So I’ve been watching a YouTube channel called Little Chinese Everywhere. It’s a Chinese woman who travels to all different regions of the country. Her videos on minority regions have been amazing, and demonstrate what socialist national liberation looks like in practice. In this video, she goes to a Tibetan city where, for four to six months of the year, the Tibetans leave the city and “play in the grasslands” - long extended summers spent entirely living in the traditional way, but without dependence on subsistence pastoralism. It ends up being a months-long social and cultural festival where all of their traditional lifeways thrive. Then, when the weather turns, they to back to the city and live a modern Chinese urban life (but still thoroughly Tibetan). Tons of her videos show this thriving of non-Han nations with autonomy over their land, lives, and development. It’s genuinely moving stuff, and it seems like an excellent model for a socialist post-US and its native nations.
lots to love in this video but a funny thing happened when I first saw it.
during the horse race section when she’s sitting up front we see police officers lining the route ahead of the crowd. this stood out to me because there have been very few police officers visible in her videos. very soon we see a rider go off course and a bunch of the cops stand up and wave him away from the crowd. they’re there for obviously necessary public safety! American cops claim to do this but It’s hard to imagine seeing them do the same thing.
I love this channel so much
This video is awesome, the horse festival is like a giant pow wow
It looks so cozy in that tent. I want to visit soooo bad
If true, EVERYTHING I’ve been taught about China is false. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t trust any of my ‘knowledge’ about China. If this is just a psyop, it’s been terribly effective on me
For this to be false, there would be an enormously elaborate conspiracy to employ thousands and thousands of people of ethnic minorities to build and live in their traditional ways for the purpose of creating youtube videos to dupe westerners, instead of just actually doing it for their own sake. Check out this video about the Karakorum Pass. She visits Tajik and Kyrgyz areas in the Central Asia portion of China, where we can see even more people living fully immersed in their own traditional national culture. You see an amazing mix of traditional lifestyles, modern amenities, and support for the Communist Party - including people showing off their own recognition for service to the people from the Party. It’s awesome.
Socialism is the only path to genuine national liberation and China is daily proof. Plus, it shows a way the PRC approach is clearly better than the USSR’s, which focused on much more forcibly integrating minorities into industrial life, which stoked the nationalism that played such an important role in the illegal dissolution. In China, because those minority nations are far more genuinely autonomous, they are stauncher supporters of the socialist project and the development it has brought to them on their own terms.
For this to be false, there would be an enormously elaborate conspiracy to employ thousands and thousands of people of ethnic minorities to build and live in their traditional ways for the purpose of creating youtube videos to dupe westerners, instead of just actually doing it for their own sake.
not to mention creating a huge amount of really mundane video content before that throughout other areas of China.
It’s good to question and critically think about both what you’ve been taught and new things you come across. If you grew up in the West though, everything you’ve been taught about China is likely false or highly biased, yes
you should watch more of her videos. I’ve been following since she did the video on tulou houses, and especially like the flow of videos before she gets the scooter. the earlier series where she travels from europe to china by land is also interesting. there’s every indication that she simply makes these out of a passion for the work, imo. there are plenty of moments or topics that I wouldn’t consider flattering of China or expect to be present if the goal is to fool westerners. I’d also expect the production value to be a tad higher if this was some sort of operation with ulterior motives lol.
https://www.youtube.com/@kats_journey_east
another good one in a similar vein (showing the sides of China that are harder to see on the US internet) is this American who moved there to do environmental science work. She learned Chinese to interact with her co-workers and eventually found better employment in China. Had a Chinese BF or husband for awhile, think they broke up. A lot of people think she’s Russian lol.
