I think the translation of the word 'wenming', almost always translated as 'civilization' or 'civilized' in English, is close, but not really a perfect fit.

@Geezer: Agreed, really worth watching, makes you understand how little we know. Mind-control freakism, concentrated power - scary. Interesting that these guys, now in South Korea, reveal the level of idiocy imposed on them by a very ugly regime, yet remain afraid of Donald Trump & co. in what strikes me as a level-headed manner - this includes those who've been to the US. They all seem to recognize the bs bluster factor on both sides.

Makes me think of the phrase in Bob Dylan's talking dream #146, or whatever it was called: "Don't follow leaders" - right, maybe that's too simple, but these kids seem to have better sense than a lot of Americans about the issue - and, after all, they've seen more of both sides than the rest of us.
Then too, Trump was elected, Kim was not, and that's a bit scary too.

China California Heart Watch (ChinaCal) finds newborn babies and some older kids with heart problems that, if not dealt with rapidly, kill. Mostly this involves poor rural folks.
Another is the Yunnan-America Foundation, a small informal group of people, including myself, who assist with the education of rural poor kids, largely but not entirely from ethnic minorities.
Post me, we can meet up, preferably at Salvador's, as the owners there are involved with ChinaCal, as am I.Meanwhile, do a search for ChinaCal.

@vicar: won't argue about Scandinavia, but how does it compare with US democracy and the Democratic Party?
Your term 'totalitarian modernism' is interesting - seems like a bit of an overstatement, but it's one to think about. Seems to me Norman Mailer used a term that was something like 'technological fascism' about 50 years ago, in, I think, his account of a moonshot, A FIRE ON THE MOON (damn good read, and informative for those of us who aren't too sharp about the science & technology involved, as well as his interesting rather metaphysical speculations and his prose and anecdotes) - not quite sure if I buy that one either, but again it was a phrase that implied something other than democracy as a simple concept that ran things in the US, and was worth thinking about.

@bilingual: I use ExpressVPN, don't know anything about HK3 one way or the other.
@Peter: at present I see no need to go to Laos or anywhere outside of China to access my email - perhaps I'm not getting something? If so, I don't know what it might be.