Rednote censored my post, so I decided to post it here

Hello Rednote newcomer, I hope you enjoy your journey in this new platform. However, if you are aiming to get the real picture of China and the world, it isn’t a good option. I have run into a lot of American who think they are in a bad situation after they learned some things from their new Chinese friends on the app, so I decided to write this article to help them understand the gigantic disparity in the country. But this article is censored by the platform.

I'm Chinese.

The lives of Chinese people are not as good as shown on Xiaohongshu

If you are a blogger on Xiaohongshu, and you interview ordinary people in ordinary counties about their daily lives and daily expenses, your videos will be banned soon because ordinary people live in poverty (even China's former Premier Li Keqiang said that 600 million people in China earn less than 1000 yuan per month), and showing these poor lives to the public is not allowed in China because it will deepen people's doubts about the effectiveness of the Communist Party's economic policies.

When Xiaohongshu first became popular in China (I don’t mean when Xiaohongshu was first established), it was an app about female consumption and entertainment, and as a result, a serious comparison culture was formed on this app. This culture led to a phenomenon called “refined poverty”, which means that young people with limited incomes spend a lot of money (even borrowing high-interest loans) on some items and services that can show off their wealth on social media, while being very tight on other aspects of life.

Therefore, generally speaking, the content about Chinese people's lives that you can see on Xiaohongshu is posted by middle-class people living in big cities and people who are poisoned by the culture of "refined poverty".

Ordinary people are too embarrassed to post their ordinary lives on it. Even if they do, if they post too much, their posts will be deleted or their accounts will be blocked.

So, I can say that the content about life you can see on Xiaohongshu is exaggerated. The content on Xiaohongshu cannot reflect the real living standards of Chinese people.

bullshit. also, who cares

The counter propaganda has started, I see.

Sorry CIA but it's too late. You won't reach a lot of people with these lies. Americans are now wide awake and ready to overthrow Elon Musk and the rest of the billionaire class and turn America into the glorious United Socialist States of America.

⚒️🇺🇸

I am Chinese American. People in RedNote are mostly middle to upper side of the society and live in a middle to big city. Majority of Chinese who live in country side are poor and do not necessarily spend time in RedNote. Also, if you do the research, you will find the reason why the delivery is so fast and cheap because these delivery guys are living in poverty. They only earn around $0.15 per delivery. When we do the comparison, we might want to compare between apple to apple. I saw two people to exchange the grocery prices between NY and shenyang. shenyang is a big city but everything is cheaper for sure. For me, it is fair to compare the same things between Shanghai and NY. Also, let us do not forget the exchange rates. When we talk about $1, do we want to ask what 7 RMB can buy. $1= 7.3 RMB now. We actually want to know the 1 dollar’s buying power instead of $1 vs 1 RMB. Of course, no doubt, all these years, MSM and the government did give us the wrong Info about China. We need to ask why!

Not debunking each of your points, but none of this matters because you have healthcare.

There are people living in poverty in America with NO healthcare.

Americans have it worse.

You are right.

The whole attitude of "oh your life sucks? Well I have it worse, so shut up" is just as unproductive as an American complaining about the cost of living on a Chinese app.

Yeah, it sucks being working class in BOTH the US and China. Maybe we should do something about that instead of being in an oppression competition. I'm glad Rednote censored your post tbh I wish they would censor more of these annoying, unproductive posts.

So I think there’s more that needs to be considered in the greater scheme of things. I think a lot of people are looking at this as a very black & white situation.

I don’t necessarily think that everyone is looking at China as a sort of Utopia. A lot of people are shocked though because they’re only seeing certain things for the first time including the possible good benefits of communism.

There’s also a greater implication here IMO that shows how much education is lacking in the United States. I feel somewhat lucky because I took it upon myself to get a really well rounded education. I have an art degree, but I took a lot of extra classes in college with a heavy emphasis on philosophy and history.

Part of that was taking history classes on China, Japan, and Korea. I also lucked out with an amazing teacher from China. He was older and grew up under Mao.

Overall I feel like I got an education that is not typical for most Americans. So from my perspective I see a lot of people with a surface level education on certain subjects (that have only ever been told communism is bad), while also lacking a lot of historical context because there’s just a lot of history left out of a surface level education.

Over here you really need to take it upon yourself to learn more than the basics and it depends on what kind of coursework you choose if you go to college (which many Americans miss out on because college is so cost prohibitive). Unfortunately subjects like history, art history, philosophy, and cultural anthropology go by the wayside when people go to college because they’re seen as frivolous subjects. These are also subjects that don’t go towards getting certain degrees and jobs, which can be seen as a waste of time.

So IMO a lot of people in America miss out on a well rounded education because we don’t take these subjects seriously enough and the public American education system before college isn’t that great. Too many people here are uneducated and it’s also why Trumpism has been able to thrive.

As a result I think many people see communism as a boogeyman because so many lack the nuance of history (and the same goes for socialism). Mainly because they associate these ideologies with horrible historical public figures without understanding where the core philosophies and ideologies came from. Too many people also allow themselves to be taught through films and tv shows meant for entertainment purposes rather than books.

So now we have a lot of people who feel confused and shocked because they didn’t realize that these systems can have benefits. China isn’t perfect though and some are definitely looking at this with rose colored glasses, but it’s because of a lack of knowledge and American propaganda.

Personally though I hope that it helps people to see that there’s a middle ground to be found here. Any ideology can be bad in the wrong hands or when misused with nefarious political intent, but there’s good that people should pay attention too (which they are in this case!).

The American right wing corporate agenda has been blocking progressive policy that would be great for everyone under a proper democracy and I hope some people start to understand that instead of blindly believing these things are “dangerous” (while continuing to fall further under an oligarchy).

Really we could have it all; freedom and a country where we have work life balance along with a more manageable cost of living. College could be free. Healthcare could be free. Homelessness should be nonexistent…but it might require adopting some communist and socialist policies which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

As someone who's not Chinese, but is also not American and is tired of sharing her online space with Americans who are capable of nothing but bitching all the time... Thank you. You have no idea how often I've thought the same to myself.