China: The Scary Side

While on Nanjing Road, a road with the neon lights of Vegas and the shopping of Manhattan, I took a couple of steps off the beaten path. Truly, only a few feet away, into a poorly lit, but not unsafe, residential building. It was in shoddy condition, like almost any government run place for people to live in. But right off one of the richest streets in the world! Just inside them, up only a couple of stairs, were these posters (click picture for a much larger and more detailed picture):



The first poster put a chill into me that really hasn't left. Have no doubt that they are still a repressive regime, not letting people speak against the government. Note, in the first poster, the picture of the happy woman at the bottom left, wearing her red armband, and calling someone. I can only guess that she's turning in the shady-looking people pictured in the rest of the poster. They direct you to the webpage www.anticult.sh.cn, which can be translated here (once you are there, you may have to hit the translate button). Not surprisingly, there is quite a bit there against the "Falungong" group you see on the streets of NYC. I'm still searching for a place to turn in names of dissenters on the website, to see if this is as bad as I feel it is, or if it is only more propaganda. What an incredible reminder of what kind of country I was in, despite being in the midst of such wealth.

And here's another picture of a more public poster that I find disturbing. I wish I knew what it says: