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Also, if somebody told me to set up a 100% safe, high-quality milk based supply chain in China, I'd probably put a gun in my mouth. Especially powdered milk. Some things just aren't possible there these days due to corruption, pollution, mismanagement, etc. The whole big-headed baby scandal wasn't just a case of one or two factories cutting their formula with garbage, it was literally 50+ different brands made by hundreds of different factories across China. And even further up the supply chain, China has some of the laxest standards in the world for milk quality, so even if you can overcome the factory bullshit, you can't even source decent milk to start with. And the cows are probably grazing in a mercury-ridden hellscape downriver from a battery-slash-diaper fire.
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Jan 25, 2013 18:47
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You can hold on to your financial center for your dear life and keep slaving for your real estate masters because that's the only thing HK has going for it for the next couple decades. After that, the greater China financial center will move to Shanghai. One of the first thing Xi did to show his "benevolent" was to lower the duties by 75% on a number of import items including baby formula starting 2013. whatever7 fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jan 25, 2013 |
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Jan 25, 2013 18:56
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It's probably the case that the upper echelons of power want to keep HK on a short leash and promote one of the "native" Chinese cities to be the premier financial centers of China. Sadly, HK's days as a juggernaut were probably numbered ever since 1997 but in a way that few people would have imagined. Edit: Maybe another way for HK to regain relevance and prosperity is to reinvent itself as an innovation/technology hub similar to a San Francisco or Silicon Valley. I don't see many other choices, because it can't step backwards into manufacturing again and being such an advacned economy innovation/service is probably all that's left. Vladimir Putin fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 25, 2013 |
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Jan 25, 2013 19:28
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quote:It's hard not to pre-judge mainland tourists when so many of them act as if they're God's gift to Hong Kong. Its not just in Hong Kong, either. Chinese tourists really have taken over as the most-hated in SE Asia. As an American its really refreshing to NOT be the de facto worst guest ever, everyone bitches about the drat mainland Chinese now instead. And they really are loud, rude, cheap, etc. as everyone above has stated, sorry. Americans were the exact same way in their heyday (though I doubt they ever poo poo in the streets, and I have yet to hear a mainlander say things are better/nicer/cleaner what have you back home). I loved Hong Kong when I visited, the people were friendly and helpful and a lot in the service industry spoke English happily, the city was beautiful and the waterfront was really amazing. I hope they can pull off some kind of transformation because it really is a dynamic bustling place. Arglebargle III posted:I love telling Chinese people how similar they are to Americans because they haaaate it. And in many respects it's true. We have big differences but we're both loud, gregarious, entitled cultures. Pretty much this. Hard working, industrious, family-oriented, self-sufficient... the Chinese are like the stereotypical ideal American in a lot of ways. Its a shame the two countries aren't closer because out of all of Asia they are probably the country most like ours, for both good and ill.
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Jan 25, 2013 19:51
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Oracle posted:
I would say that Japan is more like America in that they match all of those things and are a bit less comfortable with chaos. For one, the Japanese can stand in line, and there is a certain order. As an American, the chaos lines of China is a bit scary to me.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:58
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In terms of orderliness, Japan > America > China. Generally speaking I agree that Americans and Chinese share some of the best and worst traits. Perhaps it's the inevitable result of being from a huge country. Petty regionalism is not so severe in the States though(it exists, but I can't imagine my parents telling me to "marry a nice Massachusetts boy", or getting really excited to see someone else from Boston in say, California)
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Jan 25, 2013 21:04
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hitension posted:In terms of orderliness, Japan > America > China. That's because your Massachusetts parents can understand the English that Californians speak and tolerate the food those wacky Californians cook. The way these Hong Kongers talk about Chinese mainlanders being rude, pushing into lines, and making GBS threads in the streets reminds me of the way Chinese urbanites talk about countryside peasants being rude, pushing into lines, and spitting/loitering/whatevering in the streets. Which in turn reminds me of American-born Chinese saying Chinese immigrants are rude and push into lines and spit in the streets. It's a giant ouroboros of nativist bullshit.  Although to be fair I haven't heard of the 'making GBS threads in the streets' one until I read this thread. I can personally assure worried tourists that the streets of Beijing are not running brown with the fecal matter of infants, despite popular consensus on mainland making GBS threads habits. Oracle posted:Pretty much this. Hard working, industrious, family-oriented, self-sufficient... the Chinese are like the stereotypical ideal American in a lot of ways. Its a shame the two countries aren't closer because out of all of Asia they are probably the country most like ours, for both good and ill. I feel like they're general 'good things' that every culture identifies itself with, and accuses enemies of lacking. During this time of steady economic growth, though, the mental correlation of industrious behavior and material reward is going to stronger than normal, just like it used to be for the US.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:08
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Ultimately, it is a natural result of competition for space, food, and jobs. In the US it has been traditionally racially divided, in China there is more of a urban/rural, and regional divide. However, the impetus is the same, intense competition causes otherization of outsiders even if you are technically of the "same people." It is going to get worse as distrust within mainland goods grow and prices continue to increase faster than wages. Urban mainlanders will want rural mainlanders kicked out of the cities due to competition, and this will only become contentious when Chinese economy starts to head toward a post-industrial economy. Also, all things considered, wouldn't you be tempted to make a bunch of money off baby formula on the grey market if you were facing intense economic pressure back home? Who knows maybe the central government will ride it out in the future with further crackdowns and saber-ratting, but there is some pretty grim socio-economic pressure developing in China.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:27
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I'm not sure if it's purely "competition for space, food, and jobs" when you have mainlanders literally making GBS threads in the streets.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:30
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shrike82 posted:I'm not sure if it's purely "competition for space, food, and jobs" when you have mainlanders literally making GBS threads in the streets. If anything that shows the vast disparity between development levels, and therefore eventual economic and social friction.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:47
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I've been to the mainland several times and I've never seen any street making GBS threads. I must be going to the wrong places. (and I don't spend all my time in tier 1 cities either..)
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Jan 25, 2013 22:50
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Gail Wynand posted:I've been to the mainland several times and I've never seen any street making GBS threads. I must be going to the wrong places. (and I don't spend all my time in tier 1 cities either..) Mainlanders don't poo poo on the street. They only do that when they tried to figuratively and literally poo poo on Hong Kong.
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Jan 25, 2013 23:02
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It's a national lack of experience traveling abroad in other cultures, basically. We all have to change our habits abroad. Not everyone does. We don't like people who don't. I live in probably one of the most touristed countries on Earth and I can give you a list of stereotypes. That said, most travelers from most countries conform within a general set of norms for international travel in most situations. Most people stay seated during takeoff and landing on a plane. Most people don't yell at service staff. Most people don't poo poo in streets. Most people don't yell loudly all the time. Most people don't haggle aggressively and rudely for everything they want to buy. Most people don't smoke in places that have big graphical no-smoking signs. Most people don't rudely push past everyone in any queue to get to the front. These kinds of things are known to be sort of off limits until proven otherwise. I agree with Ardennes about the source of the cultural habits to some degree, but the reason they're a problem is not domestic behavior, it's behavior abroad. Mainland Chinese understandably have a very new cultural ethic for how to act during travel abroad. Eventually they will develop a broader and more widely shared set of norms. It takes every culture time to adapt and pass back and forth lessons about new things. poo poo, it's only been, what? A decade or so that anyone but the absolute top teeny percentage of richest people in the entire country could afford to travel anywhere. I can definitely say that Mainland Chinese don't make it into my top 3 of most-obnoxious tourists and we get an absolute gently caress ton of them in Thailand. Ask any foreigner living here and you'll usually hear something like Russians, Indians and then, varying by nationality, one or the other of Israelis, Brits, Germans or Australians (I strongly disagree with the latter). If you asked Thai people who deal with tourists you'd probably hear something like Khon Kaek (how they view various Indian/Arab cultures - including a few outliers), Khon Dam Dam (literally "dark people" - so their word for all black people) and then I dunno. Those are the two big negative cultural stereotypes that I hear a lot. EDIT: I can regale with personally experienced tales about Russians cutting their entire planeload into lines, Koreans swearing at tiny little shop owners, Indians pushing old ladies out of line to cut, Americans pissing in the street drunk, Brits starting fights everywhere, Germans gruffly taking over entire swaths of resorts, French condescending to everyone, Israelis pushily taking over any place they stay and so on, but most people from most countries, including those above, behave pretty well most of the time in most situations. Mainland Chinese probably do too and, in time, will surely enter the normal zone. In fact, I've seen it changing since I arrived here. The way they behave is a lot more normal these days for international travelers, especially among the younger generations. It's mostly only the older set who cause a fuss anymore. Maybe HK is different since it's easier to get to and they view it as a playground? This could be like the US and Mexico, where Americans act atrociously, like Australians in Bali and what have you. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jan 25, 2013 |
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Jan 25, 2013 23:04
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Charlz Guybon posted:Just saw an incredible stat in the New York Times. Makes you wonder what's going to happen now that China is pushing for more college graduates than ever. It seems that expectations are far outstripping reality for a lot of people already. They'd better hope that they succeed in their project to move up the value chain or they are going to have a lot of discontented grads on their hands.
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Jan 25, 2013 23:05
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whatever7 posted:Mainlanders don't poo poo on the street. They only do that when they tried to figuratively and literally poo poo on Hong Kong. I don't know about that, I saw a bunch of kids defecating on the streets in Shanghai and Wuhan, and adults weren't exactly shy about peeing in public in a bunch of places either. I mean, really in public. But you really only need a few instances of that happening in HK going viral before they start interacting with the existing tensions between mainlanders and HKers.
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Jan 25, 2013 23:15
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In terms of street making GBS threads, I know it surely happened somewhere sometimes, but frankly speaking I've only heard of it but never seen it by myself from my 18 years experience in China.
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Jan 25, 2013 23:18
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Fine-able Offense posted:Also, if somebody told me to set up a 100% safe, high-quality milk based supply chain in China, I'd probably put a gun in my mouth. Especially powdered milk. Some things just aren't possible there these days due to corruption, pollution, mismanagement, etc. When the formula scandal broke, China executed someone who was the equivalent of the head of the US FDA. These major scandals usually result in some executions but from what I hear they find the highest person(most visible & easiest scapegoat) responsible to kill hoping to send a message, and the corruption picks right back up shortly after. Please can we move past the street making GBS threads. There have to be hundreds of other interesting China stories that are way more important and relevant to this thread.
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Jan 26, 2013 03:53
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pentyne posted:When the formula scandal broke, China executed someone who was the equivalent of the head of the US FDA. These major scandals usually result in some executions but from what I hear they find the highest person(most visible & easiest scapegoat) responsible to kill hoping to send a message, and the corruption picks right back up shortly after. Even though you say the corruption always picks back up, I think this sort of radical approach to safety regulations is not without merit and should be tried in the US immediately.
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Jan 26, 2013 04:24
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Slark posted:In terms of street making GBS threads, I know it surely happened somewhere sometimes, but frankly speaking I've only heard of it but never seen it by myself from my 18 years experience in China. I see 6-7 year old kids poo poo on the streets daily. Only seen a not-obviously drunk adult do it once. Everyone is p much always peeing on the streets, though.
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Jan 26, 2013 04:39
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ReindeerF posted:EDIT: I can regale with personally experienced tales about Russians cutting their entire planeload into lines, Koreans swearing at tiny little shop owners, Indians pushing old ladies out of line to cut, Americans pissing in the street drunk, Brits starting fights everywhere, Germans gruffly taking over entire swaths of resorts, French condescending to everyone, Israelis pushily taking over any place they stay and so on, This is somehow unsurprising. I caught a 7-8 year old kid peeing literally in front of the steps to my apartment once. He said "sorry" and continued peeing. The worst I ever saw was in Henan, I saw a kid making GBS threads in a supermarket. The thing is though, city people will blame this on "rural people" or if they're in a bad mood "peasants" and it does seem to be mainly grannies who encourage kids to poo poo everywhere, or if they're middle-aged people then they're usually obvious migrants. I think it really is just a case of carrying rural standards of "poo poo everywhere because who cares, it's all dirt" to the city where it somehow doesn't compute that you can no longer poo poo everywhere because the ground is not dirt. It's totally the parents' fault as well; you can't blame kids for this behavior because it's the parents who teach them that it's acceptable. flatbus posted:I feel like they're general 'good things' that every culture identifies itself with, and accuses enemies of lacking. During this time of steady economic growth, though, the mental correlation of industrious behavior and material reward is going to stronger than normal, just like it used to be for the US. Every culture does not identify itself with "good things." Have you ever had a Russian describe their national self-image to you? I had to take a course on Russian culture my freshman year and I had a terrible attendance record because it was in the morning and it was incredibly depressing. There are worse things than national arrogance.
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Jan 26, 2013 04:51
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Arglebargle III posted:This is somehow unsurprising. Replace that with a 20 year old kid and I had the same experience like 4 times when I was a grad student.
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Jan 26, 2013 05:01
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Those of you tolling the death of Hong Kong as a major business center are not entirely correct. Shanghai isn't in competition in the same market as Hong Kong, because doing business there means relying on a broken legal system. Singapore is the real competition for Hong Kong, because it's another common law jurisdiction in the Sinosphere with extremely business-friendly policies. Chinese cities won't be able to compete with Hong Kong and Singapore until the Chinese legal system is dependable and corruption is down to internationally acceptable levels. And we all know that's gonna take a while. Just yesterday, the Chief Justice of Hong Kong reaffirmed the importance of keeping the common law system after 2047 (the minimum amount of time called for by the Basic Law). Deep State of Mind fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jan 26, 2013 06:13
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It's worth remembering though that Hong Kong, by virtue of being Chinese territory, always gets first dibs on changes in China's financial controls. They launched the first yuan IPO outside China and continues to beat Singapore to the punch on offshore yuan trading. I'm sure Beijing expects (and will nurture) Shanghai to eventually eclipse Hong Kong and Singapore is always ultra-competitive. But right now, Hong Kong is the prime financial market to capitalise on China's rise and is the locus of offshore Chinese trade.
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Jan 26, 2013 11:43
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No matter what happens in Shanghai, Hong Kong is still the city that's right next to Shenzhen. If the degree of concentration of parts supply in that region is going to keep electronics manufacture from ever going back to the US, Japan, and Europe, it's also going to undermine any attempt to move it within China, so it ain't going anywhere for a while. It'd probably take wages going way the gently caress up for anyone to even care to try. So there's always that. I've not been to Shenzhen, but I don't imagine any non-Sinophile foreigners finding anywhere in the mainland a more comfortable place to work than Hong Kong. edit: I've seen street-making GBS threads in Glorious Nippon. And right outside my house in Tucson. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jan 26, 2013 13:05
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pentyne posted:When the formula scandal broke, China executed someone who was the equivalent of the head of the US FDA. These major scandals usually result in some executions but from what I hear they find the highest person(most visible & easiest scapegoat) responsible to kill hoping to send a message, and the corruption picks right back up shortly after. Are you sure about this part? Whats that person's name? AFA I know, two people who knowingly mixed the poisonous compound for profit got the death sentence and 4 suits including the boss of "Three Deer" corporation got anywhere from 8 years to life.
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Jan 26, 2013 14:22
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whatever7 posted:Are you sure about this part? Whats that person's name? 郑筱萸 Zheng Xiaoyu. I had to look it up because I remember that too. Seems that was part of the earlier formula scandal, though. Really don't know why the general public in China still believes that the death penalty is a deterrent. Hasn't it been pretty well established to have a negligible effect on crime? Yet I saw people responding to the news of public executions in Iran saying "China should learn from this." You would think that people who live in a country that executes people for corruption yet believe virtually all officials to be corrupt would understand that the death penalty doesn't deter poo poo.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:14
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:郑筱萸 Zheng Xiaoyu. I had to look it up because I remember that too. Seems that was part of the earlier formula scandal, though. Well according his en/ch wiki, he was nailed for "poisonous Armillarisin A injection" that resulted in 10+ deaths. I don't want to derail the thread regarding death penalty.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:27
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whatever7 posted:Well according his en/ch wiki, he was nailed for "poisonous Armillarisin A injection" that resulted in 10+ deaths. Agreed, we need to focus on the real issue here: do Chinese people constantly poo poo in the streets or not?
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Jan 26, 2013 18:42
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:郑筱萸 Zheng Xiaoyu. I had to look it up because I remember that too. Seems that was part of the earlier formula scandal, though. Confiscating all their assets would get more to the point, but that wouldn't set the right kind of precedent, would it?
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Jan 26, 2013 19:23
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They just need to bring back the Seven Exterminations or whatever it was called, where they execute the whole family within seven degrees of relation and seize their assets for the state. It may be horrible but its Chinese Characteristics all right!
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Jan 26, 2013 19:45
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:Agreed, we need to focus on the real issue here: do Chinese people constantly poo poo in the streets or not? I suggest you send a voice mail to Kaiser Guo of Sinica Podcast. I look forward to him answering that question on the show.
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Jan 26, 2013 22:25
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Bloodnose posted:Those of you tolling the death of Hong Kong as a major business center are not entirely correct. Shanghai isn't in competition in the same market as Hong Kong, because doing business there means relying on a broken legal system. Singapore is the real competition for Hong Kong, because it's another common law jurisdiction in the Sinosphere with extremely business-friendly policies. Singapore is tightening its visa policies for skilled labor big time right now, and this trend is only going to continue. So Singapore will become less and less competitive versus HK in the short to medium term. Companies are already complaining about the new policies and the PAP still has 3 years to go until the next general election. That's 3 years during which you can expect more and more immigration restrictions to be put in place. Soy Division fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jan 26, 2013 23:52
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whatever7 posted:I suggest you send a voice mail to Kaiser Guo of Sinica Podcast. I look forward to him answering that question on the show.
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Jan 27, 2013 18:14
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french lies posted:Speaking of that, on the latest Sinica they had a middle-aged, American expat based in Thailand submitting one of the questions. That wouldn't be you, ReindeerF? Probably that guy Godfree something who regularly sucks off China in the comments sections at various news sites and blogs. Don't know why he lives in Thailand if China's so amazing and getting everything right.
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Jan 27, 2013 23:08
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Fiendish_Ghoul posted:Agreed, we need to focus on the real issue here: do Chinese people constantly poo poo in the streets or not? I have no doubt that people in Zhengzhou in fact poo poo in the streets everywhere and you can ask any non-Henan Chinese this. Henan is sort of like the West Virginia of China, in that the rest of the country hates the places, with the exception that Americans think of WVians as being merely stupid, while the Chinese think of Henan people as being actively dishonest. Also like 90 million people (including a surprising number of posters in this thread for some reason) live in Henan.
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Jan 28, 2013 02:05
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I was having a chat with a friend of mine and he referred quite adamantly that life conditions, labor rights in particular, have risen dramatically in China over the last few years and that relations with Japan have been improved dramatically. I've pointed out some of the stuff that's been going on with Japan(thanks thread!) but i really had few arguments for the first part of the argument. I'd assume with the rising pollution in cities, constant political arrests and sheer massive number of Chinese people saying that China has improved it's life quality is a bit hard to quantify. Maybe he's talking only about the urban areas and the emerging middle class, but what about at the national scale? Any good articles about that? Not that i want to derail the making GBS threads talk, this discussion is so bizarre and yet so fascinating. making GBS threads as a political\chauvinistic act 
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Jan 28, 2013 02:43
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Mans posted:I'd assume with the rising pollution in cities, constant political arrests and sheer massive number of Chinese people saying that China has improved it's life quality is a bit hard to quantify. Maybe he's talking only about the urban areas and the emerging middle class, but what about at the national scale? Any good articles about that? Lots, but you're right that it's hard to quantify. China's still developing so fast that it's sort of a moving target for analysis. Blue-collar salaries are skyrocketing, though, so that's a clear indicator of life quality for migrant workers that is increasing fast. That article about Chinese college grads who feel entitled to a white collar job that pays the same or less than a factory job is pretty hilarious because if you live in China you quickly realize that Chinese undergrad degrees are practically worthless. They have a similar sort of attitude to Japan: high school is supposed to be incredibly stressful, and college is supposed to be a time for goofing off. Labor rights are improving for the same reason that blue collar pay is rising rapidly: skilled workers are getting harder to find and retain. It's not activism or organized labor that's driving the changes, it's pure economics. Retention bonuses are a thing now, dormitories are getting bigger and nicer, pay is going up. Some industries are looking at monthly turnover of up to 50%. The migrant status of the workers is finally paying off for them, because if they don't like the factory conditions or pay they just leave. Obviously it's not the same as OSHA and union-negotiated pension packages, but it's a dramatic change for China that doesn't seem likely to stop any time soon. China's workforce is supposed to start shrinking, or already be shrinking. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jan 28, 2013 |
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Jan 28, 2013 03:20
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I've got lots of Hong Kong political bitching today. Let's start with parallel traders. They're on my mind because I went to dinner in Sheung Shui on Saturday night and I have to go there again after work. First off, why are they called parallel traders? What's the parallel part? For the uninitiated, parallel traders are people who buy a whole bunch of poo poo in Hong Kong, usually baby formula or Yakult, then take it across the border on hand carts to sell in Shenzhen, avoiding import taxes and getting a healthy profit. Since Sheung Shui is right at the border with Shenzhen, it's the center of this poo poo. As a result, the Sheung Shui MTR station is so packed with people (mostly mainlanders, but supposedly a good number of Hong Kongers have gotten into this business too) hauling huge bulky carts of poo poo that it inconveniences everyone. There are signs all over the station reminding people not to take bulky carts on escalators or hit people with them and even one big rear end sign right at the turnstile saying PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE WHAT THE gently caress PEOPLE. Here are some articles pertaining to the tensions caused by the boom in parallel trading. Baby formula is the really hot button issue right now. Especially with Chinese New Year coming up, the traders have really stepped up their game in buying things and they have cleaned out the more popular brands of formula, making it hard for mothers who need it to get it. What is left is getting sold at premium prices and, according to some sources, only available to people who seem 'mainlandy' (i.e. Mandarin-speaking), but I can't imagine why shops would discriminate if locals are willing to pay the higher price. An even more sinister thing is the South China Morning Post's ACTION NEWS INVESTIGATION TEAM discovered a secret warehouse where the parallel traders are stockpiling baby formula and other things. So they're not even buying them and trading them immediately, they're even hoarding it. This has pissed people off even more. The government was supposedly cracking down on this stuff, but from what I saw on Saturday, nothing has actually changed. I'm not looking forward to dealing with the Sheung Shui MTR station tonight either. Now moving on to housing misery. This editorial by some guy named Andy Xie is pretty awesome. It succinctly sums up all the problems of Hong Kong's economy in a cozy 900 words. Some highlights: Andy Xie posted:Hong Kong's high prices today average about one month's salary per square foot, five times as high as the price in other financial centres like London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo. In these places, high prices are limited to areas frequented by financial types. Most local residents have access to affordable housing away from the centre. In Singapore, locals live in government-built housing. In Hong Kong, local people, foreign bankers and investment immigrants are subject to the same price Andy Xie posted:Hong Kong's laissez-faire economy is a myth, played up by libertarian think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that name Hong Kong the freest or the second-freest economy in the world. The foundation knows little about the world and praises city economies like Hong Kong to embarrass the US government. Andy Xie posted:Hong Kong's big businesses and the government have colluded to maximise their income in fixing supply. The cramped housing conditions and high prices are a consequence of this political dynamic. When a monopoly controls housing, the resulting equilibrium is low supply and high prices. Andy Xie posted:Unfortunately, Hong Kong's premium over mainland China has rapidly diminished since the latter opened up to the world and joined the World Trade Organisation. Andy Xie posted:In the long term, the government's plan to reclaim land from the sea is a good one, though it is not ambitious enough. Hong Kong should aim to increase residential housing space by 100 sq ft per person in a decade. If that is done, Hong Kong could maintain stability. The alternative is the downfall of Hong Kong's plutocracy, not a desirable outcome for anyone who benefits from high property prices. Let's segue that breath of fresh air about property prices as evidence of Hong Kong's broken political system into this extremely lovely editorial by famous Beijing shill and ethnic Sindhi, Hong Kong-born, U.S. citizen Michael Chugani. I have provided the alternate title "Property is the only thing that matters, gently caress democracy". Michael Chugani posted:I am beginning to feel the so-called pan-democrats are more to blame than Leung for Hong Kong's dismal housing situation. Leung has been in office for only six months. He inherited the shameful housing legacy of past administrations. But the pan-democrats have played the role of opposition for years. They squandered all those years on the single issue of democracy at the expense of all other issues. Michael Chugani posted:As an opposition, they have failed the people. Their obsession with democracy meant past administrations never felt real pressure to fix other pressing issues. Pressure, ironically, came from mainland leaders who ordered our leaders to deal with deep-rooted problems. Deep State of Mind fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jan 28, 2013 |
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Jan 28, 2013 03:58
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VideoTapir posted:No matter what happens in Shanghai, Hong Kong is still the city that's right next to Shenzhen. If the degree of concentration of parts supply in that region is going to keep electronics manufacture from ever going back to the US, Japan, and Europe, it's also going to undermine any attempt to move it within China, so it ain't going anywhere for a while. It'd probably take wages going way the gently caress up for anyone to even care to try. So there's always that. There's a goon who likes living in  With massive Chinese populations it's really easy to reinforce negative stereotypes because the probability for street making GBS threads/line cutting increases exponentially with a larger sample size. Arglebargle III posted:Lots, but you're right that it's hard to quantify. China's still developing so fast that it's sort of a moving target for analysis. Blue-collar salaries are skyrocketing, though, so that's a clear indicator of life quality for migrant workers that is increasing fast. That article about Chinese college grads who feel entitled to a white collar job that pays the same or less than a factory job is pretty hilarious because if you live in China you quickly realize that Chinese undergrad degrees are practically worthless. They have a similar sort of attitude to Japan: high school is supposed to be incredibly stressful, and college is supposed to be a time for goofing off. Parts of Dong guan is actually having trouble with employment. The minimum wage there is 1200 RMB/ month but whereas if you take a 25 minute bus ride to Shenzhen the wage rises to 1600. Larger companies and factories in the pearl rive delta are starting vertical integration to keep costs down. The real competition from a PRD manufacturing stand point is the new "ZheSanJiao" - the Zhejiang triangle of Suzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo. Costs are lower there but the engineering prowess in general is still behind PRD. I am also curious about the logistics network in the western lands like Xian, Chengdu, and Chongqing. Sure freight can travel down the Yangtze river but how much is the extra cost? Japanese clients are wary of China's political bullshit and have started to diversify into other SEA countries, how can China keep its position as the world's factory? It is easy to claim that China should just move up it's technology prowess like Korea and Japan but our world is still basically run on the model of consumerism and DEALS EXTREME cheap poo poo. Does a every toilet lock in the world really need to be over engineered with smart phone capabilities? Current means of production indicate that it's easier to have a dude work 12 hours a day stamping sheet metal than have a CNC 3D printer or programmable robotic arm. ReindeerF posted:I agree with Ardennes about the source of the cultural habits to some degree, but the reason they're a problem is not domestic behavior, it's behavior abroad. Mainland Chinese understandably have a very new cultural ethic for how to act during travel abroad. Eventually they will develop a broader and more widely shared set of norms. It takes every culture time to adapt and pass back and forth lessons about new things. poo poo, it's only been, what? A decade or so that anyone but the absolute top teeny percentage of richest people in the entire country could afford to travel anywhere. Too bad we couldn't meetup the Bangkok but the korean goons had a blast watching me constantly seething with anger when I was politely suggesting mainland tourists to behave "properly". When I was inside the The Phra Thinang Boromphiman of the Grand Palace I saw a group tourists lying down on the lawn and taking pictures. I asked them to stay off the lawn but they were too happy to take more pictures but I had to tell them to "act properly as we are representing our country" 
caberham fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jan 28, 2013 |
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Jan 28, 2013 04:09
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Arglebargle III posted:Lots, but you're right that it's hard to quantify... That article about Chinese college grads who feel entitled to a white collar job that pays the same or less than a factory job is pretty hilarious because if you live in China you quickly realize that Chinese undergrad degrees are practically worthless... and college is supposed to be a time for goofing off. Truly globalization has internationalized the human experience 
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Jan 28, 2013 04:11
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