Also HK is a city while mainland encompasses poorer rural areas

Interesting, do you know any literature that talks more about this?

The system working as intended.

I think a decent measure is GDP growth rate divided by GDP per capita. I don’t have the numbers on hand but China is above average in both absolute and PPP.

Lack of public “third places”, car-centric infrastructure and lack of mixed-use zoning, lack of communal living, etc.

“Why are men so lonely?”

“It is better to be poor under capitalism than rich under socialism.” - Polish Gang of Four

throw more money at car manufacturers

That’s the hilarious part. They’re clearly not actually opposed to giving out subsidies, just for things that might actually be beneficial in the long run.

It would be hilarious if there’s a repeat of the Cold War arms race, but the US goes bankrupt this time

The Wandering Earth 2 is not simplistic and you’ve probably missed a lot

Probably. I’m definitely not too knowledgeable about cultural allusions and stuff, and I basically relied on the subtitles. I must admit there’s a gap there. Westerners often praise Liu Cixin for having great ideas and plots but criticize him for having flat characters and uninteresting dialogue. Idk how much the translation has to do with this and how much this even affects the movie since it’s only loosely based on the short story though.

I also have no clue who the two people you mentioned

李荣浩 and 薛之谦, their top songs have 100-200 million views on YouTube, the most out of any Chinese artist. They’re incredibly popular in Taiwan, Singapore, and the US amongst ethnic Chinese. I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of them.

Phoenix Legend or Li Yuchun

Mind sharing some recommendations?

I think you discount the lack of exposure

Yeah I’m not denying that this is major factor. I think The Wandering Earth 2 should’ve been as popular as any Hollywood blockbuster. But I do have my reasons why I think it’s “merely” a very good film instead of a timeless cinema classic. Perhaps like you said it’s because I’m missing stuff due to the language barrier.

a lot of this post sounds like lack of cultural self-confidence on your part

True, that’s what I hope to cultivate some day.

You’re right, I wasn’t considering mobile games. Got any good ones that aren’t just cash grabs or ports of existing IP?

I’m aware that there are solid games with some connection to China, such as FTL: Faster Than Light and My Time at Portia. There’s of course also Genshin Impact and the upcoming Black Myth: Wukong, but I find it hard to be excited about them anymore since my SO shat on them really hard, the former for “being a rip-off of BoTW” and the latter for “being a rip-off of Elden Ring and Dark Souls and using unoriginal, centuries-old IP.” TBH I think they have a point.

I wasn’t intentionally naming recent Chinese movies, I just happen to think the best (mainland) Chinese movies of all time were made in the last few years. That at least gives me some hope that they simply needed some time to develop the expertise. And yeah, I’m well aware that for every The Matrix there’s a couple dozen Justice Leagues.

Indeed, most top 100 music is derivative crap everywhere, including the US. But every year there are a few hits that stand the test of time like Poker Face and thank u, next. And I don’t mean to say that US pop music is truly cutting edge stuff. Rather, what happens is that there’s always cool new stuff brewing underground, and in a few years either the formerly underground artists make it big or their sounds set off a trend that’s eventually picked up by established artists. That’s how you end up with a bunch of trends or waves in music like deep house and trap heavily influencing US pop music in the 2010s. By contrast, it seems like underground music in China stays underground, and in the first place the sounds were invariably originally imported. Like there are by all means good sounding Chinese non-mainstream artists like Omnipotent Youth Society, 等一下就回家, Ice Paper, PO8, GriffO, and Absolute Purity, but their music is based on existing, imported genres like hip-hop and prog rock and their music has virtually no influence on the most popular Chinese pop artists like Li Ronghao, who just constantly spit out generic tunes.

I do appreciate that Chinese media can take a different perspective than Western media. Propaganda pieces like Minning Town can be a good watch and are really wholesome. Even organic works like The Wandering Earth obviously are made with different worldviews. I do think this is one unique strength that can be leveraged that doesn’t just try to copy Western stuff or rehash tired palace drama cliches, and I’m glad to see it appear more often in recent works.

I think there are many great ideas coming from Chinese TV and cinema, they just need to work on execution. Take the Tencent adaptation of Three Body Problem, for instance. Huge potential, and the IP is imo one of China’s precious jewels. But they really did it dirty with the low budget. It was mostly just people standing around and talking. A single episode of the (whitewashed, de-sinicized) Netflix adaptation has a bigger budget than the entire Tencent series. I would go as far as to say that it would’ve been worth it for the government to subsidize it to raise the production value.

Yeah I agree here. Why do you think Black Americans have been so creative, especially in music?

To play devil’s advocate, maybe the same reason the US claims to be democratic?

The Wandering Earth 1 and 2 are awesome if you like sci-fi.

If you’re also looking for non-mainland stuff, I really enjoyed the Ip Man movies and Infernal Affairs.

The green represents freedom and the orange represents liberty

I used to think that all ideas, even potentially harmful ones, should be free to spread so they could be defeated in the “marketplace of ideas.”

And of course, there are things that should be done to promote desirable cultural values other than through art and media. It could be things like promoting group activities, team sports, and socializing in school while reducing the harsh workloads that many students face to a reasonable level, for example.

Thanks for the link. It doesn’t seem like the author makes any concrete suggestions for implementing anything. Curious to see how it would translate to actual legislation. But in my admittedly amateur opinion, I think stuff like Liu Cixin’s works are a great avenue for inspiring cultural self-confidence and reinforcing socialist and Chinese values - it’s interesting to people who aren’t necessarily politically inclined and innocuous enough to make it on international platforms like Netflix, while still hinting at socialist values such as collectivism and international cooperation and making allusions to Chinese traditional culture.

I hope this involves stuff like funding primary/secondary/tertiary education in the arts and opportunities for the display and appreciation of art such as concerts, festivals, competitions, and, museums, and not just commissioning obvious propaganda and tightening censorship. As much as I love communist media such as Minning Town and 1921, it’s not improving the image of China or inspiring cultural self-confidence in people who aren’t already pro-China. Instead, we need more contemporary and not-obviously-political works like Three Body and The Wandering Earth, Lexie Liu’s The Happy Star, and The King’s Avatar. And for traditional culture, independent creators like Dianxi Xiaoge, Chef Wang Gang, and Yin Que Shi Ting have done a million times more than anything commissioned by the out-of-touch geezers who run the propaganda department. What these all have in common is that they’re made by people who have a genuine passion in an art or craft and have the opportunity to create works on their own terms.

You’re only allowed to wish death upon geopolitical enemies of the US