Youku Reactions to Kashgar Attack
As we await more clarifying information for China’s state organs, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at some assorted reactions Chinese citizens are making to the attacks on Mandarin language pages. I’ll admit straight up that I don’t have an even partially adequate fluency in using the Mandarin language internet (by that, I mean knowing how to type in search terms, knowing which portals to go to, etc.), and so my first instinct was to use a method pioneered by mutantpalm which involves searching Mandarin twitter clones. Unfortunately, the one twitter clone search engine I’m aware of, twifan, is temporarily stopped (curiously this notification is written in English). So for now, here are some clippets of responses to the Xinhua news report posted on the video sharing site Youku. I chose Youku over the more popular Tudou because frankly I have no idea what the hell is going on on Tudou or how to navigate it.
与人民为敌的，最终结果是自取灭亡！！！
For those against the people, the end result is to bring annihilation upon oneself!
向烈士致敬，一路走好
I salute the martyrs, and bid them farewell!
向死难的官兵表示最沉痛的哀悼,
恐怖行为，必须采取非常手段严厉镇压.
To those officers who died during the incident, I express my deepest sorrow.
As for the terrorist activities, we must implement extreme measures to thoroughly suppress them.
唉~~~缠头干的事。
Yeah… the towelheads did this.
恐怖行为越来越猖狂了，必须采取非常手段严厉镇压
Terrorist activities are getting even more savage, we must implement extreme measures to thoroughly suppress them.
哎~~~瞅瞅,咱中国办个奥运容易嘛…
Ah… can’t we Chinese host the Olympics in peace?
维吾尔族 的朋友们，我们都是同胞，我们都是中华民族，新疆自古以来就是中国的一部分，大部分的维族朋友们，是非常好客的，也是非常欢迎我们其他民族的，不过有极少 部分维族朋友，不满于现在的生活，不满于现在的政策。有时你们该想想，就算继续这样继续下去“继续100年200年还是这样“或者自取灭亡“`那又 是何必呢“知足常乐`！
My Uyghur friends, we are all fellow countrymen, we are all nationalities of China, Xinjiang has from ancient times remained a part of China, most Uyghurs are really friendly, and they genuinely welcome other nationalities, however, an extremely small amount of our Uyghur friends are unsatisfied with life today, are unsatisfied with current policies, sometimes they should think a bit, if things continue like this they’ll go on and on for 100 years or 200 years just like this, eventually bringing destruction upon themselves, or they can think “There’s no need for that!” and that’s enough to bring about real satisfaction.
早晚收拾他们
We should take care of them sooner or later.
我是新疆人“`
但我看到这些很伤心“`
这种极端的败类应该彻底消失“`
不然新疆永远都是一颗定时炸弹
I’m from Xinjiang
But when I see this it really gets to me
These kinds of extremist scum should really disappear
Otherwise Xinjiang will always be a time bomb
发生了那么大的事啊~快顶上首页给大家看~一定会是头条~奥运近了~危险近了~那些垃圾在作乱~
Something really big has happened… hurry and rate this video so it will reach the front page and everyone will see it… it really is a lead story… the Olympics are approaching… danger is near… those trash are blowing things up…
我是新疆人,当我早上看到这条新闻.我很震惊!
我是汉族,我有很多朋友是 维族 哈族. 他们跟我们一样都热爱伟大的祖国!
那只是少数的极端分子 蓄意破坏边疆的安宁与稳定.
我坚信少数极端分裂主义分子的阴谋不会得逞!
伟大的祖国只会越来越强大!
中国万岁!
中华民族万岁!
I’m from Xinjiang, when I saw the news this morning I was really shocked!
I’m Han, but I have many Uyghur and Kazakh friends. They’re just like us and really love the great motherland.
It’s only a small amount of extremists who plan on disrupting the peace and stability of the borderlands.
I firmly believe that the separatist ideology of this tiny minority will not succeed.
The mighty motherland will become more and more great!
Long live China!
Long live the people of China!
作为一个普通的维吾尔人，绝大多数维吾尔人是热爱祖国大家庭的，所以极少数分裂分子的阴谋是不会得逞的，我们反对分裂，维护统一；我为和平祈祷，为奥运的圆满举行祈祷。
As an ordinary Uyghur I can say, a large number of Uyghurs love the great family of the motherland, so the conspiracies of these few separatists will not succeed, we are against splittism, we are for unity, we pray for peace, and we pray for the success of the olympics.
奥运后，国家必须要采取强硬方法解决此类事件了，严惩不贷，彻底解决，还老百姓一安家和睦中国，中国加油！
After the Olympics, we must implement tough measures to resolve these types of incidents, we have to punish without excuses, completely resolve the problem, and give the ordinary people a calm and friendly China, go China!
And those are some of the interesting ones for now. Some themes: rapid unity over the death of the young officers, similar unity around fury towards the perpetrators. Note that although as of right now no news agency has made an explicit connection between Uyghurs and the attack, this is already a given in the discussion among the public. Several people have come forward urging calm among their (implied Han) countrymen, to not direct their anger in Uyghurs in general and repeating the mantra distributed by the state that the discontent is isolated among an extremely small majority, also, people coming forward and claiming themselves to be Uyghur while saying that the attackers do not represent the will of the majoriy (they invariably use the phrase 大家庭, or “great family” of which all the minorities are metaphorically a part of).
Also interesting are comments that state tough measures should be carried out after the Olympics. I find this fascinating. It seems to indicate to me that the ordinary citizens of China perceive all the tidying up that occurred before the games – including, one would imagine, the relaxation of censorship and the lip service to human rights – to only be temporary measures whereas analysts in the West have been praying (albeit with little hope) that the Olympics would be a catalyst for permanent changes. Instead, we can see here that even the 老百姓 ordinary Chinese are clearly aware that the stuff the government has been doing lately has been only for the Olympics and that the “normal Chinese way of doing things,” for example, harsh crackdowns, can return to the forefront when all the bleeding heart Westerners leave after the Olympics. Intriguing…
Of course, we can always count on some folks to throw in some comic relief…
杀死韩国猪
Kill the Korean pigs
喀什的事件 跟韩国猪什么关系？莫非你认为喀什和韩国相邻？你真的该学学地理了
What does the incident in Kashgar have to do with “Korean Pigs”? Could you possibly think that Kashgar is near Korea? You really should brush up on your geography
While I applaud any effort at bridging the language gap that so often keep people from understanding one another, and while I think your selection does represent a good cross section of the posts on this particular site, I would remind people that comment threads on video sites or blogs or posts on BBSs shouldn’t be the basis for generalizations: people who post on these things aren’t a particularly representative sample of China or, any more than Youtube viewers or people who post on comment threads in the Western countries are representative. Anonymity and lack of any accountability brings out the extremism in people, as anyone who used to read the Yahoo! News threads before Yahoo shut them down can attest. People, irrespective I would think of nationality, tend to be a whole lot more level-headed when real identities are involved.
(An aside on Youtube/Tudou: a raft of recent research from the Internet Society of China/DCCI, from iResearch, from Nielsen and from other sources all points unequivocally to a strong Youku lead over Tudou, by whatever measure you care to apply: video views, time spent, unique visitors, whatever. Yes, I do consult for Youku, but I’m basing this assertion entirely on third-party research).
Thanks for stopping by, Kaiser. I totally agree with your evaluation that the anonymity of the internet brings out the extremism of people, be it in China or in the US, and I don’t claim (and I don’t think I claimed in the post) that posting a spate of reactions on Youku would be a scientific, representative example – just an unscientific pick-and choose from a very specific sample of people. However, I believe for the English speaking world, the only way to learn about these incidents is through Xinhua and other state run organs – note that all English language media coverage of the event has no choice but to parrot what Xinhua posts. And unlike the Western media (which I’m not holding as a model for perfection either) the Chinese media tends to be a little more conservative and less sensationalistic and doesn’t tend to cover people’s reactions to things. What I did isn’t representative, but it’s no less representative than when a reporter asks, “How do you feel?” to three random people on the street.
I also hold the personal belief while a non-elected government, the CCP is still beholden to the “will” of the people, but in a different manner – whereas federal elections force politicians to focus on the center and the “silent” majority, an unelected meritocracy I believe has to focus more on the “ends” of the belief scale, the edges where dissatisfaction is more likely to breed then spread into the middle. So I also think that while extreme responses are not representative, I also believe that extremist beliefs play a larger role in the current ruling system in China. One could also speculate that under the anonymity of the internet individuals are more likely to freely express the stuff they “believe” – I read a book or something a few days ago stating that more and more CCP politicians are going to the internet, using it as one tool among many to measure the attitudes of their constituents.
But on the whole, I indeed should have made it a little more clear what my intent was (to provide at least one window, albeit flawed, into “citizen reactions” which English language speakers are not usually privy too) and also that this was not meant by any means to be representative.
Oh, and lastly, when I posted the article it right after the event happened, and so there were only 4 pages of comments… there are probably far, far more comments now. May have to do a follow up.
And I feel somehow vindicated to hear Youku is doing better than Tudou. For some reason I ended up believing that Tudou was bigger and was always upset about it because Youku was just a better site, period (I have the same feelings for Myspace and Facebook, respectively). Given that belief of mine I always used Youku over Tudou. Good to see their better website design is paying off!