This shit is scary af. I'm a second gen immigrant, and even though I've only been to school in China for a couple of months to improve my Chinese, I learned some really scary things. First, you have this slang term called "check the water meter" basically some time back when people still used water meters for their bills, "someone" would pretend that they're the person from the water company and take you away if you said something "wrong". Once I met a girl from China when we went to France together for holiday, and she spent hours on YouTube watching Tiananmen Incident documentaries, and I was like why can't you watch those in China? She told me someone would probably check her water meter if she did. (Though its not true, since they'd only take you away for spreading anti-government propaganda, the casualty with which these things are joked about is scarier. ) speaking about government propaganda- I went to a park when I was there for a morning jog. It was beautiful, great reprieve from the sphere of pollution that was where I lived, and there had to be thousands of people there, and to my shock, there were posters everywhere, as beautifully designed as any personal-banking, finance management ad, no sign of the stereotypical blocky letters in red, that basically said "the Party is to thank for what the people have today". Coming from a country where there are about 20 different laws restricting politicians talking shit about an opposing party, this was a great shock to me. Imagine a huge banner at your local park that says "THANK THIS PARTY FOR YOUR FOOD. "

And man, the worst part was that you couldn't even TALK about it. In America, you get to debate about it. In where I live, it's a touchy topic but it's still encouraged to talk about the shortcomings of the government. In China? Once, I was talking about how the police in Hong Kong were mistreating the students at the Umbrella Protest, and one of my dads friends was literally like "those stupid students are inconveniencing everyone, they're blocking the TRAFFIC. " and I was like "But they're fighting for democracy...?? Isn't traffic a small thing to sacrifice?" And he was like "they are inconveniencing everyone, they deserve to be sprayed with teargas etc. " and trust me he's not the only one who thinks that way. and if i call out any of my friends for saying shit like "one day China will take over Japan" (yes, people still say that) I get slammed, get called a traitor, (not that I've ever been particularly "loyal" in the first place) get threatened, and hilariously, get blocked. So yeah. Basically, shit is scary.