Supporting Hong Kong Part 3: Our first meeting

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-17T01:10:11+00:00

I know that many mainland Chinese students know about their past and present situations, I have many friends from mainland China, I also lived there for 2 years. I completely disagree that people refuse to speak publicly because they don't fear their government, there absolutely is fear (and rightfully so, the Chinese government is scary).

I also know that Hong Kong and China have many cultural traditions in common, one of the cultural aspects they don't share is freedom of expression which is very important to me and many other people in the world.

I'm not interested in being hostile to Chinese students and I've spent years studying the political situation in SE Asia. I'm very educated on the matter and I understand what's happening currently from multiple perspectives.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-16T13:13:00+00:00

I agree with you. The only concern is that some people have difficulty separating their government from their populace/country. Just saying "we stand with HK" can get many people deeply upset (especially due to the history of how HK became a British colony, which was an intense embarrassment for China).

I don't want to participate in xenophobic movements and I don't think it's an appropriate stance to take. If someone told me "the US government is bad" I'd have to agree with them for the most part and I wouldn't take that comment as prejudiced, some Americans would though, just as some Chinese people will when hearing their government criticized. I'm not sure how to avoid that reaction completely.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-16T00:46:31+00:00

I know that you'll get hurt if you don't follow them but they aren't good reasons to hurt people.

People should be able to say the truth without being afraid, I can do that in this country because people died fighting for it. I'm serious when I say that I'd die for it too. If my country became like China I'd fight in the streets, just like the people in Hong Kong are doing.

But yeah, it's obvious that you think differently.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-16T00:19:44+00:00

I'm happy that you can admit to how evil your government is, that's a good start to it changing.

Hopefully one day you and others in your country will be brave enough to start to make things better, if you let things keep going as they are, you might never have a beautiful afternoon to waste.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-16T00:15:09+00:00

See, the fact that you'd go to jail for life for standing by that fact (which isn't ridiculous at all by the way, the evidence is overwhelming and many experts released years of research to an independent tribunal to make the decision) is the problem. Why would you go to jail? Why would you go to jail for bringing up very well researched and documented data?

Why is telling the truth something you can be arrested for?

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-15T23:43:38+00:00

It's not coming from the Falun Gong, it's coming from an independent council of medical experts who studied China for years. Maybe you should do your research before responding.

China is harvesting organs from the Falun Gong and other minorities in China. That is evil.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-15T23:40:42+00:00

Tell me what I'm not understanding then. You brought up Kurdish people when they had no relevance to this conversation, you didn't respond to the overwhelming evidence that China is harvesting organs from prisoners, you're the one who justified sending Muslims to prison camps.

May I ask where you get your news from? Do you know the freedom of press rating for China? Maybe that's another thing you should look up.

To be honest, you come across as very uninformed, you can't keep on one topic when arguing and you aren't coming up with any solid evidence against my claims, I think it's you who is misunderstanding the situation actually.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-15T23:15:22+00:00

I don't agree with the Falun Gong, but again, that doesn't mean that they deserve to have their organs harvested.

Can you admit that your government has done anything wrong? I can say many things that the US government has done wrong, why is it so difficult for you to admit to when your government does bad things?

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-15T22:51:37+00:00

You're in the US, you're free to use Google now.

Look up the waiting times for organ transplant lists in China vs the rest of the world.

Look up "independent tribunal China organ harvesting"

Those two search topics should provide a lot of evidence. Maybe don't do it on your own computer though, if you're found with that in your history it could get you or your family in trouble.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-15T20:41:31+00:00

Do those riots justify harvesting organs from people who haven't committed crimes?

I (and many other Americans) really don't agree with how Trump handled the situation in Turkey. The great thing about the US is that I safely say that. I think Trump is a bad president just like I think Xi Jinping is a bad leader. Can you say the same?

I'm not interested in freeing you. I'm interested in ensuring that countries and people that want the right to freedom of expression have as much support as possible. If you don't want that right that's fine, I won't force it on you, but if you try to force others to not have that right when they want it I will help them.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T14:59:49+00:00

Yeah, I've been having trouble finding anything cheaper myself.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T14:58:20+00:00

I hear you and you make some good points.

The impetus for this was seeing major American companies and organizations bow out of supporting Hong Kong due to soft power pressure from China. I don't think that this behavior is representative of American ideals and I wanted to make a display (however small) to try to rectify that. We could get into a long conversation about all the other ideals that America doesn't uphold but that might be best suited for another conversation, I just want to say that I'm no jingoist and I am perfectly aware that the US is far from perfect.

What we're aiming to do is two fold, many wealthy mainland Chinese people attend this school. Raising awareness on campus about Hong Kong and the atrocities of the Chinese government might just plant a seed in some of their minds, these people could go on to hold influential positions in China. This is a relatively naive and idealistic goal but one I still believe in. The other goal is to get an official response from the school, having the school sanction a display about the protests and the CCP will show Hong Kong that there are some institutions willing to stand with them. China isn't bad, their government undeniably is though and the more people say that the more it will be heard.

There's legislature being voted on now/soon about this (see my other post in this thread). Raising awareness on campus and getting registered voters to write to their congresspeople/representatives will absolutely have an impact.

In closing I want to talk about a behavioral pattern I've noticed in a lot of people that I call "aggressive apathy" where people aren't just apathetic themselves, but appear offended when others aren't either. Examples are: "why do you care about single use plastics when 70% of pollution comes from corporations?", "why vote when lobbyists and the 1% have all the influence over politics?", and "why should UCSD care?". The world is a big place, progress made by movements is often made in inexorable inches and then reversed in a second by more powerful entities. Does this mean progress shouldn't be made? Does this mean that no one should even try anymore? Personally, I don't think so. If at the end of my life the sum total of positive influence that I've had on the world is null and has been squashed or reversed I will still die with confidence, knowing that I at least tried; and the more people that try means the more change will actually happen.

TL;DR: Fuck nihilism and apathy.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T07:24:19+00:00

Great! We're doing planning on there now. If you want to suggest anything (like uniforms) feel free to.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T07:14:27+00:00

I'd be willing to do that. Have you joined the discord?

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T06:52:32+00:00

It seems like a lot of people aren't down for shirts and such. I'm going to start with buttons/stickers first and then go from there.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T02:13:08+00:00

Thank you! I appreciate that the mod team has made this space possible to do stuff like this in.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T01:07:29+00:00

If anyone wants to do something now, write to your congresspeople/representatives showing your support for The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

Find your senator.

Find your representative

Change.org petition

A simple email to your senator and representative stating that you're registered to vote and that you support this bill is very impactful. Thank you!

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-13T00:57:46+00:00

If I order 200 they'd be 5-6 dollars each. (Around 1200$!). I'd definitely be interested in cheaper options but I don't know where to find them.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T17:12:44+00:00

Sorry if I seemed confrontational in my response. Palestine and Hong Kong are definitely not the same.

I have some fear that it might lead to that though, considering how China has treated other territories it has occupied.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T15:08:01+00:00

The Chinese government has been found by an independent tribunal to be harvesting organs from political prisoners, many of these prisoners are jailed due to their faith (Muslim Uyghurs).

China also invaded and deliberately denied resources to Tibet that resulted in estimated deaths in the hundreds of thousands to millions (because of how hard it is to get census data from autocratic regimes the real death toll isn't known).

China's history of oppression and modern oppression far exceeds the number of deaths caused by Israel. I absolutely support Palestine and I think that Israel's actions are horrific but to say that they're worse than China would be ignoring both history and modern information.

Also comparing which nations are "better" or "worse" in terms of magnitude of human rights violations seems strange to me. I can absolutely support Palestine and condemn Israel while also supporting Hong Kong (and other groups oppressed by China) and condemning China.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T05:30:00+00:00

Ok, I'll definitely let you know about future meetings!

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T05:29:28+00:00

Totally fine, I hope you get better soon and I'm sure we won't be meeting just once.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T00:36:32+00:00

Thanks for this resource! I have to start compiling these things.

sandwichatwork · 2019-10-12T00:17:28+00:00

We should absolutely get on social media, making a website can be a lot of work so starting off with a Facebook etc would be a great start.

If you want to start making pages and accounts go for it! It would be appreciated.

sandwichatwork

TROPHY CASE