Come see the ideas that the Chinese Gov't is so fearful of that it needs to suppress them!

http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zflus.html
http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/flg.htm

dude.. it has been suppressing so much for sooo long that is only one of the many things they do. Their totaltarian methods of controling the chinese is sickening, I have researched their methods and it is basically germany only more indepth on conditioning. Also instead of sending people out they want to transform all of them into the "model citizen", tis not a pretty sight. :/

But the Chinese government, by trying to suppress Falun Gong and Falun Dafa, will only make these ideas more influential and widespread since people are naturally curious about ideologies that governments feel compelled to suppress.

Is the Chinese government really this stupid? Apparently so. If they wanted to snuff out Falun Gong and Falun Dafa, there are far better ways to do so, discretely.

Oh they do.. they do. Much of it involves strategically taking out key people and transforming their mind set through various psychological ploys for years at a time, until they finally have these people into the way they want. From there they can continue with their influential techniques at modifying the chinese people to how they see fit. This was all started wayyy back with the first emperor of china and it has been going on and evolving since then. Remember you are an outsider who has access to information that is not so easily found by the chinese, hell I got my hands on a detailed book of totaltarian methods of mind control and various psychological ploys used, do you think the chinese people can get their hands on that? For another example just think about WWII and Germany.

Of course though you only posted the writing on Falun Gong, it was started in 1991 if I remember correctly, which would place it quite easily into the new age cult catagory. There is a large amount of info on it at Wikipedia one could look up that goes into detail on it beliefs.

(that was ten years ago)

I live out here in Asia (9 years now) :-)

Qigong is widely and openly practised everywhere you go from 04h30 to 08h00 not supressed at all.
Having lived in China and presently Vietnam I have to say that the people are in general very happy, healthy and well informed. Technology and information move quickly in these new consumer-social societies.

Working for a university in both countries there is absolute academic freedom. Rote learning is quickly making its way to the door, this together with the fact that the citizens of China are exceptional in logic and natural sciences. So much so that the big names as universities go at least from Europe to the US come head hunting here. After an undergrad degree in-country students do postgrads at some of the best in the world and out-country. Many of these postgraduates return to reinvest in China.

Times are changing without a doubt. China plans far ahead. A sense of future seems inherent.

well thats true, china is becoming a major world power and fairly quickly.

Culture, is it true that there are distinctive differences of character between the Mandarin and the rest of the chinese ethnic groups, such as the Cantonese? I was made to believe that the Mandarines hold an upper edge (intelectual mainly but also cultural and economical) over the rest of the Chinese. Someone even drew the comparison with the Jewish people in the west as an analogy. Please enlighten us!

Let me try to make it clear. First, I suppose when you say Mandarine, you mean people in the north, right? If so, Mandarines and Cantonese all belong to Han ethnic group. Foreigners call standard Chinese Mandarine, but in Chinese, its known as Han language. The real Man(chinese pinyin, not 'man') ethnic group is quite a minority, but after defeating the corrupted Ming Dynasty ruled by Han, they became the royal group in Qin Dynasty, the last dynasty in Chinese history. That's when westerners invaded China and that's why they called Chinese Mandarine, I guess?

As for Han, the most populous group in China, are simply living in different places, but sharing the same culture. Other ethinic groups in China including Man, Tibetans, Hui(muslims) and many others have their own languages and very distinctive cultures, which you may find quite different from your general impression of Chinese culture, which is usually Han culture. So, compared with other ethinic groups (there are 55 others), Han culture is more rich and 'developed' (as most people define development) and it represents the Chinese culture simply because other ethnic groups live in poorer areas and many of them lived as tribes before 1949.

Now, about north and south. Traditionally, southeast China (not Cantonese, but places around Shanghai) is more developed because it has long been the center of economy, religion, and knowledge. But, if people say the north is more intellectural, it may have 2 reasons: first, Confucious was born in the north, so comparatively, northern people place more value on intellectual pursuit and look down upon businessman, and thus they are usually considered more conservative; second, Beijing as the capital of the country is establised as the political and intellectual center, with most of China's best universities clustered in a certain district of the city. And due to the socio-economic system, Beijing makes policies about enocomic and financial developments. So, if you want to do big business, sure you need to deal with (or bribe?) those policy-makers in Beijing.

Canton has never been considered as a center of anything in history. Shenzhen was once merely a small town occupied by poor fishers. Its rise is mainly after China's reform in the 80s, which started from Canton and the south. I think Den has reasons to pick up on Shenzhen, Canton,and one of it may be its oversea connections. Many Cantonese have family members working or doing business in foreign countries .

That's why people may have the stereotype view that Cantonese has no intellectual ability, and they are only good at doing business. I have to say, they have become a special group in mainland China first because of their connection with HK, and later because of the reform.

Still, this is wild generalization, Chinese are very diverse. And people do tend to have stereotypes for each province and even each city: Cantonese(one province only) eat everything and know nothing but money, rich uncivilized people. Shanghai (one city) is extremely arrogant and vain, calling people outside the city "villagers" even when they are from Beijing. People in Beijing are considered not as liberal as those in Shanghai, and they always think they are most intellectual in the country. But people ouside will think they are simply good at communication, bad at taking action, and they are too political, even taxi-drivers talking politics. People in the northeast are considered honest, warm-hearted but too ill-tempered, and thus rude, so never quarrel with them <seriously things can get violent>. People in Hubei are sly and you have to watch your wallet when you are in Henan Province, for they are good at cheating... I have to say there are certain reasons for people to think so, but still... these are stereotypes...

About the analogy with Jews. People from a small city, named Wenzhou in the south, north to Canton ,south to Shanghai are called Jews in China because they are a small group, but doing business in almost every place in China and outside China. Chinese lighters, clothes, shoes, and many other products are now mainly produced by their factories. They usually start from leaving their home city, doing small business outside, business that local people don't like to do, they are often despised and suspected by others, and they tend to keep to their distinctive group and distinctive way of living.

There's a book titled, "Wenzhou, Jews in China". And there's a joke: if an alien comes to the earth, people in Beijing will ask it what kind of political system do they have in their universe, people in Shanghai will catch it, dress it and then put it in a pretty place for exhibition, people in Canton will eat it, and people in Wenzhou will invite it to dinner and ask it about doing business in the other universe. But, different from Jews in America, Wenzhou businessman have no control of the economy, they usually do not have very tight connections with government ...

Thanks for a very insightful view on the subject, Culture. I can hardly wait to put my hands on that book. I hope they sell it here in America.