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Nathan Bennett | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #140 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Christian
• 0:03
  we podcast. Today's guest is a B2B
• 0:06
  copywriter teacher and much more all the way from Dallas.
• 0:10
  Texas is name is Nathan Bennett. Welcome to the show bed, Nathan,
• 0:14
  and how you doing, hon? And well, thank you.
• 0:17
  I was about to announce you by your second name.
• 0:19
  They're like, yes Bennett. I just ignore your first name.
• 0:24
  But anyway, how you doing, sir? I doing all right.
• 0:29
  It's Cloudy out there today, which is my favourite kind of
• 0:37
  weather. Really, we're going to talk
• 0:39
  about the weather. Well, we sentence or two about
• 0:47
  it is nice and then we move right on to more substantial
• 0:51
  things, I'm just ingest them. I know I am video the whether
• 0:56
  you have out there in Manchester.
• 0:58
  It's Hey intriguing, it's rainy a lot of the time, all of the
• 1:05
  music here, at least back in the day, used to talk about it and I
• 1:09
  can do it always rains of Manchester for her, but no, I've
• 1:13
  noticed that certainly over the last couple of years as well,
• 1:16
  it's been getting progressively warmer and the Winter's are
• 1:20
  getting a bit cooler and you know it is what it is that.
• 1:25
  Yeah yeah. But first thing I want to talk
• 1:28
  about before we get into your Life in everything that you do
• 1:32
  is that voice. I mentioned it off camera.
• 1:34
  But yeah, I asked you. I said, do you do you know
• 1:40
  audiobooks or anything like that?
• 1:41
  And you said no and I think you seem surprised I do a podcast on
• 1:48
  modern Chinese history. Sure but I am a like, I've ever
• 1:56
  listen to podcasts by people who maybe don't have the Most soon
• 2:00
  inducing voices but still, you know, it's like they're not
• 2:05
  unpleasant to listen to and they're talking about things I'd
• 2:08
  like to know about. So I'm talking about like, on my
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  podcast. I talk about things.
• 2:13
  I'd like I like to talk about the fact that I would have a
• 2:18
  good sounding voice is like okay that's good to know about.
• 2:23
  Yeah I know I'm just I'm just surprised because I mean for me,
• 2:28
  Wow, I guess I pay attention to these things just because I'm a
• 2:32
  yeah. Same here.
• 2:32
  Fan of podcasts fan of, you know I like to do voice acting and
• 2:37
  stuff like that. And yeah, I was just surprised.
• 2:41
  I was like, surely this guy is using this professionally.
• 2:44
  I mean it's a very soothing voice.
• 2:46
  Very I don't know it to me, it's like the sort of voice you might
• 2:49
  hear. If you're listening to one of
• 2:51
  those like go to sleep audiobooks or like very like,
• 2:55
  relaxing Vibes are some more. I don't know.
• 2:58
  Something like that, you know? So I guess I could try putting
• 3:02
  together an ASMR YouTube track or something.
• 3:07
  I don't know if I could do the eight hours of something, I
• 3:12
  guess I could try reading Moby. Dick out loud.
• 3:15
  What? Um well that's what that could
• 3:17
  actually take about 24 hours, there's a Moby Dick marathon in
• 3:21
  New Bedford, Massachusetts that be nice to get to it.
• 3:25
  Some point that that Anyway, I gave you mine.
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  I got you. Well, in that sort of initial
• 3:33
  introduction and your a posture that you mentioned that you do a
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  podcast on Chinese history, what can you tell us about that
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  podcast? Let's modern Chinese history
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  through the lens of Chinese revolutionary movements from
• 3:46
  about 1839 the first Opium War to the modern day partly.
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  I'm trying to get China out of my system.
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  Partly its I I lived in China for seven years.
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  Just and so there's all the things you can't quite say.
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  And there's all the things that are the foreigners talk to each
• 4:04
  other about but you know, like you can't really have.
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  It's really hard to have Frank conversations with Chinese
• 4:11
  people about Chinese history because in ordinary Chinese
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  people are like most order ordinary people.
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  They don't know anything about history, you know, but then
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  westerners who do know about history?
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  Don't hold don't always know anything about Chinese history.
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  So It's partly to bring it more to.
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  Hey, you, you know, like like bring the really important stuff
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  that goes on behind the news because my podcast is called
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  Chinese revolutions. Chinese revolutions.com is the
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  site. It's like, if you, if you're
• 4:51
  asking how did things get to be the way they are today?
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  It's almost too late. Yeah.
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  Okay. It's To have the background
• 4:59
  snippet in the news about how things came to be.
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  But like, if you're asking, how did it get to be like this?
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  It's a bit too late to be able to use those insights to, like
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  help solve the problem. And I hope there aren't any
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  problems with China, but I'd like to maybe contribute to
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  Greater understanding before. There is anything. we talked
• 5:24
  about the history, you know, in the sense that there is You know
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  what's written about and what may be the worst nose, but then
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  there is, you know, the reality. And then obviously we said about
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  people not maybe knowing Of their history in China or not at
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  least being able to speak on it, do you feel that?
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  Maybe a lot of the history over there is being also?
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  Like I'll be the right word. What?
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  Okay, let me put it this way. We know for a fact that history
• 5:58
  in general is always Rewritten in a way to kind of fit the
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  agenda of every nation, you know, wherever they're trying to
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  achieve and this has been done and it's still done over time
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  continuously. So you know there is the truth,
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  what really happened and then there's what you'll read about,
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  maybe 50 years later, right? But in terms of a lot of this
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  history that you've been studying, what you've been
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  understanding and then obviously your time there which we'll get
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  into To in detail in a bit. But I just want to kind of get
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  your thoughts on that. Like, is there being there?
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  Is there a lot being done to kind of sensory or change it, or
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  twist it? I took an anthropology class in
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  college, and one of the things that this one tribe the yanomamö
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  Yanomami. Yanomami.
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  I forget exactly what the right ending is for that when it's not
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  any language that I speak. So my apologies to the People
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  who do know it's a very famous tribe known for being studied
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  anthropology. Well like so when you have one
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  of these groups reconciling with another one of these groups,
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  they start talking about all the family connections that they
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  have that they had shoved aside because they had been feuding
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  for, you know, years or something.
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  Is that? That's that's one of the things
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  you see happening with history like so. you kind of have all
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  the facts somewhere and as it becomes convenient like I
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  actually wrote a letter to the Russian Ambassador in the United
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  States here too. You know, please urge your
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  government to stop the to stop the war in Ukraine.
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  Like I started off with you know Russia supported the side of the
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  North in the American Civil War. You helped us preserve a you
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  know you you know so that they're you know, so I was
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  bringing out something from history to try to you know, like
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  there. I'm just going to say the thing
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  that's faster to say, so like trying to butter him up before
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  saying please urge your government to stop this war so
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  like that's that's one side that building historical narrative
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  draws on. Like, so there's all the stuff
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  that people know, just around the corner of their awareness.
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  But then there's there's also like there's the narrative that
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  whoever's in power wants to push like we're right now, it seems
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  like in America, there's Hey, I have all the half opinions that
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  I get from all the YouTube videos, I might watch.
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  So I'm going to put this with a big asterisk.
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  It's like, okay, like somebody wants to say that all of
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  American history's basically racist and like okay, yeah.
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  Racism is kind of like one of America's original sins that we
• 8:59
  have to deal with but it's like that's not the whole story like,
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  like like so there's like telling a coherent Central
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  narrative, you kind of have to keep re telling that story every
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  generation because, you know, you you're you reckon with
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  things from the past but you also have to say OK the good
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  things from the past were good things, so it's It's all of
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  these things all together and having an open continuing
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  engagement with history. It's kind of all of these things
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  at once, in China, part of the problem is, they, they only
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  emphasize the stuff that supports what the government is
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  talking about, right at the moment.
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  So, like the taiping Rebellion, which I'm about, which I'm
• 9:52
  getting into, and Maybe two or three months on my podcast when
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  I get through all the background episodes under Chairman Mao,
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  okay? Yeah, peasant Revolt, that's
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  great right now. Peasant Revolt is not great
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  because the Communist party is the established regime.
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  They have had a number of six sessions from the founding.
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  So there are stable Dynasty if you will and they did not like
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  to have peasant Revolt. So they don't really want to
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  talk about the Typing as as peasant for run a peasant
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  Rebellion forerunners, to the current thing, they've maybe
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  like to talk about somebody on the Ching side, who helped
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  organize things to suppress Revolt.
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  It's like that. That's one of the things that
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  happens. You know, when the police like a
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  politically inconvenient side is, you know me Martin.
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  Yeah. Yeah no.
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  I mean to me the way you outline I mean yeah that's I think
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  that's generally the case with most countries mate well with
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  China obviously to an extreme degree but yeah many company,
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  sorry countries will do that but yet companies to actually and
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  that was the kind of the thing that I was thinking about, was
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  you familiar with the WWE, the wrestling company in America?
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  So as you were talking about China and Government and
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  everything. There it could weirdly reminded
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  me of of WWE and what they do and just bear with me here.
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  So one thing that WWE does because it's built up this big
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  business Empire over many, many years and now it's finally
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  getting to kind of trade on the value of the past, you know?
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  So the 80's 90's 2000s, Attitude, Era, Etc, write all
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  these different errors in wrestling, right?
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  But here's the important bit, the reason why I bring this up.
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  For a while. They had their own resting
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  Network on because streaming platform and they've, since put
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  it on, hold I guess because they've got like this big deal
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  with this company called peacock that streams their stuff.
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  That's besides the point. What's Happening Now and has
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  been happening for a long time, to be honest, is that they'll do
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  like their own documentaries. You see what this is going or
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  their own. Of things or, you know, they'll
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  even go back and edit, things change things, whatever.
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  And basically what they're doing is rewriting history and they do
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  that all the time and The tricky thing with that is obviously you
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  know, all of us fans going up, know what really happened and
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  we'll call them out on it and we'll be like well that's
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  ridiculous because this this this and this happened and you
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  forgotten about all of these things.
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  You're just trying to tell this story because you're trying to
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  make yourself look good or you're trying to tell this
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  particular narrative. Now bring it back to what you
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  were saying about China and the government.
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  It feels like they're kind of doing that.
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  As you said they tell the convenient parts of History.
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  We'll push up on certain things in order to fit their narrative.
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  In order to tell the history they want to tell which by
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  definition is not history, it's just a series of Lies a false
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  narrative story, they just it's just telling stories and this
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  has been done, you know, throughout history and probably
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  will continue to and it leaves us not really knowing what has
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  actually happened in the past unless we were there and
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  experienced it. So, So, you know the mean it's a
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  difficult position to be in and I can't even imagine what it
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  must like. Be like for the Chinese people.
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  I mean, just, you know, I mean, we hear about these what it's
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  like, living over there and we'll get into your personal
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  experience, which I think is, is really going to be key in this
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  and it's going to because one thing I found really interesting
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  when I was looking you up was, you know, here's an American
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  going over to China living there for an extensive period of time.
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  You're going to be treated. A certain way you're going to
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  be, it's going to be a different experience for you versus your
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  average, Chinese person living there, right?
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  But moreover, and this again, was another reason why I wanted
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  you to have you on my shows because there are a lot of
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  schemes. I don't know what else, how else
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  to put it. Like for example there are a lot
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  of different teaching, courses or opportunities.
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  To basically work in China for extended periods of time, a
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  couple of years which are often funded by companies or schools
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  or universities or whatever in China.
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  And this isn't just something that happens in China.
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  It happens in many other countries around the world, but
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  it's intriguing that it happens in China.
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  Given that there's so much done to kind of keep people in the
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  bubble, you know, restrict sensor excetera, but they're
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  still Allowing people from the West to come over and be there
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  but you're gonna know that it's got to be on their terms, right?
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  It's got to be and this is what I find interesting because years
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  ago I was considering doing teaching now and I ultimately
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  decided against it but I can see the Allure in the appeal of it,
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  but I also knew even back then, I knew that, if I would go
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  there, I would be having a particular experience and I read
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  a lot of experience, you know, varying experiences, many of
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  which are positive and some, which were negative, but
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  ultimately you're protected as a foreigner going over, there you
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  are protected and that's a very good Insight, right?
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  But you're the one who actually went there.
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  So let's kind of, let's start at the beginning.
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  Talk to us about your motivation to move to China.
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  Why did you want to go there? Well, my my first interest in
• 16:13
  China was I'm, I'm going to keep some of the details fuzzy but
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  was click Christian Missionary purposes.
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  Like know, I started with With teaching English because that's
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  that's kind of an entry level job for cross-cultural stuff.
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  Anyway. So it's not like I was out
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  preaching in the countryside or something, but then I changed
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  from Protestant to Orthodox so that totally wiped out any
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  religious stuff like any religious job stuff.
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  That would, that was happening. So that was like a big reset
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  button. So that's it's a little, it's a
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  crucial background. Tail just for me, personally.
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  so, like So so there's like so like with the religious side,
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  there's okay, we're going there to do some material.
• 17:14
  Good hoping that they catch on spiritually, but then there's
• 17:20
  all these laws about how you can and can't do stuff religiously
• 17:28
  so like theirs. But likes it.
• 17:34
  So there's this this halfway kind of doing but not quite
• 17:39
  doing trying not to get caught as a certain thing but also
• 17:45
  trying not to lie about why you're there and look like so
• 17:52
  it's like no I'm not coming as you know you know.
• 17:56
  Mr. Missionary but at the same time like I want you to know
• 18:00
  that I'm here because God loves you.
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  And this that the other thing did you ever get caught trying
• 18:06
  to? Let's say, spread the gospel,
• 18:10
  let's put it that way. No, I never really got close
• 18:15
  enough to actually like I might I might have had personal
• 18:18
  conversations about some of that but like I wasn't doing that
• 18:24
  professionally like that, like that wasn't like I was there as
• 18:29
  an English teacher, like 42 years as As part of a like
• 18:34
  religious organization, okay? Right.
• 18:37
  Two different years. Like, so the government knew who
• 18:40
  it was, they know what it, you know, but they, they were very,
• 18:43
  very scrupulous about obeying the rules and like, sometimes,
• 18:48
  even like a Communist Party member would say, like, okay, if
• 18:51
  this is Christmas, like talk, more about the religious side.
• 18:54
  Like okay. All right now because it's
• 18:59
  cultural information. Like, you know, Chris This is
• 19:02
  about Senator, right? But you know there's the whole
• 19:05
  religious story about why it happens at all.
• 19:09
  So what were some of the stricter rules that you were
• 19:11
  facing like that? That's interesting.
• 19:13
  And you said that sometimes when the Communists members of the
• 19:16
  party, would their presence. So that kind of makes it sound
• 19:19
  like an uncomfortable situation of being with that person in the
• 19:22
  room and you know who they are. And you're like, you can't
• 19:25
  really be yourself. Like, what's the deal that?
• 19:28
  Yeah you, yeah. There's But late, but like, we
• 19:35
  like there might be like, like, where I was there.
• 19:39
  There might be like two or three party members who were working
• 19:42
  with us, okay? So it's not like it's more like
• 19:47
  if they hear something, they might tell somebody, but it's
• 19:50
  not like somebody watching every move.
• 19:54
  Questioning every ' it's But also people join the party
• 20:05
  because it helps them get ahead in life, you know, it's enough.
• 20:11
  Like so, somebody was fired sent back to America for like doing a
• 20:17
  baptism, he was pressured into doing like, okay, you're not
• 20:20
  going to do that, but if like, if in a volunteer capacity or
• 20:26
  serving in one of the Chinese government over seen churches
• 20:33
  like, okay, that's something that is, you know, regulated,
• 20:36
  that's something that's official and out in the open.
• 20:40
  That's not But the end in Chinese history, you have a lot
• 20:44
  of weird, little Cults that wind up turning into civil wars, that
• 20:49
  kill tens of millions of people, like the taiping Rebellion.
• 20:52
  So when the government is not real interested, in having
• 20:55
  undercover religious work, there's historical background to
• 20:59
  why that is. So like, if someone does
• 21:02
  something wrong, like, in the case of that teacher or just
• 21:05
  other similar examples. Yeah.
• 21:07
  Like what what's the kind of communication process?
• 21:11
  That. So, let you know that there's
• 21:12
  someone either present or, you know, that you're aware of their
• 21:16
  presence. Basically does someone like come
• 21:18
  up to you and come in your room. So actually, you're not allowed
• 21:21
  to see this or you must see this like what's what's communicated
• 21:25
  to you? There's, there's different ways
• 21:30
  that pressure is brought on this is things.
• 21:34
  I've heard of like, nothing like this has ever really happened to
• 21:37
  me. Okay.
• 21:39
  I was, I don't know if I was shy cautious.
• 21:42
  Petrified red-eye, conservative is the nice word for what I can
• 21:50
  be sometimes, you know, shy is still not so bad. you know,
• 21:58
  terrified anyway the like maybe the maybe the government will
• 22:08
  call the Chinese people you're working with and they'll tell
• 22:11
  you to knock it off. So like like your Like, you're
• 22:19
  like the Chinese person who helps you interface with the
• 22:21
  community. Like they'll tell you to stop or
• 22:26
  one thing, it's called like, the police will invite you for tea
• 22:29
  and you'll be paying for it and they'll tell you, they'll ask
• 22:36
  you questions about who and what you are.
• 22:38
  And This never happened to you. This just happened to other
• 22:43
  people. Yeah, this is things I've heard
• 22:45
  about. Okay, so they'll it or like, you
• 22:48
  know, you you could be deported or, you know, a Visa not
• 22:55
  renewed. Like part of the question is,
• 23:00
  how you get your visa to be there?
• 23:03
  Some people will dishonestly. Come as students but wait a
• 23:08
  minute. Why are you a student in a rural
• 23:11
  area? Studying Chinese when you could
• 23:13
  go to a very nice University like in Beijing or Shanghai or
• 23:17
  you know some other place where it's you know it's all touristy
• 23:21
  and they have a, why are you studying Chinese out in Far,
• 23:26
  Western China where like nobody's here and then you're
• 23:30
  preaching in the countryside on the weekend or somebody tries to
• 23:34
  set up a non-governmental organization.
• 23:36
  And maybe there are doing some legitimate relief work, but
• 23:41
  they're also doing religious work on the side.
• 23:43
  I mean that. And then also, people do try to
• 23:45
  come in directly in a religious capacity, the solutely.
• 23:51
  Any one of those ways like your Visa could like, be not renewed,
• 23:55
  or Just cut short your leaving, you know, next week.
• 24:05
  I'm messing around with these guys.
• 24:08
  You mentioned sort of fear. Well the way you put it was sort
• 24:13
  of fit in so terrified to react or like so you you basically
• 24:19
  like living in fear the whole time?
• 24:22
  I mean, because obviously you wanted to be there, you know
• 24:24
  you've gone out of your way to go over.
• 24:26
  There you have a purpose, you have like a mission and
• 24:28
  everything. And, you know, you've got a job
• 24:29
  that you're doing as well to help people, but like, the way
• 24:32
  you make it sound, Kind of sounds like what?
• 24:35
  There's also just me personally. I'm not okay, you know, like I
• 24:40
  would rather speak in front of a thousand people, then, you know,
• 24:43
  speak to one stranger because like, okay, speaking in front of
• 24:46
  a thousand people is like okay, like entertainment is as fun as
• 24:50
  it, but I'm one of the weird people who likes public
• 24:53
  speaking, but like like I tend to be very like shy or cautious.
• 25:01
  So that's like a lot of this is just Just me being me.
• 25:05
  Like, there were thoughts that occurred to me that I never
• 25:08
  acted on. Like, now I could interview
• 25:10
  somebody about I didn't because I was afraid of being caught or
• 25:17
  something. What was, like, the weirdest
• 25:23
  thing that's one of these officials said to you, or like,
• 25:26
  did you, did you hear anything that was like, out of play
• 25:28
  strange? I mean, obviously it's going to
• 25:30
  be different anyway because you're in a different Nation,
• 25:32
  different countries. But like yeah anything that you
• 25:36
  had that was weird like caught you off-guard, something like
• 25:39
  that. The may be the closest.
• 25:45
  Like there was one time I got a call from my boss when I was
• 25:48
  teaching at a Chinese University.
• 25:50
  He said, like don't end class early, I think, Well, okay, in
• 25:56
  that case, it's one of the Chinese people who was looking
• 25:59
  in, on the class who I didn't know.
• 26:01
  I didn't know who it was. Yeah, that was actually some
• 26:05
  supervisor or something who reported it to my boss.
• 26:09
  Like like that's just part of the context.
• 26:12
  I wasn't aware of, but okay, you got me fair and square on that
• 26:15
  one, that's, you know, do the job at for the right time.
• 26:19
  Okay, back up a second. So like yeah.
• 26:22
  You've said to your your class like oh we're going to finish
• 26:25
  maybe 10 minutes early today or something, right?
• 26:28
  And then you suddenly get a call.
• 26:30
  Now not not like like maybe later that week maybe a month
• 26:34
  later. Oh, so you, yes, you did that
• 26:37
  but then you get, okay, I see it.
• 26:39
  You get you get like a cool week later.
• 26:41
  Basically telling you like do not do that again.
• 26:45
  He was he was much nicer about it like one of the things you
• 26:47
  have to do in China is read between the lines like if
• 26:51
  somebody he's bringing it up. Like it's not just a suggestion.
• 26:58
  well I think not much I'm getting but yeah it's it just
• 27:01
  sounds very deeply serious in a Unnerving way is probably the
• 27:10
  way I could put it. You know?
• 27:11
  I mean. Yeah.
• 27:12
  That's that's one of the ones that I like.
• 27:15
  I wouldn't be so terrified of because I mean like okay if your
• 27:18
  boss had your job and your home country tells you to you know
• 27:22
  shape up a certain thing, do it a different way.
• 27:25
  But that's that's that's how it goes.
• 27:28
  Unless like you have a totally creepy, you know, like a total
• 27:31
  creative role where you're the creative genius, unless you've
• 27:35
  got that, they can ask you for something different.
• 27:38
  It. So like that wasn't so much of a
• 27:42
  problem for me. This time when I was working in
• 27:45
  Chinese media, that was about two years.
• 27:51
  There were just certain topics that be a know that that's not
• 27:55
  going to be printed like so like okay I stopped having ideas then
• 28:00
  but that's a different. What kind of things are a no-go?
• 28:02
  What do they tell you that? They shoot down straight away.
• 28:05
  I proposed an idea. This is more like a colleague
• 28:10
  said, he Me, I don't think that would be printed like I wanted
• 28:13
  to use the life of The Last Emperor of China.
• 28:16
  Who was a child in. I think it was 1911.
• 28:20
  When the last two dynasty was ended and the Republic of China
• 28:24
  was founded and then it was a long bumpy ride until 1949 when
• 28:29
  the People's Republic was founded.
• 28:31
  Well, he his whole life, like some of what he was trying to
• 28:37
  do, was trying to stay ready for if the empire was going to come
• 28:41
  back, but he went over to the Japanese for a while and then he
• 28:45
  was captured by the Russians. When they came into the Pacific
• 28:49
  War in World War Two. And then went, and then the
• 28:56
  Communists re-educated him and Take calls all the time here.
• 29:08
  The the the Communists re-educated him and he lived out
• 29:13
  the rest of his life as a gardener in Beijing.
• 29:19
  So his life is a very interesting index of modern
• 29:22
  Chinese history. Now, I'm going to have to do
• 29:25
  that on my own time for my own podcast.
• 29:34
  That's not something they were interested in exploring, or like
• 29:39
  I, we were redoing the It kind of rebooting the publication I
• 29:47
  worked for and I suggested the idea like why not show the
• 29:51
  traditional Chinese date? For whatever the day is, they
• 29:56
  said that's a good idea, but it has some political implications.
• 30:00
  Part of the reason being is like various rebellions, take certain
• 30:06
  meaning from whatever the traditional Chinese date is
• 30:09
  like, like this astrological sign is the current Dynasty.
• 30:13
  This is the next one we identify with the next one.
• 30:18
  So, like, okay, everybody Rebel on that day, kind of kind of
• 30:21
  thing like so that's why that didn't appear.
• 30:24
  Cultural magazine. I mean, the vibe.
• 30:29
  I'm getting with what you're saying.
• 30:31
  And also everything I've read over the years, you know, and I
• 30:33
  always take everything with a pinch of salt because it's our
• 30:36
  media, which is always going to be fraught with.
• 30:40
  It's going to be sensationalised, it's not ever
• 30:42
  going to be accurate. Because unless you're there, you
• 30:44
  don't know, right? But one thing that does seem to
• 30:47
  be the case is that you know, everything goes through that
• 30:51
  political filter to a Crazy degree.
• 30:57
  You know it's like with what you were talking about there with
• 31:00
  regards to various things you can you can or can't so print,
• 31:04
  it seems to me like people are Eva scared or wary of what they
• 31:11
  put out there, you know, like you can't, you can't maybe this,
• 31:16
  you like a passion projects without making sure that, you
• 31:21
  know, it kind of fits. With what the government is
• 31:25
  saying, basically. yeah, there is Some different ways I've
• 31:30
  heard the people deal with that. Like for one thing is if you're
• 31:34
  talking in English to an English-speaking audience, There
• 31:41
  will be fewer, you know, like the government probably won't
• 31:47
  try to shut you lately because there's the government trying to
• 31:50
  keep control over the Chinese language audience and then the
• 31:55
  government doing whatever it does for the foreign audience.
• 32:01
  So if you're bringing up some problem about the Chinese system
• 32:05
  to a foreign audience in a foreign language, not for
• 32:08
  Chinese domestic Chinese consumption, that's not so much
• 32:11
  of a problem because they figured that the foreigners are
• 32:14
  going to say bad things. Anyway, Where is if you're
• 32:18
  trying to get a domestic audience to question the
• 32:22
  legitimacy of the party. That is where they're going to
• 32:27
  start hitting, but I will say this because I've definitely
• 32:32
  seen this already. The online.
• 32:35
  There has been a lot of slander. From outside of China towards,
• 32:41
  you know, the system that they have the CCP cccp.
• 32:44
  That's right. Isn't it cccp well God, that
• 32:48
  right three C's there's that's that's the main that's the main
• 32:53
  organization of the the think cccp.
• 32:59
  Yeah I believe that the Russian Cyrillic abbreviation for USSR
• 33:09
  Because C is actually s. And then our it P is actually
• 33:13
  our, there's some, there's a nice.
• 33:16
  Was it, some sort of organization that this exists in
• 33:20
  China as or either a wing of the government or the actual
• 33:23
  government itself? Which is Because by that name
• 33:26
  doesn't know. I forget what, like, like the CC
• 33:31
  PPC or ccz. The Chinese consultative, right?
• 33:37
  People's political conference or someone that one.
• 33:40
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 33:41
  Yeah. There there is that body.
• 33:45
  That that's what I wanted to talk about.
• 33:46
  So like that particular body has been releasing videos with
• 33:51
  English dubs or speak in English, sort of fighting back.
• 33:56
  Against what westerners are saying and saying like, oh, none
• 34:00
  of this horrible stuff happens. What do you mean?
• 34:02
  It's great here. You know and it's some of it is,
• 34:07
  how can I put this? It's crazy to watch it.
• 34:11
  It's like it's delusion, you know, it's trying to kind of
• 34:15
  paint this idea that our nothing ever had terrible happens here.
• 34:20
  At reality. It's a very different story.
• 34:22
  That's actually one of the weaknesses that I see in Chinese
• 34:25
  media. Area where it's like a great.
• 34:28
  Like, I've been around, like they sent me a handful of
• 34:31
  places. Like I've seen the bridge over
• 34:35
  this enormous River. Gorge, it was a gorgeous.
• 34:38
  And I've I've like okay the bridge is real.
• 34:44
  I've written the trains all over China.
• 34:46
  I've Scenes wrote the road that used to be mods.
• 34:51
  Now it's paved. I've I've seen the farm
• 34:54
  machinery instead of farm animals.
• 34:56
  I've seen the, they can grow tea now and make a lot of money
• 35:00
  instead of growing rice just for their own consumption.
• 35:03
  Yes, I've seen this with my own eyes.
• 35:04
  It's all there, it's all real. It's all happening.
• 35:06
  Yes, that's true. It's all true.
• 35:09
  Now there's some way in which they're showing you the nice
• 35:12
  side instead of the bad side, but there's also like, okay,
• 35:16
  yeah, it's true. True terrorist attacks did come
• 35:19
  out of the Northwest China done by, you know, some Islamic
• 35:23
  groups so. Yeah, that did happen.
• 35:26
  But you're also like if you have, if you have to ask the
• 35:29
  question, whether it's genocide you're clearly on crimes against
• 35:34
  humanity territory, They like, they don't.
• 35:43
  It's like the only way you're going to get to talk about.
• 35:45
  It is if you're like years and here is deep and demonstrating
• 35:50
  your loyalty to the regime, this gun, please continue.
• 35:57
  Yeah. It's I think like there's the
• 36:01
  Asian culture side where they like to keep a lot of problem
• 36:05
  like discussion of problems in the family.
• 36:08
  Like so yeah, we all know it's happening.
• 36:11
  But Not going to talk about it and because you're not in our
• 36:15
  family. You can't talk about it.
• 36:20
  No, I get that. It's just to me, is I think,
• 36:24
  from an outsider's perspective, looking in, for many of us, we
• 36:28
  look at China. Is this nation where the
• 36:32
  government is so obsessed with keeping control over everything.
• 36:37
  You know, for example, what we hear about the internet over
• 36:41
  there and, you know, not being able to access, you know,
• 36:47
  outside of China. Obviously, there are vpns.
• 36:49
  Stuff. I'm sure people still go.
• 36:50
  Yeah. That that you know.
• 36:52
  Yeah, well, yeah, well for instance, take WeChat as an
• 36:55
  example that you can do everything with that, but
• 36:59
  they've constructed it in that way that you have to have that
• 37:03
  app. Now, you have to have that in
• 37:05
  order to just kind of live in there.
• 37:07
  I mean, I don't know what was your experience with.
• 37:09
  Did you have to own that app to do things?
• 37:11
  Or were you able to operate without?
• 37:14
  Well, I didn't have a smartphone until I got back to China in
• 37:17
  2016. Mean.
• 37:19
  All right. Okay.
• 37:21
  I was late getting a smart, a cell phone actually.
• 37:24
  It wasn't until I I was visiting some friends in another city
• 37:30
  here in America. When I went to the train station
• 37:36
  that they would have suggested that I go to had, they known
• 37:38
  that it existed. So they did get me late at
• 37:45
  night. We know when all the bums were
• 37:48
  out At that point it's like yeah okay time to get a cell phone.
• 37:59
  Like once I like WeChat, okay, you can pay for things you can
• 38:04
  lick, you can order train tickets.
• 38:06
  You can okay like organized messages message.
• 38:10
  A bunch of people meet up with like, yeah, getting getting
• 38:14
  WeChat opened up life in China. It's a Like, there's just the
• 38:22
  tech Dimension, like, the like blocking outside internet partly
• 38:28
  it forces China's Tech, sector to develop like that part.
• 38:31
  I can, I can understand that part.
• 38:33
  I can respect. There's like, yeah, you don't
• 38:36
  want to be at the mercy of Silicon Valley.
• 38:39
  I totally get that. I am an American and I don't
• 38:42
  entirely like Silicon Valley. It's like I wish there was more
• 38:47
  But like a broader base for our Tech sector.
• 38:54
  But then also, once you have an enormous corporate corporation
• 38:59
  like that, then it's it's an easier handle for the government
• 39:02
  to grab to control all of what's going on, that.
• 39:06
  That's also part of why I don't like Silicon Valley so much
• 39:08
  because it's this one place. This one, ethos this one Spirit
• 39:12
  to this one, way of doing things.
• 39:14
  So there isn't like our system is an open system.
• 39:17
  You can discuss things when we talk about problems, it's a sign
• 39:21
  of strength because we believe that problems can Resolved.
• 39:25
  Okay. But with what you're saying
• 39:27
  there is that you don't like that insert Silicon Valley.
• 39:30
  It's like only one way of doing things you know like okay but at
• 39:35
  the same time I mean that's kind of the same with China.
• 39:37
  Is it not WeChat? Is this one app that's managed
• 39:41
  and owned by or at least there's a big interest controlling
• 39:47
  interest from the government and it's that there's nothing else.
• 39:50
  Like it's not like they could use other apps From my
• 39:54
  understanding it's like you have to own this app to function to
• 39:58
  live. That's that's part of the
• 40:00
  network effect like that's like like Facebook or Instagram
• 40:07
  overshot? No no finish up that don't get
• 40:08
  me wrong I'm not. Yeah.
• 40:10
  Okay that Facebook. Yeah.
• 40:11
  The perfect example but here the same time there are there is the
• 40:16
  ability to But you don't have to have Facebook to live.
• 40:21
  Do you know what I mean? You don't need to own that or
• 40:24
  have those apps on your phone in order to, for example, pay your
• 40:28
  bills, which I understand with the WeChat app, you have to have
• 40:33
  that app in order to pay your bills.
• 40:36
  The dryer Aris, their payment platforms.
• 40:38
  Like, one of the okay, one of the things you look at going
• 40:42
  between different countries, is they have all of the same stuff.
• 40:46
  It just comes in different. Exes.
• 40:49
  So there was so there are other options than you don't have to
• 40:53
  use the weiter. Yeah.
• 40:55
  Like America hasn't had the benefit of being completely
• 40:59
  destroyed by War for a long time.
• 41:02
  So we inherit a lot of Legacy Technologies like we still have
• 41:07
  checkbooks, I don't like mine is in another state because when I
• 41:13
  came back to America I came back to a different state where I had
• 41:16
  other family. I've got extended family in
• 41:20
  Texas, so I moved there rather than go back to California.
• 41:25
  Just I needed a different. I needed a different scene.
• 41:30
  Like okay credit cards are kind of like okay they're helpful but
• 41:35
  they're still you know 60s 70s technology whereas with with
• 41:42
  China. Okay they were able to go a
• 41:44
  little they were able to take one or two steps further because
• 41:47
  they didn't have conventions that they were having to follow.
• 41:50
  So then it was easier to build like a payment platform into
• 41:53
  something like WeChat. There's, there are other payment
• 41:57
  platforms alipay Jeff football. I never got Jeff about.
• 42:04
  I had to get onto Ellie pay to use their e-commerce platform.
• 42:09
  Taobao. So there are other things.
• 42:18
  So it's the, there are other things, it's a One of the things
• 42:25
  I find comparing one country and another, it's important to see
• 42:29
  as much as possible. What is the same?
• 42:31
  So then you can really narrow down the important
• 42:33
  differentiators. We got that, would you say there
• 42:40
  are any kind of, like misconceptions about China?
• 42:43
  Like, obviously, because my perspective is just everything
• 42:47
  I've read and heard about the country, but given that you were
• 42:50
  there in person living it. Is there anything that?
• 42:55
  You know, as you live there you will at all.
• 42:57
  That's this isn't true. This isn't the reality it goes,
• 43:04
  It goes a few different ways. Is the way I put it for a
• 43:09
  lecture that I gave for my university is just kind of like
• 43:15
  here's an alumni who's been around a bit and is coming back
• 43:18
  to give a lecture, you know, just to you know give back a
• 43:22
  bit. The way I put it was like if we
• 43:26
  think we understand China the way that we understand the
• 43:28
  French, our mistake is thinking, we understand the French because
• 43:34
  okay, we're familiar. with the French but like it's but unless
• 43:40
  you really get to know France, you don't actually know them
• 43:46
  whereas China which is so unfamiliar that everything is
• 43:52
  he's out there everything like so it if we have some notion
• 43:58
  that French women don't shave their armpits, like okay, maybe
• 44:04
  that's true and maybe that's a fact, we know but the, like, the
• 44:12
  fact is that human beings are You could say Divine Mysteries,
• 44:18
  like not that we're all gods but that we are like that.
• 44:22
  God created us the way that he did and there's a lot we can
• 44:27
  find out about that. But That unless we you know tell
• 44:33
  each other about ourselves we're not going to like I can't just
• 44:36
  look at you and just know. So, like China shows us our own
• 44:41
  mysteriousness because China is mysterious because we are
• 44:45
  mysterious because we're all human.
• 44:48
  So it everything takes time and familiarity to get to know, but
• 44:56
  was there anything? Okay, let's say like you had an
• 45:00
  idea when you were going there of like, okay, this is what I
• 45:03
  think it's might be like and then throughout the course of
• 45:07
  living there, you would like, actually this isn't the case
• 45:09
  that it's actually like this was there.
• 45:11
  Anything in particular that sticks out that immediately was
• 45:14
  disproven? That's maybe one thing is like
• 45:24
  okay like everybody knowing Kung Fu or something, okay you'll
• 45:28
  have a lot more. People who might know it because
• 45:31
  it's a local thing or more local anyway or Everybody eating rice
• 45:40
  will know. There's also noodles like in
• 45:42
  North China. It's more popular to do noodles
• 45:45
  in South China's more, where you'll have the rice, they have
• 45:50
  bread, they have steamed buns called Monto, another thing to
• 46:03
  understand is China is a continental size country that
• 46:09
  you like I heard somebody say that in one of their English
• 46:14
  classes that their students said that they would sooner marry a
• 46:20
  foreigner then marry somebody from North China if they're from
• 46:25
  the south of yourself trying to if they're from the north
• 46:27
  because the difference might be easier to handle.
• 46:31
  Oh wow. Well come also Chinese is more
• 46:35
  like a family of languages than just a Which was dialects.
• 46:42
  Like what they call it dialect is could be as different as
• 46:47
  German from Dutch from English. Like even something like
• 46:56
  Cantonese might be more closely related to Vietnamese than
• 46:59
  Mandarin. I could like a what would you
• 47:05
  say? The Western influence is like
• 47:09
  over there because I imagine in the major cities, you know,
• 47:13
  you're going to have as you kind of sort of pointed out earlier,
• 47:15
  there is more touristy areas, you know, as I imagine there's
• 47:20
  probably going to be like a maybe a Starbucks or McDonald's
• 47:23
  here and there, but Like in general, is there a lot of
• 47:29
  foreign influence, or foreign businesses, or anything like
• 47:31
  that. And what's the kind of vibe from
• 47:35
  people living in China towards foreign say, businesses
• 47:40
  products, media, Etc. Well, foreign things in Chinese
• 47:45
  history, from what I understand, there's always the Allure of the
• 47:50
  Exotic. There's always the Allure of the
• 47:52
  prestige luxury. Every product.
• 47:55
  So like if you hear about the Opium War that the Chinese
• 47:59
  emperor said, yeah, we don't need your foreign product.
• 48:01
  Well that's he's putting on a show for the domestic audience.
• 48:05
  Say okay you know China is better than all you but on the
• 48:10
  side yeah they're buying up all the foreign stuff because it's
• 48:13
  really cool and There's something did keep coming.
• 48:20
  Did keep the East India, company coming back to China.
• 48:24
  Other than that, they wanted T, it was just, they weren't
• 48:29
  getting enough money out of it. The like so a friend of mine
• 48:38
  lived in another city and he asked a friend to take him to,
• 48:42
  you know, good local food and the friend kept taking him to
• 48:45
  KFC McDonald's Burger King. I'm not sure if they had Burger
• 48:50
  King out here because those were like, safe clean I'm things.
• 48:57
  So sometimes I like foreign products can be like higher
• 49:01
  quality. This is ceasing to be the case
• 49:07
  because Chinese industry is advancing and the and local
• 49:10
  demand is increasing in their enter their their demands for
• 49:17
  Quality. That's interesting so domestic
• 49:23
  brands are more and more able to deliver Right.
• 49:26
  So they kind of have like a It's like a perception that the
• 49:30
  foreign brands are maybe lower quality.
• 49:33
  I mean, I could understand like the in general, like, KFC's not
• 49:37
  gonna be like fantastic quality because it's fast food but I
• 49:41
  mean well, no, well fur at least for a long time, it has been
• 49:48
  seen as some sort of quality, like it is cool to go to KFC.
• 49:53
  Like I've in two different places in Beijing.
• 49:55
  I saw to like a KFC across the From a KFC and both of them are
• 50:00
  full, okay? So they, yeah, they are popular
• 50:05
  there. There's it's not like, it
• 50:07
  doesn't look as stigma. I guess is what I'm trying to
• 50:09
  do. Not about.
• 50:10
  Yeah. Okay.
• 50:11
  Now it's interesting because you know, if it will like South
• 50:16
  Korea for example, which I know is a complete different Nation
• 50:18
  but the idea we get of, you know, South Korea is it's a very
• 50:23
  kind of westernized place. It's got its own culture, you
• 50:26
  know, its own exports say like Kpop things like that are very
• 50:31
  much You know, from there that that's their culture kind of
• 50:36
  thing. But then they've Blended that
• 50:37
  with Western culture but China almost a feels like an anomaly
• 50:42
  in that regard. It feels like it's not like that
• 50:46
  base is interesting to hear that.
• 50:47
  They do have these these businesses out there and they
• 50:51
  are received in a positive way. Yeah, martir question about
• 50:56
  like, what influence Western things would have on China, is
• 50:59
  it like techniques? Technology business structures,
• 51:06
  like there are parts of the Chinese government that were
• 51:09
  directly inspired by similar structures in the American
• 51:14
  government. So they they they copy that but
• 51:19
  they make it totally their own. It's like so some of their, the
• 51:25
  structure of their regulatory bodies.
• 51:30
  It's this is stuff. I've heard on podcast, so you
• 51:33
  don't have a lot of personal stuff to back it up.
• 51:36
  But it, or like the way they'll structure military.
• 51:41
  They, I heard that they brought over a lot from the American
• 51:46
  Military like some, like an american guy visited, a Chinese
• 51:51
  ship, and they gave him a challenge coin in much the same
• 51:55
  fashion that you would get if you visited an American Military
• 51:59
  thing, Ng. That, that wasn't just.
• 52:07
  That like that wasn't just doing the American things they heard
• 52:11
  an American was coming. But at the same time they they
• 52:16
  make it all work for Chinese purposes, okay?
• 52:22
  So they'll, they'll copy all of the ways to do the things that
• 52:25
  they wanted to do, but it's going to be Chinese in charge.
• 52:31
  Do they communicate that as well?
• 52:33
  Do they they don't ever admit to it being influenced by the West?
• 52:38
  It's like this is homegrown. This is something we've created.
• 52:41
  Is that kind of the prevailing message there or is that just
• 52:44
  just how it's presented The the, the, the we did this, we created
• 52:54
  this, I believe it. As far as we did this, we
• 52:57
  created this. Yeah.
• 53:00
  It's totally our own. This that Nair thing in, maybe
• 53:03
  not, but that's not really important because everybody's
• 53:07
  copying everybody like a lot of American industry getting a
• 53:11
  week. So much copyright theft from
• 53:15
  from British industry. Free show.
• 53:17
  But is there like a conscious effort from them to communicate
• 53:22
  that? Did you hear anyone saying
• 53:23
  things like that? I think it's more like they will
• 53:31
  consciously No, I'm not sure that there is fair enough.
• 53:40
  As I was just curious about that because again, I think from an
• 53:46
  outsider's perspective looking in, it is kind of fascinating to
• 53:50
  consider the government's kind of control and things and how
• 53:54
  they approach things and what specifically what they're
• 53:57
  telling people I think that's the main thing.
• 53:59
  I'm interested in is what is being communicated to people?
• 54:03
  Is it like, what we hear where it's kind of people, I mean,
• 54:06
  it's never like exactly how its presented in media.
• 54:11
  We know that, I know that on the ground, it's going to be
• 54:14
  different from like what CNN is saying it's like, you know, like
• 54:18
  I know that but at the same time I am curious because you know,
• 54:22
  you hear these stories, every now and again of people going to
• 54:24
  prison for even just saying something that the government
• 54:28
  didn't like or you know, I mean like you hear these stories,
• 54:32
  same as you do in Russia. For example.
• 54:36
  So it's interesting and switch it up a little bit.
• 54:40
  Actually, there's this This social credit system in China,
• 54:47
  and for those listening who aren't aware of what that is
• 54:49
  basically. It's like from what I understand
• 54:54
  a system in place, whereby it's like a rating scale, almost like
• 55:01
  the rating scale. You might have if you're using
• 55:03
  like, the Uber app and you've got a rating as a customer or as
• 55:07
  a driver positive or negative. However, the key aspect of this
• 55:15
  is that if your rating is low, and you have, A really low
• 55:22
  rating that can prevent you from doing things.
• 55:25
  For example, being able to fly out of the country, being able
• 55:29
  to get a taxi, being able to do certain things.
• 55:33
  That's in a nutshell, what we hear about social credit system,
• 55:38
  what's your experience of the social credit system?
• 55:41
  My personal experience goes about, as I only have two sides,
• 55:47
  where I really have any experience of that one.
• 55:51
  Is when I've ridden on the fast train, I would hear the message
• 55:57
  in Chinese than an English. I would understand the English
• 56:00
  one, not the Chinese one that if certain things happen, you're
• 56:04
  not going to be allowed to ride. That kind of train for up to
• 56:07
  like six months. Oh wow.
• 56:10
  Yeah, likewise like, for example, what like what would
• 56:15
  be, what would be what would you be penalized for to then mean
• 56:20
  that you? Couldn't travel on the train for
• 56:22
  six months. I was late.
• 56:23
  Like if you're smoking if you're not following directions of
• 56:28
  trained staff, if you're like like making too much of a
• 56:33
  disturbance if your Well, it's like like some of it might be
• 56:41
  parallel to when this one. I think this lady had been a TV
• 56:47
  star, maybe even on Baywatch, like when was Baywatch, is that
• 56:52
  the 80s and 90s? Because the early 90s, maybe a
• 56:56
  former TV star. Apparently, like had an episode
• 57:02
  on an airplane. She was picked up by the FBI,
• 57:05
  because if you make trouble on, hmm, like on an airplane, that's
• 57:12
  FBI jurisdiction. That's big boy, jail.
• 57:16
  Um, so she was picked up by the FBI so that that is, that is
• 57:22
  some of the kind of stuff that the social credit score system
• 57:25
  addresses. But then there's the Chinese
• 57:29
  side of it that like, I'm not part of the Chinese system like
• 57:34
  so, yes, I am a Christian. I was working in Chinese media,
• 57:39
  like, like, most of my colleagues were members of the
• 57:41
  Communist Party of China it would a Chinese Christian get
• 57:46
  there, I don't know that they would Okay.
• 57:53
  So basically it didn't really affect you much.
• 57:56
  Yeah. Because I am like, I don't speak
• 57:59
  with a local voice, I don't speak with you.
• 58:03
  I don't have Chinese family. I don't have, I didn't even
• 58:06
  marry into it. Like I I don't know the I kind
• 58:11
  of have Chinese friends, but it's not like I have the, you
• 58:15
  know, an uncle who's high up in the government somewhere who can
• 58:19
  get me. And then I can Can, you know,
• 58:22
  make my own network? And I don't have any of those
• 58:25
  connections. So it's easier to shut me out.
• 58:28
  Did you know you, did you have luck?
• 58:37
  In terms of this system and how its measured was there anything
• 58:43
  that was measured against you or people that you knew like, how
• 58:49
  is this system actually measured?
• 58:50
  Like is it for a poor? How is it measured?
• 58:54
  Well again because I'm not Chinese feel like I like yeah I
• 59:00
  had a Chinese bank accounts because when I was paid it was
• 59:04
  Into a Chinese account, Chinese money to a Chinese account at
• 59:08
  the Chinese Bank. I didn't even bother trying to
• 59:12
  close them all because it's like okay once I've got the money
• 59:15
  it's like it's a lot of trouble to go open it and then if I'm
• 59:20
  just leaving the country I'm just going to leave them to deal
• 59:22
  with this inactive bank account. But anything like buying a
• 59:30
  house. Anything like educating children
• 59:34
  at a good school in a certain area getting hospital treatment.
• 59:39
  I got hospital treatment in China, I had surgery to correct
• 59:45
  a hernia but see the thing is I was living as a foreigner in
• 59:49
  Beijing access to the Chinese hospitals.
• 59:54
  So like I paid in cash. But I didn't have the Chinese
• 1:00:00
  Insurance. Like, Chinese people will come
• 1:00:05
  to Beijing because that's where better hospitals are so like,
• 1:00:09
  there's all this like so I'm as a working adult and not somebody
• 1:00:15
  who's buying property, there are so many sides of things that
• 1:00:20
  could be. Blocked to me if I wanted to be
• 1:00:24
  a Chinese person and live there permanently.
• 1:00:28
  That is like, so if I was Chinese, okay, maybe the ability
• 1:00:33
  to live in a good area, the ability to buy property, the
• 1:00:36
  ability to buy search kinds of property, the ability to have
• 1:00:39
  certain kinds of jobs, might be blocked to me, depending on how
• 1:00:44
  the social credit score system. Works like there are all these
• 1:00:48
  little organizations like the, you know, the Communist Party.
• 1:00:52
  You Full Igor, the your neighborhood organization, or
• 1:00:57
  this, or that volunteer thing, or these things could add to
• 1:01:01
  your credit score. If you're somehow part of an
• 1:01:07
  underground religious organization and your found out
• 1:01:09
  or something that I guess could count against you or you can
• 1:01:15
  look at it in the more extreme sense.
• 1:01:17
  Like, if you look at what's happening to people in Northwest
• 1:01:19
  China, Or, you know, even in Tibet if somebody has spent time
• 1:01:29
  abroad, that might earn you with a spell in one of the camps that
• 1:01:33
  they've got going on. If you talk to relatives abroad,
• 1:01:37
  all the time, okay? That might have you raked in, if
• 1:01:41
  you go to mosque, a lot that could get you brought in, if you
• 1:01:46
  grow a long beard, if you keep the Ramadan fast, if you But
• 1:01:52
  then also they're much more tightly controlled up there much
• 1:01:56
  more tightly monitored. So in a nutshell it's any
• 1:02:00
  behavior that erratic or doesn't fall within acceptable behaviors
• 1:02:08
  that they've outlined. Yeah, it really depends who and
• 1:02:12
  what you are. Like if you're Chinese and
• 1:02:15
  you're maybe more eccentric or something.
• 1:02:18
  Okay, well that's okay your your part of the Han nationality Your
• 1:02:23
  you are Chinese. Whereas if what you do is you
• 1:02:29
  are a member of a class or a nationality that is more of
• 1:02:35
  something that the government thinks might be a problem.
• 1:02:38
  That's where you personally will start to have more problems.
• 1:02:44
  And I mean, I know you mentioned that you didn't have any
• 1:02:46
  problems but like did you did you feel any pressure?
• 1:02:53
  While you were there as a foreigner like, did you feel
• 1:02:56
  like in day-to-day life so outside of the business and
• 1:02:59
  stuff? Did you feel like there was a
• 1:03:02
  pressure to behave in a certain way to be basically behaving
• 1:03:06
  yourself or do they kind of give you a free pass because you're a
• 1:03:10
  foreigner. There were a lot of times.
• 1:03:13
  They got a free pass as a foreigner when I bring in.
• 1:03:17
  Like okay. I am a white American discounts.
• 1:03:21
  Very Much in my favor in terms of like somebody giving me the
• 1:03:26
  benefit of the doubt, like there was a time I was like my WeChat
• 1:03:31
  pay didn't work for some reason like they needed to verify my ID
• 1:03:34
  or something. That was really infuriating.
• 1:03:36
  Okay. Some Chinese guy paid for me and
• 1:03:39
  then gave me his Chinese. Gave me his WeChat account so I
• 1:03:42
  could pay him back once. I got everything going.
• 1:03:44
  Wow. Okay or like I was it just a
• 1:03:48
  random stranger or where was this?
• 1:03:50
  Yeah some random stranger did As for me in Beijing, pretty kind
• 1:03:56
  of him. What was it for that?
• 1:03:57
  What you just needed help and some guy helped you.
• 1:04:00
  Yes. It's like like $15 at the at the
• 1:04:04
  supermarket. Oh, wow.
• 1:04:05
  Us already Sweet cool. Yeah, so like, you know, I have
• 1:04:10
  known very kind Chinese people. But there's also, if you're in
• 1:04:15
  somebody's in group they will bend over backwards for you but
• 1:04:19
  you're also going to do the same for them.
• 1:04:22
  Okay. I like okay one time.
• 1:04:32
  Okay, I was going to the city Tianjin, so I rode the fast
• 1:04:35
  train. Then I was getting off the fast
• 1:04:37
  train getting onto the Tianjin Subway or something.
• 1:04:41
  And like, I had three you on not for and so the like the lady at
• 1:04:46
  the ticket desk like today, okay, whatever.
• 1:04:51
  Or maybe I didn't have the right payment platform and they just
• 1:04:55
  figured if they didn't charge me or they Vicki.
• 1:05:01
  What there was? They just kind of let me go.
• 1:05:05
  So like what do they have done that for somebody else?
• 1:05:07
  Like like if I was a black African, would they have done
• 1:05:10
  that for me? I don't know to beat to me.
• 1:05:13
  It kind of sounds like and I've been convinced that this for
• 1:05:16
  many years ever since I went to the, I went to the state's very
• 1:05:19
  briefly on a holiday in like 2014.
• 1:05:23
  Yeah. And I remember just being in
• 1:05:25
  like a random gas station on the way to Oh, gosh, maybe Las
• 1:05:33
  Vegas, something like that was in a middle of nowhere.
• 1:05:35
  And it was so it was boiling outside and amazingly
• 1:05:40
  air-conditioned in the gas stations, and fantastic.
• 1:05:42
  Anyway, I just sit there and just watch the conversation
• 1:05:46
  between the cashier and the guy getting.
• 1:05:50
  I don't know. It's petrol whatever.
• 1:05:52
  And they just chat and clearly they knew each other reasonably
• 1:05:55
  well and This will sound silly but the same time.
• 1:06:00
  It will make sense in the context of what we're talking
• 1:06:02
  about. It man.
• 1:06:03
  Amazed me how just normal the conversation.
• 1:06:09
  Was, it wasn't like anything. I've been brought up to believe
• 1:06:12
  that Americans are like this. Americans are like this, you
• 1:06:15
  know, or Chinese about this Chinese like this.
• 1:06:18
  It's like wherever you go in the world life at its core is still
• 1:06:24
  fundamentally the same. People are just trying to live
• 1:06:26
  their life. Do all they need to do.
• 1:06:28
  You go home, just live a relatively easy life you know.
• 1:06:33
  I don't I don't doubt the fact that like in those instances
• 1:06:36
  that you laid out there some of those probably, maybe it did
• 1:06:39
  help that you were Foreigner. You know.
• 1:06:41
  But I think sometimes it is just genuinely just like Eva people
• 1:06:44
  being nice or just people just making their own lives easier,
• 1:06:49
  like whatever. It's a couple of dollars.
• 1:06:51
  Here you go, no problem. Don't worry about it, let you
• 1:06:53
  know. Yeah, I've, I've had a lot of
• 1:06:57
  those experiences. As well where it's it's just, I
• 1:07:01
  would go to the same little store in your work every day.
• 1:07:04
  Maybe two or three times a day. Like, if I wanted my Skittles
• 1:07:09
  fix, they didn't have any dr. Pepper though.
• 1:07:13
  If I like like I knew this small store lady, I even made sure to
• 1:07:21
  write out a card for her in Chinese like forget if I had a
• 1:07:25
  colleague help me or if I ran it through Google Translate.
• 1:07:28
  A laborious Lee. Did the just writing it in my
• 1:07:33
  just doing Chinese? Anyway, the Look like yeah, the
• 1:07:41
  the normal life poking through is like, yeah, person person.
• 1:07:45
  Do you know, but one part I wanted to make sure to bring in,
• 1:07:50
  to answer your question. Like, I tried to be very careful
• 1:07:53
  to not be that foreigner. Like, I did have a few times
• 1:07:57
  when I flipped out, because I have a bit of a short temper,
• 1:08:00
  some more times than I would like to admit.
• 1:08:06
  But like, I tried to be like, I tried to not be that Foreigner
• 1:08:15
  because China is basically like a see that you're you're writing
• 1:08:20
  a small boat over the top of and if you have a good relationship
• 1:08:24
  with the see you won't drown but you you really really need to
• 1:08:32
  respect what you're dealing with because like, like they, there
• 1:08:38
  is no defeating China look like anything that like everything
• 1:08:43
  for in that has come into China, has been made to Chinese That's
• 1:08:49
  interesting that point right there.
• 1:08:51
  So yeah, basically, I mean, every country will have a degree
• 1:08:56
  of patriotism or whatever, but like more often than not, you
• 1:08:59
  hear about things being integrated, like here in the UK,
• 1:09:03
  we have Mary many kind of foreign influences that have
• 1:09:06
  become part of British culture, but they are still fundamentally
• 1:09:10
  foreign. So for example, Kebab shops are
• 1:09:13
  a pretty common here, but they are still Turkish or, you know,
• 1:09:17
  whether they originate from, they still got that vibe in
• 1:09:19
  there. Like, you know, that they're the
• 1:09:23
  presence of the culture is still.
• 1:09:24
  Very prominent in there, it's just happens to have been
• 1:09:28
  integrated within our culture. But what you're saying is
• 1:09:31
  interesting because you're saying, they basically take the
• 1:09:33
  foreign things and they make it their own, they put their own
• 1:09:36
  spin on it, or something like that.
• 1:09:39
  Well, it's like, say cunt cities like Shanghai, which became a
• 1:09:44
  lot of what they are today because of interaction with the
• 1:09:48
  outside they're completely Chinese.
• 1:09:54
  Owned and operated. Now that But one of my favorite
• 1:10:01
  books is Moby. Dick I referenced this in a
• 1:10:05
  lecture for a for at a university, I was teaching at in
• 1:10:10
  China. They needed a professor somebody
• 1:10:14
  and I was that Professor somebody Because I couldn't find
• 1:10:18
  who they needed. So I just anyway like so you
• 1:10:25
  like in Moby Dick, you have all these foreigners who are the
• 1:10:28
  harpooneers, who are the K, but the the rich people who own big
• 1:10:32
  homes in Nantucket. They're all Native America,
• 1:10:35
  they're all native-born Americans.
• 1:10:40
  The. So you might have foreign
• 1:10:42
  Executives come over and make a lot of money but who owns
• 1:10:45
  everything at the end of the day?
• 1:10:47
  The Chinese do. There's a there's a YouTuber
• 1:10:52
  called serpent Zed a that church Z being, you know, Z so serpent
• 1:10:59
  Izzy. A I think he's He shows.
• 1:11:07
  Like if you watch a lot of his YouTube videos it's a good
• 1:11:10
  substitute for being in China I would maybe look at some of his
• 1:11:16
  earlier videos. A lot of his later videos get
• 1:11:18
  like lean a little more is a little bit more of a message in
• 1:11:24
  some of the later videos. I'm not going to use the
• 1:11:26
  propaganda word but this is interesting.
• 1:11:30
  So he's like a foreigner who's moved there and now he's kind of
• 1:11:35
  he's in America now. Okay, I he's traveled all over
• 1:11:40
  China. He has footage from all over
• 1:11:42
  China so he can give you a lot of good really hard data but I
• 1:11:50
  take him with a little bit. With a little bit of a grain of
• 1:11:54
  salt but still like largely trust him to be telling the
• 1:11:57
  truth. What?
• 1:12:03
  What, what was it that we were talking about, right?
• 1:12:10
  I forgot why I brought him out. Well.
• 1:12:16
  I think, basically, With China. It's it's like as you said, like
• 1:12:23
  this idea that, you know, they want to have ownership over
• 1:12:27
  everything and make things their own that was kind of prevailing
• 1:12:32
  narrative. We were discussing and I mean
• 1:12:35
  that much is is very clear. But it's interesting how how you
• 1:12:41
  said before that, they make things there and I find that
• 1:12:44
  very interesting just think it shows a commitment to keeping
• 1:12:50
  things. the way they want it to be and As you said, like in the
• 1:12:56
  very beginning of all of this, this idea is commitment to
• 1:13:00
  pushing local versus you know International.
• 1:13:05
  I mean, that's a problem. I think that we have here in the
• 1:13:07
  UK is that we're, there's too much of a focus on Imports as
• 1:13:10
  opposed to exports. I think that's, that's always a
• 1:13:13
  problem in any country. You know, you got to focus on
• 1:13:15
  what you're creating, what you're producing them giving to
• 1:13:18
  the world from an economic standpoint.
• 1:13:21
  Not just culturally but like you know just to keep your nation
• 1:13:24
  going. I Because China has done.
• 1:13:27
  That is pretty probably really help them when it comes to
• 1:13:31
  business and and everything. As and, of course, we know that
• 1:13:34
  so many products and various different things and
• 1:13:36
  manufactured in China normally to save money.
• 1:13:40
  But for them, that's going to benefit them a lot because
• 1:13:42
  there's so much business coming in for them, but they're also
• 1:13:46
  still fundamentally creating, you know, doing things their
• 1:13:51
  way. Yeah.
• 1:13:53
  Like that's one of the things that I'm exploring in my podcast
• 1:13:56
  is it's the like China's rearticulation of its of its own
• 1:14:03
  identity over the course of all the changes that going from
• 1:14:09
  being a you know, Dynasty to Complete overhaul of society
• 1:14:16
  from 1839 to the present. Like just all the things that
• 1:14:20
  happened, China is still China and I think it is is wrong to
• 1:14:26
  say that like like that China was invented.
• 1:14:31
  So no, it was rearticulated. Maybe in a revolutionary fashion
• 1:14:35
  but even if you go from, you know, France under the, you
• 1:14:39
  know, under King Louis, whatever number Today, you know Republic
• 1:14:45
  1234 written. Napoleon one Napoleon, three.
• 1:14:49
  It's still France. even though they then there's a sharp
• 1:14:54
  distinction between You know, Roman goal and and France.
• 1:15:04
  That it is still one thing and and China keeps coming back.
• 1:15:16
  The quite right there, isn't it? China keeps coming back?
• 1:15:19
  Oh yeah. What would you say?
• 1:15:23
  Were the best and worst things about day-to-day life in China?
• 1:15:34
  Some of the things that I wanted to say are actually things that
• 1:15:37
  I was told that like we want to find people to like write
• 1:15:41
  articles like other than about that.
• 1:15:43
  Like it's so easy to say oh yeah the public transportation is so
• 1:15:46
  convenient. Everything's so modern those
• 1:15:48
  that the other thing Well in Chinese Parks can be quite nice.
• 1:16:00
  Maybe it depends what city you're in but I really like
• 1:16:05
  Chinese Parks. One of the another thing I like
• 1:16:08
  is it China feels like it is meaningfully full of people
• 1:16:13
  where it seems like people want to make some like especially
• 1:16:18
  some of the more extreme environmentalist signs of things
• 1:16:22
  like they want to make people out to be.
• 1:16:25
  E. The the problem is that, you
• 1:16:29
  know, people is us. We are people like China feels
• 1:16:36
  more, it feels meaningfully full of people.
• 1:16:40
  Whereas like in America, it seems like we're trying to do
• 1:16:42
  without people. Like make machines to do things.
• 1:16:47
  No in China, you'll have like three or four guys.
• 1:16:51
  Sweeping the street, but you just have so many people.
• 1:16:58
  It's nice to see that many people.
• 1:17:01
  It wears upon you that they like one thing that I didn't really
• 1:17:07
  appreciate that. One thing that I came to
• 1:17:10
  appreciate after a number of years.
• 1:17:11
  This I like being around people who look like me.
• 1:17:15
  Okay, there's was, he felt kind of alone, being the Foreigner
• 1:17:22
  there, like in a sense. Yeah, okay, yeah.
• 1:17:26
  That that is. That is one of the It's hard.
• 1:17:30
  If did you feel a lot of loneliness when you were there?
• 1:17:34
  Oh yeah. I am.
• 1:17:37
  It's some of the best things I did for myself.
• 1:17:39
  Were to go out and find interests to get involved into
• 1:17:44
  to, you know, meet other people, just to even even have a bunch
• 1:17:49
  of acquaintances. If not really, really close
• 1:17:51
  friends or something. It's like, I need people who I
• 1:17:54
  can talk to in English at Native speed and making native English
• 1:17:59
  language jokes and You know, I can't just watch TV shows and
• 1:18:04
  movies and stuff. That's, I need to be able to
• 1:18:07
  have a dynamic conversation with real people.
• 1:18:11
  And it's a difficult one. I've I can reciprocate.
• 1:18:15
  I lived in Europe for a number of years and the first language
• 1:18:20
  was not English. I mean they did speak English
• 1:18:22
  but you know, it got difficult sometimes.
• 1:18:25
  Yeah. Like hearing it all the time and
• 1:18:26
  knowing that that's you got a make a conscious effort to learn
• 1:18:31
  the language to an extent and get by and stuff and yeah, damn,
• 1:18:35
  it can be lonely. It can be real lonely, sometimes
• 1:18:38
  so hard 1. And I wanted to see you were,
• 1:18:43
  when did you leave China? What year. 20 21, March, March,
• 1:18:50
  20 21. So this is interesting.
• 1:18:52
  So you would have been in China during the outbreak of covid-19.
• 1:18:58
  Yeah, I was working in Chinese media.
• 1:19:02
  When covid-19 broke out, okay. I got to get your thoughts on
• 1:19:07
  this. What it was like for you on the
• 1:19:09
  ground? What was it?
• 1:19:10
  Like experience in that first hand in China?
• 1:19:16
  I, thankfully avoided any quarantine time I went Okay, so
• 1:19:26
  the okay, so I was in Beijing for this.
• 1:19:31
  It was really, really taking off, right as Chinese new year
• 1:19:35
  was setting in that's when China shuts down anyway.
• 1:19:40
  I had a Chinese friend who from Wuhan.
• 1:19:44
  He was actually out in the countryside with his father at
• 1:19:47
  the time, so he did the Wuhan lockdown out in the countryside.
• 1:19:53
  I don't know how much better or worse that was.
• 1:19:59
  Apparently he had to drink a lot with his father because it
• 1:20:03
  looked otherwise dad's going to be drinking alone.
• 1:20:06
  Something like so normally Beijing is dead during Chinese
• 1:20:15
  New Year, just all the lights are off, nobody's home.
• 1:20:18
  Everybody's gone back to somewhere or they're just
• 1:20:21
  sitting around the house, watching Chinese TV, or, like
• 1:20:27
  Chinese people work hard all the time.
• 1:20:29
  Chinese New Year is one of the times when they don't, they
• 1:20:32
  just, they just don't and that, and that is good. so, where The
• 1:20:42
  normal holiday shutdown. Handed off to the.
• 1:20:49
  Something something dimmick, hope, it's not going to be a
• 1:20:52
  pandemic takes over was kind of hard to like the residential
• 1:20:57
  compound. I was living in, like they were
• 1:20:59
  starting to block off the exits. So, like, okay, this thing is
• 1:21:03
  normally open is now closed about this other way.
• 1:21:06
  Now, that's taped off. And then after a few more days,
• 1:21:10
  they took down my information to give me a pass so that I could
• 1:21:13
  show that I lived there. And so I could come and go from
• 1:21:16
  the place where I lived. And then Weeks and months would
• 1:21:21
  go by like so, a restaurant where I've been going, they took
• 1:21:24
  down like my name and phone number so that if there was an
• 1:21:28
  outbreak, they could trace me. Then they figured out an app
• 1:21:35
  which I still have, I just did it through WeChat, okay, there
• 1:21:39
  again. Okay, WeChat being in a critical
• 1:21:41
  part of life infrastructure like so if your green, your good, if
• 1:21:46
  your yellow and then red is like Okay, we're packing you off to
• 1:21:51
  somewhere to make sure you don't have the thing.
• 1:21:54
  Did you see that? They do that.
• 1:21:57
  Oh no, I never saw that. Thankfully I only ever had green
• 1:22:02
  but that did not happen to people.
• 1:22:03
  You knew like they've taken away somewhere know that that never
• 1:22:07
  happened to anybody. I knew but it did happen.
• 1:22:11
  Yeah. That's the that's the it
• 1:22:16
  happened that like on the one side, it's not as bad as the
• 1:22:21
  foreign media was showing like there is it seem like it's you
• 1:22:26
  never start a war with as much ammunition as you need?
• 1:22:30
  You so like yeah they're they're running short of masks.
• 1:22:33
  There's lots of people in the hospitals.
• 1:22:36
  Yeah. Because they don't plan for
• 1:22:37
  pandemics all the time. But like, but then on the other
• 1:22:42
  side, you know, China? Yeah, we built a hospital in 10
• 1:22:45
  days. Yeah.
• 1:22:46
  You brought together some prefabricated structures.
• 1:22:51
  Hmm, that were already built like so, yeah, you brought out
• 1:22:56
  emergency supplies and set up a thing.
• 1:22:58
  It's like yeah. And nobody talks about America
• 1:23:01
  setting up a hospital in Central Park or something really, really
• 1:23:05
  fast like yeah, it's called an army field Hospital.
• 1:23:08
  Whatever it is given that you were working in media at the
• 1:23:12
  time. Was there anything that you were
• 1:23:15
  seeing Did you have to kind of obscure the truth or was there
• 1:23:23
  anything the other print that wasn't the case?
• 1:23:27
  You know, like tell us a little bit about that and partly On one
• 1:23:34
  side, the Chinese media narrative was is like very much
• 1:23:38
  a cheerleading kind of thing like like, yeah, we're fighting
• 1:23:41
  this, we're dealing with it, we're tackling it.
• 1:23:45
  But then the other, like, there's just a lot, they just
• 1:23:47
  might not talk about eventually officials in Wuhan were
• 1:23:52
  punished, dismissed imprisoned, find whatever it was that
• 1:23:58
  happened. But it's always about the party
• 1:24:03
  leadership in Beijing, fixing things rather than my goodness.
• 1:24:10
  Maybe it's not so good to live in an authoritarian system that
• 1:24:13
  makes it hard to tell the truth when that comes up.
• 1:24:17
  So like like the guy who was punished locally, but then later
• 1:24:21
  lauded as a hero, even though he died of covid-19 for, you know,
• 1:24:24
  for trying to bring bring it out to the world.
• 1:24:30
  Like like so maybe somebody will be punished locally but then as
• 1:24:33
  things go by there reclassified as a hero and if they're safely
• 1:24:39
  did it's even easier because then they're not there to set
• 1:24:45
  the record in any other way than what the government would like
• 1:24:48
  to say is straight. like its Like okay if we compared to
• 1:24:59
  America, it's like, okay. So these nurses sharing stories
• 1:25:03
  of of shortages of supplies and like I like theirs.
• 1:25:10
  I don't know. Like, I don't know where the
• 1:25:12
  where to draw the line between sharing the truth and sharing
• 1:25:20
  unhelpful extra details about a situation that's already
• 1:25:24
  difficult like like what's telling the truth versus like we
• 1:25:32
  need to stick together and deal with this thing but also like we
• 1:25:36
  don't really like what's the appropriate amount of detail?
• 1:25:43
  Like if protective equipment doesn't exist like okay so is
• 1:25:47
  that ask it? Like so if that's a scandal okay
• 1:25:50
  so like where do we So they can in Chinese media.
• 1:25:56
  They're, they're talking about, we're working hard on it.
• 1:25:58
  We're we're really, really working hard on it and like,
• 1:26:01
  that's what they keep saying. Which okay?
• 1:26:04
  Like there's a certain focusing thing.
• 1:26:06
  Like for me, even like that was encouraging.
• 1:26:11
  But then the I guess there's a side on the Chinese language
• 1:26:18
  media where they talk about you know, fixing shortcomings and
• 1:26:24
  all that. I don't know about it because I
• 1:26:28
  don't read Chinese language media because I just can't also
• 1:26:34
  one thing to understand about Chinese media is that it's more
• 1:26:36
  didactic and preachy than it is, then it will ever be
• 1:26:41
  threatening. So like Fox News in America,
• 1:26:44
  talked about here. You're threatening threatening
• 1:26:47
  to drop us in a sea of coronavirus know, they're making
• 1:26:51
  a moralistic metaphor. Like if we did to you, what
• 1:26:55
  you're doing to us that would be like dropping you in a sea of
• 1:26:57
  coronavirus like it is more moralistic and preachy than like
• 1:27:03
  threatening though. You do have It's just a detail
• 1:27:08
  on it because I ask another question so I can focus on it,
• 1:27:12
  like the right thing. Oh, you're actually asking yes.
• 1:27:17
  Yes, yeah, yeah. Like I so easy to go on a on a
• 1:27:21
  rabbit Trail so I don't know if I'm no I'll be.
• 1:27:24
  I just wanted to kind of get an idea of.
• 1:27:26
  I guess what it was was like actually being there during that
• 1:27:29
  because I think it's a Is what is one thing hearing about
• 1:27:33
  stories from afar basically being there?
• 1:27:35
  I mean, I think the biggest thing is like, firstly, how many
• 1:27:41
  people actually lived as like a billion this and over a billion
• 1:27:45
  people live in China? Yeah, and You know?
• 1:27:50
  I mean it's like how do you even begin to contain that?
• 1:27:53
  Like I think it was ambitious for them to try and I applaud
• 1:27:57
  them for trying to do so. But I mean, it was inevitable
• 1:28:00
  soon. I remember soon as I heard that.
• 1:28:05
  You know, they were like, teachers the headlight flown
• 1:28:08
  back from China, like that flights coming back from China,
• 1:28:11
  like, around the time. Not just when it sort of broke
• 1:28:16
  out around the world, but I think that the first outbreaks
• 1:28:18
  were in like November 20, 19, or something.
• 1:28:22
  I seem to recall there being story.
• 1:28:23
  Yeah. And then obviously gradually
• 1:28:26
  into 2020 is when it happens. If this was happening over some
• 1:28:29
  time, like, it was, you know, I had actually gone to Romania at
• 1:28:33
  the end of December. 319 came back to China, beginning of like
• 1:28:38
  New Year's Day 2020. So like I got back just in time
• 1:28:45
  for the fun to begin. I really like I actually renewed
• 1:28:53
  my work contract, maybe March 20, 20 parts of that was like I
• 1:29:02
  want to stay in place because my life is in China.
• 1:29:05
  Like a friend of mine had been teaching English and he and his
• 1:29:07
  family went to Vietnam lately, his like, his parents came over
• 1:29:13
  to visit him that family and they just went back to Canada
• 1:29:18
  and he just decided To have friend in the city, he was
• 1:29:22
  living in send the most valuable stuff to him and then just keep
• 1:29:27
  the rest of it rather than come back to China because the school
• 1:29:31
  wasn't so for me being in Chinese media, it's like, the
• 1:29:35
  Chinese government is a consistent customer, so it's not
• 1:29:41
  like my job was really going to change very much.
• 1:29:43
  So I just stayed in place because It's like I didn't get
• 1:29:50
  like I didn't have money to run away to America and hope this
• 1:29:52
  all blows over. Oh, another thing is as they
• 1:29:58
  were like the is they were bringing in the epidemic control
• 1:30:02
  measures like the red yellow green system that I talked about
• 1:30:07
  on WeChat well. It took a while for that to roll
• 1:30:09
  out for foreigners because our IDs aren't in the Chinese
• 1:30:15
  system. Like you know you have like you
• 1:30:18
  have a Chinese ID card in certain places you can just Hold
• 1:30:25
  that up to a machine and do that.
• 1:30:27
  They've, they register that you were there, it's all in the
• 1:30:33
  system. But like, for foreigner like
• 1:30:36
  like, they might have to get out a clipboard and actually write
• 1:30:39
  out your name and your passport number and phone number and
• 1:30:45
  because you're not in that system.
• 1:30:46
  So it took a while for them to integrate all of that for the
• 1:30:52
  once it once it all worked, then you could Scan, a QR code when
• 1:30:55
  you go into a restaurant and register that you were there and
• 1:30:59
  show that, you know, show that your green because you hadn't
• 1:31:02
  been anywhere else, where there would have been an outbreak.
• 1:31:06
  So, that was another level of being a foreigner there where
• 1:31:10
  the Chinese probably got it a lot faster because they're all
• 1:31:13
  in the system. Thank you.
• 1:31:17
  Thank you very much for sharing. Switch it up a little bit,
• 1:31:21
  what's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:31:26
  For being in China or just in general, in life.
• 1:31:36
  I'll go with this one. It's usually people get lost
• 1:31:47
  before they go far enough, this is something that I had.
• 1:31:52
  When I was first in China it took me 10 minutes to walk
• 1:31:58
  somewhere and then it took me an hour and a half to get back.
• 1:32:01
  And during that time, I think I walked down the correct Street
• 1:32:04
  like three times, but I didn't go far enough.
• 1:32:10
  So other times, I have not gotten lost because I remembered
• 1:32:18
  go further. Aha, here we go.
• 1:32:21
  Yep, there it is. that there's there's a number of other ways
• 1:32:29
  that, that applies as well, because going far enough, it is
• 1:32:37
  like you it's like you're like so many things, like like if
• 1:32:42
  you're studying and University, if you're in a career, It.
• 1:32:51
  You know, until you really turn the corner.
• 1:32:53
  It might feel like, like, you just can't take it anymore but
• 1:32:58
  just a little further, you'll make it.
• 1:33:02
  Thanks for sharing and my favorite question.
• 1:33:06
  I ask all my guests. What's the biggest life lesson
• 1:33:09
  you've learned so far? Like, Maybe one thing is. all
• 1:33:23
  the things that No, I really like like many people have
• 1:33:29
  dysfunctional childhood, but many of the things that you
• 1:33:32
  learned that were true, when you were a child, they're still
• 1:33:36
  true. When you're an adult like I'm
• 1:33:41
  trying to avoid putting it in religious terms just because
• 1:33:44
  it's so it's so easy to turn to that.
• 1:33:48
  It like, it's like it's so easy to just say, okay, like okay at
• 1:33:56
  the end of Harry Potter, It's like, Harry literally has to
• 1:34:03
  choose to believe. In Dumbledore like there's like
• 1:34:09
  you know that goodness exists. You know, they'd beauty is a
• 1:34:12
  thing that exists whether or not you understand or appreciate it.
• 1:34:18
  The truth is a thing. Like even if it's even if it's
• 1:34:21
  convenient to tell a lie because it gets you somewhere faster.
• 1:34:24
  Truth is still We're choosing to believe in.
• 1:34:32
  This is like all this stuff that you learned as a child, it's
• 1:34:36
  still true. And continuing to believe is is
• 1:34:42
  a choice. It is like the the truth doesn't
• 1:34:46
  just install itself like like an app from the App Store in your
• 1:34:49
  brain. You have to keep making that
• 1:34:53
  choice. Like ideals are like, you know,
• 1:34:55
  like the sun and moon. It's like you may never touch
• 1:34:59
  them but you still need them exactly where they are.
• 1:35:03
  Brilliant, thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:35:06
  As we draw things to a close for today.
• 1:35:08
  Do you have any upcoming projects or some final thoughts
• 1:35:11
  you'd like to share with our listeners?
• 1:35:13
  Um, I'm either the copywriting things going to take a long time
• 1:35:17
  to work to come out my podcast at Chinese revolutions.com.
• 1:35:26
  I always like doing it with the www dot.
• 1:35:29
  It's just easier to drop into, but Chinese revolutions.com.
• 1:35:34
  This week. I think we're talking about
• 1:35:36
  Chinese politics. I might just scrape stuff from
• 1:35:39
  Wikipedia because I mean, it's just very broad context, but
• 1:35:44
  that's something I'm working on right now.
• 1:35:49
  Excellent. Well, thank you very much for
• 1:35:51
  being on the show. It's been really interested in
• 1:35:53
  listening to your experiences in China and I wish you the best of
• 1:35:56
  luck with podcast and your future endeavors.
• 1:36:00
  And thanks again for having me on.
• 1:36:02
  Thank And to all the listeners of the Christian Reef podcast,
• 1:36:06
  as always be safe. Be well, and I'll see you in the
• 1:36:10
  next one.