Just another ‘Laowai in China’: a father and news reader who refuses to be brainwashed
By Dong Feng Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/17 21:29:52
Bryan, a New Zealander who has lived in China for eight years, has been using Twitter to talk back to Western media's biased reports on China. Even though he believes he got shadow banned and suspended as the pro China accounts many times, he refuses to keep silence, since he has not actually broken a rule, he always tries to reinstate.
"I find it ironic to hide my identity to protect my free speech," he told the Global Times in an exclusive interview, insisting that his real name not be revealed to protect himself and his family from harassment.
Bryan currently has more than 8,600 followers on Twitter, and many of his posts have been influential among news readers, who are also frustrated by biased reports in Western media about China.
Just like his account name, Laowai (foreigner) in China, Bryan first came to China in 2012 for a working holiday. So far, he has lived in his second homeland for eight years after marrying a Chinese girl and having two children. He is currently living in Beijing and working in the education sector.
During his spare time during the past year and a half, he started to reflect on the future of his eldest daughter.
Both Bryan and his wife decided to have the child be a Chinese citizen instead of applying for citizenship in New Zealand.
While imagining what his child's future might be, "I started to think back on how people from Asia were treated in my country when I was younger. When I was thinking about how [Asian people] were treated then, how they are treated now, how they are going to be viewed when they grow up as being people from China, I realized that to many people, they are going to be viewed quite negatively. So that's probably what got me more onto social media, onto Twitter."
After growing tired of all the anti-China news and believing China is not like how the Western media portrayed, he decided to support China, support the Hong Kong SAR Government and police, as well as the One China Principle.
Knife in luggage
"When I grew up, most of the news about China was bad. 'China did this, China did that.' Always bad, bad, bad," he said.
Based on that very negative impression, Bryan decided he had better be prepared when he first came to China.
"I actually packed a knife in my luggage, since I sort of thought I might get mugged or kidnapped. I thought there was high possibility for that to happen in China," he recalled.
But it turned out he was wrong. A couple of weeks later, he realized it was safer in China than in New Zealand.
"You're safe," he said, explaining that he realized the situation was totally different from how he had pictured China.
His assumption was China was poor and bad things happened in the country, so he experienced some major cultural shock when arriving in Beijing. He had assumed the city might be full of poverty while the capital city turned out to be an incredibly modern city, which was not the way Western media portrayed it at all.
Right now, there is racism in Australia and New Zealand toward Asians, and the outbreak of novel coronavirus has brought out the worst in people.
Hopefully, in the next decades, "my family will grow up in a world that is a little less hateful," he said.
Hong Kong 'terrorists' not peaceful
Bryan was on social media long before he was in China and he continued using it after coming to China. He noticed that there was more negative news about China on Twitter, so he decided to spend more time on the platform to try and counter this negativity.
Bryan said that "the Hong Kong terrorists have a group list to be targeted and mass reported as spam to Twitter."
His Twitter account has been suspended three to five times over the past six months.
The last time, he had to send the platform emails every day to get back his account.
While surfing on Twitter, what annoyed Bryan the most while he was checking the news about Hong Kong is that the protesters claimed to be peaceful, but their doings indicated otherwise.
After watching livestream video clips of Hong Kong rioters attacking ordinary people, including a woman and an elderly person, he couldn't take it anymore.
"I've seen riots all around the world where people attack the police, but when they were attacking that woman; they attacked people for speaking [Standard] Chinese, then that's racist and not a peaceful protest…
"If they sat in a park; they sat there for a year, holding some signs, I have no problem with that. [As long as] they are not hurting anyone, not hurting anyone's rights to carry on their business. But blocking the road, causing damage to the city, affecting people's businesses and livelihoods, that's not right," Bryan said.
He told the Global Times that he is just against people who are violent, aggressive and destructive.
"At the beginning of this year, they had some bombs going off in a hospital. Who bombs hospitals? Normal people at peaceful protests don't do that," Bryan said, referring to an incident in late January when a home-made bomb was set off in a Hong Kong hospital on January 27. No one was killed or injured in the incident.
Double standards
While talking about "double standards," Bryan sees it reflected in the mindset of Western media in at least two major aspects: Hong Kong national security laws and the voices of diplomats.
In many countries they have similar national security laws. For instance, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service was established in 1956, amidst the early Cold War.
So why is it so different and difficult to accept similar laws when it comes to China's Hong Kong? Bryan answers these questions in his own simplified way.
"In their minds, China is bad, China is not allowed to have it. China is evil, so China can't do it," he said.
"I don't think many people in the West consider China as an equal partner. I think they always think of China as an adversary or something to be on guard against. Even with the Belt and Road Initiative, China is using debts to cover other countries, [There is] always a negative lie."
Talking about Chinese diplomats being dubbed by Western media outlets as "wolf warriors" due to their verbal battles with US politicians, Bryan said this is a typical instance of a double standard.
It all started with Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who tweeted on March 12: "When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals?"
"It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"
Everyone went nuts, saying, "you can't say that," Bryan said.
"That was a great tweet actually," he noted. "As soon as China stands up, [they say] 'Oh, they are being wolf warriors,' but when American politicians say some terrible things, that's fine, no one cares. But when China says a few things, [They say] something [like] 'Oh no, it's bad that they are standing up for themselves.' I personally think it's good that someone is taking a more aggressive tone," Bryan said.
He took US Senator Marco Rubio and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for instance, who are doing conspiracy theories, [which] was fine among the Western audience.
"It's just another [instance] of hypocrisy or double standards that people put on China. When China does it, it's bad, while other countries do it, it's OK," he stressed.
China does not want to become the US, Bryan pointed out. Finding the balance between when is the right time to attack, when it's the right time to offer a helping hand, that's quite good, he added.
Waking up
At the end of the interview, Bryan suggested that Western readers need to wake up from their brain washing, and that they should visit China.
However, he said just a brief visit of a couple of weeks is not enough.
"You are dealing with stuff that people have been told their whole life. That sort of conditioning doesn't really disappear just because you've been somewhere for a couple of weeks. More exposure to Chinese life is a plus," he said.
It shouldn't be China's job to have to prove that it is not bad. It shouldn't be up to Chinese people to convince people that their country is good, their country should be treated equally.
"That [is the] part I feel unfair," he said.
He also noticed that there is a tricky battleground between Western and Chinese media. The US just restricted Chinese media there, restricting more positive stories about China.
"China is helping a lot with the coronavirus. Hopefully when everyone calms down and things get better, people might remember the help that was given," he said.
A building on fire in Hong Kong Screenshot: 8world.com
Among the many posts on his Laowai in China account, there are many showing what is really happening in Hong Kong. In his own way, the 32-year-old is trying to show the world the real face of the Hong Kong protesters, who are not peaceful demonstrators but racists instead."I find it ironic to hide my identity to protect my free speech," he told the Global Times in an exclusive interview, insisting that his real name not be revealed to protect himself and his family from harassment.
Bryan currently has more than 8,600 followers on Twitter, and many of his posts have been influential among news readers, who are also frustrated by biased reports in Western media about China.
Just like his account name, Laowai (foreigner) in China, Bryan first came to China in 2012 for a working holiday. So far, he has lived in his second homeland for eight years after marrying a Chinese girl and having two children. He is currently living in Beijing and working in the education sector.
During his spare time during the past year and a half, he started to reflect on the future of his eldest daughter.
Both Bryan and his wife decided to have the child be a Chinese citizen instead of applying for citizenship in New Zealand.
While imagining what his child's future might be, "I started to think back on how people from Asia were treated in my country when I was younger. When I was thinking about how [Asian people] were treated then, how they are treated now, how they are going to be viewed when they grow up as being people from China, I realized that to many people, they are going to be viewed quite negatively. So that's probably what got me more onto social media, onto Twitter."
After growing tired of all the anti-China news and believing China is not like how the Western media portrayed, he decided to support China, support the Hong Kong SAR Government and police, as well as the One China Principle.
Knife in luggage
"When I grew up, most of the news about China was bad. 'China did this, China did that.' Always bad, bad, bad," he said.
Based on that very negative impression, Bryan decided he had better be prepared when he first came to China.
"I actually packed a knife in my luggage, since I sort of thought I might get mugged or kidnapped. I thought there was high possibility for that to happen in China," he recalled.
But it turned out he was wrong. A couple of weeks later, he realized it was safer in China than in New Zealand.
"You're safe," he said, explaining that he realized the situation was totally different from how he had pictured China.
His assumption was China was poor and bad things happened in the country, so he experienced some major cultural shock when arriving in Beijing. He had assumed the city might be full of poverty while the capital city turned out to be an incredibly modern city, which was not the way Western media portrayed it at all.
Right now, there is racism in Australia and New Zealand toward Asians, and the outbreak of novel coronavirus has brought out the worst in people.
Hopefully, in the next decades, "my family will grow up in a world that is a little less hateful," he said.
Hong Kong 'terrorists' not peaceful
Bryan was on social media long before he was in China and he continued using it after coming to China. He noticed that there was more negative news about China on Twitter, so he decided to spend more time on the platform to try and counter this negativity.
Bryan said that "the Hong Kong terrorists have a group list to be targeted and mass reported as spam to Twitter."
His Twitter account has been suspended three to five times over the past six months.
The last time, he had to send the platform emails every day to get back his account.
While surfing on Twitter, what annoyed Bryan the most while he was checking the news about Hong Kong is that the protesters claimed to be peaceful, but their doings indicated otherwise.
After watching livestream video clips of Hong Kong rioters attacking ordinary people, including a woman and an elderly person, he couldn't take it anymore.
"I've seen riots all around the world where people attack the police, but when they were attacking that woman; they attacked people for speaking [Standard] Chinese, then that's racist and not a peaceful protest…
"If they sat in a park; they sat there for a year, holding some signs, I have no problem with that. [As long as] they are not hurting anyone, not hurting anyone's rights to carry on their business. But blocking the road, causing damage to the city, affecting people's businesses and livelihoods, that's not right," Bryan said.
He told the Global Times that he is just against people who are violent, aggressive and destructive.
"At the beginning of this year, they had some bombs going off in a hospital. Who bombs hospitals? Normal people at peaceful protests don't do that," Bryan said, referring to an incident in late January when a home-made bomb was set off in a Hong Kong hospital on January 27. No one was killed or injured in the incident.
Double standards
While talking about "double standards," Bryan sees it reflected in the mindset of Western media in at least two major aspects: Hong Kong national security laws and the voices of diplomats.
In many countries they have similar national security laws. For instance, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service was established in 1956, amidst the early Cold War.
So why is it so different and difficult to accept similar laws when it comes to China's Hong Kong? Bryan answers these questions in his own simplified way.
"In their minds, China is bad, China is not allowed to have it. China is evil, so China can't do it," he said.
"I don't think many people in the West consider China as an equal partner. I think they always think of China as an adversary or something to be on guard against. Even with the Belt and Road Initiative, China is using debts to cover other countries, [There is] always a negative lie."
Talking about Chinese diplomats being dubbed by Western media outlets as "wolf warriors" due to their verbal battles with US politicians, Bryan said this is a typical instance of a double standard.
It all started with Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who tweeted on March 12: "When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals?"
"It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"
Everyone went nuts, saying, "you can't say that," Bryan said.
"That was a great tweet actually," he noted. "As soon as China stands up, [they say] 'Oh, they are being wolf warriors,' but when American politicians say some terrible things, that's fine, no one cares. But when China says a few things, [They say] something [like] 'Oh no, it's bad that they are standing up for themselves.' I personally think it's good that someone is taking a more aggressive tone," Bryan said.
He took US Senator Marco Rubio and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for instance, who are doing conspiracy theories, [which] was fine among the Western audience.
"It's just another [instance] of hypocrisy or double standards that people put on China. When China does it, it's bad, while other countries do it, it's OK," he stressed.
China does not want to become the US, Bryan pointed out. Finding the balance between when is the right time to attack, when it's the right time to offer a helping hand, that's quite good, he added.
Waking up
At the end of the interview, Bryan suggested that Western readers need to wake up from their brain washing, and that they should visit China.
However, he said just a brief visit of a couple of weeks is not enough.
"You are dealing with stuff that people have been told their whole life. That sort of conditioning doesn't really disappear just because you've been somewhere for a couple of weeks. More exposure to Chinese life is a plus," he said.
It shouldn't be China's job to have to prove that it is not bad. It shouldn't be up to Chinese people to convince people that their country is good, their country should be treated equally.
"That [is the] part I feel unfair," he said.
He also noticed that there is a tricky battleground between Western and Chinese media. The US just restricted Chinese media there, restricting more positive stories about China.
"China is helping a lot with the coronavirus. Hopefully when everyone calms down and things get better, people might remember the help that was given," he said.
Posted in: CROSS-BORDERS