About The Western Influence In Beijing, China
We all know that after the Olympic games in Beijing a lot has changed and is constantly changing in China. What I have been wondering today while I was at the “Earth God Worship Square” was the following: “How badly has the outside world changed this country?”. Since my arrival here I have observed a many things that are not so, let’s say, “typically chinese”.
At first, I thought I would have some sort of bad cultural shock and that it would take a long time to get used to it. However, I have noticed that things here were not THAT different from what I’m used to. The influence from other countries in China is visible to anyone who wants to see it: the architecture of the buildings, the high number of foreign cuisine restaurants, foreign famous brands and so on. It’s not hard to go out and find McDonald’s, KFC, Subway and 7-eleven. To give you guys an idea, I have to confess that I have been here for one month and I have yet to taste the famous chinese food, I usually just go out and have my lunch at italian restaurants or even brazilian restaurants!
I have noticed though, that the western influence reaches the country just as much as the government allows. What do I mean? Well, to give you guys an example, recently the famous movie “Avatar” has been replaced in movie theaters by chinese movies. Not to mention that the internet is heavily censored here. One thing I have asked myself is why youtube is blocked here and I think it’s partly because they don’t want the western “pop” culture to get famous here. One curious thing is that around 95% of the radios here play only chinese songs and the international radios mostly play songs that are a bit….old.Speaking of music, of course, I have to mention MTV too. Yes, there IS MTV China and mostly it only plays chinese songs! There wasn’t a single time when I would tune in to MTV and see a worldwide famous artist.
The last thing I’d like to talk about is religion. I’m not really a religious person but it couldn’t escape my eyes that there are no churches here! I have asked about them to a few people and they say that even though there are a few churches here they are very small and kind of hard to be found. Well, it’s not a surprise that religion is a nice instrument of mass control. So any guesses why most of the people here follow just one religion? 
So, I feel inclined to ask: “Why only a few western things reach China?” Seriously, what’s the point? I believe that by doing that they are trying to prove to the outside world that they can accept changes and that they are actually welcome here as long as it doesn’t interfere with the way they run their country!
That’s just my opinion though. What do you guys think about the western influence in China? Is the government right by limiting the information that the country receives?
