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Audrey Jiajia Li
Audrey Jiajia Li is a freelance columnist and independent filmmaker from Guangzhou, China.
In the midst of tribal politics, communities can bridge divides and avoid the vicious cycle of violence and revenge – through dialogue.
Having gone through the trauma of an earlier unsuccessful pregnancy, the bittersweet journey to motherhood is a reminder that, even today, the conversation about losing a child remains taboo. It is by sharing our personal experiences, the losses and the triumphs, that we heal and grow.
This current wave of anti-Asian hatred stems from Sinophobic sentiment which has long existed but increased sharply in recent years. Extra efforts need to be taken to prevent and combat the racist by-product of anti-Asian sentiments arising from international confrontation.
Women make up more than half the doctors and nurses battling the epidemic in Hubei, yet have been forced to forgo sanitary supplies as they were not deemed ‘critical’. Thankfully, after an online outcry, this is changing.
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A reluctant hero, the doctor who was reprimanded for warning about the coronavirus has, in death, become a lightning rod for public unhappiness with the government’s tight control of information.
An international incident over a tweet may come down to different perspectives between the US and China. While the dark side of the Hong Kong protests has been overlooked in the US, the Chinese public is becoming dangerously nationalistic.
Resentment of Beijing has spilled over towards mainlanders, Mandarin speakers and mainland-linked businesses. Shops are trashed, people are attacked and xenophobic slurs are becoming common. Hong Kong is succumbing to a wave of hate crime.
With Tiananmen in recent memory, even the most liberal-minded mainland Chinese find violence hard to accept. As protests in Hong Kong become more disruptive and radical, and xenophobic slurs more prominent, support among former sympathisers is waning.
Recent scenes of young Hongkongers ganging up on others who don’t share their views recall the excesses of the Mao era. Behaving so, protesters risk losing the moral authority they have so far accumulated.
As Hongkongers take to the streets to fight for their freedoms, young people on the mainland embrace nationalism, having seen only China’s impressive growth. With a lack of shared history due to the Great Firewall, it’s no wonder that mistrust is on the rise.
The backlash against Zhao Yusi, whose narrative of reaping the rewards of her own efforts earned scorn after it was revealed that her family had paid a large sum to Stanford University, is a reminder to the wealthy to be honest about their advantages.
The overreaction on social media to an advert featuring a freckle-faced Chinese model points to the sad reality that despite the country’s wealth and power on the global stage, many people still aren’t open-minded or confident enough to see beauty in truth.
Unlike in hit US films, Chinese cinema’s latest sci-fi movie lacks individual heroes, and the focus on group effort to resolve crises reflects the country’s response to a century of hardship.
Lunar New Year gatherings can be a harrowing time for single women and those without children, who are grilled on their lifestyle choices. More difficult questions about events in the public domain, however, are always avoided.
The author of The End of History speaks of how his views have changed amid China’s rise on the global stage, and how hostility towards China among US businesspeople has become the driving force behind deteriorating relations.
Under orders from Xi Jinping and party bosses, Chinese journalists have been increasingly weaponised to not only spread the party line but attack opposing views.
For all its charm, the movie reinforces the stereotypes that Asians are materialistic and Asian Americans are a ‘model minority’. Meanwhile, Singapore comes across as mono-cultural, rather than the multicultural country it is.
With the resources at its disposal, China could build a friendlier and more magnanimous image on the global stage, rather than coerce its people and others to always toe the official line.
The social media frenzy surrounding a reporter’s sardonic facial expression at China’s ‘two sessions’ press conference sheds a light on people’s frustration.
China’s growing influence in the world comes with a responsibility to respect other races and ethnic minorities.
