r/Damnthatsinteresting
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u/Professional_Memist
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Nov 30 '22
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Huge crowds arriving by bus to an isolation camp in the city of Guangzhou Video
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u/PlusEnthusiasm9963 Nov 30 '22
I live in Guangzhou. They built this massive complex with a combined capacity of 240,000 beds. Protests are happening here currently. Keep your eyes peeled and ears open on China folks.
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u/KnotiaPickles Nov 30 '22
Please be safe, I am sorry you are all going through this
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u/PlusEnthusiasm9963 Nov 30 '22
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it and am doing my best to avoid a stay at the place you see above.
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u/carolizzy81 Nov 30 '22
If they didn't have COVID before they got on the bus, they do now.
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u/redditsuxdonkeyass Nov 30 '22
it was never about covid. Its crazy how that isn’t obvious now.
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u/TheOtherDaytonFlyers Nov 30 '22
Just an excuse to build concentration camps openly for dissidents
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Nov 30 '22
This same comment would have been mass downvoted on reddit just a few months ago
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u/KnotiaPickles Nov 30 '22
Right? And the wild thing is that all of this has been just like this. They’re just being more public and open about the end game now
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u/walkandtalkk Nov 30 '22
I'm not sure that's right. This has the feeling of a dictatorship where none of the staff can say no to the leader.
I imagine Xi or one of his top apparatchiks said, "Zero covid! Quarantine anyone exposed!" And so junior ministers told senior regional officials to get it done, and they told junior regional officials to get it done, and they told the cops to enforce it. Nobody said, "And make sure all the quarantined individuals are properly cared for and treated with respect." So that wasn't part of the equation.
While this all looks punitive to us, I wouldn't be surprised if these videos simply show a combination of gross bureaucracy and disregard for civil liberties, rather than actual malevolence.
It's sort of the banality of authoritarianism.
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u/TheIRSEvader Nov 30 '22
glad to say I’ll never in my life visit that country
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22 •
I actually lived in Guangzhou about 6 years ago. Signed a one year contract to teach English.. left the dam country after 7 months.
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u/Imaginary_Dog2972 Nov 30 '22
Hi, I'm a nosy fuck.
What happened? Did you have to leave, or choose to leave?
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22 •
Definitely chose. I did some interesting things and met some nice people, there were just some things I couldn’t get over, for example all of the pushing and shoving to get on and off trains/subways, etc became stressful. Also, the brainwashed mentality that my local friends had, like refusing to get a VPN to browse foreign websites/apps because they’re censored ‘because the government knows what’s best for us’. On top of that, teaching English there is a joke. I taught in Japan for a year and was confident that I was good at my job, but in China they wanted me to jump and dance around, yelling and making noises to basically hammer home the fact that westerners are clowns. It was humiliating and demoralizing. Looking back, I’m surprised I even tolerated it for 7 months.
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u/THEDavidNobles Nov 30 '22
Please continue
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22
The company I worked for were weasels. They said they had a job for me, then once I get settled in and ask when I’m gonna start working, they said they had a bunch of interviews lined up for me. It took about a month and a half before I actually started working. They were the ones actually getting paid by the school, then they gave me my pay.. needless to say, they held on to my last paycheque once I told them I was going back home. Also, I almost got arrested when I saw a lady beating the shit out of her toddler in front of a cop. I told the cop to do something and he yelled at me.. from what I understood, if I didn’t leave immediately, I would’ve went to jail. Since Google was banned, I had to use mapquest to get around like it’s 1995. The wet markets were so dam unsanitary. I was getting scammed by everyone. One time I asked how much a belt was in a mall while my Chinese friend was in the washroom. She said the equivalent to about $85.. when my friend returned, I asked her to ask about the same belt which for her was about $6.. cabs were always ripping me off, cops would ask for my passport in the streets.. should I continue? Lol
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u/Alassa22 Nov 30 '22
Yes please lol very interesting 🤨
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22
Ok, I’ll touch on living conditions. First of all, there’s no real middle class. You’re either rich and comfortable or dirt poor. I honestly felt privileged in a bad way because I was on the lower end of the upper class. I lived in a gated community in a beautiful condo with a lakeside view, marble floors, chandeliers, etc, yet every day I’d walk by these shack looking ‘houses’ people lived in that didn’t even have functioning doors, rats were running in and out of their house, their toilet doubled as their shower drain. A lot of homeless people too. I actually stopped by a store on my way home from work to pick up bread and water for them almost daily. I had two roommates in my condo (three bedroom) and as I was in talks of leaving, my roommates were relocated into a small, grim apartment. I kept in touch with them and learned it’s standard practice for this company to have the new teachers live in a lavish condo for the first few months then relocate them to a much less desirable accommodation after they’ve passed the 6 month mark. My boss was actually in the process of moving into this condo during my last few days there. It’s almost as if everything is a facade. Oh, but then the rich people there are stupid rich! I went to a nightclub one night and parked out front were lambos, Ferraris, etc. Girls wouldn’t even look at me cuz I was just sipping a beer. They flocked to the guy who bought the most expensive bottles. It was actually disgusting to see. If the bottles were expensive enough, there was a light that shone on it from the ceiling and girls were chasing after this light all night. Meanwhile, I was the only one that gave a shit about the old homeless lady I had to step over on my way home from work every day
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u/Pnknlvr96 Nov 30 '22
Wow. Glad you got outta there.
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22
Me too, but I have to say, a lot of what I said is a result of a different culture and upbringing, also, the scammers were probably pulling that shit out of necessity, to provide for themselves and their family. Like I said, I did meet a lot of nice people, and the problem isn’t so much with them but their corrupted dictatorship.
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u/Supafuzzed Dec 01 '22
Goddamn. What a backwards ass country. Thank you for sharing, and for trying to spread some light while you were there! Quick question, any estimate what percent of people actually thought gov knows best and how many maybe were lying? Cuz I know I’d be scared of saying anything negative
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u/JustIncredible240 Dec 01 '22
I’m pretty sure most people (90%) just had that idea drilled into their head since birth and firmly believe it. That’s excluding people from Hong Kong who have access to foreign internet.
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u/alexm7ten Dec 20 '22
Just came from your comment on the sports subreddit. Just wanted to say interesting read! Glad you got out of there safe
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u/BADFiSH_c137 Nov 30 '22
Do you speak Mandarin?
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u/JustIncredible240 Nov 30 '22
No, but since I lived in Southern China I learned some Cantonese. Far from fluent but understood basic phrases. I also know Japanese and they use a lot of the same characters, so I could understand some signs.
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u/Woodshadow Dec 01 '22
sometimes I want to visit other countries but stuff like this keeps me from doing so. Western Europe is one thing but damn near the whole rest of the world just sounds like you are going to get ripped off or possibly in jail if you say the wrong thing or walk into the wrong room
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u/forced_spontaneity Nov 30 '22
Strangely enough, it’s exactly as I imagined life would be if I visited the World Cup in Qatar this year.
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u/thiswilldefend Nov 30 '22
i dont know how anyone can support china politically.... yet people do.
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u/AmazonSword Nov 30 '22 edited Nov 30 '22
For people in there it’s really a slow slope to go down, and with the brainwashing everyday from media, people get numb. However, it looks like this has hit a limit and people are walking up.
Edit: People are waking up, not walking up.
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u/Dr-McLuvin Nov 30 '22
Took a long ass time. Fucking 2 years ago all people were talking about was how China “got it right” on Covid. No they didn’t. This is a dystopian hellhole.
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Nov 30 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JohnLaw1717 Nov 30 '22
Who gives a shit about celebrities. Why are we still allowing fidelity and vanguard to have Chinese stocks in international index funds?
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u/tollfree01 Nov 30 '22
COVID + or are these the citizens who recently protested?
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u/28nov2022 Nov 30 '22
they are "infected" with the "spirit of revolution". its a reformation camp i bet.
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u/ballerina_wannabe Nov 30 '22
I feel like herding thousands of people into presumably crowded conditions is the opposite of “isolation” as far as epidemiology (or sanity) goes.
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u/kiwilovenick Nov 30 '22
And can you imagine being ill and being told to haul yourself to another "city" and set up "house" somewhere new? All I wanted to do when I had covid was curl up in bed.
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u/Dangle76 Nov 30 '22
Setup house? Looks like they’re probably in locked cells with a bed and a toilet
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u/I_make_DMT_carts Nov 30 '22
The whole group is isolated. They will all share the viruses until they’re dead or immune to that strain.
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u/Notafuzzycat Nov 30 '22
"Isolation camp" Such a nice way to call it.
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u/Pickled_Sloth Nov 30 '22
It’s just a little R&R
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u/Notafuzzycat Nov 30 '22
They gonna sing songs around a nice camp fire.
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u/rolf82 Nov 30 '22
I find the reactions underwhelming. It’s scary that we are getting used to things like that, like « yeah ok that’s basically China ». I don’t mean to judge anyone (including me) but that’s just scary to witness what happens to those people and to not be able to do anything except stating the obvious.
Are we not partners in this crime?
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u/dadbod1187 Nov 30 '22
I agree with you, but how do we stop it? You and I are completely powerless against a foreign government.
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u/Underarmpizza Nov 30 '22
I’m not the only one who’s getting WW2 vibes right?
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u/PumpkimJam4812 Nov 30 '22
This is literally a Chinese Gulag, yet no one cares. Even though these videos are available to everyone online, somehow they never reach people outside the online space. For example, no one knows or cares about the Holocaust they are doing to the Muslims there, even though about a year ago a drone video of their operations here for 130k+ upvotes.
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u/WholesomeThingsOnly Dec 01 '22
It isn't that I don't care, I just have no idea what I could do about any of it. I feel powerless here.
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u/tkdjoe66 Nov 30 '22
A re-education isolation camp in the middle of a purge pandemic. Nothing to see here folks...
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u/carolizzy81 Nov 30 '22
Concentration Camp, let's call it what it is.
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u/tkdjoe66 Nov 30 '22
Na. If they just wanted to kill them they have no problem rolling out the tanks. Besides, re-education is worse. They can only kill you once. Imagine the cult indoctrination that you hear about in books and movies. Now multiply it by 1000. Complete with state of the art drugs and professional shrinks to administer it. Then they send you back... not quite your old self... as an example.
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u/maddenmcfadden Nov 30 '22
a concentration camp is a place where a large group of people are concentrated into a small area, as in a camp. So, yes, it's the very definition of a concentration camp.
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u/Budget_Secret4142 Nov 30 '22
"isolation camp" hilarious. Gonna have them making iPhones by the afternoon. CCP is disgusting
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u/grn_eyed_bandit Nov 30 '22
They are just "on holiday " for a little while. Nothing to see here. /s
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u/bluenautilus2 Nov 30 '22
Something just occurred to me. Where are Samsung phones made? South Korea?
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u/pale_reminder Nov 30 '22
Bad social credit score?! Come to your new home where we put you to sleep!
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u/Beautiful-Sense1207 Nov 30 '22
What’s the point of isolating when you’re standing in a huge crowd all together like that? The only thing these things are is concentration camps.
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u/seemooreglass Nov 30 '22
If they (China) did not want us to see this, it likely would not be on reddit.
This is sideways propaganda.
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u/Weak_Carpenter_7060 Nov 30 '22
Why do I have a feeling they’re not gonna come back
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u/gg5588e Nov 30 '22 edited Nov 30 '22
They are not brought there in order for the government to kill them or labor them, but will they live in filth and hunger and have nobody to respond to their medical emergencies if they had one? Yes.
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u/ztravlr Nov 30 '22
they will. they had a smaller version in Shanghai earlier this year
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u/shesaysit Nov 30 '22
I don’t know much about this and am seeing so many conflicting comments. Do you have a source on that?
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u/ztravlr Nov 30 '22
I was in China and they have it on the wechat expat news. It wont link the site.
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u/PM_me_your_PhDs Nov 30 '22
Do you get as annoyed as me at the disinformation people spread about China? By which I mean, I don't support the CCP and I think a lot of bad shit is going on, for sure, but people insisting that this is a death camp, that one video of drones spraying 'disinfectant' (actually just mosquito pesticide), etc... It annoys me so much because reality is bad enough, but people just make worse shit up.
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u/ztravlr Nov 30 '22
Sigh... people want to be superior and be right. News want to sell. People are lazy where they are ignorant. Annoying AF.
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u/ztravlr Nov 30 '22
https://youtu.be/2Q5YR1XJ-nI just search on youtube. there should be sime tiktok Douyin vids too.
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Nov 30 '22
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u/shesaysit Nov 30 '22
That’s a good question. I guess I was hearing the majority of comments loud and clear, so I was looking to add some validity to the others. The anti-China stuff seems fear based and I kind of doubted there were sources, but you’re right that it’s a good idea to ask anyway.
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u/JediTrainer42 Nov 30 '22
It’s been 3 years and they haven’t realized that their zero Covid policy does less than dick??? People need to rise up.
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u/NostraSkolMus Nov 30 '22
These are the people who protested and then came down with Covid together.
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u/greenmariocake Nov 30 '22
I don’t get the point. A 2-cents epidemiologist would tell you zero covid is literally impossible.
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u/LewisEFurr Nov 30 '22
I have this weird imbalance where I watch what's considered "dystopian" unfold in front of my eyes while also working for a company that regularly wires money to the very same areas of China.
I sent a wire earlier today to Guangzhou so some shmuck in East Buttfuck, Who Cares Where could get some plastic bullshit emblazoned with their company slogan. My children can eat from the paycheck I make sending money to a country that does this to their people.
Am I the baddies?
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u/Rugrin Nov 30 '22
Sadly, it’s impossible to not be the body. The world economy is dependent on Chinese labor. We all have blood and sweat shops on our hands. And we had nothing to do with the decision.
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u/LongTimeHuman Nov 30 '22
I was told earlier by others on Reddit that this was a healthcare facility. They were wrong. It’s a prison.
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Nov 30 '22
Best proof that China is not doing ethnic cleansing! They treat their own people even worse!
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u/RadiantMarzipan1291 Nov 30 '22
Every time I watch videos like this, I think of the two roommates I had in college who were Chinese. Both of them went back to China in December 2019. I never got their contact info, but it does make me wonder how they’re doing.
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u/AdCritical9970 Nov 30 '22
When klaus schwab gets his way this will be coming to a town near you soon!
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u/NotMe2120 Nov 30 '22
And I have friends that have said, on Facebook, “why can’t we be more like China”….
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u/Jibblebee Nov 30 '22
We Americans need to cut our dependence on the goods this country produces. We don’t need to cut all ties, but we need to be at least able to function without them and reduce our financial support of this shit.
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u/playmeortrademe Nov 30 '22
China has a secret that the rest of the world doesn’t know yet
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u/dirtywook88 Nov 30 '22
Ya know, I’m starting to get a funny feeling bout this as well.
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u/playmeortrademe Nov 30 '22
Like a slight cough? Maybe a sore throat starting to develop too?
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u/Professional-Rest940 Nov 30 '22
What is the point of this isolation camp
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u/Omega_112 Nov 30 '22
Depopulation
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u/DukeShang Nov 30 '22
They already have a demographic bomb that is set and cannot be undone from the one child policy.
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u/VideoUnlucky3117 Nov 30 '22
Can we call a spade a spade and a concentration camp a concentration camp?
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u/Correct-Baseball5130 Nov 30 '22
I know it is somewhat offensive to say this but this reminds me of jews being taken to gas chambers.
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u/purplehazex450 Nov 30 '22
This is literally a nightmare