[chunghuaming]

As an average Chinese citizen right now:

- You cannot travel abroad (no passport issued for average citizens, except for those that study/work abroad)

- You cannot go beyond China's intranet legally (VPN is technically illegal in China). VPN services keep getting slowed/banned.

- You cannot transfer much money out of country legally (50k limit a year, but you end up going to bank 10+ times just to be able to transfer 10k)

- You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid game, porn and many many more things legally

- You have very little rights as LGBT

- You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat (not working/pursuing marriage)

- You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that are on the growing banned list

- You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared). The state discourages showing off wealth

- You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in power

- You are constantly subjugated to random mass covid testing, standing hours outside in the cold

- Oh and there's the yearly flood + shoddy buildings + crashing economy + crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving + dictatorship

终究怀揣的不安，是愈来愈近的丧钟声

[Aperocky]

> You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat (not working/pursuing marriage)

None of the government/public workers are working that schedule. Or someone who finds a job in the private companies who aren't insane.

> You are constantly subjugated to random mass covid testing, standing hours outside in the cold.

Speaking from anecdotal experience, my parent has been subjugated to none in 2021 because they were not living in an affected location. Mass covid testing are only carried out where there are outbreaks.

> You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that are on the growing banned list

Might apply to your personal case? I don't know even one person who are constantly invited to police station for tea, despite having hundreds of friends in China.

> You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid game, porn and many many more things legally

Except that everyone does, and I'm not aware of any prosecutions. Also, Spiderman, BTS, squid game does not even touch laws, they just haven't been screened in cinemas, you can still get them from different sources (which often means piracy in China).

> Oh and there's the yearly flood + shoddy buildings + crashing economy + crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving + dictatorship

We'll see then. The rhetoric have been around for decades.

Some of what you said is true to a degree, but you are painting it in a very biased fashion. China has a lot of flaws, but what you said certainly does not apply to an 'average' Chinese citizen. In fact, all of these combined are almost impossible to happen to a single Chinese citizen, average or not.

[jdefr89]

Are you saying China isn't constantly monitoring their population? Are they not the dystopian dictatorship they pretend not to be? I am not so sure I can be convinced when they literally tell citizens how long they can and cannot play video games.... Sorry, behaviors don't lie.

[seanmcdirmid]

> None of the government/public workers are working that schedule. Or someone who finds a job in the private companies who aren't insane.

Oddly enough, on my first trip to China in 1999, everyone was still expected to work Saturdays. The change to getting Saturday off is relatively recent…maybe 15 or so years ago?

> Except that everyone does, and I'm not aware of any prosecutions. Also, Spiderman, BTS, squid game does not even touch laws, they just haven't been screened in cinemas, you can still get them from different sources (which often means piracy in China).

“Rule by law”, as opposed to “rule of law”, means laws are arbitrarily enforced according to the whims of the party. So they aren’t going to prosecute you for watching banned media…until they want to get you for something (and in that case, they’ll find something).

[Aunche]

This is the second time I've seen you try to piggyback off of a top HN comment without saying anything relevant to it.

[whoevercares]

Second time this week I saw this from the same user as well. Dang should pay some attention

[chunghuaming]

This is a thread about Chinese citizens quickly and surely losing their freedom. Why wouldn't my upgraded comment be relevant?

Also, do you have anything to refute my comment?

[whoevercares]

Why you are posting the exact comment repeatedly? I saw this twice the past week in China related posts