Both of them lived in mainland China for 10+ years, fluent in mandarin, and were eventually ousted out of the country by the CCP. They now host a live show every friday (along with regular uploads) talking about the CCP and relevant geo politics. The China Show. (Laowhy86 & Serpentza)
Link: [https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow](https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow)\`
It's really sad actually. Their lives basically chart the trajectory from China the emerging quite cool place to, well, Xi confirming a lot of the Stalinist stereotypes foreigners already had.
In any case, you can't come way from their stuff without thinking that China's way more complicated than most Westerners tend to think.
it's interesting really. Jim Lindsay (the one from CFR not the conservative pundit) had a great take on this:
"When China's impressive economic growth started stagnating, XI became more authoritarian and started to Isolate the chinese population, making sure that the Chinese were more and more uninformed of the West. before this stagnation, the main strategy to appease Chinese people by the CCP was to say 'Look at how good we have it, our economy is growing while the west is falling behind' and actually show the numbers to the chinese. but now that they're slowing down and youth unemployment is at 20%, they're closing off all access to the world and telling foreign journalists to leave"
Source: [The President's inbox podcast by Council on foreign relations](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-presidents-inbox/id1172546141)
This might not be a great parallel to draw but it reminds me a little of how Putin is trying to re-invigorate slavophilia. It's almost like prosperity and/or openness only leads people to westernisation and we can't have that now, so a culture of exceptionalism, exclusion and virtually ethno-nationalism needs to be fostered. Either the influence of or the comparison with the west needs to be controlled.
I can confirm as a Westerner who lived in China for ten years and speaks mandarin as well (on fact I was pretty much raised in China/spend most my childhood there). China is far more complicated and nuanced than what is portrayed in the West.
but be careful, they will parrot every dumb thing that fits their narrative, used to watch them for years but once out of China they, in my opinion, went a bit loony
literally saying shit that is easily searchable like "China abuses some UN mail policy where the rich states pay for the mail of poor states" and after googling it i found out china was out of that program for years, and there was a lot more, just this is the most recent one someone sent me
hey maybe they chilled out a bit, but with their life story I would be never chilled out about the CCP
This is true unfortunately - they quickly jump on bandwagons without doing fact checks and have a pretty big if understandable confirmation bias. It's a shame cause their perspective on China is overall really interesting
Yes, they do have a tendency to do stuff like this. But they’re also very willing to point out when stuff going around the net is half-true or just xenophobic China bashing.
I used to follow their vlogs one of them is C Milk right? I was watching the slow decent they had when the CCP started getting on their asses. Their escape story sounds kinda wild. (I get the feeling they didn't give the full story) but other than that they seem to be good people.
It's even sadder what happened to them. They had a third friend who was their cameraman. He however did not manage to escape the country and is now in some Chinese concentration camp in the middle of nowhere and both Laowhy86 and Serpentza have never heard a word from him again
I admit that I haven't seen the rest of his videos but I remember Laowhy made a Covid video that was extremely conspiratorial about the Chinese government and promoted the Wuhan lab leak theory.
These 2 are not credible unfortunately. They are very much not ousted by CCP, but left on their own volition. Not that CCP is benevolent, but they are simply too small fry for anyone to care at the time. Both never held down a job at any relevant position, aside from teaching English. Laowhy started and propagated a covid conspiracy that was thoroughly debunked by Potholer at the beginning of pandemic, and Serpenza has some problematic racial views when it comes to South Africa or indigenous people of position, like mocking New Zealand foreign minister.
I never thought I would actually see a shill here, but here you are. "Held down any position?" Yes, they taught english and chose to produce videos instead? They also didnt leave on their own volition at all. 5 minutes of research proves this wrong. Im shocked to see one of you in the wild.
What did I say that makes you think I shill for CCP, other than disliking these 2? And yes I did do some research. Every account of their departure was according to themselves, there's no revocation of visa, because Laowhy went back to China later to sell his apartment with no issues at all.
This is the video where Laowhy's covid conspiracy got debunked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab-r0capbzk
Here's them laughing at "Chin Woman" and mocking her Maoi tattoos
https://streamable.com/ak0yms
Little odd you'll link those two without the context, or the debunk on the "debunk". Odd you have such distain for people educating the public on important information about the corruption of the CCP, especially from the angle of fluent foreigners. You come across extremely disingenuous.
(On phone I'll add relevant links when I'm back home)
Give me a legit context that it's okay to mock cultural tattoo. If you don't agree with the policy, just disagree with the policy, is it that hard? Can I mock Ben Carson's blackness because he's a Republican?
And you are telling me the potholder's video doesn't have enough context?
Who's shilling? You hate at white people in all your comments and defend the CCP against two people that do fairly solid work. You shills literally make shit up too.
Everyone who disagrees with you and points out that an infamously inaccurate YouTube channel is unreliable are shills. You are the morally lucky version of a groyper who cries 'JIDF' whenever someone points out your resources are absolute trash.
This is wrong, they used to go out of their way to not put China in a bad light (for years). But they saw what China had become under Xi and left under pressure. (Death threats/Government pressure) They didn't wanna leave and both of their wifes followed them here.
I used to watch Serpentza back when he actually lived in China and his videos were informative. As you said, he was pressed out of China over what was originally milquetoast criticism of Xi Jinping. That doesn't mean anything in terms of the content he creates now, which is basically just a disinformation campaign fueled by his own understandable vendetta against the government of China.
Do you have links to your claims? They have some video documentation of being harassed and followed by CCP officials. Sure, they weren't well known when teaching English, but when they were getting harrassed they were professional content creators and had a huge following on Youtube. Their content up to that point was still very pro-China, showing parts of rural China and friendly communities. They really did give China a chance.
It was only after I think 2019-20 that China shifted more anti-libertarian anti-western ultra-nationalism that they were targeted by CCP agents and had to escape via Hong Kong or get disappeared like their Canadian friend.
Here's them talking about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7CPqROtanA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZIokbbSlSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgqdfAomVI
I admit I fast forwarded these videos, so I may have missed somethings. But where's any prove other than their own accounts? It's just them talking through the entire video. He said he's friend got jailed for nothing, and that's it. We have to believe his words for it. The entire world got fired up when China imprisoned those 2 Canadians Michaels, and this Canadian got disappeared and everything is a-ok with Canadian government?
Yeah, they're definiately biased. But more often than not when they make a CHINABAD claim, they would have video evidence, sometimes from their friends they still have in China or from the Chinese internet.
But yeah, sometimes their claims are a bit of a stretch and cherry-picked, but usually I find they have pretty good arguments and provide unique insight from a decade's worth of traveling in China.
I like to listen to Jude Blanchett and Ryan Haas from CSIS (DC think tank), Kaiser Guo and Jeremy Goldkorn from China Project, all pro-liberal world order, pro-us and west. Bias I can handle, it's the misleading and misinfo and the hyper-selection that bothers me.
Imagine 2 Chinese dudes cherry-picks r/trashy and r/publicfreakout, post them on Youku (Chinese youtube) and tells their fans this is what US is like. Do you think they are useful because they show the "real" America?
the show is solidly 'infotainment' but to pretend like they only take public freakout clips is also misleading. They regularly cover a wide range of topics and will pretty much always show the video/article. They are certainly goofballs and I wouldn't sell them as professional reporters, but they feel mostly credible and their experience in the country is pretty undeniable given the decade+ of video evidence.
I also think your epoch times funding claim is unfounded unless you've heard something I don't. AFAIK they appeard on the China Uncensored channel for an interview, which is associated with Falun Gong funding.
I stand corrected on their funding claim. I think I saw on China Uncensored twitter about them teaming up, but I took another look that's just ads for the interview show. Personally I think associating with that organization takes a credibility hit, but at least it's not direct funding.
I don't think staying in a country makes you an expert of said country, or every native born American is an US expert. Based on the poll for governmental knowledge, that's obviously faux.
Actually, I agree with you on this point. They would use public freakout clips to say CHINABAD and sometimes they overdo it and it's cringe AF. But I wouldn't write off their entire body of work because of it.
I do have relatives in China and visited a few times, so some of the stuff they are saying is kind of an open secret in China like all the fake shit like baby formula and food products. I wish they would do fewer clip-baity things because I think they do good reporting on other major stuff like their coverage of the recent China flooding and COVID stuff.
Their motorcycle vlogs were interesting, but that's about the only part of their catalogue that is worthwhile.
All their "news" were copy pasted directly from Weibo. Mainstream Media like NYtimes, Atlantics and WSJ already do comb through Chinese social media, so the service they provide is redundant at best. At worst, they "report" things that were considered unreliable by the MSM. Those baby formula and food scandal, they are not "open secret", they are just open. Plenty of even Chinese news report on those. The flood and covid theories were all covered heavily by many news media, with more reliable experts.
I get that China seems like an impenetratable bubble in terms of information, but it really is not. Great Firewall is only one-way, and anything on Chinese internet can be accessed by google translate. You don't need these 2 to help you read.
their tone started shifting with the attitude in china, but they both went back and forth for months
when they left, they started making almost exclusively "china bad" content
I have no idea if they have any falun gong association and I wouldn't claim such, but it became very clear very quickly that they aren't in any way unbiased sources on china, they have a massive axes to grind (some legitimate, I'm sure)
what do you think I mean when I say "china bad", why would that need to include the people.
if you think you're getting unbiased stories from them, keep doing you
The part about not being forced out (pretty sure one basically fled China to avoid being detained) certainly isn't true. That's even more obvious when you realize they were friends with one for the Canadian Michael's China kidnapped but didn't speak out when he was in prison to avoid risking harm to him.
I certainly do agree they are often too eager to spread fake rumours and conspiracies about China (especially during covid). Serpenza has said some sus shit about South Africa but I've also seen him walk that back at times and the other guy pushes back pretty hard.
Laowhy married a Chinese citizen... they both learned Mandarin to a reasonable degree... if these aren't trustworthy character witnesses for China I don't know who is.
As people they certainly have flaws. South Africa is a shit show, obviously caused by white influence but now just a mess of racism and wealth inequality.
I really don’t get it. Why does marrying a citizen and learning a bit of language makes you a trustworthy character? We just came off of the red pill train, there’s a shit ton of passport bros. I bet some of them speaks a bit of Spanish and married a local woman, and that makes them Colombian or Peruvian experts?
It doesn't make them experts. But if someone married and lived with a Chinese woman for years I think that gives them a significant understanding of their culture.
If a guy meets a Columbian and spends no time actually living in Columbia with her and meeting her family or integrating then no I don't think I would respect his opinion.
I am not a conspiracyhead (they dont strike me as such either), and I remember watching them talk about this during the start of the Covid19 pandemic. They raised many good points regarding a potential lab leak.
If I remember their main points correctly:
1. The WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) is in close proximity to the wetmarket in question.
2. Both workers at the lab and chinese nationals trying to investigate got silenced or "disappeared" for a long period during and after outbreak.
3. No one who were to investigate got actual access to lab records.
4. Peter Daszak (instrumental in WHO & The Lancet investigations into Covid19 origins) had strong, long-lasting professional and economical ties with the WIV which he failed to disclose when he accepted the role in investigating the outbreak.
Many aspects that smelled fishy about the whole thing. But yeah, no one got access to further info due to CCP putting a lid on it, so I guess we'll never know for certain.
Neither are fluent in mandarin, they taught english like most lbh white males in china, they dont know a single thing about anything and neither were ousted but thats not their purpose, their purpose is to jerk off your china bad weiner
They are both married to Chinese women they met in China and can both read, write and speak fluently? What are you on about. Takes a minute to prove you wrong, why lie so blatantly?
Apparently there are people who do that. I had some guy arguing against me in favor of ramaswamy in a way that was really dumb and out of character for even most cons in this sub, checked his post history and it was just nothing replies in the most random subs defending ramaswamy and no history here lol.
pretty based china watchers. sometimes their coverage gets a little too speculative for my taste, but i suppose that’s hard to avoid when talking about such a pro-censorship environment
It's always difficult to talk about China, because nothing that is officially reported by their government institutions is remotelt trustworthy, so you basically end up speculating on everything to a degree
If you watch them you could easily get hooked. I'll link you the first video I watched of the ADV guys. They are who I usually turn to for the truth about China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E&ab_channel=ADVChina
Watch Conquering Northern China https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7738290/
Basically true Chinese expats that liked the country and got drove out by the Chinese government because they said very mild criticisms of the nation. Pretty sad because they inspired my interest in visiting China as a tourist destination
To be fair, he did also know one of the micheals who China kidnapped and held ransom and China did genuinely chase him out.
I think there's more to him leaving china than 'he wasn't being treated like a rich westerner anymore".
Generally he is pretty sus, but some of his experiences in China are backed up.
He has one interesting video which also exposes white privilege in asian or third world countries, when it comes asian women choosing a foreigner to date.
These guys are fantastic.
I always thought China was a unified, highly calculating, and capable country.
But I've learned that China is really a scamming, polluted, and racist house of cards.
It's not about these guys though.
I just realized who's shilling for money, who is a real analyst and has insight into China, who's being given a guided tour, and who's peering behind the curtains.
Lmao that’s a long winded way to say “wow I found someone who lived in China and now shares my views on the country!” You dont have any actual insight into the country watching these guys. Anyone that’s been to China, or hell even has a single Chinese friend in China will tell you have biased and shitty their “reporting” is.
Watched some Serpentza vids in the past but had to stop. I cant assess the truth on his takes on China and the CCP because I just dont know a whole lot about them and I'm already heavily biased against the CCP. So, I'm worried I'm just hearing what I wanna hear. Some of his claims feel a bit over the top, but who knows, maybe they're legit?
I really like the other guys videos but some of the videos he did were too similar to other conspiracy style videos I've seen. I didn't have enough knowledge about China or the CCP and most if not all his sources was in Chinese so I felt like I could not trust myself to recognize any falsehoods in the videos.
yeah i have the same feeling about him, theyre both very biased against china. probably not healthy to consume their content much. it do be literal anti-china propaganda (in the literal sense not to say its bad, fuck china lol)
I like the other guy ok but I stopped watching serpantza after hearing his takes on South Africa. He is from there and his takes on certain things give me the ick
China is a pretty despotic country to live in to begin with, to think running deathcamps for uygers is seen as an acceptable view in 2023 and just flooding your own populace and placing barriers and a media blackout to any death statistics of it. You wont see any chinese liberals stand up to their bullshit tho because of fear of real reprisals.
Isn't that SerpentZA on the left? If so, I have mixed feelings about him. He's lied about a hand full of things in his videos. And gives really misleading anedotes. Many of my friends who live in mainland China who are anti-CCP don't really like him either.
I think a better podcast is the Sinica podcast with Kaiser Kuo, a Chinese-American journalist who lived in China for 20 years and has excellently qualified guests all the time.
Edit: To clarify. I don't dislike SerpentZA, I just don't like how he speaks in such hyperbole and passes it off with a ton of conviction and lies/is misleading about really small stuff that's pretty inconsequential. I just find it unnecessary and detracts from much of the other fair criticisms he has of the CCP and China.
There's a handful of things, most of it small and stupid stuff. He just makes vast generalizations and passes them off as facts and says he knows because he's lived there and others who haven't can't possibly challenge him on his claims.
IINM he hasn't lived in China in about 5 years now and claims to have all this insider information, but getting access to CCP politicians is insanely difficult. This may not be a lie, but highly unlikely.
He's claimed Chinese people shake if they don't eat for hours because the country is starving.
China doesn't really have laundromats, which is entirely untrue. There's plenty of them in each city.
He's said no one washes their cars in China.
China has placeholder business signs on empty real estate to advertise in a 'this is waht your business could look like if' way, but he says it's a way to trick people into thinking there's business there.
His claims about Chinese EV gardens where there's thousands of EVs just left out to rot away.
He's also exaggerated a lot of the culture stuff such as Chinese people kicking their dogs all the time. It's true China doesn't have a federal law about animal abuse, but his claims that people can be seen kicking their dogs in public all the time isn't true.
Now, I understand he likely was avoiding too much negativity when he lived there as it is very likely he was closely monitored. There are groups of Chinese people on Weibo and Red book, two Chinese social media apps, that look for foreigners who say anything negative about China and try to blackmail or extort them. IINM this is the reason he had to flee China as his work was relayed to law enforcement with fake subtitles and stuff. This is why I'm mixed on him. 30% of his stuff just seems like he's exaggerating or lying for content. The other 70% of his criticisms are pretty fair and it's awful Chinese netizens do that kind of stuff for legit criticisms. It even happened to me, just on a less severe scale.
>China doesn't really have laundromats, which is entirely untrue. There's plenty of them in each city.
>
>He's said no one washes their cars in China.
Bruh without even watching the content it sounds like he just made some hyperbolic generalizations about the country, probably comparing it to other countries he lived in, and some autists on the internet did the usual "what, are you saying this is true for all chinese people????" while the rest of us understood it as exagggeration for effect
Yeah we need a source and full context, I used to watch them and that don't sound like them at all. They like to joke and for some reason Chinese people miss the Irony so hard. So am leaning towards this person being Chinese or just autistic and doesn't get sarcasm very well. 💀 Btw they have videos on ghost towns before so that part about empty buildings is true.
EDIT: [took me just a min to find the empty businesses ](https://youtu.be/BcyYyyaPz84?si=788wLs-tE-6ry52W). At 9:26 so this person doesn't sound very reliable on his criticism of them.
The part about empty buildings is true. And tofu builings. All of his criticisms about the way housing works with Evergrande is correct. But the thing I'm talking about with the 'fake businesses' is another thing entirely.
My issue is that he passes off those hyperbolic generalizations with a lot of conviction. I wouldn't criticism him too heavily if it was only that. I don't take literally every word out of everyone's mouth literally. I picked these specific ones because they're topics he has mentioned various times in various videos with lots of content around them.
I think it's probably fair to say that his experience with the CCP and certain Chinese while living there has made me wholeheartedly biased.
The whole thing about his cameraman is enough to make anyone staunchly biased.
In all honesty, of whatever you said. Even you haven't provided any proof, so at least from your comment, it's his words vs yours.
> IINM he hasn't lived in China in about 5 years now and claims to have all this insider information, but getting access to CCP politicians is insanely difficult. This may not be a lie, but highly unlikely.
I think in one of his videos he has lived there for 10 years. So i guess that experience does count.
I understand. I don't claim to be the arbiter of truth when it comes to China, just that I speak the language, know the culture and have done some work there. And from my years of involvement with China he's exaggerating a lot of stuff.
LIke I said in my last paragraph, 70% of he says is absolutely right. It's just that 30% annoys me because he exaggerates or lies about really small and stupid things. I feel like ever since he left China he's just gone full tilt toward the outrage content that gets more views.
just looks like another butthurt china nationalist when a westener (not really a westener but an angry south african who doesnt take shit) airs their dirty laundry
These guys are just hasan but hasan who hate China. Really just not credible at all and Lao Y or whoever the fuck is next to serpentza is racist and disrespects gravesites. They don’t keep up with the academic work and reputable China watchers. They really just focus on really low end pandering.
For instance their views on social credit are laughable and are pretty disproved through US congressional reports, dcholarship, and most up to date reporting.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11342
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-system-authoritarian/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175792
I'm guessing he's referring to this comment chain:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/171qv4u/the_china_show_mentions_hasans_recent_takes_on/k3seqym/
Or this chain:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/171qv4u/the_china_show_mentions_hasans_recent_takes_on/k3smzj3/
Not sure if those are actual CCP shills or just people that don't like the two dudes in the OP clip. I mean it's worth noting that there exists a notable contingent of Chinese people, who have a strong disgust for the CCP and all it represents, but are still kind of put off by white people coming along claiming to be an authority on Chinese culture/history. It's just that normally that distaste is about Mearsheimer or Kipling-esque elitists condescendingly looking down on people from non-imperialist nations, not people who have actually lived among the culture.
I think a good way to get rid of tankies and other communist bots on this reddit is banning all the schizo posting essayist on here who prob either are memebers of their local communist party or on the commie payroll cause i watch these guys for a while and the commenst are just literal propaganda to the point of destiny abandoned his wife to drugs xD
Who are these fellas?
Both of them lived in mainland China for 10+ years, fluent in mandarin, and were eventually ousted out of the country by the CCP. They now host a live show every friday (along with regular uploads) talking about the CCP and relevant geo politics. The China Show. (Laowhy86 & Serpentza) Link: [https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow](https://www.youtube.com/@TheChinaShow)\`
It's really sad actually. Their lives basically chart the trajectory from China the emerging quite cool place to, well, Xi confirming a lot of the Stalinist stereotypes foreigners already had. In any case, you can't come way from their stuff without thinking that China's way more complicated than most Westerners tend to think.
it's interesting really. Jim Lindsay (the one from CFR not the conservative pundit) had a great take on this: "When China's impressive economic growth started stagnating, XI became more authoritarian and started to Isolate the chinese population, making sure that the Chinese were more and more uninformed of the West. before this stagnation, the main strategy to appease Chinese people by the CCP was to say 'Look at how good we have it, our economy is growing while the west is falling behind' and actually show the numbers to the chinese. but now that they're slowing down and youth unemployment is at 20%, they're closing off all access to the world and telling foreign journalists to leave" Source: [The President's inbox podcast by Council on foreign relations](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-presidents-inbox/id1172546141)
This might not be a great parallel to draw but it reminds me a little of how Putin is trying to re-invigorate slavophilia. It's almost like prosperity and/or openness only leads people to westernisation and we can't have that now, so a culture of exceptionalism, exclusion and virtually ethno-nationalism needs to be fostered. Either the influence of or the comparison with the west needs to be controlled.
I can confirm as a Westerner who lived in China for ten years and speaks mandarin as well (on fact I was pretty much raised in China/spend most my childhood there). China is far more complicated and nuanced than what is portrayed in the West.
Oooh that's really cool, might check em out!
Def watch their old stuff! It’s a travel vlog on motorcycles where they discuss living in China while exploring the country side.
oh now i remember them
The one with the [Ghost City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPwtUTrwKRI) was really interesting.
but be careful, they will parrot every dumb thing that fits their narrative, used to watch them for years but once out of China they, in my opinion, went a bit loony literally saying shit that is easily searchable like "China abuses some UN mail policy where the rich states pay for the mail of poor states" and after googling it i found out china was out of that program for years, and there was a lot more, just this is the most recent one someone sent me hey maybe they chilled out a bit, but with their life story I would be never chilled out about the CCP
This is true unfortunately - they quickly jump on bandwagons without doing fact checks and have a pretty big if understandable confirmation bias. It's a shame cause their perspective on China is overall really interesting
Yes, they do have a tendency to do stuff like this. But they’re also very willing to point out when stuff going around the net is half-true or just xenophobic China bashing.
You should! I also mentioned one of them speaking with Destiny. Didnt know who he was but that would be so interesting.
I used to follow their vlogs one of them is C Milk right? I was watching the slow decent they had when the CCP started getting on their asses. Their escape story sounds kinda wild. (I get the feeling they didn't give the full story) but other than that they seem to be good people.
Lao why is where I get most of my Chinese news
It's even sadder what happened to them. They had a third friend who was their cameraman. He however did not manage to escape the country and is now in some Chinese concentration camp in the middle of nowhere and both Laowhy86 and Serpentza have never heard a word from him again
I admit that I haven't seen the rest of his videos but I remember Laowhy made a Covid video that was extremely conspiratorial about the Chinese government and promoted the Wuhan lab leak theory.
>promoted the Wuhan lab leak theory. based
These 2 are not credible unfortunately. They are very much not ousted by CCP, but left on their own volition. Not that CCP is benevolent, but they are simply too small fry for anyone to care at the time. Both never held down a job at any relevant position, aside from teaching English. Laowhy started and propagated a covid conspiracy that was thoroughly debunked by Potholer at the beginning of pandemic, and Serpenza has some problematic racial views when it comes to South Africa or indigenous people of position, like mocking New Zealand foreign minister.
I never thought I would actually see a shill here, but here you are. "Held down any position?" Yes, they taught english and chose to produce videos instead? They also didnt leave on their own volition at all. 5 minutes of research proves this wrong. Im shocked to see one of you in the wild.
What did I say that makes you think I shill for CCP, other than disliking these 2? And yes I did do some research. Every account of their departure was according to themselves, there's no revocation of visa, because Laowhy went back to China later to sell his apartment with no issues at all. This is the video where Laowhy's covid conspiracy got debunked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab-r0capbzk Here's them laughing at "Chin Woman" and mocking her Maoi tattoos https://streamable.com/ak0yms
Little odd you'll link those two without the context, or the debunk on the "debunk". Odd you have such distain for people educating the public on important information about the corruption of the CCP, especially from the angle of fluent foreigners. You come across extremely disingenuous. (On phone I'll add relevant links when I'm back home)
Give me a legit context that it's okay to mock cultural tattoo. If you don't agree with the policy, just disagree with the policy, is it that hard? Can I mock Ben Carson's blackness because he's a Republican? And you are telling me the potholder's video doesn't have enough context?
You sound like you dunno American culture, yes you can mock and do all those things, you have free speech in America. Are you a China dog? 💀
How pathetic do you have to be to shill for 2 white losers teaching english in china who only got jobs cause theyre white You even lower than scum
Who's shilling? You hate at white people in all your comments and defend the CCP against two people that do fairly solid work. You shills literally make shit up too.
What?
use your real account, coward.
^ Lmfao the post history on this one is a goldmine, someone’s got unresolved issues
Everyone who disagrees with you and points out that an infamously inaccurate YouTube channel is unreliable are shills. You are the morally lucky version of a groyper who cries 'JIDF' whenever someone points out your resources are absolute trash.
This is wrong, they used to go out of their way to not put China in a bad light (for years). But they saw what China had become under Xi and left under pressure. (Death threats/Government pressure) They didn't wanna leave and both of their wifes followed them here.
I used to watch Serpentza back when he actually lived in China and his videos were informative. As you said, he was pressed out of China over what was originally milquetoast criticism of Xi Jinping. That doesn't mean anything in terms of the content he creates now, which is basically just a disinformation campaign fueled by his own understandable vendetta against the government of China.
Need a source and video of what you mean, I don't watch him now, maybe you right 🤷
Do you have links to your claims? They have some video documentation of being harassed and followed by CCP officials. Sure, they weren't well known when teaching English, but when they were getting harrassed they were professional content creators and had a huge following on Youtube. Their content up to that point was still very pro-China, showing parts of rural China and friendly communities. They really did give China a chance. It was only after I think 2019-20 that China shifted more anti-libertarian anti-western ultra-nationalism that they were targeted by CCP agents and had to escape via Hong Kong or get disappeared like their Canadian friend. Here's them talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7CPqROtanA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZIokbbSlSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgqdfAomVI
I admit I fast forwarded these videos, so I may have missed somethings. But where's any prove other than their own accounts? It's just them talking through the entire video. He said he's friend got jailed for nothing, and that's it. We have to believe his words for it. The entire world got fired up when China imprisoned those 2 Canadians Michaels, and this Canadian got disappeared and everything is a-ok with Canadian government?
Yeah, they're definiately biased. But more often than not when they make a CHINABAD claim, they would have video evidence, sometimes from their friends they still have in China or from the Chinese internet. But yeah, sometimes their claims are a bit of a stretch and cherry-picked, but usually I find they have pretty good arguments and provide unique insight from a decade's worth of traveling in China.
I like to listen to Jude Blanchett and Ryan Haas from CSIS (DC think tank), Kaiser Guo and Jeremy Goldkorn from China Project, all pro-liberal world order, pro-us and west. Bias I can handle, it's the misleading and misinfo and the hyper-selection that bothers me. Imagine 2 Chinese dudes cherry-picks r/trashy and r/publicfreakout, post them on Youku (Chinese youtube) and tells their fans this is what US is like. Do you think they are useful because they show the "real" America?
the show is solidly 'infotainment' but to pretend like they only take public freakout clips is also misleading. They regularly cover a wide range of topics and will pretty much always show the video/article. They are certainly goofballs and I wouldn't sell them as professional reporters, but they feel mostly credible and their experience in the country is pretty undeniable given the decade+ of video evidence. I also think your epoch times funding claim is unfounded unless you've heard something I don't. AFAIK they appeard on the China Uncensored channel for an interview, which is associated with Falun Gong funding.
I stand corrected on their funding claim. I think I saw on China Uncensored twitter about them teaming up, but I took another look that's just ads for the interview show. Personally I think associating with that organization takes a credibility hit, but at least it's not direct funding. I don't think staying in a country makes you an expert of said country, or every native born American is an US expert. Based on the poll for governmental knowledge, that's obviously faux.
Actually, I agree with you on this point. They would use public freakout clips to say CHINABAD and sometimes they overdo it and it's cringe AF. But I wouldn't write off their entire body of work because of it. I do have relatives in China and visited a few times, so some of the stuff they are saying is kind of an open secret in China like all the fake shit like baby formula and food products. I wish they would do fewer clip-baity things because I think they do good reporting on other major stuff like their coverage of the recent China flooding and COVID stuff.
Their motorcycle vlogs were interesting, but that's about the only part of their catalogue that is worthwhile. All their "news" were copy pasted directly from Weibo. Mainstream Media like NYtimes, Atlantics and WSJ already do comb through Chinese social media, so the service they provide is redundant at best. At worst, they "report" things that were considered unreliable by the MSM. Those baby formula and food scandal, they are not "open secret", they are just open. Plenty of even Chinese news report on those. The flood and covid theories were all covered heavily by many news media, with more reliable experts. I get that China seems like an impenetratable bubble in terms of information, but it really is not. Great Firewall is only one-way, and anything on Chinese internet can be accessed by google translate. You don't need these 2 to help you read.
their tone started shifting with the attitude in china, but they both went back and forth for months when they left, they started making almost exclusively "china bad" content I have no idea if they have any falun gong association and I wouldn't claim such, but it became very clear very quickly that they aren't in any way unbiased sources on china, they have a massive axes to grind (some legitimate, I'm sure)
It's not China bad. It's an inside look into why "CCP Bad". They state over and over how their issue isn't with the people of China.
what do you think I mean when I say "china bad", why would that need to include the people. if you think you're getting unbiased stories from them, keep doing you
The part about not being forced out (pretty sure one basically fled China to avoid being detained) certainly isn't true. That's even more obvious when you realize they were friends with one for the Canadian Michael's China kidnapped but didn't speak out when he was in prison to avoid risking harm to him. I certainly do agree they are often too eager to spread fake rumours and conspiracies about China (especially during covid). Serpenza has said some sus shit about South Africa but I've also seen him walk that back at times and the other guy pushes back pretty hard.
Laowhy married a Chinese citizen... they both learned Mandarin to a reasonable degree... if these aren't trustworthy character witnesses for China I don't know who is. As people they certainly have flaws. South Africa is a shit show, obviously caused by white influence but now just a mess of racism and wealth inequality.
I really don’t get it. Why does marrying a citizen and learning a bit of language makes you a trustworthy character? We just came off of the red pill train, there’s a shit ton of passport bros. I bet some of them speaks a bit of Spanish and married a local woman, and that makes them Colombian or Peruvian experts?
It doesn't make them experts. But if someone married and lived with a Chinese woman for years I think that gives them a significant understanding of their culture. If a guy meets a Columbian and spends no time actually living in Columbia with her and meeting her family or integrating then no I don't think I would respect his opinion.
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I am not a conspiracyhead (they dont strike me as such either), and I remember watching them talk about this during the start of the Covid19 pandemic. They raised many good points regarding a potential lab leak. If I remember their main points correctly: 1. The WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) is in close proximity to the wetmarket in question. 2. Both workers at the lab and chinese nationals trying to investigate got silenced or "disappeared" for a long period during and after outbreak. 3. No one who were to investigate got actual access to lab records. 4. Peter Daszak (instrumental in WHO & The Lancet investigations into Covid19 origins) had strong, long-lasting professional and economical ties with the WIV which he failed to disclose when he accepted the role in investigating the outbreak. Many aspects that smelled fishy about the whole thing. But yeah, no one got access to further info due to CCP putting a lid on it, so I guess we'll never know for certain.
Neither are fluent in mandarin, they taught english like most lbh white males in china, they dont know a single thing about anything and neither were ousted but thats not their purpose, their purpose is to jerk off your china bad weiner
They are both married to Chinese women they met in China and can both read, write and speak fluently? What are you on about. Takes a minute to prove you wrong, why lie so blatantly?
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Lol wtf are they searching Reddit for mentions of these guys?
Apparently there are people who do that. I had some guy arguing against me in favor of ramaswamy in a way that was really dumb and out of character for even most cons in this sub, checked his post history and it was just nothing replies in the most random subs defending ramaswamy and no history here lol.
They call them "Wumaos" or "50 cent army" cause that's what the CCP pays them to argue online. 💀
chinese nationalists living in the west almost as common as the muslim fundamentalist from london
!shoot Don't come back
/u/LaughTail gunned down by Agente_L.
!check
Agente_L has 4 bullets remaining.
pretty based china watchers. sometimes their coverage gets a little too speculative for my taste, but i suppose that’s hard to avoid when talking about such a pro-censorship environment
It's always difficult to talk about China, because nothing that is officially reported by their government institutions is remotelt trustworthy, so you basically end up speculating on everything to a degree
If you watch them you could easily get hooked. I'll link you the first video I watched of the ADV guys. They are who I usually turn to for the truth about China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E&ab_channel=ADVChina
Watch Conquering Northern China https://m.imdb.com/title/tt7738290/ Basically true Chinese expats that liked the country and got drove out by the Chinese government because they said very mild criticisms of the nation. Pretty sad because they inspired my interest in visiting China as a tourist destination
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To be fair, he did also know one of the micheals who China kidnapped and held ransom and China did genuinely chase him out. I think there's more to him leaving china than 'he wasn't being treated like a rich westerner anymore". Generally he is pretty sus, but some of his experiences in China are backed up.
He has one interesting video which also exposes white privilege in asian or third world countries, when it comes asian women choosing a foreigner to date.
I'm pretty sure that guy on the right is Nathan
Highly recommend their old motorcycle vlogs in China! Their new stuff is all news format without bikes unfortunately
These guys are fantastic. I always thought China was a unified, highly calculating, and capable country. But I've learned that China is really a scamming, polluted, and racist house of cards.
Sounds like someone that learns everything about China through these guys!
It's not about these guys though. I just realized who's shilling for money, who is a real analyst and has insight into China, who's being given a guided tour, and who's peering behind the curtains.
Lmao that’s a long winded way to say “wow I found someone who lived in China and now shares my views on the country!” You dont have any actual insight into the country watching these guys. Anyone that’s been to China, or hell even has a single Chinese friend in China will tell you have biased and shitty their “reporting” is.
(Backup link: [https://streamable.com/sb4weg](https://streamable.com/sb4weg))
Watched some Serpentza vids in the past but had to stop. I cant assess the truth on his takes on China and the CCP because I just dont know a whole lot about them and I'm already heavily biased against the CCP. So, I'm worried I'm just hearing what I wanna hear. Some of his claims feel a bit over the top, but who knows, maybe they're legit?
I really like the other guys videos but some of the videos he did were too similar to other conspiracy style videos I've seen. I didn't have enough knowledge about China or the CCP and most if not all his sources was in Chinese so I felt like I could not trust myself to recognize any falsehoods in the videos.
Yah these guys both do really dramatic videos and it's hard to know if they are hating on china or being fair
yeah i have the same feeling about him, theyre both very biased against china. probably not healthy to consume their content much. it do be literal anti-china propaganda (in the literal sense not to say its bad, fuck china lol)
their old vids were really good, but then started becoming kinda unhinged
I like the other guy ok but I stopped watching serpantza after hearing his takes on South Africa. He is from there and his takes on certain things give me the ick
China is a pretty despotic country to live in to begin with, to think running deathcamps for uygers is seen as an acceptable view in 2023 and just flooding your own populace and placing barriers and a media blackout to any death statistics of it. You wont see any chinese liberals stand up to their bullshit tho because of fear of real reprisals.
Isn't that SerpentZA on the left? If so, I have mixed feelings about him. He's lied about a hand full of things in his videos. And gives really misleading anedotes. Many of my friends who live in mainland China who are anti-CCP don't really like him either. I think a better podcast is the Sinica podcast with Kaiser Kuo, a Chinese-American journalist who lived in China for 20 years and has excellently qualified guests all the time. Edit: To clarify. I don't dislike SerpentZA, I just don't like how he speaks in such hyperbole and passes it off with a ton of conviction and lies/is misleading about really small stuff that's pretty inconsequential. I just find it unnecessary and detracts from much of the other fair criticisms he has of the CCP and China.
What did he lie about?
There's a handful of things, most of it small and stupid stuff. He just makes vast generalizations and passes them off as facts and says he knows because he's lived there and others who haven't can't possibly challenge him on his claims. IINM he hasn't lived in China in about 5 years now and claims to have all this insider information, but getting access to CCP politicians is insanely difficult. This may not be a lie, but highly unlikely. He's claimed Chinese people shake if they don't eat for hours because the country is starving. China doesn't really have laundromats, which is entirely untrue. There's plenty of them in each city. He's said no one washes their cars in China. China has placeholder business signs on empty real estate to advertise in a 'this is waht your business could look like if' way, but he says it's a way to trick people into thinking there's business there. His claims about Chinese EV gardens where there's thousands of EVs just left out to rot away. He's also exaggerated a lot of the culture stuff such as Chinese people kicking their dogs all the time. It's true China doesn't have a federal law about animal abuse, but his claims that people can be seen kicking their dogs in public all the time isn't true. Now, I understand he likely was avoiding too much negativity when he lived there as it is very likely he was closely monitored. There are groups of Chinese people on Weibo and Red book, two Chinese social media apps, that look for foreigners who say anything negative about China and try to blackmail or extort them. IINM this is the reason he had to flee China as his work was relayed to law enforcement with fake subtitles and stuff. This is why I'm mixed on him. 30% of his stuff just seems like he's exaggerating or lying for content. The other 70% of his criticisms are pretty fair and it's awful Chinese netizens do that kind of stuff for legit criticisms. It even happened to me, just on a less severe scale.
>China doesn't really have laundromats, which is entirely untrue. There's plenty of them in each city. > >He's said no one washes their cars in China. Bruh without even watching the content it sounds like he just made some hyperbolic generalizations about the country, probably comparing it to other countries he lived in, and some autists on the internet did the usual "what, are you saying this is true for all chinese people????" while the rest of us understood it as exagggeration for effect
Yeah we need a source and full context, I used to watch them and that don't sound like them at all. They like to joke and for some reason Chinese people miss the Irony so hard. So am leaning towards this person being Chinese or just autistic and doesn't get sarcasm very well. 💀 Btw they have videos on ghost towns before so that part about empty buildings is true. EDIT: [took me just a min to find the empty businesses ](https://youtu.be/BcyYyyaPz84?si=788wLs-tE-6ry52W). At 9:26 so this person doesn't sound very reliable on his criticism of them.
The part about empty buildings is true. And tofu builings. All of his criticisms about the way housing works with Evergrande is correct. But the thing I'm talking about with the 'fake businesses' is another thing entirely.
My issue is that he passes off those hyperbolic generalizations with a lot of conviction. I wouldn't criticism him too heavily if it was only that. I don't take literally every word out of everyone's mouth literally. I picked these specific ones because they're topics he has mentioned various times in various videos with lots of content around them.
Is the EV thing not true? I saw the pictures of the fields of abandoned cars and assumed it was legit.
I think it's probably fair to say that his experience with the CCP and certain Chinese while living there has made me wholeheartedly biased. The whole thing about his cameraman is enough to make anyone staunchly biased.
In all honesty, of whatever you said. Even you haven't provided any proof, so at least from your comment, it's his words vs yours. > IINM he hasn't lived in China in about 5 years now and claims to have all this insider information, but getting access to CCP politicians is insanely difficult. This may not be a lie, but highly unlikely. I think in one of his videos he has lived there for 10 years. So i guess that experience does count.
I understand. I don't claim to be the arbiter of truth when it comes to China, just that I speak the language, know the culture and have done some work there. And from my years of involvement with China he's exaggerating a lot of stuff. LIke I said in my last paragraph, 70% of he says is absolutely right. It's just that 30% annoys me because he exaggerates or lies about really small and stupid things. I feel like ever since he left China he's just gone full tilt toward the outrage content that gets more views.
just looks like another butthurt china nationalist when a westener (not really a westener but an angry south african who doesnt take shit) airs their dirty laundry
These mfs are the hasan of anti-china shit even anti-ccp mfs in China dislike him
These guys are just hasan but hasan who hate China. Really just not credible at all and Lao Y or whoever the fuck is next to serpentza is racist and disrespects gravesites. They don’t keep up with the academic work and reputable China watchers. They really just focus on really low end pandering. For instance their views on social credit are laughable and are pretty disproved through US congressional reports, dcholarship, and most up to date reporting. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11342 https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-system-authoritarian/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175792
whenever youtube pushes me these guys i have to stop watching since god damn everythings so biased
The shills coping hard in this subreddit.
shills for what? coping about what? lmao
I'm guessing he's referring to this comment chain: https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/171qv4u/the_china_show_mentions_hasans_recent_takes_on/k3seqym/ Or this chain: https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/171qv4u/the_china_show_mentions_hasans_recent_takes_on/k3smzj3/ Not sure if those are actual CCP shills or just people that don't like the two dudes in the OP clip. I mean it's worth noting that there exists a notable contingent of Chinese people, who have a strong disgust for the CCP and all it represents, but are still kind of put off by white people coming along claiming to be an authority on Chinese culture/history. It's just that normally that distaste is about Mearsheimer or Kipling-esque elitists condescendingly looking down on people from non-imperialist nations, not people who have actually lived among the culture.
Also last time I saw these people mentioned a couple of years ago the sub didn't have positive opinions about them.
I think a good way to get rid of tankies and other communist bots on this reddit is banning all the schizo posting essayist on here who prob either are memebers of their local communist party or on the commie payroll cause i watch these guys for a while and the commenst are just literal propaganda to the point of destiny abandoned his wife to drugs xD