"Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people", part 3

September 23, 2023 @ 2:08 pm · Filed by under Language and the law, Linguistics in the comics

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Shared by John Rohsenow and David Cahill / Isham Cook:

From Arthur Meursault (@emptymeursault)

This is a trope with which we're intimately familiar.

According to the Chinese government, of all peoples on earth, the Chinese people are unique in this regard, except that now, more and more, they are starting to hurt their own feelings, and are not dependent on foreigners to hurt their feelings.

Selected readings

September 23, 2023 @ 2:08 pm · Filed by under Language and the law, Linguistics in the comics


2 Comments

  1. Olaf Zimmermann said,

    September 23, 2023 @ 3:31 pm

    "One of the most important conditions
    of freedom, in the matter of opinion as in other matters, is gov-
    ernmental security. In England, during the sixty or seventy
    years preceding the Great War, freedom of speech and opinion,
    in political matters, was almost complete, because everyone
    knew that no subversive opinion had a chance of success. Gilbert
    and Sullivan made fun of the army and navy, but the only
    penalty was the Queen’s refusal to bestow a knighthood on Gil-
    bert. Nowadays, they would be shot in Russia, beheaded in Ger-
    many, sent to a penal settlement in Italy, accused of violating
    the Official Secrets Act in England, and investigated by a Sena-
    torial Committee in the United States on suspicion of being in
    receipt of Moscow gold. The change is due to increased inse-
    curity, which is caused by war, the fear of war, and the impov-
    erishment due to war. And modern war is mainly due to na-
    tionalism."

  2. AntC said,

    September 23, 2023 @ 10:45 pm

    China sentences Uyghur scholar to life in jail. Her (alleged) crime not 'Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people', but 'Splittism' — "a crime of endangering state security".

    A crime so nebulous the trial was held in secret, for fear somebody might point out it was no crime at all to be "an expert on Uyghur folklore and traditions".

    Meanwhile "Huawei founder opposes boycott of English language classes"

    Amid rising nationalism and disputes with the United States, some Chinese have advocated a rejection of English language classes. Even though his company has been a target of U.S. sanctions, the founder of smartphone maker Huawei said Chinese still needed to learn the language.

    A child from a farming village will always remain a farmer if he doesn’t learn English, Hong Kong news website hk01.com quoted the tycoon as saying.

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