About China

[smphang]

What a hot thread this is!

There is no doubt Mao is perhaps the most important leader in modern chinese history. But one need to differentiate between the difference between important and greatness. For example, there is no doubt the current Mr Bush is an important leader in modern America history (he took american through the 9-11 conflict as well as at least 2 wars, maybe more?), but will you agree that he is a great leader to represent the American country? So all this controversy boils down to the fact that, as other had pointed out, it is a mere 30 years since Mao's dead. There ARE still lots of debate regarding his contribution to the Chinese history.

IMHO, Mao could never be in league with other great leaders like Qing Shi Huang, Han Wu Di, Tang Tai Zhong, Kublai Khan and Qian Long (the later depends on your definition for Chinese people. Officially, Chinese is composed of 5 main "tribes" of Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan (thats why there are 5 stars in china flag) as well as other minor "tribes").
Qing Shi Huang is actually the first real Monarch (with real controlling power) in China, as well as standardising the writing of Chinese (his greatest achievement, imagine introducing a standard set of alphabet across europe), and building the great wall.
Han Wu Di defeats the northern raiders XiongNu and spread the influence of Han Dynasty to the central asia. This is the origin of silk routes. There is also unconfirmed report that some of the defeated XiongNu tribe migrated West, and perhaps becomes the precursor of Huns, which later cause havoc in Europe and downfall of the Roman Empire. Culturally, Han Wu Di established the Imperial Court system that is copied and used by ALL following dynasty until the overthrow of Manchurian in modern time.
During Tang Tai Zhong's time, he successfully wage a few important war, spreading the influence of China to neighbouring country like Korea and Japan, both culturally and spiritually (Buddhism to Japan and Confucian to Korea). There are also prolong years of prosperity under his rule, which leads to emergence of great artist and poets.
Kublai Khan, need i say more?
Under emperor Qian Long, china was the biggest and most populous country in the world, and marco polo even met the old emperor and describe his trip to china in his book that inspires the golden age of sails in the West.

So what did Mao achieve compared to above? He didnt overthrow the imperial manchurian dynasty, this is done by Dr Sun Yat-Sen. Although he is a lover of poetry and literature, his Cultural Revolution nearly destroy the identity of Chinese people. Just go to Korea and Japan, you will notice the traditional clothing, their way and philosophy of life. But goto modern china, can you still see any hints of traditional clothing? Not to mention the series of mistake he made in his reformations, causing millions of death in China. It is my personal belief that should Dr Sun Yat Sen not died of Liver Cancer at a relatively young age, Mao and his communist country will never had a chance to gain a foot hold in China and things will be very different...

Then again, thats why i like to play civilisation... ONLY... IF...

 

[laconic]

NCC81701, I apologize for my words, really. I appreciate your words.

The purpose I do say those words is I want to prove something here.

1. Someone don't like other leaders. How could they know they are not loved by their people?

2. Someone is talking about standards for time and situation. How did they know the other leaders is not doing the right standards during that time and for their country?

By the way, George W. Bush is the president, he represents US for the remaining years. In the current real world, what he said represents americans said. Most of the other person in the world believe it because he is elected by americans. This is called democracy every 4 year terms and he is going to at that spot for 8 years.

Sorry for any insult I did. I accept any blame against me.

 

[TerraHero]

Why they really used Mao, simply because Firaxis has said not to use difficult stuff, mostly for the US games since most people wont know it.

Ask an American about any of the previously mentioned chinse leaders and theyll juz get this blank stare in there eyes. But if you mention Mao perhaps something will shimmer and theyll recall hearing that name. There are alot more little details and some even greater wich are deliberatly put in the game like that simply because most people (according to firaxis) will otherwise have a mental break down.

 

[laylowmay]

Which civ leader has not done some wrongs, except maybe Ghandi? Most of the ancient civ leaders have massacred thousands of people, if not million. Should we eliminate Alexander and Ghiges Khan out of CIV4 because they killed women and children? No! Should we get rid of George Washington because he kept slaves? No! So give Mao a break. He was a significant part of modern Chinese history and certainly deserves to be in the game.

 

[southafrica]

NCC81701, I apologize for my words, really. I appreciate your words.

The purpose I do say those words is I want to prove something here.

1. Someone don't like other leaders. How could they know they are not loved by their people?

2. Someone is talking about standards for time and situation. How did they know the other leaders is not do the right standards during that time?

By the way, George W. Bush is the president, he represents US for the remaining years. In the current real world, what he said represents americans said. Most of the other person in the world believe it because he is elected by americans. This is called democracy every 4 year terms and he is going to at that spot for 8 years.

Sorry for any insult I did. I accept any blame against me.

So, democracy doesn't exist... that would be too combersome... America is a Federal Republic, which means that we elect people who we feel share our interests, however since we and our leaders are human they don't always follow our will. They are not machines. Unfortunately, either your english ability is not allowing you to make yourself understood your just have a poor defination of political idealogy... When people talk of spreading democracy they hardly mean true democracy, what they really mean is self-determination...

 

[Varelse]

It's very simple.

Some Americans don't like Lenin, they think Lenin is not loved by millions of Russian.

Some Americans don't like Mao, they think Mao is not loved by millions of Chinese.

Yes, Americans have their standards, their standards are the only correct standard for human beings.

They send their standards to Iraq, although they can't find any weapons there but they saved Iraqi, Iraqi love them.

I'm still trying to figure out what Iraq has to do with which Chinese ruler should be in the game!

 

[southafrica]

I'm still trying to figure out what Iraq has to do with which Chinese ruler should be in the game!

Aren't you familiar that every thread somehow devolves into Mao isn't bad, because Washington had slaves... then the real fun begins...

 

[Dida]

Officially, Chinese is composed of 5 main "tribes" of Han, Manchurian, Mongolian, Hui and Tibetan (thats why there are 5 stars in china flag) as well as other minor "tribes").

The five stars on the Chinese flag are not to represent the five major races. (depend on what you define as major, any other race other than Han Chinese constitutes less than 1% of the population).
Here is the real meaning of the 5 stars:
the large star represents the Communist party. 4 smaller stars each respectively represents: worker, farmer, scholars and business owners. The relative sizes and positions of the stars suggest that the Communist party is to take leading role.

Han Wu Di established the Imperial Court system that is copied and used by ALL following dynasty until the overthrow of Manchurian in modern time.

I don't know what imperial court system you are talking about. Han Wu Di's major achievements were his military excursion against the Huns and his conversion to Confucianism, establishing it as the ruling idealogy for the next 2000 years. As far as I know, the imperial system was set up by Shi Huang Di, not Han Wu Di.

Kublai Khan, need i say more?

Kublai Khan is a Mongolian leader, as far as the game is concerned.

Under emperor Qian Long, china was the biggest and most populous country in the world, and marco polo even met the old emperor and describe his trip to china in his book that inspires the golden age of sails in the West.

The emperor that Marco Polo met was Kublai Khan, not Qian Long. Kublai Khan was the first emperor of the Mongolian dynasty, where as Qian Long was the emporer of the Manchurian dynasty. They were two different persons from very different time period and cultural backgrounds. By the time Qian Long was the emperor, the golden age of the sails in the West was already over. The world was about to embark on the industrial rovolution. Furthermore, Qian Long was not known to have contributed anything to his empire.

 

[weimingshi]

You hate Mao because your mother tell you to hate him? How old are you?

Because Mao fouce her to work in the field so she is not a good student any more? Why Mao need to guarantee that she should be a good student? What's the IQ for her?

She waked up at 6AM and keep working till 6PM, no Breakfast, no Lunch, no Dinner and work 12 hours every day. Suppergirl!!!

Have you ever been to China? Tell you a good place - The Memorial of Mao, just in the south side of Tian An Men Square in Beijing. You can see average ten thousand people visit there everyday, they line up at the entrance for miles on the birthday and decease day of Mao. 143 Million people have visited there since Sept.9th, 1977.

Chinese people love Mao. All my friends and their parents love Mao no matter they are living in China or oversea.

As you said, the great leap forward happened in 58-60 and it was Liu ShaoQi who was the deputy chairman of communist party after the civil war then unfortunately mao managed to come back in power in 1960. Why blame Mao for that? Remember, it's communist party ruling not Mao. All the decisions are made by group not just Mao.

Mao is respected by the communist part because he lead successful war against Japanese before 1945, KMT before 1949 and in Korea before 1955. He reunite China and established the Heavy Industry. (The First and Second 5 Year Projects)

The 90% Chinese - peasants love him. The 9% City Civs love him. All the other democracy party love him. The Left Wing KMT Party lead by Son QinLin (wife of Sun Yat Sen) stay in China mainland after 1949 and didn't want to flee to Taiwan island.

After 1949, the Red China is banned by westen countries and the Soviet Union still want to keep the privilege in northern China even garrison in Da Lian and Lu Shun City.

China is so weak during that time. No Industry, all bombed by Japanese and KMT Flee Army, 90% peasants no Education.

Who lead China stand up? Who lead the Atom-bomb project and keep China safe for the rest 50 years? Who lead the Heavy Industry project in China?

It's Chinese People elect Mao to replace KMT and Mao said he is son of Chinese People.

Freedom? Like the freedom those Americans give to Iraq?



Washington give freedom? Do you know how many slaves he kept after he retired?



Keep talking your lies here. It's funny right?

Sigh, as much as I dislike it, I have to defend against this kind of personal insults.

I was born in china, I was raised in rural villages, the kind of villages that don't have electricity and running water, Later I studied in beijing, and yes i saw mao's crystal encased coffine many times ( the school organized a few of those kind trips). I never ever said mao didn't do good things, he is a great military leader, without him communism may not even see the light of day. But like I said he knows squat about science and economy. Most of his mistakes are made in those area, as for his foreign policies and military decision, I think he did the right thing in those area.

The fact that theres millions of people love mao in china is because of many reasons. One being dispit his mistakes he did maintain china's independence for this I congradulate him. The other reason why people love mao is that since the day we were born, we are taught mao is the great leader of china, mao is the sun of china, mao can do no wrong, follow mao's footsteps and china will emerge on top, Basically the whole generation was brainwashed starting in kindergarden. Yet, china never allowed anybody to openly criticize mao's mistakes.

My opinion is mao is a very charismatic leader, He's stand on foreign policies and military ensured china's independence. Yet he is also a selfish man, He wanted absolute control all to himself. If he only run the military and foreign policy and let people who knows about economy run china's economic reform, China would be far better off today, Yet he had to interfer.

As for including him in civ, I don't see why we shouldn't, mao is a great wartime leader, china wouldn't be the china we know today without him.

 

[laconic]

Sigh, as much as I dislike it, I have to defend against this kind of personal insults.

I was born in china, I was raised in rural villages, the kind of villages that don't have electricity and running water, Later I studied in beijing, and yes i saw mao's crystal encased coffine many times ( the school organized a few of those kind trips). I never ever said mao didn't do good things, he is a great military leader, without him communism may not even see the light of day. But like I said he knows squat about science and economy. Most of his mistakes are made in those area, as for his foreign policies and military decision, I think he did the right thing in those area.

The fact that theres millions of people love mao in china is because of many reasons. One being dispit his mistakes he did maintain china's independence for this I congradulate him. The other reason why people love mao is that since the day we were born, we are taught mao is the great leader of china, mao is the sun of china, mao can do no wrong, follow mao's footsteps and china will emerge on top, Basically the whole generation was brainwashed starting in kindergarden. Yet, china never allowed anybody to openly criticize mao's mistakes.

My opinion is mao is a very charismatic leader, He's stand on foreign policies and military ensured china's independence. Yet he is also a selfish man, He wanted absolute control all to himself. If he only run the military and foreign policy and let people who knows about economy run china's economic reform, China would be far better off today, Yet he had to interfer.

As for including him in civ, I don't see why we shouldn't, mao is a great wartime leader, china wouldn't be the china we know today without him.

度尽波劫兄弟在
相逢一笑泯恩仇

 

[NCC81701]

NCC81701, I apologize for my words, really. I appreciate your words.

The purpose I do say those words is I want to prove something here.

1. Someone don't like other leaders. How could they know they are not loved by their people?

2. Someone is talking about standards for time and situation. How did they know the other leaders is not doing the right standards during that time and for their country?

By the way, George W. Bush is the president, he represents US for the remaining years. In the current real world, what he said represents americans said. Most of the other person in the world believe it because he is elected by americans. This is called democracy every 4 year terms and he is going to at that spot for 8 years.

Sorry for any insult I did. I accept any blame against me.

Apology accepted, now we can get back to some intellectual discussion.

#1. Although i cannot make a blanket statment about someone not liking a leader and automatically assumed its citizens do not like the leader either, Mao is a leader that is still in controversy amongst the chinese people. Perhaps it is not as much of an issue with chinese in mainland China, Mao is still an issue with Chinese that have escaped from the cultural revolution and spread out to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other places in the world. The fact that people are here discussing this topic is the proof that Mao is still controversial. Hence I think Mao is probably not the best choice to represent the chinese civilization since even amongst ourselves we still argue whether it is truely great.

2#Standards of the time yes... well Standard of the times for George Washington was that slavery was acceptable, however even he can see that the standard needs to be changed but at what cost? Washington was smart enough to know that if he advance the cause of Slavery then the great American experiment in democracy would have collapsed before it is even started. Thus his inaction toward slavery actually help emancipat the slaves by giving the nation a chance to stablize and emancipate the slaves at a later time.

The difference I proposed between Washington and Mao is that Mao didn't care the cost of his "plans" and his "revolutions." Mao's blind rush toward progress actually hurt the chinese nation and set them back decades of progress, not to mention the irreplacible loss of 4000 years of chinese culture and heritage. Whatever contribution Mao made to the chinese people (yes giving land to the farmer is good, except the landowners weren't compensated), in my opinion they are erased by the cultural revolution that he started.

Finally yes Geroge Bush is the president and he does represent the United States of America. But still that does not mean that all Americans agrees with what he does (take a look at the falling poll numbers). Unlike the Chinese government the people in the United States are allowed to speak out against their leaders, against their policies, and change their leader if they so desire on voting day. This is something that is not aviable to the chinese people at this time, and it was definitly out of the question during Mao's Reign. At the time of the cultural revolution, if you weren't loyal to Mao then you're a capitalist; if you're a capitalist you are dead. Not a good way to govern your own people don't you think so too?

 

[Sky_Net]

Fraxis should not have picked Mao Tse Tung and Qin Shi Huang. They were not the best leaders of China.

They should have gone with Qianlong and Sun Yet Sen.

 

[NetMapel]

You hate Mao because your mother tell you to hate him? How old are you?

Because Mao fouce her to work in the field so she is not a good student any more? Why Mao need to guarantee that she should be a good student? What's the IQ for her?

She waked up at 6AM and keep working till 6PM, no Breakfast, no Lunch, no Dinner and work 12 hours every day. Suppergirl!!!

Have you ever been to China? Tell you a good place - The Memorial of Mao, just in the south side of Tian An Men Square in Beijing. You can see average ten thousand people visit there everyday, they line up at the entrance for miles on the birthday and decease day of Mao. 143 Million people have visited there since Sept.9th, 1977.

Chinese people love Mao. All my friends and their parents love Mao no matter they are living in China or oversea.

As you said, the great leap forward happened in 58-60 and it was Liu ShaoQi who was the deputy chairman of communist party after the civil war then unfortunately mao managed to come back in power in 1960. Why blame Mao for that? Remember, it's communist party ruling not Mao. All the decisions are made by group not just Mao.

Mao is respected by the communist part because he lead successful war against Japanese before 1945, KMT before 1949 and in Korea before 1955. He reunite China and established the Heavy Industry. (The First and Second 5 Year Projects)

The 90% Chinese - peasants love him. The 9% City Civs love him. All the other democracy party love him. The Left Wing KMT Party lead by Son QinLin (wife of Sun Yat Sen) stay in China mainland after 1949 and didn't want to flee to Taiwan island.

After 1949, the Red China is banned by westen countries and the Soviet Union still want to keep the privilege in northern China even garrison in Da Lian and Lu Shun City.

China is so weak during that time. No Industry, all bombed by Japanese and KMT Flee Army, 90% peasants no Education.

Who lead China stand up? Who lead the Atom-bomb project and keep China safe for the rest 50 years? Who lead the Heavy Industry project in China?

It's Chinese People elect Mao to replace KMT and Mao said he is son of Chinese People.

Freedom? Like the freedom those Americans give to Iraq?



Washington give freedom? Do you know how many slaves he kept after he retired?



Keep talking your lies here. It's funny right?

This is a very offensive post to me personally. My grandparents were born in China and they have suffered through enough of Sino-Japanese wars, and don't deserve to go through another slavery by their own Chinese government. Mao knew nothing about science and technology due to his background as a peasent. He viewed farmers as the most important job, and forced the Chinese civilians to "study" from the farmers. What that means is to forcingly send young adults into the outer parts of the Chinese borders and do slave works along with the farmers. Education level for the young Chinese adults were at all time low because UNIVERSITIES ARE SHUT DOWN by the government.

Mao is loved by many of the MAINLAND Chinese people because they were badly brainwashed starting from birth. Mao was an extremely insecure person with backward thinking that is quite afraid of competition for betterness. Whoever bested Mao in terms of intelligence were jailed to death in many many occations.

As for saying governmental decisions are made by a "group of people". First of all, those people are probably all close to Mao, otherwise they wouldn't be part of the group in the first place. Whoever disagrees with Mao will be taken out ASAP. His "Great Leap Forward" backfired and killed millions of his own people, and he did nothing but to stop that as he is too afraid to admit he is wrong.

Lastly, what you mean by Mao keeping Chinese safe... maybe you meant closing the entire borders for 40-50 years and basically screwed itself technologically and economically when compared to the rest of the world.

Look at where Hong Kong and Taiwan is compared to China. They are both part of the "Four Asian Dragons" while China is tanking at the bottom.

 

[Dida]

Fraxis should not have picked Mao Tse Tung and Qin Shi Huang. They were not the best leaders of China.

They should have gone with Qianlong and Sun Yet Sen.

You point of view is laughable. Talk to a person who knows China, and ask which pair is better: Mao + Qin Shi Huang or Qian Long + Sun Yat Sen

Sun had a great ideaology, but his capability was limited. Qianlong was a non-chinese emperor, siting on the wealth his grandfather and father has left him. If Sun at least took part in overthrowing the empire, Qianlong had essentially no impact on china or on the world.

 

[Vizzini]

I don't care who the leaders are in this game. I don't care that it's "Mao" leading "China" because I know that's not really "Mao" any more than it's really "China"... which is further reinforced when they go and found Christianity.

It's a game. Anyone who tries to read anything into it or worse, gets "offended" by the choices Firaxis made needs to get their priorities straight.

 

[Tragic]

NCC81701:

Why is Mao not popular in Taiwan, Hongkong etc? Because they are occupied by the Nationalist KMT who fled after being defeated by Mao. How popular was Lincoln after the American civil war?

“Whatever contribution Mao made to the Chinese people, in my opinion they are erased by the cultural revolution that he started.”

Mao gave the Chinese people a country. He ended a century of China’s humiliation and subservience to the western powers, Russia and Japan. For that he will always be one of the greatest leaders in Chinese history.

Yes the cultural revolution was a disaster. Yes the great Leap forward ended in tragedy. My parents and grand parents lived through the worst of that, and I have heard horrible stories. But China has recovered. And Mao gift to the Chinese people still stands strong today.

You talk about standards of Washington’s time. Realize that the standards in China during the 1950s and 1960s are vastly different from the standards of today. Don’t judge Mao by the standards of today.

Weimingshi:

You’re parents were hurt by Mao. So were mine. My grandfather was a university professor and was heavily persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, but all my relatives still respect him. Everyone knows that Mao screwed up bad and did many bad things. And like you said China wouldn’t be china without Mao.

However, what angers me is that many western people consider Mao on par with Hitler and Stalin. They think he killed millions during the Great leap forward when it was in fact Mao’s fault that his policies couldn’t protect 50 million people from one of the worst natural disasters of the century. How much blame can we place on New Orlean’s Mayor for the people who died in Katrina? A lot, but that isn’t same saying that he murdered them.

And no, qian long and Sun yet sen should not represent china. Qian long was a Manchurian, and it was the Manchurians that kept china secluded from the rest of the world. It was this Manchurian seclusion that resulted in a century of humilation of China at the the hands of the west. Sun yet sen died before he could make enough great contributions to china’s history.

 

[Tragic]

Net Mapel, your post is very offensive to me personally. To call mainland Chinese brainwashed is offensive. It is not hard for intelligent and educated people who know Chinese history to make their own judgments. Nobody in China is denying that Mao’s policies were a disaster. The current government completely acknowledges that the Great Leap and Cultural revolution were horrible. Why do people still love Mao? Because he gave china a country. You may not appreciate this but mainland Chinese do.

As to Hong kong and Taiwan, they were always better off than the rest of china. After the civil war, the KMT fled to Taiwan and took with the much of what was left of the wealth of china. Hong Kong and Taiwan were spared from the massive natural disasters, the wars, the rebellions that plagued the mainland and cost hundreds of millions of lives. Hong Kong and Taiwan, aside from Japanese occupation was spared the worst of what the mainland experienced. And neither Hong Kong or Taiwan suffered from the severe international prejudice and the debilitating trade sanctions imposed on the mainland by the western powers. As the mainland modernizes, it will catch up. I just hope one day that everyone will be able to put aside their prejudices and work together and prosper.

 

[panzooka]

Please, read some recent history before you post. The great leap forward happened in 58-60. japan defeated in 45, civil war ended in 49. those 2 got nothing to do with it.

After the civil war it was liu shaoqi who was the deputy chairman of communist party. He was the guy took charge of china's economic reforms, and he knows what he is doing, under his brief command, china's living condition improved immensely. he is very skeptical of mao's great leap forward movement. unfortunately mao managed to come back in power in 1960, mao then started the cultural revolution to get ride of him enmies. Liu was named as traitor, thief, enemy to the people of china and died in emprisonment. whatever improvements china had, be it literacy rate or living condition, is little of mao's doing. It was liu. what mao did was to completely ruin liu's effort and china actually took a great leap backward. Alot of those things I did not read from articles, it was my mother who told me. when liu was in charge, my mother studied in primary and secondary school, she was the best student. when mao came back in power, he urged all students to go work in the field. At that time my mother was 12, she had to work 12 hours a day remove rocks and stuff like that in the field under terrible conditions. As a result my mother never finished high school.

If mao had only 1/10 of washington's unselfishness and reconize his imcompetence at running economic affairs, he would be one of the greatest leader of all time no doubt. unfortunately he wasn't, as soon as somebody more competent than him appears that threaten his political power, he had to cut him off and drag the whole nation down with him.

why it have nothing todo with that?
do u think he will propose "Great leap forward" or "cultural revolution" if the whole country is not war torned?
if people dont go and work in the field, then more people will starve.
what if u got 2 choices:

1. study, and be educated, then starve to death 2 days after
2. work in the field, and feed yourself, as well as your child, your family, so no one starve

these are the only options they had, and ofcos people will happily choose the second one.

next, democracy.
in the old medieval, people fight for religion, and religion is a believe that people follows and believes that it is the only right, and glorious way
from cold war untill now, people fight for government type, and communism / democracy is a believe that people think will leads them into a better tomorow/happier life.

now stop debating over democracy and communism, its totaly a believe, and so, u just cant make christian people to believe in islam. no.
COLD WAR is OVER
no more democracy vs communism talk.

and china will be democracy if nationalist beat communist?
no, there is only 1 party in china, there will be no votes, no democracy.

and nationalist, they made mongolia independant. mongolia is part of china before china civil war. then the russian came and ask nationalist party to make mongolia independant country, so that the russian will recognise that the nationalist is the only formal government of china. so they signed the agreement and declared mongolia independant.
what a bunch of cheaters. do russian really recognise nationalist party as the only formal government of china? and the nationalist, made a large part of land independant,
what if america came ask them similar deal like the russian? what if XXXXX came ask a similar deal?
the nationalist is truly corrupted government AT THAT TIME(dont kill me plz nationalist lovers, im saying "at that time"), people loves communist to drive them away, this i think is another major factor that why people loves mao.

 

[KingKHAN]

That was hard to read.
But...
Yes, we can remove Mao Zedong. I know a lot of people don't like him. He is compared to Hitler in another thread.
We can also change him to better reflect certain values.

It's a game, people really need to get over themselves, seriously, I'm an Aboriginal of Canada, we lost our land to Europian Settlers a couple hundred years ago, our reserves are in poverty that of compared to 3rd world countries, statistics compile that more then 70% of inmates in Canada (some 32,000) are Aboriginals, the suicide rate in Canada is ever increasing as poverty on the reserves gets tougher, mainly drug overdoses...

My ancestors, the Aboriginal peoples whom founded North America some 40,000 years ago during the ice age were the first ones here, when most of North America was frozen solid with high, high glaciers covering most the land, we migrated here over the Bering Straits (at the time was solid ground leading from Northern Asia to North America). We were considered to be Heathens to the Europian Settles (Christians). We weren't aloud to believe in the spirits of our ancestors and of the living mother nature around us, for that is heathen gods in their opinions and we'd have been arrested. The Elders tell of many stories of persecution from each generation to the next, and from them to us. They hunted, and slaughtered us if we did not comply with their demands. This may have been along time ago, but isn't China and Germany better now? Haven't your countries healed from the persecutions of your past? This hate is still strong in Canada, the government is less and less forgiving each passing day, stealing land claims and land from us daily. Benefits? You have got to be kidding me... Yes you may hear of free taxes, free college... Your wrong, we get off provincial taxes in CERTAIN provinces and only at a handful of stores. College/University for free? I don't thinkso, out of thousands of aboriginals, 1 will be chosen for a free $10,000 per year(for 4 years) for higher education. Nobody really cares nor seems to interested in the persecution that happens to this very day, no we may not have suffered recently as horribly as some of you have, but for hundreds of years Aboriginals have been discriminated against, murdered and robbed of our lands, the culture, and the civilization, though maybe not as technologically advanced as Europians, we were still entitled to the land of which we founded. We were forced to follow the Europian ways of life, or be dealt with accordingly.

Now you may all completely deny this, but it is factual and did happen and to this day is still happening on reserves across Canada, not sure of the Americans ways but here, we are still persecuted. Had not been for us helping the Europian settlers whom had never experienced Canada's harsh winters, (we gave furs and other neccessities to). They would have died by winter time. We opened our doors to welcome the newcomers, and what do they do? Stab us in the back and take control of our land. When I see a movie like Last of the Mohicans, I am happy to see Natives resist the persecution. Yes, I feel your pain and know of the discrimination you once faced, times before you were alive. . . I am experiencing this, and my elders have experienced this first hand. I was quite irritated when they removed the Iroquois from Civ4. So don't tell me you have it hard, try growing up on a poverty struck reserve and being persecuted by police whom thrive pride and joy to patrol around the reserves and jump on any oppurtunity to arrest an Aboriginal. Well, I am calmly addressing this so you know, I accept this because quite frankly there is little that can be done about it. I don't cry about it though.

 

[QiZhe]

I don't like Mao, my parents don't like Mao, my family in China don't like Mao. However, I do admit Mao is one of the most influential people in China's history, if not the single most influential. I despise him for the terrible things he's done, some of the policies he had that led China backwards instead of forwards, but he qualifies to be a Civ leader.

I disagree with the people who would want 孙中山 (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) as a leader. Though his ideals were admirable and he did lead China for some time, he was not as influential on China's history.

I believe Qin Shi Huang was a very good pick for a pre-modern China leader. He did unite China and begin the Qin Dynasty, and the Great Wall is the greatest Chinese symbol, built in his reign.

Many of you seem to be against Qing Long and the Manchu Dynasty. While technically he was Manchurian and not Chinese, it's like saying Alexander is not qualified to be the Greek leader because he's actually Macedonian. He is a famous figure in Chinese history, and being Manchurian isn't a reason to exclude him. They make Chinese dramas about Qian Long, people in China now don't seem to resent him much.