How evil China is or isn't, according to foreigners living there

 

I've long since taken up the habit of watching non-fiction channels on Youtube, for entertainment.  It's a good replacement for watching movies or television shows, or comedy videos, and so on, because learning is also involved.  Not so different than watching documentaries then, just different content form and scope.  In almost all cases it's not something even remotely useful, like following cave diving, mafia history, prison stories, or how movie special effects are created.  The most recent theme has been foreign expat perspective on China.  

This runs long, and there's nothing here anyone absolutely needs to know, just rambling on about culture-based perspective, so if anyone is opposed to reading long text passages this would be a good place to leave off, or one identified summary a few paragraphs in is also set up for that.

To start, I love and appreciate China.  Lots of countries and cultures, really, but China and a limited few of others hold special meaning for me.  I'm really into tea (of course), and that has served as a base for a special connection.  I've been to China three times, and to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan beyond that.  I've had friends in China, mostly Chinese people, with only one foreigner there now coming to mind, and a second having moved out from there a year or so ago.  Some of my closest family friends in Bangkok have been Chinese, foreigners living here for a moderate length stay, usually the family of my childrens' friends (three different families).  Shenzhen was the first and last place I visited in China, where Winston--the main China based Youtuber this post follows--had been living.

two of those friends, who are really missed

that little girl was just great, and for sure still is

It's a bit off the subject but I suppose Russia is the other main country I feel some attachment to.  That's odd, given those have been the two main enemies of the US, at least outside of the Middle East.  I've only visited there once, and friends from there tend to be more distant contacts, but I've known enough Russians that it wouldn't be easy to arrive at a count.  I've had really positive experiences with a lot of other countries, related both to positive vacation visits, and knowing close friends from many, so that's not intended as putting those two cultures or places on some different level.  Chance contact just happened to work out that way, that I've had more exposure to those two.

Those Chinese expats' perspectives (based on Youtube channel accounts, posted videos) have recently split into two separate groups, those more or less completely pro-China, and others who's message is divided between appreciation of the culture and dislike of government activities and a perceived strain of extreme nationalism, which tends to drift from being described as a radical position to something more mainstream over time, as the main parties present it.  Those two perspectives don't sound like they are in so much direct conflict, do they?  At least not the earlier and more positive form of the one.  It's not so simple identifying how far into pro or anti China range either "side" is, or in what ways, or why.

Winston of Serpent ZA (photo credit article on five China bloggers to follow)

It's a balance all Americans deal with, resolving a love of most aspects of America and a dislike of parts that have evolved in ways one regards as negative.  On the left / liberal side that dislike would relate to nationalism extended to downplaying the relative status of other countries, or the perspective of minorities in the US (or even rejecting racism, I guess).  On the right / conservative side it's more about rejecting perspectives involving social justice issues, over-extending feminist, minority, class-based, and sexual preference group concerns.  Few people in America reject a majority of American culture as positive, not just one main half like that, although there's no reason why someone couldn't.  In part that liberal and conservative divide does seem like two fictional story lines, to me, but it's as well to not go into that here, since I'm talking about China instead.

I will get on to covering more specifics here, but let's get one basic starting point out of the way first:  is China evil?  Sure, of course, at least in part.  Some citizens' rights are being repressed, broad free speech and free press is out, and some minorities are dealing with a lot more than the trade-off between maintaining social order and making allowance for free speech, standard rights, and diverse perspectives and interests.  Surely there are internment camps, and people disappearing, and whatever other bad things happening.  

It's just not a part of most people in China's daily lives, as I understand it, beyond something like making adjustment to what you should express online.  It's not at all like 1984 (Orwell's novel), where an oppressive government has everyone living in fear.  At least that's my perspective.  I can add a lot of depth to that in relation to what it's like living in a country without free speech, because I do live in one, in Thailand.  Limited criticism of the government is questionable but typically tolerated here, depending on the form and content, but any public negative comments about the royal family lead directly to a lengthy prison stay.  Any foreigner getting involved with any of it probably wouldn't be around long.

Before getting back to starting points let's consider this:  is America evil, or is Thailand?  Yes, to both, at least in part.  Governments tend to look out most for the interest of a wealthy few, in most places, and that's quite true of both those countries.  To say that the US is better because people have clearly defined, broader rights overlooks that an unfair distribution of wealth and generally horribly ineffective government focuses national resources and policies on making wealthy people wealthier.  Wars are taken up to benefit military contractor companies, refugee immigrants are held in internment camps, in appalling conditions, and in some cases foreign prisoners are held without regard to any universal rights or rule of law.  It doesn't get much more evil than that, although forms of genocide are a clear next step.  

The US government probably only murders foreign spies and government leaders, and those cases are surely exceptions, more of a Cold War era theme.  Or maybe someone like Epstein, but one might think he partly had it coming, just not before some due process.  Thailand is corrupt on many levels, and lots of problems stem from that; let's just leave it at that.  But it's not dystopian or anything, I don't think.

Is China worse?  Tough to say.  If you are on the receiving end of such national-culture and public policy limitations in any country that's the worst case for you personally.  An average experience seems more relevant, and it's too complicated to judge life-input factors related to that, since different people live out completely different life experiences.  Free speech is definitely an issue there.  Let's get back to the Chinese foreigner / expat theme though, since this is enough introduction of the broad themes.

Serpent ZA / Winston

Winston (aka Serpent ZA) is seemingly the main Youtuber, in terms of following count, and personal history as a foreigner talking about life in China.  This post talks most about him, and I've seen the most of his videos.  

Winston is from South Africa, no longer living in China, as of a year or two ago, but he seemed to spend about 15 years there before that.  He seems personable and well-spoken, which really makes his videos work (within reason; people would probably read him differently).  Both "sides" seem nice enough, him and a fellow Youtuber he creates content with, and others he sees as inappropriately supporting Chinese government interests, at least in some cases.  All that is what I'm taking from watching a limited number of videos, that there is no good and bad guy side in how I'm interpreting what I've seen.  It's more about scope exclusions, and in some cases perspective maturity.  Of course many related videos by those Youtubers say exactly that, that the other guy is saying and doing the wrong thing, for bad reasons.

In Winston's earlier videos there was some mention of cultural limitations related to China, about restrictions on public speech, and negative things that happened to him there, but content was more positive (I suppose even "mostly" positive).  In recent videos, over the last two years, especially since he has left China, almost all the content is highly critical of China, of the CCP government and a cultural strain he describes as radical nationalism.  In recent posts he accepts that this radical nationalism has become a relatively mainstream perspective, something he attributed as a minority perspective in the past.  I suppose the themes covered changed over from largely positive to negative even earlier, but the form and tone definitely shifted more over time.

At a guess those negative issues aren't necessarily made up, so it comes down to whether or not focus on the negative is fair for different reasons.  Maybe a number of negative personal experiences makes that side of life in China seem like a more mainstream concern than it really is, or worse yet emphasizing a real set of issues to the point of exaggerating them could be used to draw more Youtube video clicks.  Or both; valid concerns could couple with noticing that personal income from video views increases with discussing those concerns, and making them sound dramatic.  Winston was always risking being able to stay in China, it seemed, so he either made that trade-off related to wanting to tell a more complete story, or because that content was more popular.  He is self-employed as a Youtuber, so the clicks correlate to income level.

To jump ahead to what is really a final conclusion (making this a reasonable place to leave off reading) Winston probably added more and more negative scope about Chinese culture and noticed he drew more and more video views as he did so.  Posting about problems in a relationship or trouble getting a bank account wouldn't be a problem, but from there moving on to talk about free speech issues really would be.  As soon as he did that the writing was probably on the wall related to him needing to leave China at some point.  But every further step would lead to more Youtube views, since an anti-CCP or anti-China position would be of interest to many, and the more negative things he would say the more problems he would encounter with push-back.  Every bump in views would bring more personal freedom from work and financial concerns, so there would be no going back to lifestyle-oriented content, to more typical travel blogger themes.

  

To put that critique of society and broad worldviews in perspective, if you look for problems in the US or Thailand to focus on and discuss they are there.  There's no problem with someone putting focus on those, since the issues are genuine.  Hating and discussing the other political extreme--left and right going at it--is probably the overall most popular topic in the US, even before Trump's involvement escalated that quite a bit.

If you extend that to say that general life experience in the US or Thailand is defined and shaped by a narrow range of government problems (unfair taxation or public policies, monitoring citizens, disrupting free speech or access to information, etc.) then that is probably going too far.  Lots of layers of problems come up in both places, in the US and in Thailand, but the two governments seem more guilty of not resolving problematic issues than of causing them.  

Exceptions come up, something like national debt the US government is directly causing, of course, and here I guess the election process seemed like an issue to many people.  Both cases tie to a point one of these China-based Youtubers mentioned, that the real underlying problem is that wealthy and powerful people tend to focus on gaining more wealth and power, and that causes problems.  Really poor and middle class people tend do the same, they're just not as good at it, and they can't steer governments and nations in unfortunate directions to benefit themselves, at most they can get a promotion at work.  That's beyond people being able to vote in bad political officials, but then it's normal for the whole range of options to be bad.

A later example will unpack how this plays out in relation to China and this Youtuber debate.  It seems informative to refer back to a cycle of experience for expats / foreigners in Thailand, related to how there is typically a very positive "honeymoon" period for foreigners living here, then a transition to a positive but more balanced view.  In many cases after that long exposure shifts to focus on problems and limitations, related to negative personal experiences.  Before covering an example that shows how it all ties together it would be helpful to review the "other side," what other China based foreigner Youtubers are saying about related issues, or debating with Winston.

The other side, pro-China foreign Youtubers

I've only seen a few videos of response or debate in relation to Winston's perspective and specific accusations (under a dozen), but I can still summarize what I take to be that position, it'll just be partly wrong, related to that limited input.  Per a recent vide--by Lee Barrett? I'll not put effort into including these people's full real names or positions--Winston overemphasizes problems, most likely as a means to draw Youtube views.  A specific example related to a take on conventional local tourism marketing versus generating pro-China propaganda that spreads a false narrative informs how this kind of divide can work in detail.  A section here at the end includes some links for some representative videos.

A response video about allegations of supporting Chinese propaganda, that crosses that line in relation to that issue, fills in the two opposing detailed perspectives.  I've not watched nearly as much video by this Youtuber, (Joeya?), but it seems to be typical travel-oriented content, not limited to within China.  It's not mostly about political commentary or related issues, and it seems likely he might put that topic completely out of scope.  

That's not going to help with unpacking the deeper question "how evil is China?," but one point seems to be whether or not focus on that as a main concern is necessary.  For a broad foreign nation perspective on China it's necessary to consider that, and to try to place how China relates to other countries, and its own citizens, and how it treats minorities, especially Tibet and the Uyghurs.  

The BBC wrote about this recently; that kind of source might be a better reference than an expat Youtube channel.  Their intro:

Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls "re-education camps", and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms.

There is also evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and of women being forcibly sterilised... 

That sounds bad.  Then again foreign news sources never get news issues in Thailand completely right, so maybe checking multiple sources before accepting what any one says would make sense.  The BBC wouldn't be able to place why people are protesting the current government in Thailand, exactly what it means, and which groups or interests are at play.  You would think they could, but they can't, over and over, even though connected themes and story lines keep repeating here.  

That gap in foreign media understanding seems to happen because Thai news sources are either not saying much or are biased towards one perspective or the other, and the BBC relies on foreigners working here to try to sort it out.  Foreigners tend to only be so integrated or connected.  Then there is a trend to try to place two extremes in perspectives, for any given issue, and map out where in the middle a likely truth must fall.  That could work, or it might miss more than it catches for getting parts wrong, or for that approach just not applying well in certain cases.  

An example will clarify what I mean, related to here, but before considering that it's as well to consider that in light of the conservative and liberal divide in the US.  Which side is responsible for national debt, extreme over-use of military to the extent that seems to be more about spending a lot of money than security, or the gap in setting up things like universal health care?  There's only one right answer:  both.  Back to a Thai example then.  

Either the current Thai government was democratically elected or not; it won't help to try to oppose two potential yes and no answers and then find a middle space that is accurate related to being nearest to one more correct extreme.  Then if a government was elected by a fair vote, related to the lever-pulling part, something like a political party paying for votes could potentially offset how valid that determination process was, since that's not fair.  Or even if a party made a number of false promises the election result could be less valid.  That would be like Trump's foundational position that he would balance the budget or "drain the swamp," prior to helping balloon national debt and placing prior petroleum company executives in charge of energy policy or environmental restrictions, and so on.  

I guess on the opposite side if a completely rigged election arrived at the same result a fair and open version would have then it's not good that the form was set up like that, but it didn't make a difference.  It's better to never really try to build a case around that last premise; elections should be open and legitimate from start to finish, without parts that need to be explained away.  Now it sounds like I'm talking about Bernie Sanders and the US process instead, doesn't it?

That special case, tourism promotion versus soft-power propaganda

A number of China-based foreigner Youtubers took part in a local sponsored tourism marketing program, accepting coverage of some degree of expenses to travel to and create content about visiting a Chinese city.  Per the one perspective (the people going on the trips) this is a normal practice, not different than a travel blogger getting a free hotel stay anywhere to help promote that business, or a food blogger a free meal, etc. Per the other perspective (Winston's, and his fellow Youtube podcast host's) it was more insidious.  This promotion was used as a cover-up to change the narrative about Chinese flooding, related to problems caused by dam development.  This shifted focus off local broad-scale tragedy to a much more positive agenda, about how nice restaurants and tourist sites are.  

Since local government tourism agencies were coordinating these the money was essentially coming from the central communist government.  I guess it's like a conspiracy theory, it's just not that much of a conspiracy, not like the JFK assassination or covering up knowing about aliens visiting.

Again, it's even possible these two themes are both valid, and don't conflict.  There could be personal tragedy going on, tied to mismanagement of water resources, or ineffective infrastructure development.  Local tourism options in the same general region could be positive.  The two themes might connect, or they might not.

This accusation of propaganda isn't easy to be clear on, related to how to place it.  Let's consider first, is the current Thai government making an effort to block news coverage and foreign awareness of political protests, attempting to alter foreign understanding of events in Thailand?  Sure.  But that's an extreme case, and it's not easy to separate that from any typical government spin.  You can't really trust anything the US government says about government budget issues, defense spending or armed conflicts, diplomacy, or government program or policy development.  That's just normal; governments and corporations generally aren't trying to be completely transparent.  

Not releasing information and blocking others from doing so are the crux of that issue.  If the Chinese government arranged to send foreign Youtubers to a flooded area, during floods, and made sure there was no mention or video showing that then it would be a case of disinformation,  just a relatively tame form of it.  

Flooding and water management issues aren't as simple to pin down as most other subjects, although I guess political protest can become a bit hazy too, who is protesting what and why.  Thailand had huge problems with flooding a number of years ago, something like 8 or 9 years back, and it wasn't easy to identify why that was happening, even for people here.  It rained a lot that year; that was part of it.  Water management practices definitely did not effectively predict how much water they needed to release from dams in advance of that period of heavy rain.  Per my understanding that's a typical problem, because water resource management involves maximizing retention of water in dams to use for agriculture during the dry period.  That level of retention maps directly to risk that higher than average rainfall will cause flooding problems, which the dams are there in part to control.

This background tangent runs long but that case was interesting, and it didn't go as one might expect.  It seems like China needed to release a lot of water relatively quickly from the Three Gorges Dam, and it caused devastation downstream; that's what one would expect.  Those years back Thailand needed to release a lot of water from a number of dams in a related way, for roughly the same reason, but then they knew that bottlenecks for what the main river could hold (the Chaophraya, going through Bangkok) would cause flooding here.  It had to flood somewhere, and they had controlled options to put industrial and residential communities outside Bangkok or the inner city itself underwater, related to controlling where overflows happened.  They did what they had to do, choosing the former and sparing the inner city.  

Making such climate-related predictions isn't going to get any easier, related to effects of global climate change, which make local rainfall patterns less stable and predictable.  If controlling authorities guess low, and get that wrong, water won't be available for growing crops in dry seasons, and farmers, farm industries, and the economy will suffer.  Guessing wrong on the other side can lead to flooding and a potential loss of life.  Without stable climate patterns year to year significant error related to both extremes will become normal, and continually worse over time.

Back to the China flooding propaganda and Youtuber as tourism promotion issue some details seemed trivial.  Were all expenses covered, leading to this being an atypical payoff for expressing certain ideas, or were only some, tying to a more limited and conventional promotion package?  It hardly matters, whether those bloggers paid for their own airfare or not.  The cost of domestic flights in Thailand is negligible, and I'd expect the same is true there.  Were there limitations in what they could express, topic scope placed out of bounds?  That seems more relevant.  Or did they get paid enough to fabricate information that had no bearing on their own personal opinions?  Seemingly not, all input considered, but it's worth at least listing as a potential concern.

On the one side Winston presented a letter from the tourism agency, or at least a reference represented as such, expressing limitations of what could be discussed.  On the opposing side two of the Youtubers who went on that trip described the letter as fake, not what they received or were told, confirmed as ingenuine by the tourism agency who was claimed to send it.  It seems possible the reference was fabricated, or conceivable that a second type of communication was sent to a second group with a slightly different message.  It's not unthinkable that a government sponsored PR agency could have said something that wasn't true.  

On the one hand this is a real crux of the matter, whether related communication documentation and the message content was falsified.  On the other it doesn't matter; if there really were two forms of communication it's not all that different than if it was made up.  It doesn't change things as much as it might initially seem to.

Is the content the Youtubers produced, related to expense-paid travel, an example of "soft-power fluff-piece propaganda?"  Or is it normal tourism promotion, which represents their own real impressions of the trips?  I suppose that's for any potential individual audience member to judge, but to me it seems like tourism promotion.  If a government blocks media coverage of political protest against that government, which China has definitely done in the past, and probably carries out regularly, then that's related to propaganda, directly adjusting what is and is not news.  If tourism is promoted to distract from flooding concerns then it's seemingly not the same thing.  Preventing or eliminating existing media coverage of flooding is something else, which would be possible in China, since they can even tidy up what is on their internet.  

Coverage of the corona virus outbreak background would work as a good example of how a distinction might be made, but it's not possible to identify what the Chinese government knew about and restricted release of.  It seems likely that the World Health Organization was notified relatively early in the outbreak, a main form of external communication of the issue (in late December 2019, maybe that was, if my memory is correct, or it was early January instead). What was known and not released never will see the full light of day.  Or if nothing significant was; the uncertainty works both ways.  Personally I think Chinese government corona virus conspiracy theories are absurd, mostly because virus research consensus is that the covid virus evolved naturally, and their opinion means more than the average blogger or news reporter's, but I'm not going to include a tangent on that here.

Why would tourism promotion even be connected to a flooding news cover-up?  In the presented letter it mentioned restricting coverage of sensitive topics (again which may or may not have been a genuine email communication), and the rest is speculation.  This part does look a lot like Winston looking for a scandal to "break."  To be fair if he had been involved in a number of similar related scandals, or issues that seemed complicated and somewhat negative, then a perspective that filters events inclined towards seeing nefarious plots could kind of make sense.  Just not the fabricated email part, if it came to that.  It would help to watch some of his other videos to see what else might have really worked out that way, cases of where and how the Chinese government agents did apply pressure.

Thailand expat experience cycles

This all seems to relate to a conventional experience pattern expats face here in Thailand.  It can't be completely generalized, because people are here for different reasons, and have radically different experiences (and pre-conceptions, personal biases, etc.), all based within a different culture.  A full description would unpack how a number of different types of expats exist in Thailand, and how their experiences follow general patterns, that any one given expat may or may not experience.  I don't want to go too far with that but a little description of that can set the stage for describing general experience patterns.

Retirees are one main group of foreigners here, typically older people here to live on less fixed income, or mostly to experience different life circumstances.  Younger expats (/ Western foreigners) fall into a few other categories.  Backpackers tend to overlap with "digital nomads," people traveling as part of a lifestyle choice that involves not working much, and IT professionals who work independently.  English teachers are the main work theme group, typically not so different than backpackers, beyond acceptance and emphasis on working to support themselves.  A backpacker could be living off a trust fund, or in Thailand for half a year with savings to support that, or working a little online.  Anyone working full time online couldn't really lay claim to the defining condition for being a backpacker, which isn't a category people necessarily aim to fall in anyway.  Traveling light and not using a suitcase isn't the main distinction, it's about subculture, without any one clear definition.

Working foreign professionals cover a broad scope:  embassy workers, NGO staff, technical employees (formerly a larger group, before local IT experience and training ramped up), chefs and scuba instructors, etc.  Many yoga instructors seem to be foreigners, and so on, covering a lot of working scope.  A much more negative stereotype relates to mafia types hiding from the law in Thailand.  That's a real thing, but there are probably as many foreign yoga instructors as those gangsters.  Maybe as many expats have some criminal past as the much larger group of English teachers; it would be hard to know.  

Youtubers, like these examples I'm discussing based in China, are kind of a unique subset.  There aren't so many foreigners in Thailand making a living completely off that, but some people definitely are.  I'm not aware of any who are critical of Thailand, making anti-Thailand themed content, and it definitely seems conceivable that anyone in that position could run into trouble getting a visa to stay around at some point.

For any of these individuals in these groups Thailand often seems a wonderful, almost magical place when you first arrive.  Not so much for me, maybe, because I moved here related to marrying a Thai while we both lived in the US, so I was dealing with adjustment tied to that relationship, and then soon enough after with work transition.  If someone arrives with very substantial savings the early period would essentially be a time of vacation, but I moved here right after grad school, when I had been working hard during those studies just to keep student debt in a moderate range.  I needed to keep expenses moderate, and I needed to get back to work, both fairly quickly.  Everything seemed very interesting and novel, maybe just falling short of idealistic.

After a more stable pattern of living off savings, or development of local income, expats are still typically quite positive about Thai culture and local experience.  Why wouldn't they be?  Thai people are friendly, at least superficially, and per my experience generally at a deeper level than that too.  Foods and entertainment themes are diverse, many natural settings are beautiful, and cost of living is low.  It takes years to really explore and understand local culture, so that lower cost factor could help with making it all come together while sorting out cultural integration.

Negative experiences tend to darken perspective, over time.  Divorces come up, or business failures, or other legal problems. In plenty of cases in the past decade foreigners were encouraged to not remain in Thailand due to changes in visa practices.  Some were working illegally, bringing those circumstances on themselves.  To be fair some degree of illegal activity is typically tolerated in Thailand, with teaching English "off the books" (using the wrong visa) not as forbidden in practice as the letter of the law had set it in the past, which then changed.  

Maybe it doesn't matter which category or what personal blame is involved, related to a shifting perspective on Thailand, since in the end it's degree of negative experience in relation to positive ties that define a local foreigner's perspective.  A factor like alcoholism has nothing to do with where someone lives, since that can occur anywhere, but that could lead to dissatisfaction with life circumstances, and a dislike of Thailand, even though the country or culture didn't play much role in that.  Let me be more specific:  if someone moves to Thailand to live out a permanent vacation experience, and they tend to focus on drinking alcohol on vacations, those conditions could easily not work out well in the long run.   

More than all that when one arrives in Thailand it can seem positive to stand out just for being foreign; people find you interesting and different, based only on appearance.  It's perfect for an introvert, because even at a maintained social distance some degree of positive public image is automatically granted.  That could work even more positively for extroverts, to build up social ties.  Later on it could seem much more negative, because it's very difficult to drop that and be included as an ordinary member of a local social circle.  

Being fluent in Thai would be necessary to socially integrate, but that alone would only go so far.  There would be no way to ever truly be seen as a Thai, because a foreigner is a different thing here.  Winston mentions this shift in how one sees host-nation locals as a factor in China in some of his videos, but claims the positive to negative shift relates to being able to understand Chinese later (as some can), and hearing what people say beyond what they express directly.  That's a real thing here too; it would factor in.

A friend back in the US, who is genetically Korean but born and raised in California, seems to face some of the same issues.  He couldn't be more integrated, related to personal history, perspective, and life experience, but he also just can't ever appear to be white.  You would think that the minority half of the US wouldn't care, or most of the white half, in terms of racism (negative bias), but still he blends in a lot better when visiting a Chinatown in a major city than anywhere else, except that he's not Chinese.  Foreigners in Thailand, or surely in China too, can never approach the degree of common ground perspective an Asian native-born American has in America, but he continually deals with how out of place he might feel, depending on circumstances, or the perspective of those around him.

In the end entire expat forums can seem overrun with a consensus view that Thailand is an unfair and harsh place for a foreigner to live.  To be fair getting into any legal trouble in Thailand wouldn't result in the experience of a fair, unbiased justice system judgement.  Thai government systems are biased towards protecting Thais.  Some degree of that is probably relatively universal.

One part of all this pattern relates to integration, to foreigners becoming a connected part of the society they live in, versus re-creating their original life in a different place (which is not directed as a critique of anyone in particular in this case).  A Quora answer about opinions about these China-based Youtubers reminded me of this, and states a summary version of it:

So, as of lately, I feel those guys suffer from the typical issue of so many westerns in China: They come here looking for an experience or money, but they are not really interested to make friends with locals and learn to respect and integrate with them. Some don’t even bother to learn a minimum amount of Chinese for daily life (like how to count from 1 to 10) and only hang-out with other expats in whichever city they live. They create their own bubbles where they typically talk about how much better is this or that back home and how bad is this or that here. Because physical and social differentiation, they slowly but surely end having the opinion that they are made of a better quality material than local people and that pushes farther away from their desire to integrate...

...They fail to realize that China is a country in transition, you have plenty of people you can befriend to, but you need to pick up your friends, just as you would do in any other country. And they fail to realize that a huge amount of Chinese themselves are complaining and fighting to make people with bad habits behave. They fail to realize that Chinese hate being identified and characterized by those people. And they fail to do all that, because in their bubble, if a Chinese is clean, likes to live in a good area, likes to eat healthy food, that is a westernized Chinese, he is not a real Chinese. Those guys are no different from those immigrants going to western countries and living within their self-created ghettoes and complaining the host country people of not allowing them to be part of the society.

Surely only parts of this apply to Winston, but this is all a really common theme that defines most of the negative experience of most foreigners living in Thailand.  The more people integrate into Thai society and adopt Thai perspective and life practices, and make local friends, the more positive their lives tend to be.  The exact opposite described in this citation is probably more common.  The last part about locals being "Westernized Chinese" is a poor fit for how things go here, because Thais are relatively Western enough, as many Chinese people in Shenzhen would be, living relatively modern lifestyles.  Or at least that's my limited input take, from visiting Shenzhen twice, which only amounts to a quick look around.

Tied back to Winston's case

It seems like I'm probably claiming that Winston just experienced the natural cycle of loving China, then seeing more and more of the negative side, eventually getting caught up in that range in personal life circumstances, later becoming biased towards mostly seeing the negative side of China.  To some extent that must have happened.  But is he also fairly reporting on those real negatives, in an unbiased fashion, or does he emphasize them even further to cater to anti-Chinese sentiment, and viewership? I don't know.  Maybe not, but what I could even mean by "unbiased" I'm not clear on myself.  Every human perspective involves biases as a foundational basic context for experience.  What else would a worldview be like?

Someone could be unusually positive and optimistic, turning a blind eye to the negative factors that shape the local world around them.  Focusing on the positive instead of the negative anywhere is probably healthy enough, a good thing.  Americans probably shouldn't worry too much about crime or random shootings, or political divides (not that you could hope to completely escape all of it).  

The pandemic is an exception; it's a reasonable time to put risk assessment and resolution towards the center of your worldview and life practices, anywhere in the world.  Thais definitely don't feel overburdened by limitations of Thai social systems or government, as I see it.  Then again it's easy to conflate a tendency to only show the positive in public and a truly ingrained live and let live / "mai ben rai" attitude.  The more integrated one becomes in Thai society the more "in on" how those levels of what you express or conceal work.  To be clear I'm not implying that I'm at the far side of the scale for being socially integrated here, and it's probably as well to skip that particular tangent since my own status doesn't really shed light on the rest of the range.

In conclusion

This doesn't land on tidy conclusions.  All the patterns I've discussed here seem to make it possible for people to experience roughly the same set of two different online perspectives and interpret them very differently.

For having two friends living in China, one of whom is out now, I've not heard of how all this sorts out, from either.  The one living there I can't discuss this with; he couldn't talk freely about it over social media messages, even DM versions.  The other one seems more concerned with his own day to day issues than these kinds of broad social patterns.  If he had needed to leave China due to such conflict he would have strong opinions about it, but per my understanding it wasn't like that.  I think he did experience dissatisfaction with some form of local academic work culture, but university culture and politics can be a real mess in the US too; it's typically like that.  Corporate politics and government work too, for that matter; it's just human nature everywhere.  If you end up working in a comfortable and stress-free environment that's an exception.

I would be surprised if Winston didn't play out a similar pattern in the US, talking about how free and open society is there, about how opposing political inclinations are potentially stressful, but no big deal in relation to repression of free speech and other human rights.  Then years later media misinformation, political spin, government program biases and unfairness, legal system issues, racism, varying levels of access to medical care, and so on will become problems, or at least concerns.  Gradually the US won't seem all that ideal either.  The first time a random shooting occurs near him that will seem pressing, and personal.  Then either a shift to acceptance will happen, or at least a move towards some degree of isolation, or he will be on to some European country to go through it all again.  Maybe they really do have it all sorted out in Scandinavia.

Oddly I wrote that draft section before seeing a video by him on how much Americans whine / complain too much about everything.  It's started.  I suppose that I agree, but then I'm not posting Youtube videos about it, which serve as a basis for my income.  He might need to narrow his expressed views down to supporting a conservative or liberal take on things, if he's going to be critical of American culture, and intends to retain one half of all Americans as an audience.  The anti-China themes will probably resonate better with conservatives, which for me would be an unfortunate group perspective to try to align with.  I see the most typical liberal perspective as wrong about how it all maps out, unclear about context, and essentially wrong about half the issues, but they're still partly right.  I'm from a conservative area and sub-culture, originally, so I kind the other side, but not as much.

I had planned to add links within this text to point towards more source content about those two sets of views but it seems as well to list it separately afterwards.

Winston (Serpent ZA) and "" anti-pro-China Youtuber video links

#65 China Is Getting Worse | Laowhy86 and SerpentZA:  an anti-Chinese government podcast hosts Winston and "C-milk" (Matt), explaining their own story and transition from pro-China to focusing on problems in China related to the Chinese government, speech restrictions, and nationalist perspective.  Obviously it's biased and a bit revised (it's them), but a decent summary.

Why I Left China For Good:  Winston explains why he left

TRAITORS working for Communist Chinese Government?:  Winston explains "his side" in the conflict with other foreign Youtubers over them promoting local tourism, or also allegedly potentially covering up flooding issues through misdirection

Canadian Michael Spavor is NOT a SPY! - Held as hostage in China:  Winston / Serpent ZA explains how his friend being charged with spying in China is really not a spy.  I'm not sure how he would know that, since a spy would try act like they're not a spy, but it's still interesting.

What does it really feel like to be a foreigner in China? (a 2010 early post by Serpent ZA / Winston)

I'm QUITTING my job!:  in July 2016 Winston quit teaching English (not really exactly how he framed that, but it's honest work) to switch to a marriage visa.  He had 60,000 subscribers right around that time, and per his own statement in this first video Youtube became his main job.  His words:  "if I do the kind of videos that you guys, the subscribers, are interested in, then I can actually make a success out of it..."  It's not as if he never posted anything remotely critical of China before, as covered in this March 2012 video "China,  How Is It -- Topics to Avoid."  

To be fair he didn't immediately change over to post much more negative content about China to draw views just then; it wasn't like that.  Topics seemed geared towards drawing an audience more, hitting on popular themes that people might connect with versus just culture and life experience, or even obvious clickbait, like Are Chinese Girls Easy? 

top posts by views.  click-bait topics seem fine to me, catering to what audiences want to see.

Then about three to four years ago Winston's posts seemed to delve into negative sides of China even more.  This included cultural divide issues, scams, kidnapping, health risks, his own politics related problems, and so on, ramping up further about two years ago, going into sensitive issues like international politics and pollution (which he must have intentionally avoided covering prior to that, although that would be easier to avoid focus on in Shenzhen than some other cities).

To be clear on the framing I find Winston to represent a reasonable, grounded, and sympathetic but biased opining (perhaps even a flawed one in some cases).  It all works, he just seems to get caught up in one limited perspective orientation at a time.  It's probably also that you can't really present issues from a few different perspectives in a short video very easily.  A summary take on anything would need to be simple.  

I suppose he crosses the line a little in shifting from so pro-China to so opposed to such a broad range, when the same mix of positives and negatives probably haven't changed that much in the last decade. His life experiences have changed, and his focus along with that.  China was already evil a decade ago, and the same positives exist now as back then, with only limited parts of what the CCP is doing relating to the evil empire theme.  Maybe it is worse now.  If you interpret what Winston is saying as ingenuine, adjusted to cater to a limited audience, then his communicated perspective seems less valid, but I think he really has undergone the shift he passes on.  Then I also suppose that if Thailand threw me out of the country in the next month or two my statements about Thailand wouldn't be quite as positive and balanced. 

Other foreign Youtubers critical of China

Why I Changed my Opinion on China:  Laowhy / C-milk / Matt's take on his changing perspective on China (Winston's fellow podcaster, travel companion, and documentary developer).

China's Weird YouTube Propaganda (the MT Right blog):  a Youtuber reviews pro-China Youtubers, claiming that these are directly supported by the CCP as propaganda outlets.  Maybe, or maybe not; seems a bit heavy on conspiracy theory putting it that way.

Chinese Propaganda on YouTube (ft. serpentza & laowhy86):  a Russian Youtube video blogger defends Winston and "C-milk."  There's not much new in this but it's interesting how others either feel compelled to weigh in, or else at least draw Youtube clicks by repeating the same ideas.

Pro-China anti-SerpentZA foreign Youtuber perspective

SerpentZa, Laowhy86, Lies, Deceit & Propaganda, by JaYoe Nation (Matt), with his own website here:  "This video is a rebuttal and explanation for the lies and misrepresentations made against me and my friend for the recent trip we took to Chongqing."  Really this is just addressing one part of one issue, but it all seems to work, that the one travel promotion case didn't necessarily involve playing a role in broader Chinese politics or political spin.

We are the White Monkeys of Big Bad CHINA // 我们是在中国的白猴子:  Barrett (the other pro-China anti-SerpentZA bloggers, more or less) explains his take on why promoting Chinese tourism isn't the same as promoting China in the sense of political involvement.  It kind of works, but it's only a one-sided explanation of one part of the general context.  This "white monkey" concept is about jobs in China for foreigners, in the role of being a foreigner, which in some forms would seem like accepting exploitation and in others no different than any other marketing promotion role.

SerpentZA Exposed as a Fraud!:  a fairly extremist and pro-China foreign video blogger's take on Winston, rejecting his positions on China and portrayal of his own work history.  It does seem like Winston was probably an English teacher, which he kind of indirectly rejects in different ways but never really completely denies, but teaching English isn't such a bad thing.  He says he trained doctors, and he was teaching them English; fair enough.  Adjusting or spinning your own biography isn't a great sign, but it doesn't mean that the other parts about China are wrong.  Framing about some other issues might be getting adjusted as suits Winston's present concerns.  But then that may also be true of all these other bloggers, that pre-conceptions and intended narratives are being communicated more than any bare objective truths.  Or maybe communication in general is always like that. 

Winston Sterzel, SerpentZA:  Matt's take on Winston, as of March 2021.  It's pretty much what you would expect, nothing too controversial or novel, he disagrees with a general negative framing of China.

China Flood:  again Matt (the Jayoe Nation guy) did post several videos covering flood issues in that broad region in China.

The Heart of the True Global Conspiracy (Matt / Jayoe Nation again):  he explains his position that instead of left versus right or China versus the US being the real concern, or source of underlying conflict, it's all really about the wealthy and powerful trying to gain more wealth and power, everywhere.  That's pretty much how I see it.   Off the subject of what he's talking about, Chinese government is putting out pro-China propaganda, but that's just one form of many types of spin and influence.  The larger problem is that to some degree most societies aren't set up to support the common good, or at least that's definitely true of countries like China, the US, Russia, and Thailand.  This stops short of directly addressing "the American Dream," if it's ok for people to want to own a house and a car and have two kids.  One part is about what wealthy people are doing, but it connects that everyone else wants to own more too.

The Jayoe video blog / Youtube channel is also nice as a travel blog, worth clicking around related to that.  It's really that context that makes sense of him keeping his political statements limited; it's not a politically oriented blog.  His earlier theme had been bike-touring the world, which just stalled as a stay in China due to the pandemic.  That's surely not all about him saying what he needs to say--or not say--to stay online in the country, but likely as much about what he finds interesting and wishes to discuss.  

Talking about free speech issues or use of propaganda really is only practical for bloggers or Youtubers based outside of China.  Winston knew that, and made the shifts in what he communicated over time for the reasons I've already described.  To me it makes for a more interesting story, following multiple perspectives and levels of the same issues like that.  To some extent the pro-China bloggers might go a bit far in cleaning up what they say, or how they say it, but it's not so difficult to put it all in the proper context.  I doubt that any are serving in any role remotely like that of a paid spy, but it spices up the exchanges mixing in allegations like that.

China Life Jin Ya Dian Hong, Yunnan black tea

A friend passed on this tea in a recent visit to Bangkok (full name Feng Qing Jin Ya Dian Hong, from China Life).  It's a nice friend that gives you tea this good to try, an interesting and very pleasant Chinese black tea, with a style that doesn't really match conventional black teas.  I'll describe what it is more at the end, with a little research into the type and explanation of the name, but basically it's a buds-only black tea from Yunnan.

Review:

The taste is just what one might hope for, soft, full, complex, a bit sweet, with a nice dryness to the feel, nothing questionable or out of place.  It works well to describe this particular tea as a list of flavors since there are so many to pick out.  So lets do that:  the package cites cocoa, malt, and hay, and this tea includes those as predominant elements, although malt seems to be used to describe a range of different closely related tastes in teas.  Flavor aspects also include yams, with just a hint of smoke, and I could swear there's a little vanilla in the background.  I'm not noticing pepper so much; maybe.


For me the sweet potato / yam range can be too much in some teas, leaning towards an artificial sweetener taste if too strong, but in this case it's all in great balance, all expressed as positive aspects that work well together.  I think there is even a mild mineral tone as a base flavor that helps it all really integrate, but that's hard to pick up, more like the context for the rest of the flavors.


It's the feel and balance that make the tea work so well though.  That slight dryness--nothing like astringency in typical Assamica black teas, although it is vaguely related--offsets a generally soft feel.  Along with that a nice sweetness brings all the aspects to a good balance.  I get the impression that the tea would deal well with being drank at different strengths, based on preference, working well quite wispy or standing up well to someone liking tea brewed strong.  It also seems like a tea that would be hard to screw up.


Some teas are difficult to brew, expressing a range of aspects depending on slight shifts in parameters, tricky to optimize, and this doesn't seem like that.  There seems to be no need to completely dial in approach, no astringency to brew around, no subtle aspects that are hard to draw out.  I guess one might see it as a trade-off that it's easy to get great results but capable of less variation.  For me it's really nice as it is so that's not really a trade off.




Seems too early to stop there, but that about reviews it.  From drinking pu'er lately I almost want to describe how the feel comes across within your mouth, where it's located, or how the aftertaste plays out, but those things don't seem to add so much (in general, for me, perhaps more than for this tea in particular).  For what it's worth I feel the tea more on the sides of my tongue, and a little in the back of my tongue at the end, which means nothing to me.  The taste does stick around after you drink it for a black tea, with that dry cocoa effect and a trace of yam sweetness lingering pleasantly.



About brewing, it's pretty simple, still black tea even though it is from tea buds (more on that in the next section).  The one interesting twist is that it brews really nice later infusions, not giving up much at all in terms of that full taste profile, sweetness, clean flavors, etc.  As with Silver Needle style white teas it keeps on brewing nice tea.  After several steeps you need to go a bit longer on time, and that draws out a little more mineral and dark caramel flavor but that's really nice too, and the sweetness and clean-flavored effects stick around.


Even after white teas seem done, having brewed lots, you can draw out one extra one by cold-steeping the leaves again (or buds only, depending on the tea).  To do so you just put the tea mixed with warm--but not hot water--in the refrigerator for a good long time, and let it steep on it's own.  How long doesn't seem to matter, six hours or a day.  I didn't think to check if that would work with this the first time I made it; I'll have to.

Dian Hong research section:

Why not a bit more about the general type.  It doesn't take much reading around to get to the idea that Dian Hong can include buds and leaves, and Jin Ya Dian Hong is just the buds (kind of obvious the tea was that from looking at it), with Feng Qing as the location, a county per the China Life description.  Here's a bit on the type from Seven Cups (a vendor, who's version I've not tried before):


Yunnan Province first began producing black tea in 1939.... Jin Ya was invented in 1958 by Feng Qing tea company. Instead of using 1 bud to 2-3 leaves, they started picking only tea buds. Yunnan Province was the first place to make black tea entirely from tea buds. If left on the tea bush, healthy tea buds will open in to five or six tea leaves...  The tea master must completely control the oxidation process throughout every layer of the bud... Black tea that is too oxidized will be sour, and under oxidized tea will very heavy and tannic.


This version wasn't tannic or sour at all so I guess they nailed it.  Not really about this tea type but there's an interesting mention of an old tea tree, a subject that keeps coming up:


There is one famous tea tree in Feng Qing County, called “Xiang Zhu Qing Cha Zu”. It is the largest and thickest tea tree that has been found, and is protected nationally because of its botanical significance. This tea tree is estimated to be 3200 years old and the diameter of the trunk of 1.84 meters thick.


Good to know!  They should try to make pu'er from that (just kidding).  I noticed a Seven Cups guide for brewing Dian Hong Jin Ya on You Tube looking for a China Life reference for it there, but as the video describes there isn't much to it; it's black tea.  China Life does post a lot of nice brewing and type guides on YouTube, just not related to this type.  The tea works out well brewed Western style using boiling water, steeped for three minutes or so, then for more time for later infusions.  As with any brewing all of that could be adjusted for preference, shifting any parameters as one is inclined, but again it seems to me a strength of this tea is that you don't need to fine tune brewing conditions to get great results.

It would even be possible to brew this grandpa-style, to use unregulated infusion time, to just drink the tea as leaves mixed with water without separating them, but I wouldn't.  The tea is too nice when brewed to a good infusion-strength balance point to give that up.

China life Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong, royal peach orchard

Dan Cong!  Definitely one of those types you'd love to find a good example of, and this Mi Lan Xiang / Peach Orchard version was nice (listed here).  It's hard for me to compare it to the range of a lot of other Dan Cong versions, since I'm newer to this type than many others, but it compares well enough with the few I've tried (a review of a commercial version with type background research is here, and a later review of another here).  Anyway, the aspects of the tea tell the story, so on to review, after one other related mention.

China Life has posting great introductory tea videos on You Tube, basics about brewing technique and such, and also on to more advanced content.  I just watched one on sourcing Dan Cong, and this video was a novel take on blind tasting four Dan Congs together, and this one a good introduction to the general Dan Cong tea type (probably a good place to start).  Don (the company owner) is visiting where those teas are made in China, walking around the plants growing and through a village where they process the teas, so the video background alone is worth a look.

The dry tea scent is sweet and rich. The tea appears very tightly twisted, and dark, perhaps a bit oxidized or roasted as Dan Cong goes, but tasting tells more about that.

Peach does come across first, as tastes go, fresh and intense.  The taste range is full and complex, with good sweetness, and a good bit of tartness as well.  As with many types the overall effect is more about how it all balances than which positive attributes come across.

The balance is nice, although the tartness is at the limit of what would balance well, perhaps too much for someone that doesn't care for that aspect.  It seems related to the mild astringency some Dan Congs have, just a different expression of something related, more a flavor element.  For a second infusion I dropped the temperature a bit more and went with a quite short infusion, to shift the aspects balance, and the tartness did fall into a more pleasant range in a light infusion version.


The peach aspect, and some general floral sweetness beyond that, is more than intense enough to stand out even brewed quite lightly. The honey orchid effect actually picked up a lot in a lighter brew strength, or at least it seemed more likely due to that change to lighter, than due to a natural flavors transition, since the tea was just getting started.


Normally brewing around aspects in a tea is a bad sign but Dan Cong are supposed to be more temperamental, and tend to work better as very light infusions, and some degree of tartness and a unique expression of astringency are normal.  Astringency often resembles the feel in an unripe fruit, nothing like the heavy earthy-flavor accompanied roughness / astringency in Assamica based black teas (assuming the normal connection I'm making between flavors and feel actually makes sense).  The tartness in this tea comes across as a taste element but it is tied to feel as well, the tea just isn't particularly astringent, it doesn't have much of such a bite to it.  One relatively well-informed tea friend has mentioned that Dan Cong wouldn't be as appealing to him without that bit of astringency / dryness, that it helps balance the sweetness and flavor intensity.  Maybe; I guess it depends on the tea.

Both the taste and the partly brewed leaf appearance show the tea to be mid - level oxidized, perhaps a trace more roast than average as Dan Cong goes (at a guess; I'm working from relatively limited exposure yet, not a large sample size of versions).  It's nowhere near the normal range for Wuyi Yancha, many of which are then roasted until char taste comes into play, so still a light version compared to the way those two aspects might play out in those oolongs (oxidation and roast level).  Editing note:  I hadn't checked the vendor page but it is listed as "deep fired."  Compared to Dan Cong standards, maybe, but related to Wuyi Yancha and highly roasted TKY I've tried still only medium.


As infusions go by the tea softens more, and honey sweetness picks up, with peach transitioning into floral aspects.  Brewed right the effect and balance is nice, and tastes are clean, with a good degree of aftertaste.  The tartness is a function of brewed strength, it seems, so balancing that isn't so difficult, through quite short infusion times, which works since the other flavor range and sweetness is well expressed in a lighter strength.

tea-tasting and funny face-making

A tasting aside, about my young co - taster's input (the one who flagged banana in that China Life Oriental Beauty--not so sure about that call).  I gave her a taste, and she said it tasted like tea.  I had that coming.  If by that one means Lipton tea bags it really doesn't.  I asked what other tastes, and she said like flowers.  I was so proud of her!   I had just written that, that the peach had transitioned to floral.  She is on the path.


She also just tried some of that China Life Oriental Beauty I had put aside, cold brewing the tea overnight to get the last out of it, through which it had picked up a bubble gum sweetness.  That tea had essentially been finished, through a full round of infusions, but it had the one more in it, interesting but largely spent.  Anyway, she said she liked it better, so maybe her flavor identification is picking up but she needs to continue a bit further along a preference curve.

normal range oxidation, per the story the brewed leaves tell

It was interesting comparing this experience to the Gongfu tea brewing instructions on the box:


...increase the amount of leaf to 5-8 grams per 200 ml of water  and reduce your brewing to 15 seconds... you can re infuse the tea  many times up to 10 times for oolong tea), just add about 5 seconds extra for each infusion.


Of course with any brewing approach that would need to be adjusted for the individual tea and for preference.  Dan Congs can be touchy, and this tea provides plenty of flavor but worked better with faster, lighter infusions, even shorter than that.  I mention it here as interesting background, related to what I was already saying, not as a critique of labeled instructions, because that is a reasonable standard starting point.  Different teas fade faster than others, but it's easy to shift timing to account for that since you've always just tried that last infusion to base it on.


I tried the tea later brewed more Western-style.  I really used a hybrid style, to be more specific, with a proportion and timing shifted a bit from conventional Western brewing towards those in Gongfu brewing, perhaps not something I should be recommending since that could get tricky balancing those factors.  It worked quite well; I was surprised.  In past experience Dan Cong really does need the short Gongfu style infusions to work out best, often limiting the unusual astringency I'd spoken of (or tartness in the version), but I was able to get a similar balance using a completely different approach and set of parameters, and in a slightly different flavor-aspect range.  The sweetness was about the same, with tartness diminished, and the taste started as peach--the same--and included a bit more of an almond aspect, then moving to more floral.  I might have liked it even better made that way.


All in all a nice tea, complex and refined.  I get drawn into questioning just how nice, how teas compare to the best of the type, or where they fall across a general range, or how value-related issues work out, but all of that is not part of a normal review scope, and more challenging for me to assess at this point.  I liked it; it was how I just described it, interesting and pleasant.

China Life Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao, Taiwanese oolong)

beautiful tea; that's pretty much the right look

A great example of this tea type from China Life; site link for this tea here. One of my favorite versions of oriental beauty is from Thailand,  a tea I just gave away the last of, so it's especially nice to try a version just as good.  Or this one may be better, depending on preference, since it's a little different.  That's really how the type goes, spanning an interesting range of related characteristics, so different in character there may or may not be one clear optimum.

The standard description of an oriental beauty (Bai Hao) fits this tea as a starting point:  good sweetness and complexity, tastes in the range of muscatel, citrus and other fruit, and spice (the package general type description trades out honey for spice but close enough; honey works too).

This version is on the more oxidized side, which works well with how the tea comes across.  Of course OB typically is on the more oxidized side of medium, but this one is a bit towards a black tea from upper medium.  It's still a very soft, sweet, fruity and complex tea, so the extra oxidation just adds some extra earthy undertone to the flavors context, and changes everything around a little in a way that works.

a very silly tea taster

There is a lot going on with this tea, starting with that type description (muscatel, citrus, honey, other fruit that's not so easy to clearly identify).  Someone really good at teasing out an extra long list of component tastes might add a lot more than I will here.  As can be typical for me the spice is an intriguing element.  It's not clearly cinnamon,  but in that range, maybe closer to nutmeg or cardamom, but I'm not sure either is a perfect match.  A pronounced honey component is layered in with the other tastes too, very strong as a scent in the empty cup.


I asked for some input from my tasting assistant and she guessed banana, but I'm going to have to say she missed it that time.  Or maybe if she meant dried banana she might be on to something; I could see that, a taste quite like the softer dried version of small bananas, not the hard chips.


Across some infusions the tea doesn't shift a lot. Some of the more forward taste elements diminish a little to let the base stand forward more but the taste range is still sweet and bright.  The fullness thins a little but the flavors stay clean and as complex, a good sign and a pleasant attribute.

not really black tea, but a good bit oxidized

China Life made a great introductory video about the type,  linked here, explaining that terpenes are the compounds responsible for the flavors complexity.  I've researched the type background for posts before (especially here) but that part wasn't familiar.  I don't think I've mentioned that they make great videos that span explaining the basics of tea brewing, to others going into types background, like this one on Dan Cong, or on lots of tangents, like how slurping works in tasting. 


 As Don mentioned in that video this is a tea type that does well brewed different ways, good across a range of preparations, not touchy or easy to screw up.  One could draw out different balances of nice flavors based on slight changes in approach.  Since this tea is on the darker / more oxidized side body could change a lot, drank as wispy and subtle, emphasizing the fruit aspects and complexity, or brewed stronger, as a substantial tea with lots of body and full earthy / mineral flavors.  I'd have more to say about that after trying this tea a couple more times, and could fill in a longer flavor-aspects list, but I'm getting behind in finishing post drafts and tasting teas, so I'll go with that more basic description here, my initial impression.


It would seem a shame to use Western style brewing for a tea this good, and there is no way I'd brew it grandpa style, as covered in a recent post, but Western style brewing would work since the tea is flexible.  To me the tea type doesn't transition as much across infusions as some other types of teas do, more about flavor aspects that seem more forward and more of a base shifting in proportion, so there might be less to miss of that aspect--the transition itself--using simpler brewing.


My wife gave me some fresh pineapple to have with breakfast after drinking the tea for several infusions and it occurred to me that a similar sweetness, citrus character, and pineapple taste range could have been one part of what I had been tasting. Or maybe that was just the power of suggestion, and a vaguely general range, but I could swear I was "getting" pineapple after I had both in front of me.


I might mention that pineapple really isn't one specific taste, that versions of the fruit share common aspects, but there are lots of types of pineapples in tropical countries that definitely don't all taste the same.  My understanding is that Dole chose the one type familiar to Americans as canned fruit not for sweetness or specific taste but because that fruit shape was closest to that of a can.  The one my wife had bought was nice, bright flavored, citrusy, honey - sweet and complex (some general character shared by the tea), and of course it tasted like pineapple.

May Zest Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao oolong)

The tea tastes like an Oriental Beauty (what I'm going to call Bai Hao here; the same thing).  It's a pretty good version of one from May Zest tea, but of course good is always relative.  Per my understanding the typical type profile aspects include muscatel, citrus, other fruit, and spice, with good sweetness and aromatic characteristics, and this one is like that, heavy on the spice.  That spice in this version is cinnamon, not really atypical, just not normally so pronounced, and quite pleasant to experience since I like cinnamon in a tea.  There is some citrus and a good bit of muscatel, with nice clean flavors, and good sweetness, with fruit in the range of peach as a secondary element.

I feel like that's just about it for the review; it tastes like a nice OB should, just a spice intensive version, while some go heavier on fruit aspects (peach and such, maybe even berry for some).  It's right in the middle for level of oxidation, the normal amount for the type, on the high side as other oolongs often go, even those described as mid-level oxidized.  Or maybe level of roast might complicate all that a little, but I must admit I'm not completely clear on how processing this varies from other conventional oolong types.  Some OB / Bai Hao versions could have more tips that this one, but it does include some, and the look and dry leaf smell are what one would expect.

This tea is one of several grades of OB that May Zest sells, not the highest, per my understanding, since they were out of some others at time of order.  Since I understand this is a summer tea maybe that will change in a month or two, and for a tea like this type what they find and sell might well change a good bit year to year.  Per the general type it depends on a specific type of insect eating just the right amount of the tea leaves.  I've recently read a good World of Tea general type reference about how that works, or a more conventional Tea Masters blog review format (Taiwan based blog) says more, and I wrote a blog post summary of the same issues last year.  China Life made a video summary about the type, for people that prefer to watch video (but still read this blog, I guess, since I'm mentioning it here).

How would the other grades differ?  I'd expect they could have more fruit, a brighter effect, shifting the balance from spice to citrus and more muscatel, maybe even into berry and such.  Quality level also depends on sweetness, for this tea, and a full feel, and clean flavors, how well a tea brews consistently across a number of infusions.  This version performs well related to those, per my understanding, compared to other versions, so a main factor is if cinnamon as a dominant taste element is preferred or not.

The China Life version I recently reviewed was different for being more oxidized, another variation someone may or may not prefer.  Per both the Tea Masters blog post and the May Zest description OB versions are typically 70% oxidized and up, so not exactly mid-level compared to other types of oolongs, on the high side, but on the upper end of that range a tea would start to seem like a black tea.

Tea blogging and preference judgments

a Thai version of an Oriental Beauty; not so different

Lately I've been considering the idea of saying exactly how good teas are, or rather working around that, feeling a gap when I don't give a full opinion.  To communicate my full impression of an Oriental Beauty, when I've tried others relatively recently, it would make sense to compare the teas directly, but that wouldn't seem so necessary to a vendor if their tea compared less favorably.  I'd be communicating my opinion, though, and someone else's might well vary.  In this case someone could love cinnamon in a tea and not prefer fruit, or vice versa, and that would tip the balance of their impression.

This concern also leads to the role of a blogger.  Is the writing for marketing, speaking for vendors, in order to get some free product out of it, or is it objective review, to inform the readers?  Related to that part about samples, I bought this tea, but they sent some extra samples, and they've passed on free samples in the past, so it's a factor that still applies in this case.  It may seem like bloggers that only discuss aspects get the balance right; a tea tastes or feels a certain way--that's it.  But two teas could share virtually identical aspects as they would be defined, and still be different quality level teas.  For example, I just tried a Dian Hong that tasted like malt, chocolate, hay, and yams, and a better or worse version might also taste like that list of aspects, but not be as good, or could be better.  It only goes so far to specify how "feel" relates, or how "clean" flavors are, or the issue of a tea brewing more consistent infusions.  Bloggers / tea reviewers get their own sense of this, how good a tea is, but again it mixes with issues of subjective preference.  I'd think most would get some sense of how those two inputs play out.


A lot of this ties back to my recent post about unwritten rules of blogging about tea, on reviewing conventions.  Citing personal preference related to teas breaks with convention, although it's also normal for tea bloggers to imply that they absolutely love every tea.  I claimed that it violates convention to review a tea from a wholesale source, and May Zest is that, they just don't sell teas per 50 gram sizes through a check-out website.  Why wouldn't someone review tea from different types of sources?  It would be strange to review a tea from both an original source and the vendor that resells it (that tend to give bloggers free samples), especially since that resale vendor would rather not publicize where the teas come from.  It also violates a convention--breaks one of those rules--to talk about tea pricing, but obviously along with a requirement to buy higher volumes pricing is lower from wholesale-theme vendors too.

The trend now is for vendors to buy direct, right, if not directly from a tea farmer then from someone who claims to have done so.  In a sense it doesn't matter that it's almost impossible to verify that, that a reseller in the middle could still pass on where the tea came from, who grew it, so marketing could just refer to the more upstream step.  In that example it would seem to not matter which company someone bought it from, but each step would add resale cost.  One other issue with final-level vendors buying tea from wholesale sellers (that might buy from aggregators, another layer) beyond adding costs is that it's possible that more mediocre, mass-produced teas would take such paths.  The "best of the best teas," or at least those not good enough to be spoken for before they're even made, would instead be carefully sourced by tea-curator theme specialty vendors.  Or at least that's how the marketing stories go.

The reason I go into all this is to reinforce that regardless of the story attached in the end it's about how nice the tea is.  Of course nothing is ever so simple; there are also concerns related to a tea being organic, for some, or if a well-paid and happy worker picked and processed it, or if someone being oppressed by a life of poverty did instead.  But I'll move past all that.  Someone could curate crappy tea directly from a farmer, or tell a very nice story that's not true, or a long, typical, multi-step wholesale process could procure and sell a great tea, even at great value.

This tea I reviewed is pretty good, and that's a lot of the point, beyond the "naming names" related to aspects.  One other thing I've been saying lately; even though I've tried a number of Oriental Beauty teas I'm not the right person to put it on a well-informed objective quality scale, even if I weren't conflicted in doing so (and I'm not all that conflicted; I'll keep on with the tea hobby regardless of how samples play out, so I'll keep saying what I think).  So to be even more direct:  I think I might like that Thai version I kept writing about a little better (that was some nice tea), and the higher oxidation level in that China Life version might not work as well for me.  But someone else might have different preferences and switch the order, since all three were decent versions of Oriental Beauty.