understanding China better

[upsidedownwalrus]

It's thing like domestic abuse, abuse in the workplace, an extension of the protection rackets, a mini slave-trade, loan sharks etc extending into prostitution.

I'm not saying Saudi is paradise

Yeah, I know dodgy stuff goes on. But my overall impression is that women are probably more advanced here relative to China's overall level of advancement, if that makes any sense.

Chinese women seem strong and proud to me. Anyone who says western men who marry chinese women are doing so to get a nice, meek submissive wife is severely mistaken!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Consumer goods consumption is on the up for some, not going so well for others... there is a growing divide between haves and have nots.

Do they have a dish washer and washing machine? Those are, traditionally, seen as being much more 'cool' than a TV and telephone. Labour saving devices are considered much nicer than entertainment ones in most parts.

I forgot to mention something else - education in China, how that goes, the sheer fact that you don't get crosswords in chinese so everyone does number puzzles and mathematics is pretty intense stuff out there...

No dish washer, but then my parents in the UK never had one of those either! They do have a washing machine of sorts, although it's a rather strange old one that looks nothing like western ones.

 

[fela fan]

About two years ago the chinese government-sponsored brand new English Language curriculum came into being. Having skimmed it a wee bit, it looks like a marvelous piece of work, and the interesting bit about it is the political will that obviously exists in the country to improve their population's english language speaking skills. It is early days yet, but they're obviously serious about it all.

Which is nothing like the situation in thailand at all, who are actually heading backwards, and that from a pathetic starting point!

Kudos to them.

 

[fela fan]

Talking to some of my students (experienced english teachers) who are over here in thailand improving their skills, i get the distinct impression that china is out to improve its economic standing in the world and for its people. It is wanting to develop and catch up from some of its hinderances in the last century.

It does not seem to me that they're intent on dominating the world, unlike the US.

This is naturally rather anecdotal, but i'd be interested in hearing about this from anyone who lives in china or does business there.

Because so far as i understand it, western politicos and media do a good job of 'persuading' its readers that they are a military threat.

I reckon they just want equal respect in this world.

[and i'm more than aware about tibet and taiwan, but that hardly compares with the US and their military bases in over half the countries of the world]

 

[the B]

Yeah, I know dodgy stuff goes on. But my overall impression is that women are probably more advanced here relative to China's overall level of advancement, if that makes any sense.

Chinese women seem strong and proud to me. Anyone who says western men who marry chinese women are doing so to get a nice, meek submissive wife is severely mistaken!

Mmm... I would say Chinese women have a known and expected place and role in society. That alone is rather iffy in my opinion.

Deviations from it are not welcome from any party... the tradition isn't always so bad - but then, it often isn't good.

 

[the B]

Talking to some of my students (experienced english teachers) who are over here in thailand improving their skills, i get the distinct impression that china is out to improve its economic standing in the world and for its people. It is wanting to develop and catch up from some of its hinderances in the last century.

It does not seem to me that they're intent on dominating the world, unlike the US.

This is naturally rather anecdotal, but i'd be interested in hearing about this from anyone who lives in china or does business there.

Because so far as i understand it, western politicos and media do a good job of 'persuading' its readers that they are a military threat.

I reckon they just want equal respect in this world.

[and i'm more than aware about tibet and taiwan, but that hardly compares with the US and their military bases in over half the countries of the world]

Very difficult to judge... what strikes me as more interesting is how China will fare in an economic crisis (in particular, one that includes a credit crunch or the good old winds of creative destruction).

 

[maomao]

Mmm... I would say Chinese women have a known and expected place and role in society. That alone is rather iffy in my opinion.

Deviations from it are not welcome from any party... the tradition isn't always so bad - but then, it often isn't good.

Well, so do Chinese men quite frankly. However many examples you can find of individual Chinese people who've bucked the trend the fact is for the majority of rural and urban Chinese people there is more pressure to conform to a certain path in life. Many more women are working now, but I don't see rural women being sent off to the city to work to support their own children who they may only see once a year as any kind of economic liberation. And it's still true that an unmarried woman over 30 is a rarity. The selling of women as wives seems to be largely restircited to the West of China where there are a lot of places missing out on the new prosperity. Sex testing and aborting of female babies similarly seems to be restricted to certain areas of China, largely the South East.

I've still got Nano's original 'China' thread in my computer somewhere if anyone's interested.

 

[maomao]

The Chinese students I've taught / met here in the UK have tended to be fairly reluctant to hang about with people from other countries. Not all of them, but most.

I went with a group of 30 British and European students to study in Beijing for a year (where I ended up living a further 3 years). The vast majority of these were only interested in hanging around with Westerners or trying to shag Japanese classmates. It's something to do with being a rich young student and thinking you're better than everyone else rather than a characteristic trait of the Chinese who are mostly very interested in communicating with people from outside China.

 

[maomao]

I live and work in thailand which is very close to china and thus has a fair few links to the country. Recently I was training a dozen chinese female english teachers over here from kunming university, capital of yunnan province in the south of the country.

Talking to them, I found out that, like in england, young folk like to dabble in ecstasy and other drugs. They go to pubs like us, drink like us, and apparantly have freedom to do so.

Yunnan's the drug centre of China. Venture further north and such things are much much rarer.

 

[fela fan]

Yunnan's the drug centre of China. Venture further north and such things are much much rarer.

Whoops!

Would that be anything to do with their relative affluence?!!

 

[fela fan]

...who are mostly very interested in communicating with people from outside China.

That's the impression i'm getting. I also understood that they are well aware that the west has both good and bad things to offer, and something about taking the middle path - something to do with the message from deng xioping and his 'open china' policy?

Certainly the teachers i train tell me they are hungry to understand western culture coz not knowing it impedes their own teaching to their students.

At the minute, from where i'm standing, i'm impressed with some basic, but important things the country is doing. And i feel they are anything but a threat to world peace. In fact i harbour vague optmism they may add to it in the future, but only if they recognise they're getting respect from richer countries.

I fear that is being undermined by what i guess is rather a biased attitude in western press, probably by people who've never been there.

I'm hoping this thread can back up my optimism!

 

[Rob Ray]

I reckon they just want equal respect in this world.

Their economic plan is every bit as imperialist as the West's, their military adventures are just scaled down to take account of their current inferior position (you can probably expect more of that sort of thing as they gain in confidence).

Noticable areas of economic conflict at the moment centre around areas such as Nigeria, where China has been quietly supplying a great deal of money to revitalise Nigerian agriculture, almost certainly in exchange for increased influence in the country's oil sector (there's massive potential gains for both governments potentially, as Nigerian crude has to be sent offshore due to a shortage of refinery capacity at the moment, pushing up their own petrol costs - China have the resources and expertise to remedy that).

But in the main, as you say China has been concentrating on its own backyard rather than moving into areas of US dominance, which is why there's so little coverage of social issues there by a western media which is only required to cover subjects of concern to western interests - ie. the operation of western-backed businesses. Horror stories have been surfacing about their reaction to increasing worker militancy, their slum clearance programmes, unofficial figures regarding widespread, extreme poverty, but they're not easy to find, and they certainly won't be visible where westerners are likely to hang out.

 

[maomao]

Whoops!

Would that be anything to do with their relative affluence?!!

No, it's due to the relatively porous Vietnam border.

 

[Jessiedog]

I've still got Nano's original 'China' thread in my computer somewhere if anyone's interested.

Christ mao!!!

I've been looking to get a copy of that fer ever.....

How soon before Mrs M vapourised it did you save it? Did you get most of it?

May I have a copy?

Please?

Pretty please?



Woof

 

[maomao]

I've just checked my computer and it's not f*cking there.

I think it was originally on the broken laptop that I gave to another urbanite a few months back. I'm going to pm them and see.

 

[Jessiedog]

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!



*spins around chasing tail and tearing out lumps of fur from the lower back*



Actually tho', I have a vague memory that we discussed this in London a couple of years back and it turned out that you'd lost it.

I do remember that Mrs M said that someone else had also saved a copy.

Who was it now? Loki? Idris?



Can you 'member, Mrs M?

WAAAAAHHHHHH!



Woof

 

[maomao]

No. I definitely had it when you met me in London. I don't think you asked me (or it was actually deleted after we met).

It was Idris who siad he had it right after it got deleted. 'Twas to be archived but never happened. It would apparently be too much of a pain in the arse cause it needs to actually be in the database to be archived.

 

[james_walsh]

A friend of my mine, went to china because some factory out there supplies the company he works for.He's a good left wing guy (he's voted SA/bristolian/green), and he said ,it was laisefair capitalism , there loads of beggars in the cities and fuck all social provision and the workers have fuck all rights and shit working conditions,people's republic/socialism you gotta be jokeing!. The guy has also been to cuba, which while poor (by our standards) is a decent place to live and resonably civilised and you can tell the authorities give a fuck for normal peoples lives, unlike china.
Can't remember what he said about the general culture of china. But he recomends Cuba.

 

[where to]

had a chinese friend at work, PHD student over here. computer whiz, cool guy, outgoing and mixed well with folk (having said that i was working for an agency doing catering shit and most folk were euros) so we had some good chats,

he told me his dad was in the army, quite high up (in his own area or whatever), and that HE'D NEVER SEEN HIS DAD OUT OF ARMY UNIFORM IN HIS LIFE!!!!

for real.

his mum could recite the whole of the wee red book.

we laughed. and then we went back to playing football. he was wearing the full chinese replica kit in the meadows. cool as fuck. lol.

oh yeah, and chinese in my class at uni, maybe 6/7 of them. all but one would never ever mix (that was the blame of them as much as the rest of the class). but then, they couldn't really speak english much at all either. it was pretty bad - the uni had taken them in for the money, knowing full well they had no chance. cunts.

the one who spoke i had a good chat or two with. told me about chinese internet and democracy etc, how the internet was censored, nothing i didn't know, but it was interesting.

tried to gauge off these people what they thought of the system, but never succeeded in getting any opinion off them, i don't think they were hiding their feelings - i just don't think they had any. not very ideologically driven (compared to all the poles i've met who fucking hate communism (but also hate russians....)). but hey, thats two or three students........

also picked up an anti communist party leaflet the other day saying that two million people had quit the party in the last month and that things were happening very suddenly with this, and that we should support them etc. it was total agit-prop, but i'd be interested to know more if there was anything to it?

great thread btw.

 

[the B]

There is actually a fair bit of news about political uprising slowly taking place... building up in China and how the army is responding with new specialised units to handle it should things happen...

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

About two years ago the chinese government-sponsored brand new English Language curriculum came into being. Having skimmed it a wee bit, it looks like a marvelous piece of work, and the interesting bit about it is the political will that obviously exists in the country to improve their population's english language speaking skills. It is early days yet, but they're obviously serious about it all.

Which is nothing like the situation in thailand at all, who are actually heading backwards, and that from a pathetic starting point!

Kudos to them.

Agreed, more and more kids are learning English, although at times I wonder if it's overkill. I have classes of 40 at a time, and there are always some who want to learn and some who don't. Quite frankly I think classes of 10-15 with the ones who really want to learn English would be more constructive.

And they also slap in total mixed ability, so you have kids who will be fluent in a couple of years studying next to kids who can just about say 'ug'.

I keep saying they should stream the classes, but they never listen to me.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Mmm... I would say Chinese women have a known and expected place and role in society. That alone is rather iffy in my opinion.

Deviations from it are not welcome from any party... the tradition isn't always so bad - but then, it often isn't good.

I can see that. But I also see lots of positives, like the large number of women running their own businesses, for instance.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Yunnan's the drug centre of China. Venture further north and such things are much much rarer.

Chemicals are common in Wuhan, but weed/hash is very rare.

 

[Loki]

Who was it now? Loki? Idris?

*checks*

Weren't me, sorry



Woof

 

[pinkmonkey]

A friend of my mine, went to china because some factory out there supplies the company he works for.He's a good left wing guy (he's voted SA/bristolian/green), and he said ,it was laisefair capitalism , there loads of beggars in the cities and fuck all social provision and the workers have fuck all rights and shit working conditions,people's republic/socialism you gotta be jokeing!. The guy has also been to cuba, which while poor (by our standards) is a decent place to live and resonably civilised and you can tell the authorities give a fuck for normal peoples lives, unlike china.
Can't remember what he said about the general culture of china. But he recomends Cuba.

To be fair, China is about as communist as my arse, so comparing it to Cuba, I wouldn't bother. I've worked in Vietnam and that to me, is a true communist country.

 

[maomao]

also picked up an anti communist party leaflet the other day saying that two million people had quit the party in the last month and that things were happening very suddenly with this, and that we should support them etc. it was total agit-prop, but i'd be interested to know more if there was anything to it?

Really? In the UK? Could I see it?

 

[the B]

To be fair, China is about as communist as my arse, so comparing it to Cuba, I wouldn't bother. I've worked in Vietnam and that to me, is a true communist country.

When were you last there? The things I have heard from there through family friends and the like is rather different... it's a country gearing towards capitalism - especially because of the ability to grow vast amounts of coffee. It's now the world's 2nd largest supplier of the stuff.

And, as per usual with these kind of packages, there has been a high price to pay...

 

[pinkmonkey]

When were you last there? The things I have heard from there through family friends and the like is rather different... it's a country gearing towards capitalism - especially because of the ability to grow vast amounts of coffee. It's now the world's 2nd largest supplier of the stuff.

And, as per usual with these kind of packages, there has been a high price to pay...

I'm here now, and my arse isn't communist at all...... (geddit)?

Who was it here who said that it's a capitalist dictatorship?

Yup.

 

[Jessiedog]

I'm here now, and my arse isn't communist at all...... (geddit)?

Who was it here who said that it's a capitalist dictatorship?

Yup.

I think the B was talking about Vietnam pinky (hint - coffee growing), whereas you seem to be talking China.

It was I who coined the phrase the "Great Capitalist Dictatorship of the People" (GCDP) to describe modern China.

You comin' Honkers any time soon?



Woof

 

[chinchilla]

Hey JD have you been to Hainan yet?