, people attack China as a collective.
4) The Chinese government could be doing more to protect the environment in Tibet and Tibetan culture. Tourists are really messing up many parts of the region.
5) Practically Tibet is never going to be independent – a) Chinese people would never relinquish their sovereign rights; b) it’s too important in terms of strategic location to give up – a US military base there would be like having the Russians in Alaska.
Hey C&N. I believe part of the reason people make blanket statements about China instead of individual leaders is because of the lack of transparency in CCP governance. Obviously many people are uninformed about your country and government as is true about most citizens around the world when discussing countries and governments other than their own. But, beyond the language barrier which does of course play a part, the opaque nature of the CCP almost invites generalizations and paranoia. This is not an excuse it is simply a factor to consider.
In regards to Tibet I think those more neutral on the matter refer to the fact that when Chinese claim historical, contiguous rule it was when China itself was under the rule of the Mongol empire, a fact often ignored by One China, for lack of a better term, proponents. Beyond the saving face, a term I am personally rather sick of being that no culture or person wants to be embarrassed, or sovereignty arguments I think another real concern for China is that their rivers run from the Tibetan plateau. An independent Tibet, as crazy as this might sound to some of you, would mean they would control the water source of some of the world’s most important rivers that provide irrigation and hydration to a large number of the earth’s crops and population. Imagine if the predictions become true that future wars will be fought over water. Now imagine a Tibet hostile towards China damning up rivers and releasing water in the same manner Russia releases natural gas to Europe. Crazy I know but these are the things governments have to think about, especially paranoid governments.
But I digress and this was supposed to be about how the CCP is screwing citizens and earthquake survivors.
“2) I see no real backing for a righteous ‘Free Tibet’ cause other than China is a Communist country. The law (and its abuse), harsh as it may be in the eyes of the West, is applied equally to all at least. The change within China over the past 20 years needs to continue but Tibet is not a special case.”
That’s interesting, the free-tibet arguments are essentially quite obvious and quite reasonable. In the last century we saw Imperial powers giving up up their possessions so that the distinct peoples that live on their land could rule themselves, determine their own destinies and build their own societies etc.
The ’sovereignty debate’ all too frequently looks solely at the historical, legal reasons mostly because it is all the CHinese government has in its defence. The free-tibet side is motivated mostly by the human element, that is, they believe the Tibetan people do no feel comfortable being ruled by outsiders and thus want independence.
Surely you can’t deny that if Tibetans are significantly distinct from other Chinese (they are) and if they want to be responsible for ruling themselves (which is likely, but impossible to tell), then the CCP ought to pull out and forge a relationship as equal sovereign peoples. That is, especially if you see the process of decolonisation in the last century as the ‘good’ thing to do.
Going into detail the Tibet issue would take a long time, but I must say, I enjoy it when the CHinese side argue Tibetans can’t rule themselves by pointing to what Tibet was like before ‘liberation’, absurd because all nations last century had to (or rather wanted to in emulation of the west) enact alot dramatic modernizing reforms, Tibet would have been no different; but it is made even more amusingly self-defeating when, in the same breath, they claim to have ruled Tibet de jure since the 13th century. WHich, would mean that CHina was responsible for permitting the rule and traditions they criticise in the first place, thus they are actually criticising their own rule!
Personally, I generally lack the passion to support one side over another in anything, and it is the same with the Tibet issue. I just think it’s remarkable that you can’t even see the slightest ‘backing’, as you say, for the free-tibet side. I agree though that the CHinese will never give up Tibet. Even if Tibetans managed a well organised protest/independence movement, the CCP wouldn’t hesitate to use force to crush that resistance.
Two words, ANGLO BASTARDS
wait . . . EVIL ANGLO BASTARDS and WHORES GO DIE!
so we added some
MIGHT AS WELL DELETE THIS POST LIKE EVERY OTHER, YOU TROLL
Everyday the ASIAN community suffers in places like United States, the laws and judicial system are highly rigged. Social services are extremely racist, welcome to the ANGLO NEW WORLD ORDER, or OLD ORDER – DIE YOU SOB’s and WHORES, JUST DIE
I am with you buddy AngloHatingSkizzo-version-of-Mr-Ching-Chong!!!
Like I always said: they don’t understand our (you,me,and Ching Chong) insanity.
Do you want a hug?
The tragedy is remembered with or without this museum! But not the deeper problems in the gov, eg. shitty school construction that caused hundreds of deaths of the students and why the rescue work can be more efficient. If we ever need a museum, this is what it should be about!!!
If the government does build this museum, it will be an overwhelming disappointment for me! We Chinese seem to be less sensitive to big digits expenses on stupid projects like this and we voice little objection against the gov (nor does it matter sometimes). And this is the reason why projects like this continuously show up and make us all look like fools!!!Yes the gov has money but it is all from the people. 10 billion here and 20 billion there! What about the laid off people and the homeless! All the face projects make me angry and sad for the ones that do need money to survive!!!!
C&N
Of course Chinese people should not forget about the atrocities at Nanjing and I agree with you that the Western media takes a skewed and biased take on the Tibet issue! Western people love over-romanticising Tibet and demonising the Chinese government (I won’t enter the Tibet argument, particularly as I think Pug has already expressed my opinion).
That wasn’t my point. My point was that history was and remains being used by the Chinese government not to inform, but to manipulate.
The earthquake served 2 strategic ends for the government:
Firstly, It rallied all of the Chinese provinces together in sympathy and support, hence binding a land mass that the Beijing-based government struggles to keep together.
Secondly, by hugging a few babies and being seen on-site by TV cameras, the Chinese government (namely Hu and ‘Grandad’ Wen) took some strain off pressure from citizens seeking a system that is closer to the people; like that of Western democracies (don’t start on the shortcomings of Western democracy please – I don’t have the time).
As far as PR goes, it was a great success for the CCP.
Now, C&N, if you want to sit there and argue that the government has opened this museum purely to lament a horrific tragedy, I feel quite confident in saying that I am not the ‘deluded’ one.
It was a temporary success, and on the other hand, the quake triggered a massive civil movement which I believe the government sees it as a threat, evidenced by the government’s unwillingness to acknowledge this effect.
To all those people using orientalism (or the fascination with things that are different) as their reason why foreign men do so well with Chinese girls:
Please explain to me why, in the West, a Chinese man (Chinese born and raised) could never get a Western girlfriend.
Ok, 88.
Who said we can’t? I once had a Western girlfriend but I didn’t like the fact that she had hairy arms. Asian woman are just da bomb and they don’t suffer from the Italian/Russian sydrome – one minute they have the figure of Monica Bellucci, the next they’re Gumby.
Also my pet theory: the Bruce Lee theory. Our chicks shown in Hollywood are hot, sexy, little vixens. Our men are either a Jackie Chan – a little clown jumping around doing tricks, or a Chow Fat – fat. Potential stars prefer to stick away from the Hollywood limelights: Andy Lao, Tony Leung, etc, maybe the only exception being Jet Li. So where do do you expect our ignorant masses sway?
Yes bye bye.
Do you want the answer in inches or centimeters?
CCP leaders ! China will be destroyed if this shameful and wasteful behaviour is allowed to continue. Time for the firing squad to drag some bastard to the firing range again before he gets promoted to cause greater harm in the government. Take appropriate action immediately so that this culture of waste will not spread!
Just a little copy and pasting and we’re in business. One comment fits all i see.
Am I biased towards China? Perhaps on the Tibet issue, yes. But I think there’s a good case to be made here that Western media should be more neutral on the subject – if not them, then who else can we have faith to report anything even remotely close to the truth?
I also strongly believe that China needs to keep reforming, as it has over the past 20years but at the same time I think its easy for her people to be defensive when it comes to foreign criticisms. And it’s understandable – the beauty of a democracy is that people attack an individual e.g. Bush, Sarkosky, etc, but when it comes to China, the focus seems directed on ‘China’ as a collective whole.
A lot of what you say is very true and reasonable, but when it comes to Tibet it’s not people like you or the issues that you’ve raised that I have a problem with; it’s the Chinese person after Chinese person after Chinese person I’ve encountered who has no understanding or interest in the subtleties and debates which you’ve mentioned above. Rather, every Chinese person I’ve heard talk about the subject subscribes to the ‘hell on earth’ version painted by the CCP. Even the likes of Goldstein, who could arguably be described as pro-China, never go that far because it’s quite clearly unscholarly, emotive nonsense. But…it’s the version that those protesting Chinese students (and pretty much every other mainlander with anything to say on the issue) seem adhere to, in my experience at least.
The issue of the extent to which torture was employed is a prime example of this. Certainly, according to that wikipedia link, it doesn’t seem that it was all that widespread or frequent. Yet, the utterly dubious assertion that it WAS widespread and frequent is a central component of the CCP’s mythic ‘hell on earth’ BS. Going back to the original comment, it’s this bullshit interpretation that droves of schoolkids are going to continue to be exposed to at places like the Tibetan ‘history’ museum. So therefore I wouldn’t say that his/her comments with regards to Tibet is ‘deluded’.
As for the media issue, ‘Western’ media coverage’s level of objectivity vis-a-vis Tibet is questionable to say the least, but once again, I haven’t heard any comments as analytical as yours coming from any mainland Chinese person. On the contrary, their level of analysis extends as far as reading antiCNN.com and whinging about how the ‘Western media’ is engaged in a conspiracy to split the motherland, hurt our Chinese feelings etc.