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Modus Operandi posted:Taiwan's political corruption can be really questionable at times though. Especially the whole debacle with the former PM Chen Shui Bian who probably faked his own assassination attempt to get elected then proceeded to loot the coffers with wild abandon once he was in power. I'd say Taiwan still follows the old Chinese cultural hierarchy but the difference here is that it doesn't seep into every level of daily life of the average citizen introducing highly inefficient grey economics into the equation. Plus Taiwan actually threw its former PM into jail for a pretty lengthy term which is much more than I can say for most wall street bankers who have stolen way more. In China and much of SEA looting and pillaging according to feudal hierarchies is still a way of life. The average person either gets with the program or gets steamrolled by it. Sounds about right.
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Mar 2, 2013 16:25
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Modus Operandi posted:Taiwan's political corruption can be really questionable at times though. Especially the whole debacle with the former PM Chen Shui Bian who probably faked his own assassination attempt to get elected then proceeded to loot the coffers with wild abandon once he was in power. I'd say Taiwan still follows the old Chinese cultural hierarchy but the difference here is that it doesn't seep into every level of daily life of the average citizen introducing highly inefficient grey economics into the equation. Plus Taiwan actually threw its former PM into jail for a pretty lengthy term which is much more than I can say for most wall street bankers who have stolen way more. In China and much of SEA looting and pillaging according to feudal hierarchies is still a way of life. The average person either gets with the program or gets steamrolled by it. What's the evidence that CSB faked the assassination attempt? I remember people saying that when it happened ("He hardly even reacted!" What, like he shouldn't try harder to make it look like what TV tells us somebody getting shot looks like if it were a setup?), but I basically chalked it up to Chinese cynicism. Did more info come to light?
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Mar 2, 2013 18:50
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:What's the evidence that CSB faked the assassination attempt? I remember people saying that when it happened ("He hardly even reacted!" What, like he shouldn't try harder to make it look like what TV tells us somebody getting shot looks like if it were a setup?), but I basically chalked it up to Chinese cynicism. Did more info come to light?
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Mar 2, 2013 18:59
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Curved posted:Does anyone have thoughts on the NYTimes reporting on anything even vaguely Asian related? I feel like they tend way too close to the "inscrutable Oriental" far too often. Hell, their top-emailed piece today was something written by David Brooks about some Chinese academic living in the United States writing on the differences between American and Chinese students. The whole time it felt like a "Americans study like this and Chinese students study like this" sketch piece. I've worked in education in the United States, the UK, China and Switzerland, and if you can not see the glaringly obvious difference in the Chinese educational system then I don't know what to tell you. It is fascinating. Rich kids all over the world might have more in common with each other, but that doesn't mean that the kid who is cramming for the Gaokao in downtown Shanghai is going to understand what the hell the kid that lives in Sloan Square or that grew up in Oak Park is going on about. In two years of working with those students, did you ever try to give them a non-linear thinking problem? Try it out. It will drat near break their brain. The Great Autismo! fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 01:52
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Curved posted:Does anyone have thoughts on the NYTimes reporting on anything even vaguely Asian related? I feel like they tend way too close to the "inscrutable Oriental" far too often. Hell, their top-emailed piece today was something written by David Brooks about some Chinese academic living in the United States writing on the differences between American and Chinese students. The whole time it felt like a "Americans study like this and Chinese students study like this" sketch piece. Nicholas Kristoff's terrible orientalism and Asian waifu justifications for having bad opinions on China were my go-to op-eds when I needed to cite how mainstream journalism exports model minorityism to Asian nations and indulges in Orientalist fantasy.
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Mar 3, 2013 02:25
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goldboilermark posted:I've worked in education in the United States, the UK, China and Switzerland, and if you can not see the glaringly obvious difference in the Chinese educational system then I don't know what to tell you. It is fascinating. Is that something like in the Japan teaching thread one poster said his students almost all failed a questions because he used 'y' as a variable instead of 'x' and no one could connect the concept of a different letter being used because they learned with 'x'. Or my favorite one was when he rearranged an math problem so it was identical but in a different order and again no one could figure it out.
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Mar 3, 2013 02:58
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Curved posted:I've been teaching in a Chinese middle school for two years now and it all just smacks of bullshit to me. Honestly, all students are 99% the same in my experience, with the biggest difference being class-related. Poverty and wealth are similar across all cultures more or less. I bet any student in Beijing would have more in common with some private school brat in Bethesda than a Chinese student in the middle of Hunan or Sichuan. It can certainly be argued that rich students in Shangahi have more in common with rich students in Seoul than they do with students in Lanzhou but that analogy doesn't work when you stretch it to a non-CHC environment and no, it doesn't work with just "any student". For a nice review of the topic at a student centered level try: Researching Chinese Learners: Skills, Perceptions and Intercultural Adaptations edited by Jin Lixian and Martin Cortazzi. Cortazzi and Jin are the big names in this area and they have also published a bunch of other stuff. The first chapter of the book is entitled "Rote Learning in Chinese Culture: Reflecting Active Confucian-Based Memory Strategies" by Xiuping Li and Joan Cutting, which does a fairly good job of investigating the disjuncture between Western educationaslists' perceptions of what Chinese students "do" and what they actually "do". You might also want to check out "Revolutionizing Ritual Interaction in the Classroom: Constructing the Chinese Renaissance of the Twenty-First Century" by Tanja Carmel Sargent from the journal Modern China (2009). It's a pretty good invetigation of the uptake and impact of the 2001 "New Curriculum Reforms" across rural schools in Gansu. One of her most interesting discssion points is "...The simplicity of concentrating on textbook mastery for all levels of student in classrooms across the nation may have ensured a higher level of equity in educational opportunity. Successful learning in the age of the New Curriculum may be more dependent on the quality of the teacher and access to rich educational resources." A point which is backed up with data from the MoE regarding educational equality across the nation and which further problematizes the "Shanghai-Gansu" divide we have been discussing. The whole field is ripe with mythicisation though - I am afraid it isn't just the NY Times - and sometimes people do forget that analytical thinking is something which everyone does, the difference is just "when" and "how". When talking about this though it is important to ask: "what mandate do FTs have to introduce new methods of learning and teaching to students who will not be rewarded for using them by the system in which they work?" [edit] Also, Curved, why aren't around in the other China thread? [edit edit] Oh hello. Reith Lectures from 2008; Jonathan Spence on China: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bvz8s GuestBob fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 03:06
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goldboilermark posted:In two years of working with those students, did you ever try to give them a linear thinking problem? Try it out. It will drat near break their brain. I'd give it a shot. What is it?
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Mar 3, 2013 04:01
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What does CHC stand for? Nothing on Wikipedia and Google keeps giving me Community Health Care.
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Mar 3, 2013 04:27
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Bloodnose posted:What does CHC stand for? Nothing on Wikipedia and Google keeps giving me Community Health Care. Confucian Heritage Culture.
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Mar 3, 2013 04:37
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Arglebargle III posted:I'd give it a shot. What is it? My bad, I meant non-linear thinking, though I assume everyone knew what I meant if they've worked in education in Asia. Try giving them the classic think-outside-the-box question "connect all nine dots without lifting your pencil by drawing four straight lines". I have kids that are going to Berkeley, UVa...hell, one kid last year got a full ride to Cornell and they can't do this.
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Mar 3, 2013 05:20
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Does that involve folding the paper beforehand or something? I'm curious to look at the actual question!
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Mar 3, 2013 05:23
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caberham posted:Does that involve folding the paper beforehand or something? I'm curious to look at the actual question! In involves having the lines leave the 3x3 grid, which is never prohibited but usually an assumed rule To be fair a vast majority of people can't do that puzzle without knowing about it beforehand so its not a great example of Chinese students being especially bad and non-linear thinking.
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Mar 3, 2013 07:21
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I did the puzzle by exploiting the fact that the rules didn't say I couldn't double back on the lines I had already drawn and completed it that way. Apparently this isn't the normal solution but I think it qualifies!
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Mar 3, 2013 10:04
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When I was like 14, my dad chastised me because I was ROTE learning algebra and was struggling with questions that changed simple things like unknowns and order. He gave me that exact example in an attempt to prove how stupid I was and how learning how to learn is better than grinding hundreds of problems. The solution is as pentyne states: you have your lines leave the grid because no one told you to stay in the grid. Similarly, folding the page could probably net a legitimate solution. I've tried it with a few people and a few cheeky people can get the answer through some creative thinking. Edit: added spoiler tags just in case. jeffreyw fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 16:10
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I still don't get that puzzle. Looked it up on Google and of course it's easy. I don't know why you said to leave the box though. http://images.google.ca/search?hl=e...img.gAmyX6N2Gg8
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Mar 3, 2013 17:59
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Peven Stan posted:Nicholas Kristoff's terrible orientalism and Asian waifu justifications for having bad opinions on China were my go-to op-eds when I needed to cite how mainstream journalism exports model minorityism to Asian nations and indulges in Orientalist fantasy. People like this are useless and powerless as a whole but they are a bunch of cunts as the British like to say. You tend to find a lot of them in journalist positions because it tends to be the easy street to gain some kind of credibility and soapbox. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 19:14
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Modus Operandi posted:Guys like this tend to fetishize the "oriental" aspects of the culture ie. women, food, and more trivial aspects but they also have rather malevolent feelings about the people and host country while going around justifying their own privilege. Do you have examples of this or can you elaborate more on this? I've seen expats who do the fetishization, but I can't connect the "malevolent feelings while justifying their own privilege" to something I've seen before in expats.
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Mar 4, 2013 00:01
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My criticism about NYT writing on China is not that their authors orientalize or show privilege but rather that they seem to be sequestered in Beijing hotels and don't seem to know much about or understand China as a whole. They are constantly reporting on things that are either old Internet news or just common knowledge and not really news to begin with. For example last year they printed a whole article about some vendors re-steaming day old manto, as if this was something new they've just invented and not a common practice among unscrupulous vendors throughout time. Also they got the details of the story completely wrong - manto is not boiled it is steamed. It is not a kind of dumpling. At the same time there was a huge food scandal regarding some horrible chemical that makes hot pot taste great and the Chinese government was warning everybody to be careful when they go out to eat but instead the NYT prints an entire story about reselling day old bread. I think it's just a myopic perspective - their policy seems to be that A. The NYT will never print anything positive about China. B. Nobody at the NYT is going to work very hard for a story here.
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Mar 4, 2013 03:49
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Man, I don't think I followed the instructions right on that dot quiz - Did four lines of cocaine and everything became connected, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan 
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Mar 4, 2013 05:22
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bad day posted:My criticism about NYT writing on China is not that their authors orientalize or show privilege but rather that they seem to be sequestered in Beijing hotels and don't seem to know much about or understand China as a whole. They are constantly reporting on things that are either old Internet news or just common knowledge and not really news to begin with. For example last year they printed a whole article about some vendors re-steaming day old manto, as if this was something new they've just invented and not a common practice among unscrupulous vendors throughout time. Also they got the details of the story completely wrong - manto is not boiled it is steamed. It is not a kind of dumpling. At the same time there was a huge food scandal regarding some horrible chemical that makes hot pot taste great and the Chinese government was warning everybody to be careful when they go out to eat but instead the NYT prints an entire story about reselling day old bread. This is closer to the truth to be honest I think. A thing to remember about news is that it is intended for a specific audience, sex sells and the further the audience is removed from the target, the easier it is to make poo poo up without getting caught. The official stance on China is that it is somewhere between Hostile and Enemy, there is obvious agenda on the official level and news media attempting to go against that will be attacked by their own audience. It's just easier to go with the flow and make poo poo up or even just guess. Neutral issues, toss in buzzwords to ensure to your audience that you are "on the same page" as their sentiment. And that sentiment is negative. News has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with selling ads and subscriptions. If you don't give the readers what they want, they'll just go somewhere else to get it. A journalist stationed in China has 2 options realistically. They can talk about good things and be marginalized and called fifty-center. They can directly counter some of the bullshit official stances in the US and risk their credibility (regardless of being right or wrong), or they can go with the flow. If they make up some bullshit, the only counter that might even make it to the US is going to come from Chinese media, which will immediately be given the "communist mouth-piece" treatment and essentially laughed at. And their audience just eats that poo poo up. Hell, there's even collusion. I have seen "journalists" hanging out at Starbucks next to their compound essentially just trying to agree on the framing of an issue. I have, in my more innocent days, even given them tips on actual real things to do a story about. They either want it all just given to them up front, or they don't touch it at all... too much effort I guess. There is also agenda and everything else wrapped up in it. The crew would love nothing more than to have a career-making moment in the sun by being on the ground for a Tiananmen or coup, or overthrow. And they really don't hide that feeling at all. Most of them are little more than a gang of bubble-living scum.
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Mar 4, 2013 06:01
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bad day posted:My criticism about NYT writing on China is not that their authors orientalize or show privilege but rather that they seem to be sequestered in Beijing hotels and don't seem to know much about or understand China as a whole. Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Most of them are little more than a gang of bubble-living scum. This was basically Matt Taibbi's criticism of the current NYT Beijing Bureau Chief's reporting when he was in Moscow. Yeah, it's horse semen guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wines
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Mar 4, 2013 06:08
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Can you really do real journalism in China if you're not fluent in Chinese and look Chinese? I just feel like anytime a Westerner starts poking around into anything sensitive, Chinese people won't talk about it and officials will find out. Just seems like an easy path to getting your visa revoked and pushed out of China like Al-Jazeera. I went to a lecture in college by Mike Chinoy, the CNN correspondent, who was one of the first Americans into China when he was a student and he did a lot of reporting in China. It just seems like not much has changed from the Mao years other than they can stand in front of a landmark in China when they report on hearsay. They're still reading tea leaves to get an idea about what is going on. Government officials won't talk about anything, even anonymously like Soviet officials used to, and most Chinese people distrust foreigners or don't want to be punished for talking badly about China. All of these people are watched too so it's not like they can just slip out into the countryside and work anonymously. China's current political climate isn't exactly conducive to a free press.
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Mar 4, 2013 07:04
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Can you really do real journalism in China if you're not fluent in Chinese and look Chinese? I just feel like anytime a Westerner starts poking around into anything sensitive, Chinese people won't talk about it and officials will find out. Just seems like an easy path to getting your visa revoked and pushed out of China like Al-Jazeera. Do you think it's possible to do real journalism anywhere if you don't actually speak the language, are able to blend in at least somewhat and can demonstrate on at least some level to those you are using as sources that you actually have some understanding of the place? Do keep in mind, that on a certain level journalists ARE in fact the same drat thing as spies and even if you do know something, it's not like you're going to see any real benefit from talking to them... unless of course, you too have an agenda, in which case you're basically one of the worst possible sources to go after.
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Mar 4, 2013 07:23
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:are able to blend in at least somewhat To be fair, it's a lot easier in many places that are not China. You can't really blame NYT reporters for being the wrong color.
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Mar 4, 2013 08:54
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Arglebargle III posted:To be fair, it's a lot easier in many places that are not China. You can't really blame NYT reporters for being the wrong color. Tania Branigan is more hit than miss: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/taniabranigan?INTCMP=SRCH Don't let appearances fool you though, she isn't a native Mandarin speaker: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/13/unpeelingmandarin The Guardian is okay for Chinese news, it is linked to "Danwei.org" and used to be translated into Putonghua by some students at Tsinghua before the government put a stop to that. Most of their headline coverage is pretty samey but they have one or two decent investigative themes every year which turn up a series of good articles. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china Sometimes wumao post on their comment boards in English (honestly) which is always funny.
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Mar 4, 2013 09:07
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Pro-PRC Laowai posted:Do you think it's possible to do real journalism anywhere if you don't actually speak the language, are able to blend in at least somewhat and can demonstrate on at least some level to those you are using as sources that you actually have some understanding of the place? Do keep in mind, that on a certain level journalists ARE in fact the same drat thing as spies and even if you do know something, it's not like you're going to see any real benefit from talking to them... unless of course, you too have an agenda, in which case you're basically one of the worst possible sources to go after. Say that to the Hong Kong Chinese reporters, or reporters who are actually trying to cover something instead spewing the official propaganda. Does that mean America and the west is teeming with spies EVERYWERHE? Cameras are race neutral. You can argue the cameraman serving a political agenda and predetermined with a certain mindset but some events transcend political bounds. It was really easy for reporters all over the world to cover natural disasters in Thailand or go to other places in the world. Send in a camera team, shoot footage, take pictures, interview victims, boom. There's a tragic story and it sells. The Wenzhou crash? The 2008 Sichuan earth quake? The argument of censoring the press in those events is just absurd. Or screaming "RAWR RAWR RAWR FOREIGN SPIES" is a joke. China is so behind the public relations game. They are slowly catching up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cmjaptnr6k When I see press censorship apologists I just roll my eyes. Yes, everyone has an agenda and the west is not as clean as the image it projects. But drat, is the pill much easier to swallow in the west than CCTV bull poo poo. Phoenix television is already considered "fair and balanced foreign media" in many people's eyes 
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Mar 4, 2013 09:10
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No one here is apologizing for censorship. He's just saying that reporters and news outlets are rational actors pursuing their own self interests like everyone else. Global Times does a thriving business printing poo poo that lots of people actually want to read, for example.
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Mar 4, 2013 09:39
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That's a pretty amazing video of Jiang Zemin. I've never seen it or anything like it before. I've never seen a Chinese leader actually show like... personality.
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Mar 4, 2013 10:12
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bad day posted:
I see this in other media too. There was a 60 Minutes presentation on the real estate bubble in China, and while it is probably a very big issue that could potentially effect the global economy, it seems like they also tried to do the most critical eye on the Chinese as possible. They had a real estate developer on there, for example, who literally said that if the bubble bursts you could see the Arab Spring come to China. Again, it is a worry, but it also seem to be subtle pandering to the folks who want to see Red China go away.
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Mar 4, 2013 15:24
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Entertainingly, I heard a small article about the Chinese Real Estate bubble on the news this morning. Too big to ignore, or is something pushing it?
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Mar 4, 2013 15:27
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It's been A Thing for years now. On the one hand the price information has been screaming BUBBLE for years, on the other hand demand for new inventory is vast. Is it a bubble? People have been predicting a burst for quite a while now. Chinese people tend to have very little experience with the property market and a ridiculously, unfairly, even harmfully strong cultural urge to buy property. Does this mean the bubble will never burst, or it will be even more catastrophic when it does? I can tell you this much: property prices of 80-90 times yearly salary for an apartment unit are not normal. I personally think it's a bubble and it's going to burst pretty hard one of these days, but the same forces that inflate the bubble so strongly (marriage tied to property, parental idiots pressuring children to buy) also keep it going longer. On the one hand, when the bubble bursts finally young men who want to start a family will be able to afford housing. (They don't need to but ~5000 years of culture~ with 15 years of property market experience will do that.) On the other hand it's going to tank the economy and probably reshape the local government revenue structure completely. Or if they fail to find a new revenue stream then services will just collapse. Oh and people who bought at 90 times their salary because mom and dad gave them their whole nest egg and pressured them ceaselessly? Those people will have lost all their money.
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Mar 4, 2013 15:40
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It's all fueled by corruption. When and if that gets reined in, the bubble will burst.
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Mar 4, 2013 16:05
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The shithole apartment I lived in previously sold for something like 40 times typical annual income. The rent that was being paid on it would have taken 50 years to equal the selling price.
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Mar 4, 2013 16:35
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Arglebargle III posted:To be fair, it's a lot easier in many places that are not China. You can't really blame NYT reporters for being the wrong color. You can surely blame the NYT for not sending reporters of the 'right' color while operating in a large, ethnically mixed city. If they really wanted to do decent journalism, they can send a bilingual Chinese American or Chinese immigrant instead of Mr. Kristof. Although to be fair I usually see Kristof articles' by-lines as 'Nicholas Kristof and <random Chinese name>' One thing I never understood is why a lot of Western news reporters are just white dudes in different cultures and countries instead of being from that culture or country, when their home country has easy access to a labor pool of minorities. I guess it's to bring a 'familiar' skin color for the majority of viewers/readers.
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Mar 4, 2013 16:47
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flatbus posted:You can surely blame the NYT for not sending reporters of the 'right' color while operating in a large, ethnically mixed city. If they really wanted to do decent journalism, they can send a bilingual Chinese American or Chinese immigrant instead of Mr. Kristof. Although to be fair I usually see Kristof articles' by-lines as 'Nicholas Kristof and <random Chinese name>' Pith helmeted journalism and a white good ol boys network still exist.
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Mar 4, 2013 17:29
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Arglebargle III posted:It's been A Thing for years now. On the one hand the price information has been screaming BUBBLE for years, on the other hand demand for new inventory is vast. Is it a bubble? People have been predicting a burst for quite a while now. Chinese people tend to have very little experience with the property market and a ridiculously, unfairly, even harmfully strong cultural urge to buy property. Does this mean the bubble will never burst, or it will be even more catastrophic when it does? I can tell you this much: property prices of 80-90 times yearly salary for an apartment unit are not normal. There was just a report done on it by 60 Minutes, which is probably why it was going around on the news this morning. It certainly has all the ingredients. Building entire cities non-stop to promote growth, despite no one moving in them. They started a policy that says that each person can only buy 1 apartment to drop prices, but they are still ridiculously unaffordable for the middle class, so they are pretty much ghost towns. Sounds familiar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjwhk1ktNw
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Mar 4, 2013 17:31
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_China_Mall http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/03/business/china-worlds-largest-mall/index.html Okay, I realize that's from early in the bubble, but, drat.
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Mar 4, 2013 17:37
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Oh, it's been A Thing for years, I was just commenting about the multiple stories today.
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Mar 4, 2013 17:37
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flatbus posted:You can surely blame the NYT for not sending reporters of the 'right' color while operating in a large, ethnically mixed city. If they really wanted to do decent journalism, they can send a bilingual Chinese American or Chinese immigrant instead of Mr. Kristof. Although to be fair I usually see Kristof articles' by-lines as 'Nicholas Kristof and <random Chinese name>' On a side note, I wish we had more real foreign reporters where I live, but in a perverted sense the consequences are much harsher here than in places like China, so in order to write a true expose you have to leave the country for good, unfortunately (see: Andrew MacGregor Marshall).
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Mar 4, 2013 18:02
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