Yuntai: Hiker finds pipe feeding China's tallest waterfall
bbc.com
A controversy over a waterfall has cascaded into a social media storm in China, even prompting an explanation from the water body itself.
A hiker posted a video that showed the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China's tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face.
The clip has been liked more than 70,000 times since it was first posted on Monday. Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the "small enhancement" during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile.
"The one about how I went through all the hardship to the source of Yuntai Waterfall only to see a pipe," the caption of the video posted by user "Farisvov" reads.
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People will really jump on any random thing to bash China. I'll give kudos to British state media that this constant deluge of insignificant nonsense makes it really hard to have any discussion about China that's based on like, broad trends in history or economics.
Parks do water management. At Niagra Falls, for example, much of the water is used for power generation at night, but during the day more of it goes over the falls for the benefit of tourists. You've probably never heard about it, because it doesn't matter. At all.
But make it about another tribe, about the outgroup, and suddenly it's the most important thing in the world and proves everything we always suspected and blah blah blah. Go volunteer at your local park.
Speak for yourself, as far as I'm concerned China has lost all credibility with this story. Faking a waterfall ? That's grounds for economic sanctions
Xi Jinping reading about this story like
I mean, they already did that.
Are you a Maoist, then?
No, China's current economy is not communist. Nothing to do with Mao, or what I think about communism personally.
I guess I'm just confused then. When China enacted economic reforms in the 80's, there were people who opposed them and felt that these reforms entailed a right-wing deviation from communism. Those people were/are known as Maoist hardliners. You can see where I thought you might be one.
If you're not that, then does that mean you do approve of those economic reforms? Perhaps I misunderstood, when you said China abandoned communism, did you mean it as a good thing, and you support China's direction from a pro-capitalist standpoint?
If that's not it, I give up. I'm afraid I'm at a loss what your ideology is or what you think about Chinese history or the country's economic reforms. If you could explain it to me, I'd be quite grateful, I see a lot of people around here who appear to me to be Maoists, but when I ask if they are, they don't answer or elaborate. It's very confusing to me.
You should comment less and lurk moar and you'll pick up the vibe.
Or just keep trying to corner people and wonder why they don't want to engage with you.
I guess I don't really operate on vibes too much when looking at geopolitics.
Ah one of those beep boop robot people unable to see any nuance that can only deal with absolutes. That'll hold you back.
That doesn't seem to describe me very well. Seems like a strange take. I would think that studying history and basing beliefs on evidence would lead one to arrive at a more nuanced understanding than going, "idk seems bad."
You'd think so but here we are, "beliefs" are based on "faith" and "evidence" is up for "interpretation." A room full of people can read a story and all take something different from it, if we could all just study history and decide what the best course of action is, that'd be cool.
No, they are not. I believe more of the earth's surface is water than land. Is that belief based on faith? Is that evidence up for interpretation?
Some beliefs are based on faith and some evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways but that doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a rational, evidence-based belief.
Yes, people disagree on things, but when they are grounded on evidence and reason, they can discuss them rationally and present reason or evidence that the other person might not be aware of, and possibly resolve the disagreement. If you just go off vibes, and someone else senses different vibes from you, then there's nothing you can appeal to to convince them of your perspective.
I expect chairman Xi's resignation letter on my desk by 8
The video was posted on Weibo by a hiker, which suggests the hiker is Chinese. So blame the Chinese for making this known since they then viewed and shared it thousands of times.
You say "thousands" as if that's a lot. If some Chinese people want to talk about a park's water management, I don't mind. But when Westerners take some random trivial thing like this and use it to fuel a narrative that "China is a country full of lies," or whatever, that's an entirely different animal. This is a local issue, not an excuse for chauvanists to be chauvanist.
Yes, I do call 70,000 shares a lot. That's shares, not views. I'm not sure why you don't.
And it's still the Chinese people making a big deal about this.
Really? Because what I'm seeing is an article from the British Broadcasting Channel and a thread full of people using this story to make sweeping generalizations about China, in English. I suppose it's possible, but I gotta say I find it a little hard to believe that this thread is full of Chinese nationals, as you're claiming.
Where was that claimed?
Right here?
I'm talking about what people in this thread are saying, and in response they said it's Chinese people making a big deal about it, so naturally that would imply that this thread is full of primarily Chinese people.
They said it's Chinese people IN CHINA making a big deal about it, which is what this article is about.
And I'm fine with that. What I'm less fine with are people in this thread, about a BBC article, exploiting a local issue about water management to paint an entire country as being full of liars. If Chinese people want to make a big deal out of it, that's their business.
Nobody in this thread cares about it for the story itself. They care about it because it gives them an excuse to push their agenda.
Fair, but Flying Squid didn't say anything negative about China. He just said that it was Chinese people who made this incident known internationally.
I never said that he did.
I don't see how this point matters. Yes, Chinese people shared the story, because they cared about it. I still think it's a non-issue personally, but people care about all sorts of things, and I'm sure I could find some celebrity gossip with a wider spread. Perfectly fine with all of that.
Then the BBC reports on it internationally, and people on here use it to spread a narrative that China is a nation full of liars. Am I repeating myself? I think I said that part already. That's the only thing I've taken issue with. I fail to see how what you're saying, that Chinese people originally shared the story, has anything to do with that.
It doesn't really. The issue is that you incorrectly stated he claimed that it was Chinese nationals in this thread that made a big deal about the waterfall, which he did not.
OK but putting that aside can we agree his other point is totally valid, prople in this thread using it to attack all China or all chinese are absurd, awful, and immoral?
I said that to make the point that what they said was irrelevant to what I said, unless this thread was full of Chinese people.
Ok Tankie!
Being a tankie is when you don't care about water management at a park on the opposite side of the world, even though your state hates their state.
As opposed to what you're doing which is just apologizing for a corrupt government?
Contrary to popular belief, there's actually nothing wrong with calling out bad arguments and illegitimate or irrelevant criticism of anything or anyone, regardless of what you think about the thing or person. I'll apologize for whoever I please, in other words.
Last I checked, Buffalo wasn’t pumping water up the falls just to make it roll down through the turbines, but if you have legit sources showing otherwise I’d be most happy to see them comrade
They do control the amount of water that flows down the falls. I was there last year. They also come right out and say so.
Bit of a difference between a weir/hydroelectric dam and a pump that would take all the water from the turbines and send it right back up to the canucks, using the turbine energy.
Then again, maybe it would spur a new round of waterfall barrel daredevils if they knew their keys would just be churned up top like a bowling ball at a “natural wonder”
Where did I claim they were? I believe what I said is "Parks do water management." And beauty and tourism are concerns that they take into account. This is a non-story.