Singapore-China web war

A homesick Singapore exchange student was getting some bad time in Xi’an and posted some explicitive laden negative complains on her blog. These entries were cross-posted in Tianya.cn. It spurred a (small) uproar on Chinese internet.

Many people have this view on Tomorrow.sg – a Singapore meta blog, another place the home sick girl was discussed.

the people of china can be very nationalistic and any attacks on their beloved country(or anything to do with it) spells trouble for the critic.

I also expected to see lots of attacks on the SEP girl when I came to Tianya.cn. But I am quite surprised to see that almost half of the Chinese comments are neutral actually, and close to one fourth of them support the girl to some extent.

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Quite a number of ppl said it was not right to cross-post other’s blog without the author’s consent.

作者：假使公主堕落　回复日期：2006-4-11　23:56:27

人家怎么想是一回事 人家是写在自己BLOG里的
语言再混帐也是在自己家里排泄
又没发到公共BBS上
你要允许人民有无知和恶心的权利

楼主没经过别人同意就把别人的日志到处转载
这样不太好吧？

That is a comment of its kinds. Generally, it means:

Whatever she wrote was her business. She wrote in her personal blog and did not post in a public forum. It was no good to cross-post other’s blog without the author’s consent.

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Many ppl shared this point of view, “She just a immature girl, no big deal.”

作者：闲愁非关风和月　回复日期：2006-4-12　23:24:53
当看到 “I learnt that in China, 80% of the ppl are BAD.”偶笑了,有什么好生气的,感觉像个小学生.

This guy said, “When I read, ‘I learnt that in China, 80% of the ppl are BAD.’ I laughed. No big deal, just a primary school girl.”

作者：fishifish　回复日期：2006-4-14　08:45:29
看完了,觉得这姑娘像是没见过什么世面, 从小给惯坏了的那种.
虽然如此,但她说的一些事也不是一点不靠谱.

This comment read, “She’s just a spoiled girl, inexperience. However, she did not make up the stories.”

作者：l100083　回复日期：2006-4-12　10:05:01

…

大概看了一下，不就是個沒吃過苦的留學生，不夠堅強，像小孩子，到了新的環境不能適應，看什麽都不順眼，靠發牢騷來排解鬱悶。
而且中國人愛中國，新加坡人愛新加坡，很正常。不過他言辭那麽極端確實討罵，但他寫的是日記，樓主轉載也是不對啊。
總之大家不要太生氣，傷身体，他說的一些不好的東西也確實存在，我們應該努力改變這一切，希望有一天，管tmd新加坡還是哪得人爭着搶着來中國留學

This one read, “She is just a spoiled student studying abroad, not able to adapt to the change, and complain about everything. China ppl love China; Singapore ppl love Singapore; that is natural. Her language was too extreme. However, she put it in her personal blog. … Don’t get angry. Some of what she said are truth. We should work hard on these. … Hope Singaporean or ppl from other countries would die to come to China for education one day.

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Some ppl even reminded that many ppl in China have similar complains and ppl need to do a lot to make China a better country.

作者：人活着快乐就好　回复日期：2006-4-12　22:58:05

那我们自己呢？我们在网上公开的侮辱广东人怎么样，湖南人怎么样，上海人又怎么样等等……的，人家不过在日记里发泄不满，谁比谁更高尚呢？

This guy said, “What about our own speech? We openly insulted Cantonese, Hunanese, Shanghainese, etc. on the internet too. She just made some complains in her blog. Who is better?”

作者：没有不散的筵席　回复日期：2006-4-15　14:31:03　

　　The Kungfu performance was fantastic. All of them are highly skilled! Really like in the Kungfu movies!
　　
　　我注意到有人翻译的时候故意找那些用词很恶毒的地方来翻译，很不厚道。明显地煽风点火。
　　LZ也没有必要那么生气，我们的确有许多需要改进的地方。新加坡的学校里早就没有粉笔和木头桌椅了，她奇怪也没有什么。硬件环境方面，的确有很多差距。不过很讨厌她说80％的人都是坏人。

This commented, “Some guys just picked those worst words to translate. That is not honest and kind. It’s obvious that they were trying to make trouble. … There are lots of things for us to improve. … In terms of hardware, we need to catch up. Just don’t like she said 80% Chinese were bad.

作者：choonhau　回复日期：2006-5-6　21:38:04　

　　哈哈，我在新加坡读书，与她同一所大学。。。
　　比起新加坡，中国确实有很多地方很不如意！！
　　再加上独自离家，对陌生的东西很容易产生恐惧感。
　　其实对于他的这种情绪，我觉得大部分新加坡人都会有同感。但她在网上用词确实十分偏激，想必没有考虑到中国人读后可能的感想。
　　我想之所以我们大学鼓励学生到中国exchange，除了希望建立与中国的合作关系的话，也希望学生学会在逆境中生活，想必此女并未完全理会她来的真正意义。另外也可以从某种角度反映出新加坡教育系统的不足。
　　当然有一些对中国的评论，抛去其过于失望而非理性判断的部分外，并非完全没有根据。
　　1。是否我们应该深刻的反思一下我们的教育系统？难道教一些学科成绩优异的学生就可以跻身“世界级大学”？或者一所大学需要除此以外更多的东西，为学生提供完善的教育？
　　2。计划生育（即文中所提的one-child policy）除了为中国控制人口做出贡献以外,是否对个人的成长造成负面的影响？
　　3。我们的社会，是否在腐化，变得失去诚信，道德？因为与国外发达社会相比，中国社会的道德标准，确实有待提高。
　　4。当我们听到别人对自己的负面评论时，是否只是一味的还击，遇无理的指责，而并未考虑是否可以从自己的身上找到更好的原因？
　　~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
　　声明：
　　1。我肯定，及时西安并非中国最佳的城市，很多方面西安的条件还很不错（相比某些城市）。
　　2。新加坡人对中国人并未有任何敌意与歧视。恰恰相反，很多新加坡人对中国有十分友善意与诚心。

This one is long. Here are some of my translations,

“I am studying in Singapore, at the same university…
Compared with Singapore, China needs to improve lots of things.
And she stayed far from home along, she is uncomfortable to anything not familiar.
…Her language was too extreme on the net, she might not consider what China ppl would think after reading.
…She did not understand the point of the Student Exchange Program. Maybe it reflects the flaws of Singapore’s education system too.
Except those irrational parts, her comments on China are not irrelevant.
1. Should we review our education system. …
2. Does the One-child Policy make negative influence on personal development?
3. Is our society corrupting, losing trust between its members? …
4. When we get any negative feedback from others, shall we just think of fighting back? …
1. I am sure, Xi’an is not the best city in China, but it is not that bad in many aspects. (compared with some other cities.)
2. Singaporean does not discriminate China ppl. On the contrary, they are very friendly and sincere to China ppl.

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Though superangry cross-posted the blog, she did not release the SEP girl’s email address or blog link even when a few ppl kept asking for it.

Chinese net users are getting mature. ppl who study or travel to Singapore help others understand the situation better.

Sometimes even a friend who have been to Singapore can help ppl clear the misunderstanding between both sides.

Globalization helps people become more tolerant and accommodating.

Even such web war will help people understand each other better.

However, I would say, fortunately, the SEP girl is not a Japanese student.