Jackie Chan. Sammo Hung. Yuen Biao.
More of an indictment on the insularity of our media systems than random individuals.
As an Aussie, I could name 3 people from a handful of countries, and mostly only because we see their media a lot.
It’s a bit of a dumb “gotcha” question to be honest.
Name 3 Indian people right now? Name 3 Russian people right now? Name 3 Argentinian people right now?
Most people don’t have a list of go-to names in their pockets based on nationality. And people in Europe will be much more familiar with other Europeans, and also Americans because we’re inundated in coverage.
I’m British with Irish heritage and I’m struggling on the spot to name 3 Irish people alive right now, yet I see a lot of Irish comedians, actors, musicians and TV shows on British TV.
It’s a specious argument that the question reveals what it purports to. Instead it reveals people are shit when put on the spot, and especially the further outside their day-to-day familiarity you go.
Yeah I sat here trying to name three of:
- Chinese people (Xi Jinping, Jack Ma, uhhh…)
- French people (Marie Le Pen, Nicolas Sarkozy, uhhhhh damn my brain forgot the name of the current president even though I literally read about him earlier today)
- Swedish people (the King and no I can’t remember what number of Carl he is, a Swedish friend, oh fuck I can’t remember the surname of my other Swedish friend)
- Estonian people (Kaja Kallas, holy shit where do I go now, oh yeah the Disco Elysium guys: Argo Tuulik… fuck who was the main guy? Who was the money guy?)
- Russian people (Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin-- wait he’s dead, ok what about the geopolitics guy on Twitter nuh uh can’t remember his name)
- Americans who aren’t or weren’t the president or the vice president (drew a blank until I thought of the RedLetterMedia guys, then realized I forgot Mike’s last name, then cheated by remembering Mike Morhaime’s last name instead)
And I’m not even on the spot in a studio. The human brain just doesn’t work that way.
edit: and for context I’m Finnish, so I picked neighbouring countries that I should (and do) know people from
It’s not that hard.
- The supreme leader
- The Alibaba guy who was kidnapped
- The guy who stood in front of a tank with his groceries
That’s gotta count, right?
Edit: shit, they said alive.
Name 3 Indian people right now?
Narendra Modi. Raoul Gandhi. Gina Gopinath.
Name 3 Russian people right now?
Vladimir Putin. Dimitry Medvedev. Oleg Deripaska.
Name 3 Argentinian people right now?
Lionel Messi. Mauricio Macri. Cristina Kirhsner.
🇮🇳 : Visby anand, gukesh d, Modi.
🇷🇺 : Ian/yan nepomnyaschchi , daniil dubov, Putin.
🇦🇷: Christina Kirchner, Alberto Fernández, Mirta legrande.
🇮🇪: dará O’Brien, RT game, foil arms & hog. Danny Dwyer. The bastard transphobe Graham lineman.I came up with these names on the spot. I might not be able to make three Mauritians, but come on, if you follow anything international, you can name 3 Chinese people. They are there from politics to snooker.
🇨🇳: ding liren, Wei yi, Hu jintao
Edit: I only put gukesh with d because it is acceptable, and I might misspel domajaru
- Jet Li
- Jackie Chan
- Michelle Yeoh
that wasn’t hard…
Cixin Liu, Eileen Gu, Ai Weiwei, Xi Jinping…
Honestly? I’d be hard pressed to name 3 politicians from most other countries than my own.
Current guy Carney, last guy Trudeau, before that, hmm. Wait, the guy who… smoked crack, I think? Doug Ford. Don’t remember what office he held.
That was close. I don’t know if I could manage any other country. Putin, Medvedev (if he’s still alive, would have to look it up), and… Dang I know the name of the head honcho of Chechnya but I can’t call it to mind.
Xi Jinping, Jack Ma, and Jackie Chan are three that come to mind.
Loll I thought of the first two too. Of course the first is a given considering his picture is right there on the post.
The third was Naomi Wu. One of the few influencers who really managed to captivate the west (in her niche). But unfortunately she was silenced as she was too critical about the government (and IT security issues in particular in the pinyin input module, which she had really good points about). Basically she was arrested and told to stop youtubing or else…
I think this plays a role too. Influencers that capture a western audience often get silenced when they don’t toe the party line. And when they do they are obvious shills so they don’t appeal to us. The same reason linkedin is insufferable as social media.
It’s too bad because people like her really fostered understanding of Chinese culture. Which is good for China and its government too but they’re too focused on their internal hold on power to see that.
I miss Naomi. Her content was always interesting, and often informative. She was a solid presence in the open source 3d scene too. Between the pinyin IME input vulnerabilities and telling personal stories of her life and suffering under the government as well as her Uhyger partners suffering. Even though she didn’t word it like that. Put it as vanilla and non accusatory and just mater of factly. Oppressive authoritarian governments can’t tolerate ANY criticism or allow ACTUAL liberty.
You are 1000% correct though. She was a fantastic internet ambassador for china and their technology sector.
Yao Ming too
Nice try. Jackie Chan is from Hong Kong, not mainland China
If you really want to piss them off, name politicians from Taiwan. They tell us it is part of China after all. (/s)
Yeah name Chiang Kai-Shek in particular hehehe
Doesn’t make him less of a shill.
How about Shaohao, Zhuanxu, and Emperor Ku?
Hong Kong is mainland China, now that they’re no longer under colonial guidance from England. There’s a reason Dr. Chan is so pro China, given the hell he grew up in in occupied hong kong.
Was it really more of a hell than it is now?
Especially if you don’t exactly agree with the government it’s not a very nice place to be right now.
Yeah the open air slavery was pretty fucking worse than guaranteed human rights.
given the hell he grew up in in occupied hong kong.
lol. What weird fucking timeline are you from or do just know absolutely nothing about history and society of HK?
Do you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s_in_Hong_Kong
It was invaded by England and made to be a British Colony for decades where slavery was openly legal, HK had no control over its fate whatsoever, and the UK enforced a strict class and social hierarchy where native peoples were massively oppressed compared to Brits.
It’s actually genuinely disgusting you’re defending both imperialism, the genocide that the imperialism fueled, and violently hostile occupation of a foreign land.
Can you name 3 alive chinese people
li wei.
i asked for three
i just named at least 100,000.
Thank you, Mr John Smith
