Tony Lin 林東尼
@tony_zy
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Peabody-winning Producer. Reimagining storytelling for multicultural audiences. Words/vids @netflix @initiumnew @vice @buzzfeed. Views are my own.
New York
Joined September 2011
Obsessed with Taiwan’s “down-to-earth” Halloween party, where you ONLY dress up as normal people in everyday situations. This is “the woman looking for a seat at food court”:
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Live from my usual massage spot:. Lovely Chinese auntie popped a question while kneading my back, “Do you have a girlfriend?”. Me (trying not to engage): “I like boys.”. One awkward moment later — she launched, “You got a boyfriend? Where’s he? Bring him here. I want to see him.”.
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After talking to several friends, I realize many ppl still aren't prepared for the societal impacts of coronavirus. Want to dedicate a thread about what I observed in Chinese society, and what you should be mentally prepared for. It goes beyond the disease itself:.
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“the woman who’s having her bang cut but the hairdresser is nowhere to be found”
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“the guy waiting for his girlfriend by the shopping mall restroom”
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“the Starbucks employee forced to smile through an exhausting Halloween”
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When police ask the protesters not to chant “no more lockdowns”, so they chant this instead:. “MORE LOCKDOWNS!”.“I WANT TO DO COVID TESTS!”. Folks. Let me remind you this brave effort also encapsulates the highest Chinese wisdom: weaponized passive aggressiveness.
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Happy Pride to all aunties who surveys your love life no matter what.
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“the newly single in Japanese drama getting over a relationship”
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鹿鸣春, my fav Xiao Long Bao place in NYC literally translates to “when a fawn’s sound tells you the arrival of spring”. Its English name: “Joe’s Shanghai.”. The distance between these two names is how much culture immigrants have to leave behind.
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To combat illegal parking in their neighborhood, 66 households in Shenyang installed a massive chain lock made with 66 personal padlocks to their gate—each resident can open the gate w/ their own keys. This turns out to be a true, decentralized, free *blockchain*
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Got called coronavirus in my face, in New York Chinatown. Don’t feel sorry cuz I chased that guy a whole block calling him a fucking racist.
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@rzhongnotes She asked all those questions while elbowing my back. I achieved a new level of vulnerability.
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can’t tell which pic is more realistic: did Taylor win an Apple Music Award or she just made a Taobao ad for electric burner?. h/t Weibo.
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Brace yourself for a fucking wave of false equivalence between Hong Kong protests and DC insurrection. So many nuances need to be addressed, but at core what many ppl fought for in Hong Kong was EXACTLY what DC extremists trying to dismantle in the US: the right to vote.
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I have nothing to promote, but people in Taiwan only get to have this much fun because the country has reported 200 days with ZERO new coronavirus cases. WEAR A MASK, and VOTE!
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This idea is originally from Japan “地味ハロウィン “. Here are more looks of you’re interested. h/t @krishraghav.
Just catching up on the 地味なハロウィン ("sober Halloween") event, where flashy fancy dress is banned, in favour of everyday cosplay. This girl has come as the kind of model you see on cheap Korean fashion mail order sites.
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10. Voter turnout. Voter turnout. Voter turnout. This keeps me ups at night.
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WARNING: right now is NOT year of tiger. It only kicks in after lunar new year. If a kid is born today they’ll still be an ox baby.
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A WeChat article titled “■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■“ just became viral on Chinese internet, with over 100k views from a new account within 3 days. The whole article is redacted. Ppl are reposting it as a comment on the narrowing space of speech. Only if Orwell gets to see this.
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1.Trauma. As @MariaRepnikova said, it's the 1st global epidemic in the era of social media & live-streaming. If the outbreak gets worse, you WILL have extremely helpless moments, witnessing ppl seeking help and some die in a way closer than ever. I saw hundreds online already. .
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Actually, Chinese LGBTQ communities reclaiming the word “comrade” (同志) as a standard name for themselves is one of the BEST language changes in the past decades. More ppl deserve to know this.
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In her brilliant chat with Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh referenced the work of iconic Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai. English subtitle goes: (Michelle mumbles). So much diaspora experience wrapped up in one tiny moment.
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In the past 4 months, I've buried myself in creating this short doc on China's stunning underground queer ballroom scene. There's so much love and support in the community. I hope this vid brings you as much joy as it did for me:
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If anyone in China bought time for the west, it’d be .- scientists who sequenced DNA.- doctors, nurses & volunteers who risked their lives.- ppl who were quarantined, stranded, sometimes even died cuz of it.- whistleblowers, journos, ppl who spread info under censorship. .
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2. Hospital overcapacity. A massive outbreak can strain local medical system. Do u know in China, Wuhan has the second-most medical professionals per 1000 ppl, and the most top tier hospital per 10000 ppl? And w/o sufficient intensive care, coronavirus is far deadlier
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8. We're not even getting into the class-related problems yet: homeless ppl, elderlies, house cleaners, restaurant workers, ppl who simply can't work from home. if outbreak gets worse, ppl will either have to risk their lives or lose their jobs--if there's still a job to lose.
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China's outbreak has its own authoritarianism problems. But for US, the lessons learned from this one-month tragic "preview" should be transparency, accountability, and professionalism. So far Trump administration seems to be allergic to all three concepts.
a website that collects and archives all the posts under the "CoronavirusSOS" #肺炎患者求助 hashtag on weibo. Many of the recent posts are from patients with other severe diseases. Many posts have been censored before they can be crawled.
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A huge misunderstanding about China’s zero growth of domestic COVID-19 case: . That does NOT mean China’s elimination of domestic coronavirus infections. Based on Chinese criteria, asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers are NOT counted as confirmed cases. Here’re the details:.
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9. A specifically American problem: It's already difficult enough for undocumented immigrants to get proper medical care. They will face more scrutiny. The society's safety depends on the most vulnerable ppl, but this can also be an opportunity for the already rampant xenophobia.
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5. Fake news and alternative medication. This has been going on for a while. In China there's government-endorsed Chinese medicine (very little clinical evidence), and the US shines with Mike Pence's prayers.
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In case you don’t have an idea of the degree of censorship that’s currently going on in China, here is how David Beckham appears on CCTV (apparently tattoo = taboo). All of his tattoos are censored in the hour-long program.
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6. Xenophobia on steroids. In China, it's not just ppl in Wuhan/Hubei who are discriminated against. Ppl in other cities have been sent to quarantine just because they were born in Hubei/Wuhan. .
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3. Secondary disasters. Once the hospital is at capacity, other patients, ppl who depend on prescription drugs, pregnant women, all could face imminent health issues. Here's a man who can't access hiv drugs:
A heartbreaking case during Hubei lockdown: a man posted for help. His HIV meds is running out & he can’t get new ones cuz of the roadblock. Local police soon reached out. But instead of helping him get new medicine—police told on him to his parents.
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4. Community and cross infection. Coronavirus spread fast across the community. When the adults are all quarantined, who takes care of their children? Another tragedy here:
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This weibo user live-tweeted HK’s local election, hoping a landslide win from pro-CCP candidates. Here’re 4 stages she went thru: . 1. Stunned.2. Devastated.3. 4D chess mode imitated.4. All her HK tweets censored by Weibo . I’d like to see this gets adapted into a movie.
搬运一个来自微博的欢乐源泉，给墙内开票开了通宵，按时间倒序，他分别表演了：. 1. 目瞪口呆.2. 伤心欲绝.3. 自欺欺人.4. 微博全部被删
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13. Brace for some of the best tik tok videos you've seen. After weeks of home quarantine, you get creative:
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11. Continuing the thread today. Domestic violence is on the rise as home quarantine affects tens of millions of ppl. (Divorce rate is rising, too.) an excellent article on this: @davidpaulk
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7. And there WILL BE moral quandaries and live trolley problems, sorry. Some ppl try to get away from quarantine because quarantine methods are inhumane and poorly designed, which could increase the chance of infection. But some of those ppl could carry viruses. .
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One good thing this site actually facilitates: in the past 48 hrs, numerous mini-protests took place across various Chinese college campus against zero COVID policy. Many are censored but they ended up on Twitter, then ppl get to smuggle them back behind GFW, even just briefly
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Forgive my hysteria. Here’s a thread documenting a regular person’s journey on Douban. In the past few weeks I’ve witnessed hundreds if not thousands of tragedies unfolding before my eyes. They’re not numbers. They’re just us but randomly sentenced to death. /1.
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. like this one I tweeted before:
Forgive my hysteria. Here’s a thread documenting a regular person’s journey on Douban. In the past few weeks I’ve witnessed hundreds if not thousands of tragedies unfolding before my eyes. They’re not numbers. They’re just us but randomly sentenced to death. /1.
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It’s increasingly impossible to describe the level of heartbreaking absurdity that Chinese people are experiencing, in every shape and form that varies from day to day and neighborhood to neighborhood….
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Are there any other aesthetics available on China besides weird dragon and Cultural Revolution-esque imagery, or the graphic department bought so much supply from Chinatown gift shop in 2002 and must use them for another 30 years?
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Li Zhensheng, the Lucie-Award winning photojournalist who took over 100,000 photos during cultural revolution, reportedly passed away in New York. It’s impossible to revisit CR history without the massive archive he left behind while working as a reporter at Heilongjiang Daily
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Per popular request, here's Mr. John Cena's apology video with English subtitles. I kept all the incoherence in the video, as well as the curious absence of what he's actually apologizing for
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Dalian, the city in Liaoning province just announced its award-winning city logo. The design is bold. By bold, I mean its courage to straight up copying & paste Disney logo is admirable.
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A man in China was caught by police for using VPN to browse Wikipedia. While using VPN has been deemed illegal in China, this is a rare case for the gov to specifically disclose what the VPN is used for: reading wikipedia for research
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orientalist invents airport philosophy of a Chinese word v.s. the actual common use of this word in Chinese
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This widespread meme is by far the most brilliant explainer of China’s lockdown-to-open policy shift. It also explains: no, the protestors are NOT against sensible COVID precautions. They simply don’t want to deal with nonsense like this everyday for months and years:
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The sweeping pro-Russia disinfo on the Chinese internet isn’t created in a day. Want to recap a tiny bit of what happened in the past decade. As the idiom 草蛇灰线 goes, there’re always traces. All the developments below are intertwined with each other. 1/.
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Stop parachuting journalists to Hong Kong to write feature stories about the protests. There’s no shortage of talented writers—local or non-local—who live there way longer. Commission them, spotlight them, listen to them.
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Three photos that perfectly captured the national grief of Dr. Li. A man in Beijing wrote his farewell in the snow. He then lied down, using his body to shape an exclamation mark. “Farewell to Li Wenliang!” It reads. Even the punctuation is sad.
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Here's something to think before the lockdown: Hr before the Wuhan's ban, many ppl left the city. The abruptly announced lockdown has created its fair share of tragedies--if you were in the city, would u leave? If you were in other cities, would u happily accept those ppl?.
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Dating in New York means you’d meet an ocean of white dudes claiming to be foodies for international cuisines while ostensibly disgusted by Hainanese Chicken cuz it has bones in the chicken
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I've seen local WeChat group ppl discriminate against other city districts, neighborhoods or ppl live in a specific building cuz there's someone return from a city that's somewhat close to Hubei.
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A Chinese Soviet joke in three acts. (In case you're wondering how Chinese internet quickly deteriorates in the past decade: every time this kinda BS happens, a bit more people start to censor themselves. And it happens every single day.)
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Alibaba's Tmall promo subtly shows gay and lesbian couples celebrating new year with their families. The ad doesn't explicitly mention LGBTQ but it's a rare representation done by a big Chinese company.
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Pundits can talk about Pelosi’s Taiwan visit for months but few would learn about the most talked topic in China weeks ago: sweeping cancellation of 18+ comic cons overnight due to an absurd anti-Japan conspiracy—yet it’s this kind of curated nationalism informs & feeds….
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There’s no context to this but I want to tell you “albatross” in Chinese is “calmly wandering grandpa in the sky” (信天翁)
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There will be many other social problems exposed as the outbreak continues. I'll pause here in case u think I'm wearing a tinfoil hat and stirring up fear. Here's a civil database of Chinese ppl who are suffering from coronavirus. Feel free to read it w/ google translation.
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Tonight’s censorship black humor, in order to sidestep the immediate ban of mentioning Nomadland (无依之地), Netizens in China start to refer to the movie as 无1之地, which pronounced the same. The only caveat: in Chinese gay lingo it literally means “The Land of No Tops”
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Just want to casually remind everyone Jackie Chan turned down Duan Xiaolou in Farewell My Concubine cuz he doesn’t want to be seen playing a gay character.
michelle yeoh in response to being asked if jackie chan was who got her into the action genre
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Meet the Americans who discover Jin Xing 20 years late and make her a case of China’s progressiveness despite she being the ONLY trans celeb in public sight for 20 years (who also pushes some really conservative values)
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In WHO’s English coronavirus FAQ, it suggests u should NOT take herbal medicine to prevent COVID19. The advice mysteriously disappears in the Chinese counterpart. Context: CN gov has been actively endorsing traditional medicine treatment, there’s little clinical evidence.
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Pro-Trump disinfo is growing rampant across East Asia. Published in different languages, it’s often unchecked and far more misleading as local audience lack US political contexts. In HK & Taiwan it’s exacerbated since Trump’s hawk China approach earns him great sympathy. .
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16. Want to highlight one story. A group of LGBT volunteers organized to spare & donate their HIV medication Lopinavir/Ritonavir, which was seen as a potentially effective drug against the virus. Here's an interview w/ organizer 松鼠哥 @inlayterms @glaad
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Umm. no. In China, it’s the exactly the other way around: a private company wouldn’t dream of banning Xi yet the entire internet is censored around Xi’s order—something Trump probably dreams of.
Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country. #Unbelievable.
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17. Change of public perception abt health, hygiene and social trust. Bumping my other thread here: why do ppl in China wear masks, even scientifically masks aren’t that essential? It’s a handy tool to signal others abt the outbreak, & build solidarity.
Mask-wearing in China is a bit more complicated than ppl here see it. It's not just about science. It's abt how different stakeholders of a society respond to a developing epidemic. By learning those lessons, US could better prepare the upcoming outbreak 1/.
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You can't gaslight a virus. But what you *can* is to rewrite history into a political triumph. As the outbreak is gradually slowing down in China at a high cost, here's one case of history editing, first posted to WeChat via 吃瓜箘:.
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Photo posted by Weibo user @ 毛大庆. Some wuhan ppl, after months of shelter-in-place, are waiting in line at Hankou Funeral Home to pick up family members’ ashes. This is heartbreaking.
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Breaking into an ambassador’s account to make him like a singular foot fetish video is a very *specific* form of cyber terrorism.
China's embassy to the UK has urged Twitter to seriously deal with some anti-China elements' abominable behavior of attacking Ambassador Liu Xiaoming's Twitter account. The embassy said it reserves rights to take further actions.
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Official: the gathering may cause stampede. Woman in mask: the PCR test line is way bigger than this. QUEEN.
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. China, as a regime that wields authoritarian power in the face of a quasi-existential threat (that the government caused by negligence), shouldn’t take credit for the ppl’s heroic sacrifice. China didn’t buy the world time. Chinese ppl did.
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Thread: Here's the most fun & frivolous tech news today: Railway Operation Depot in the Chinese city Dalian just published an article on their harrowing journey racing to restore the old version of Flash after Adobe's ban, which collapsed their system and paralyzed the railway /1
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As coronavirus quickly goes international, brace yourself to witness Chinese state media’s diligent—and subtly celebratory—reporting of the global crises to prove “democracy is not perfect” & “other countries are bad, too”.
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Sarcasm is now flooding Zhao Lijian’s weibo comment section: “YES YES YES GOOD GOOD GOOD RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT”
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As colleges in China turn to online classes, something unexpected emerges: it exposed some horrible things taught in classrooms. Here are 4 slides from Fujian *Medical* University abt why “LGBT is NOT a human right but a human race-threatening disorder & against CN core ideology”
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Btw, before these status she’s just a regular girl on douban sharing her life, music and movies. Her entire family collapsed in a matter of days.
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It cracks me up yet pains me seeing the allegedly liberal bunch using random Chinese rant to justify criticism over US. China doesn’t lack homeless issues. The country lacks VISIBILITY of homeless issues. Don’t use China as a talking point if you don’t care to learn abt the place
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