Chinese Characteristics

Ba Jiong is a Taiwanese native from the Taroko tribe. The two stories being told here are related. The first one is a mainlander married to a Taiwanese and living in Taiwan. While in Taiwan, she kept criticising the system there being way inferior to the system on the mainland. One of her biggest complaint is that testing in Taiwan is not free.

However, on a recent trip back to her hometown in Xiamen (to escape the “outbreak” in Taiwan), she was tested positive for Covid (asymptomatic) and ordered to isolate herself at a shelter. The trouble is, she had her daughter with her and she wanted to bring her along. The Xiamen authorities allowed her to bring her daughter with her to the shelter but as this would be against protocol, she had to sign an indemnity, taking full responsibility for her daughter’s (tested negative) medical expenses if the child fell ill.

She refused to sign and complained on social media, but as Xiamen uncle pointed out, isn’t this what she wanted? There was a glaring difference in the way she criticised the system in Taiwan and the mainland. Ba Jiong highlighted the fact that she avoid attributing it to the Party or the government unlike her complaints about Taiwan.

The second story is even more interesting. A Norwegian woman working as a general manager in a hotel in China suddenly realised that her China-born daughter was acting like a spoiled 红二代/富二代. Worried about the kind of person her daughter would grow up into, she left China and returned to Norway.

Here’s another video and it’s by Xiamen uncle Li Lansi. Didn’t she say that things on the mainland are much better than they are in Taiwan? Isn’t this what she wanted? Why is she complaining now? I believe that many of those who praise the system in China would think twice about experiencing it themselves.