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True. Was actually funny to me after moving back to Melbourne and I didn't see an Indigenous person again for 3 months until I boarded the 109 and there was one going about his business.
I do think you've got a bunch of vast misunderstandings of what modern China is and how it operates. You're living in Socialism with Australian characteristics and there's an abundant relatively free market over in China that's going about its own business. China having a layer of fascism allows a lot of absurdities to be managed with less insane pointless slogs that pop up in the Western system as of present.
Are you thinking of any examples?
To be clear, I don't think that modern China is fascist. I'm imagining a fascist China that exaggerates and intensifies some of China's existing pathologies. My understanding of the state of modern China, absorbed mostly from talking to Chinese people, is that everyday life is a lot like everyday life in the West, only everything is a little bit nastier or more corrupt. Cities are a bit dirtier. Officials are slightly more on the take. Little everyday things are just a bit more frustrating. Still, it is perfectly liveable.
Japan’s a better analog for their political comparison. Most of what westerners hear about that part of the world comes to them highly distorted, through the filter of the media. Just because China is authoritarian doesn’t make it fascist.
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I've lived in China and in Australia. At this point I'd say experiencing Australia is the dirtier, nastier version at this point than most T1 Chinese cities. There's more out-and-out corruption, though also far more pressure around making sure things stay clean and presentable. When I'm in China I don't have to deal with half of Melbourne CBD shutting at 9PM sharp due to the drug zombies. Don't have to deal with the Tram system becoming a live transport network for drug users etcetera.
Shanghai is vastly cleaner, tidier, more modern and more orderly than Melbourne these days.
I've lived in Melbourne all my life, though I only know of Shanghai through word of mouth. What I've experienced and heard would suggest to me that it's the other way around, though I admit that I'm 10-15 years out of date on Shanghai.
I spend about a month in each each year. China's general vibe has improved immensely since COVID, albeit at the expense of property prices and a lot of the overseas Chinese who shuffled off to Australia pre-COVID aren't being replenished particularly quickly. They tend to either be the top 10-5th percentile who had significant exposure to the property market and are now complaining endlessly due to their paper gains going, or those who shuttled out in the 80s as soon as the first gaps appeared.
2025 Shanghai is incredibly livable, very worth a trip even if there's a lot of better cities for tourism.
How’s the smog? Can you guys actually see the moon over there?
China these days? It's fine. Still a bit higher than equivalent Western cities but electric vehicles taking over, the government actually cracking down a lot post-COVID and the factories moving further out have made it pretty rare you get major smog in T1 China cities. First time I went to Beijing 20 years ago it was horrible but now it's not really notable eitherway.
Only major smog issues I've run into in Asia have been SEA burning season stuff.
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