At the risk of sounding like propaganda myself… Just because you don’t witness poverty and crime doesn’t mean it is propaganda. US has a major homeless and drug epidemic that is getting worse. It is easy for those with money to put it out of sight and ignore it.
I’m visiting China for the first time right now for 2 weeks and I must say I’m very impressed with how clean the cities are and the lack of homeless and drug addicts.
In the US my old house in OKC has been broken into twice by homeless and my parent’s house in Miami twice as well, and their car stolen twice. Walking to work in Brooklyn, people are literally sleeping on the sidewalks under trash bags every night as everyone walks past like they aren’t there.
Even in my my home town in Vermont, population under 10,000, there are always homeless people out in the cold begging and sleeping in tents in the woods. These people have given up on life, or given bad luck, or addicted to drugs.
I haven’t seen any of that in China so far. Sure there are some areas outside the city centers that are more depressing looking, lack much personality, and have run down buildings but at least everyone has a home, a job, and is taken care of. People here seem to have more respect for themselves and for others. It is part of the culture here.
Everyone I talk to here says it is incredibly safe. In fact, today I saw my first 2 police cars on the highway for the first time a week into my trip. And we’ve been driving an average of 3 hours per day everywhere between Shenzhen and ChengDu (visiting factories ). There are many cameras everywhere but there isn’t a need for hundreds of police to patrol the streets non-stop like in every city in the US. I haven’t heard a single siren the entire trip either - in cities of 20 million. You won’t find that in NYC which has half the population. Just some thoughts I wanted to share, thanks for reading.
Oh there is absolutely poverty. I’m specifically referencing what the commenter above me was discussing, which is a trend on social media of finding a bad area of town, taking pictures from 40 different angles, and presenting it as though American cities are nothing but miles upon miles of tent encampments and despair. I will admit I have only ever lived in the rust belt, so it may very well be like that in other places, but in general you see one or two small areas of extreme poverty mixed with working class, a few rough-ish neighborhoods adjacent to those, and the rest is pretty quiet, if not always the most affluent. By your description, it sounds like Chinese law enforcement keeps closer tabs on people through mass surveillance rather than active patrolling. Personally I’d rather have more crime and fewer government CCTVs, but to each their own.
Side note: here at the airport you check your flight information by just walking up to a screen and it uses facial recognition to instantly pull up your flight information, gate, seat, etc. lol. Completely different comfort level with cameras here haha…
At the risk of sounding like propaganda myself… Just because you don’t witness poverty and crime doesn’t mean it is propaganda. US has a major homeless and drug epidemic that is getting worse. It is easy for those with money to put it out of sight and ignore it.
I’m visiting China for the first time right now for 2 weeks and I must say I’m very impressed with how clean the cities are and the lack of homeless and drug addicts.
In the US my old house in OKC has been broken into twice by homeless and my parent’s house in Miami twice as well, and their car stolen twice. Walking to work in Brooklyn, people are literally sleeping on the sidewalks under trash bags every night as everyone walks past like they aren’t there.
Even in my my home town in Vermont, population under 10,000, there are always homeless people out in the cold begging and sleeping in tents in the woods. These people have given up on life, or given bad luck, or addicted to drugs.
I haven’t seen any of that in China so far. Sure there are some areas outside the city centers that are more depressing looking, lack much personality, and have run down buildings but at least everyone has a home, a job, and is taken care of. People here seem to have more respect for themselves and for others. It is part of the culture here.
Everyone I talk to here says it is incredibly safe. In fact, today I saw my first 2 police cars on the highway for the first time a week into my trip. And we’ve been driving an average of 3 hours per day everywhere between Shenzhen and ChengDu (visiting factories ). There are many cameras everywhere but there isn’t a need for hundreds of police to patrol the streets non-stop like in every city in the US. I haven’t heard a single siren the entire trip either - in cities of 20 million. You won’t find that in NYC which has half the population. Just some thoughts I wanted to share, thanks for reading.
Oh there is absolutely poverty. I’m specifically referencing what the commenter above me was discussing, which is a trend on social media of finding a bad area of town, taking pictures from 40 different angles, and presenting it as though American cities are nothing but miles upon miles of tent encampments and despair. I will admit I have only ever lived in the rust belt, so it may very well be like that in other places, but in general you see one or two small areas of extreme poverty mixed with working class, a few rough-ish neighborhoods adjacent to those, and the rest is pretty quiet, if not always the most affluent. By your description, it sounds like Chinese law enforcement keeps closer tabs on people through mass surveillance rather than active patrolling. Personally I’d rather have more crime and fewer government CCTVs, but to each their own.
Side note: here at the airport you check your flight information by just walking up to a screen and it uses facial recognition to instantly pull up your flight information, gate, seat, etc. lol. Completely different comfort level with cameras here haha…