But Europe is also quite heterogeneous. E.g. in Scandinavia getting scammed or pickpocketed is really rare, but in say Barcelona or Rome the chance is a lot higher. Violent crime like robbery is in general very rare everywhere.
it's not propaganda, i am talking some thing like 'yelp', real people share real experience after travel to EU. sure there are many good ones, but lots of bad ones.
> unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation
you can. but not in the public media. people share LGBT content on the Internet all the time. Right now the most popular influencer on chinese tiktok is a crossdresser
not intent to change your view, just some clarification.
I also now realize that my original comment may seem harsher than I intended. I fully understand your point of view since I was also born in a comparatively poor place, and I realize how uplifting it is to see everything around you improve at a rapid pace. But despite this, cases like that of Naomi Wu are egregious. Nobody can say for sure how much each “inconvenient” aspect of her online presence (accusing companies, being openly gay, having an Uyghur partner) has contributed to her shutdown, but the fact is that this person can’t publish her videos on tech anymore. This is very hard to justify for me.
Nonetheless, thank you for sharing your opinion. It is very valuable to get your perspective here.
Personally, I don’t quite agree with this kind of action, unless there’s a clear law that she violated. But China isn’t very transparent about such matters, so sometimes what the government does is right, sometimes it isn’t. Each case needs to be studied specifically. However, this lack of transparency is indeed a weakness.
Really, where?
I have been robbed in Belgium and in France, have had a knife on my throat on a Sunday morning, and have had burglars twice (once in Antwerp, once in Leuven). About five of my bikes were stolen, and I've been conned by construction workers several times.
Anyhow, sorry to hear about your experience. That’s how statistics work I guess. For any particularly unlucky person there’s a correspondingly lucky person that averages them out.
Conning is definitely more of a thing, but I wouldn’t place it in the same league as pickpocketing of tourists. Which of course is a thing, I don’t want to deny it. Just that using it as a reason to avoid Europe is absolutely blowing it out of proportion.
That is the baseline that Chinese are comparing to nowadays. That's why even many what we call safe places feel unsafe to them.
Also consider that just 15 years ago, China was definitely way unsafer than many European countries. China upgraded from a low public trust to high public trust society in front of people's living memories. This is what you have to consider when considering why Chinese people are happy with their government. All this voting stuff is just theoretical benefit. In Netherlands, our politics have been a mess for more than a decade. Voting certainly didn't solve the problems.
What you said is absolutely right. We’ve gotten used to this kind of society, so our expectations for safety when traveling are much higher than those of people from other countries. Credit cards are, of course, convenient, but in China we’re used to going out with just a phone—no wallet, no cards. No risk of fraud, no risk of robbery, convenient, fast, and safe.
I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe. It’s also a very diverse region so it’s hard to generalize. But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers.
But regardless, I’d take having a 0.001% chance of my wallet (which contains zero valuables) being stolen versus being silenced by the government for criticizing the regime or being unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation. Let alone all the history rewriting and censorship.