idle_american [he/him]

Maybe not “orientalizing,” but it’s reinforcing Western stereotypes and underlining how alien and bizarre it is that a “small city” could have 400,000 people, based on completely wrong information.

Well first of all, she doesn’t even get the name of the city right. There’s no such city as “Weixin,” she’s in the town of Tashi in the City of Zhaotong, Yunnan. Weixi (County) is the county that it’s in. Her assertion that the town has “400,000 people” is ridiculous. 400,000 is the population of Weixin County, not of Tashi. Tashi isn’t a metropolis by American standards. It’s just a decently-sized town. It’s a very common trope for Americans to mischaracterize all Chinese cities as being “absolutely massive” well beyond the proportions of reality, or to misunderstand the populations of administrative units to represent actual urban settlements, and in this case, she’s misunderstanding the population of a county to be that of its shire town.

Also, I’ll assume good faith and assume that maybe “18th-level city” is some kind of Chinese in-joke or exaggerative phrase, but she’s completely wrong that Tashi doesn’t fall within the system of Chinese local government. Yes, it’s not a “tiered city” because it’s not a city, it’s a town. It’s a normal fourth-level administrative unit: Town of Tashi -> Weixin County -> City of Zhaotong -> Yunnan.

I’m sleeping every night to some extent or another now and a lot of the cognitive symptoms have lessened. Lack of sleep and poor sleep are still making me feel like a zombie though. I’d appreciate any advice as long as it’s not sleep hygiene bullshit.