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Dr. Witherbone posted:Completely off topic, but is there a thread about this or somewhere I could go to learn more about life in Russia? I'm really interested to just what exactly Russian society is like, now that we're 22 years out from the fall of the Soviet Union. It would be interesting but I don't know if there are enough people to make it workable. Interesting things are happening in Russia, but I get a feeling that at least on SA there aren't enough people who live in Russia to make it worth while.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:38
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Ardennes posted:It would be interesting but I don't know if there are enough people to make it workable. Interesting things are happening in Russia, but I get a feeling that at least on SA there aren't enough people who live in Russia to make it worth while. There was a thread in A/T about living in Russia, but I can't find it now for some reason. The OP was a slightly goony programmer from Moscow earning a good salary so it wasn't completely representative of the whole country, but still could be pretty interesting for the non-russian audience. While I'm sure people living in Russia make up a tiny minority of SA, I don't think it's necessarily negligible; you can't really tell where somebody lives by their name/avatar. But if not, it could be an ex-USSR/CIS thread, like there's a Southeast Asia one.
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Feb 8, 2013 21:28
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Grand Fromage posted:If you don't eat rice for literally every meal you will die. This is well known in East Asia. Even though you hide yourself behind what "other people told you", this is still racist poo poo.
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Feb 8, 2013 23:54
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mobby_6kl posted:There was a thread in A/T about living in Russia, but I can't find it now for some reason. The OP was a slightly goony programmer from Moscow earning a good salary so it wasn't completely representative of the whole country, but still could be pretty interesting for the non-russian audience. While I'm sure people living in Russia make up a tiny minority of SA, I don't think it's necessarily negligible; you can't really tell where somebody lives by their name/avatar. But if not, it could be an ex-USSR/CIS thread, like there's a Southeast Asia one. I was kind of hoping maybe there would be some Russians (still in Russia) that would be able to get it up and running. Certainly, I think there are some pretty direct parallels between China and Russia, and they are facing many of the same pressures. You can't really group the two countries together, as many people have done, but I think they offer two similar but different examples of the effects of capitalism. I think the baby formula story is still interesting, but has there been any recent action to not only the pollution in Beijing but across China. The English language press is even worse about covering public opinion in China than other relatively "closed" countries.
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Feb 9, 2013 00:03
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whatever7 posted:Even though you hide yourself behind what "other people told you", this is still racist poo poo. Don't worry, he lives in one of the little countries.
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Feb 9, 2013 00:14
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Ardennes posted:I was kind of hoping maybe there would be some Russians (still in Russia) that would be able to get it up and running. Certainly, I think there are some pretty direct parallels between China and Russia, and they are facing many of the same pressures. You can't really group the two countries together, as many people have done, but I think they offer two similar but different examples of the effects of capitalism. If you are interested in Putinland, there is a BBC documentary called Russia : A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby It's pretty high quality BBC doc. I am interested in Russia too. I haven't been able to find more doc or podcast. I don't have time to read books unfortunately. whatever7 fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 02:33
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whatever7 posted:Even though you hide yourself behind what "other people told you", this is still racist poo poo. Yeah I'm not sure why its still acceptable to say that all celestials eat rice. It would be like saying it's a well known Fact that all Americans are unable to resist eating burgers as their main form of food. I'm from central China, where things are extremely arid except for the yellow river and the staple starches are wheat based.
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Feb 9, 2013 02:49
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whatever7 posted:If you are interested in Putinland, there is a BBC documentary called Russia : A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby Well I was there over the summer, and from what I say there was a very clear edge to Russian Society. It is hard to tell what it what it was like before the 1905 revolution or during the later years of the Wiemar Republic, but it couldn't have been that far off. In general, people are immensely unhappy and looking for someone to blame for their lot, and while pretty much everyone agrees there is no choice but Putin there is still such a deep and bitter sense of resentment. During Russia Day (the independence of Russia from the USSR), no one could give less of a poo poo in St.Petersburg even though it was summer and it was a holiday. I don't know how it would compare to China, I don't think people are to that point yet but Russia as a whole seemed on the edge of becoming real unstable under the right conditions.
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Feb 9, 2013 03:07
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MeramJert posted:This and the kimchi guy you mentioned recently make me think that Korea is the odd east Asian country out. I've never heard anything like this in China. Even in Guangdong province, it's common for women to abstain from rice if they're trying to lose weight. I like it here and have no plans to leave but it's a very strange place sometimes. One of the books at my school teaches the kids that only Koreans eat garlic, no other people in the world do. Beyond it being obviously untrue, why would that even be a thing that you teach in school? It's so weird. There's a generation gap too, I rarely hear this sort of thing from anyone under 40ish. I'd be really interested in a Russia thread too. So much of the stuff you read is so bad, but so much is always focusing on the mafia and poo poo since it's dramatic.
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Feb 9, 2013 03:34
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Ardennes posted:Well I was there over the summer, and from what I say there was a very clear edge to Russian Society. It is hard to tell what it what it was like before the 1905 revolution or during the later years of the Wiemar Republic, but it couldn't have been that far off. In general, people are immensely unhappy and looking for someone to blame for their lot, and while pretty much everyone agrees there is no choice but Putin there is still such a deep and bitter sense of resentment. During Russia Day (the independence of Russia from the USSR), no one could give less of a poo poo in St.Petersburg even though it was summer and it was a holiday. How true is it that there's a nostalgia for the USSR?
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Feb 9, 2013 03:46
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whatever7 posted:Even though you hide yourself behind what "other people told you", this is still racist poo poo. I think he means the locals told him that. And it's a common (humorous) sentiment, because I live in another Asian country over here and the locals say that all the time "I need rice with every meal!" Applying PC standards to this is doubly humorous, because even the most educated people in Chinese speaking countries tend to consider Americans unable to resist the siren sound of burgers. And they enjoy telling me that...repeatedly. and after living here a few years, I need rice with every meal too. So whatev's yo
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Feb 9, 2013 03:49
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Yeah, it's just a funny thing people say here. There's no need to read into it and get mad about nothing.Barto posted:Applying PC standards to this is doubly humorous, because even the most educated people in Chinese speaking countries tend to consider Americans unable to resist the siren sound of burgers. And they enjoy telling me that...repeatedly. Korean people also do this frequently. One of the first conversations I had after moving here was explaining to the teachers at my school that Americans don't eat a hamburger at each meal, the way Koreans do with kimchi. Again, older people. This stuff is still taught to kids but they're somewhat more aware of the world. And people go abroad more frequently now and see that it's not true. My friends (all in their 20s) don't usually believe this poo poo, though every once in a while I'll get a "Chinese people come to Korea to steal our organs" kind of comment out of someone I didn't expect it from.
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Feb 9, 2013 03:54
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I hate Kimchee. Korea sounds like the worst place in the world. Most Americans forget this since the USSR isn't around preparing to parachute tank armies into North Dakota or whatever but Russia/USSR is and was always much richer (per capita PP GDP 2011 $21k vs $8k) and more advanced than China. It's much richer than most of the fUSSR member states too, e.g. Ukraine and a major destination for economic migrants.
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Feb 9, 2013 04:05
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Koramei posted:How true is it that there's a nostalgia for the USSR? I would say fairly broad, it is especially strong among older people (60+) who broadly wish for the good old days. It isn't just empty nostalgia either, for most seniors it is very difficult to make ends meet. For younger people, I think there is still a deep respect for the Soviet Union especially its military accomplishments. During Navy day, there were more Soviet Naval flags being flown than Russian Federation ones. If you held a referendum to bring back the Soviet Union, it would fail but by less of a margin than most Westerns would believe. If the referendum was something like "bring back the social systems of the USSR," I think it would pass. If you spent time there (which I think anyone remotely interested it's history should), you could see why people are so miserable and still long for the past. Most of the former public housing people live in was built after the war and is slowly falling apart, and pretty much everything except cigarettes, bottom-shelf beer and the worse housing available is ridiculously expensive compared to wages. There is very little way to make it ahead, and very easy to slide to the bottom. Life expectancy, especially for males, is below what would be commonly expected in developed country. A big part of it is that people just drink and smoke themselves to death because that is about their extent of their options in life. The public health system is still technically universal, but the services are so minimal unless your willing to pay it might as well be privatized. (Private clinics are also a big thing.) I could go on but you get the idea. Edit: GDP per capita has always been a terrible way to measure a society, I am sure Russia is doing better than Ukraine and many of the Central Asian states but it is all relative. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 04:08
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Throatwarbler posted:I hate Kimchee. Korea sounds like the worst place in the world. Korea's awesome. Liking kimchi is a definite plus though. Throatwarbler posted:Most Americans forget this since the USSR isn't around preparing to parachute tank armies into North Dakota or whatever but Russia/USSR is and was always much richer (per capita PP GDP 2011 $21k vs $8k) and more advanced than China. It's much richer than most of the fUSSR member states too, e.g. Ukraine and a major destination for economic migrants. How well distributed is it? It always seems like there's the oligarch class that is wealthy beyond imagining and then everyone else is some degree of hosed, except for maybe like Moscow and St. Petersburg residents. Maybe someone who knows modern Russia better should start a thread so we don't derail too far out of baby making GBS threads.
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Feb 9, 2013 04:11
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Arglebargle III posted:No shh it's part of their cultural essence.
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Feb 9, 2013 04:32
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拜托！ I'm racist for mocking lazy essentialism. Now I've seen everything. Advertising and lack of public health support for breastfeeding are great reasons. You fart out "never caught on [in 4000 years of history], nothing else to it" and expect to be respected for that revelation? And get pissy and call racism when you get (gently) called out for it? Your last post was good, you should have led with that.
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Feb 9, 2013 05:45
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Ardennes posted:I would say fairly broad, it is especially strong among older people (60+) who broadly wish for the good old days. It isn't just empty nostalgia either, for most seniors it is very difficult to make ends meet. For younger people, I think there is still a deep respect for the Soviet Union especially its military accomplishments. During Navy day, there were more Soviet Naval flags being flown than Russian Federation ones. If you held a referendum to bring back the Soviet Union, it would fail but by less of a margin than most Westerns would believe. If the referendum was something like "bring back the social systems of the USSR," I think it would pass. Thanks, that was interesting. How aware are people in Russia of the corruption in their government? Is there just general apathy towards it, do they blame other things for the present blights? and I guess since this is the China thread, how aware are people in China of the corruption in their government? Are people aware their economy is slowing down and its recent growth rate is unsustainable, or are they just expecting eternal uninhibited growth? Vegetable posted:You don't need to be a sarcastic racist piece of poo poo. This is literally the first Google result of "Chinese breastfeeding" and it explains the reasons are part marketing by formula companies, part cultural taboo. A lot of the adverts for developing markets purport to develop children into musical maestros or geniuses. I'm part of the diaspora Chinese and my mother was shocked at the notion anybody breastfeeds for more than a few weeks. People are slowly coming to terms with breastfeeding -- and public breastfeeding in particular -- but it'll take a while before something so ingrained in the public consciousness changes drastically. Considering what you said was physically impossible for most of history, him being sarcastic about your answer is not something to fly off the handle about. And expatriates are always going to poke at their adopted cultures; while it can veer into overt racism, his comment was definitely not.
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Feb 9, 2013 05:52
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Vegetable posted:You don't need to be a sarcastic racist piece of poo poo. This is literally the first Google result of "Chinese breastfeeding" and it explains the reasons are part marketing by formula companies, part cultural taboo. A lot of the adverts for developing markets purport to develop children into musical maestros or geniuses. I'm part of the diaspora Chinese and my mother was shocked at the notion anybody breastfeeds for more than a few weeks. People are slowly coming to terms with breastfeeding -- and public breastfeeding in particular -- but it'll take a while before something so ingrained in the public consciousness changes drastically. Again, do you honestly think this 'breast-feeding taboo' is an ingrained cultural habit or its a relatively recent development in the past 50 years which is now on the outs?
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Feb 9, 2013 05:54
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Peven Stan posted:Yeah I'm not sure why its still acceptable to say that all celestials eat rice. It would be like saying it's a well known Fact that all Americans are unable to resist eating burgers as their main form of food. I'm from central China, where things are extremely arid except for the yellow river and the staple starches are wheat based. Interestingly enough, there's a significant number of Chinese people that literally think most Americans eat hamburgers every day, and even more that seem to think white people eat bread the same way that they eat rice. Which isn't completely wrong, but it's not that simple.
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Feb 9, 2013 06:23
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I would eat hamburgers everyday if I could afford it. Hamburgers are delicious.
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Feb 9, 2013 07:39
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You must be one poor sumbitch if hamburgers are considered too expensive. Maybe you should join the celestials in eating rice!
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Feb 9, 2013 08:21
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What's this celestials thing?
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Feb 9, 2013 08:35
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So what do Chinese people usually eat during the day? Like breakfast/lunch/dinner? Cause I know the answer to everything can't be rice....unless it's rice? Is it rice? Barto posted:What's this celestials thing? I'm just gonna save everyone some time and a derail and post this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBMsXcSTi4s
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Feb 9, 2013 09:09
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It depends where in China. For example, near me a common day would be rice congee for breakfast, stir fried vegetables and a little bit of meat with a bowl of rice for lunch, and more stir fried stuff with another bowl of rice for dinner.
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Feb 9, 2013 09:42
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Substitute noodles for rice depending on where you are and who you are with but yea, one or the other at every meal is pretty common.
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Feb 9, 2013 09:50
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In Korea a typical day would be rice and kimchi for breakfast, rice, kimchi, some vegetables, maybe meat, and soup for lunch and dinner. In every instance the majority of the food is the bowl of rice and the rest are sides (banchan, and what you might think of for Korean food like bulgogi or gamjatang). Obviously these days people get pizzas and go to McDonald's and whatnot too, but rice/kimchi as the core of every meal, every day is the traditional way. Restaurants now serve a lot more meat and such with rice on the side, now that Korea's not a third world country anymore and people can afford it. Korean barbecue is everywhere and awesome. And there's mixing now, you can go to a Koreanized Italian restaurant and get your awful spaghetti with a bowl of rice. I've seen pizza chopped up and mixed with rice. I recently picked up a random thing at a convenience store, they sell these little triangles of rice+filling wrapped in seaweed. In this one the filling was a hot dog. 
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 10:11
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mobby_6kl posted:There was a thread in A/T about living in Russia, but I can't find it now for some reason. The OP was a slightly goony programmer from Moscow earning a good salary so it wasn't completely representative of the whole country, but still could be pretty interesting for the non-russian audience. While I'm sure people living in Russia make up a tiny minority of SA, I don't think it's necessarily negligible; you can't really tell where somebody lives by their name/avatar. But if not, it could be an ex-USSR/CIS thread, like there's a Southeast Asia one. I just showed a Moscow goon around town yesterday, we went to nerd malls, watched Die Hard and had fun. When I took him to the electronics mall, the airsoft/military gear mall, he was super excited about the prices in Hong Kong compared to Russia. What surprises me the most about Russia from what I hear is the lack of domestic technology market. Unlike China/Taiwan/Korea/Japan, there's not much of a electronics market. Or that companies buy cheap Chinese components/Chinese Android phones and rebadge them for a heavy markup  For all of Russia's technological prowess, creating legions of smart scientists and programmers, largest exporter of weapons, and large swaths of land/population, Russia doesn't make their own electronics and rely on imports  He's only 19 years old but his overall sentiment about Russia is that "we are bitter"  But at least he was really impressed with Hong Kong's infrastructure  goons posted:RICE TALK It's a big country so people do have different habits. It's only recently that I have found out that spring rolls can be served sweet  Breakfast in Tibet is different from Breakfast in Hong Kong. But in general,  avoid cold food for breakfast Croissant is bad, but a croissant with a cup of hot coffee is ok. Besides the usual staple of rice, a bowl of Reese's Cocopuffs with chocolate stout beer is the best Chinese New Year holiday breakfast. Show up drunk in front of relatives and use it as an excuse to leave early 
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Feb 9, 2013 11:06
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caberham posted:It's only recently that I have found out that spring rolls can be served sweet  Qual esta se bullshit?P.S. One of our midsole vendors gave me a 1.5L bottle of maotai, please send help to Dongcheng, Dongguan. 
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Feb 9, 2013 12:07
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Ghetto Prince posted:So what do Chinese people usually eat during the day? Like breakfast/lunch/dinner? Cause I know the answer to everything can't be rice....unless it's rice? Is it rice? In the south its rice, but in the north is variety of wheat products like noodle or buns.
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Feb 9, 2013 14:54
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Grand Fromage posted:I recently picked up a random thing at a convenience store, they sell these little triangles of rice+filling wrapped in seaweed. In this one the filling was a hot dog. I've been in Xiamen for 2 months now and haven't seen one of those rice wraps with a filling yet, but I'm not surprised. Folks here love their crappy hot dogs. Happy new year guys, by the way. I have a week off (english teacher, it's ok work if you can boss kids around) and wanna take the train to Quanzhou in a couple days and get some tea in Anxi.
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Feb 9, 2013 15:21
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Not to be a dork but I think some people are posting in the wrong megathread. Food and CNY and baijiu chat is cool and all but this is D&D and this thread was finally back from the dead. Korea sounds a lot weirder and especially less tolerant of diversity than China. We talk a good game about how China is so homogeneous but really it's a huge country with large regional differences. Chinese people are very comfortable with the idea that diversity is a thing that exists within countries, and that people from other places can have different lives and that that's okay. From what I hear about Korea and Japan I guess that's something we take for granted about China. For all my grumbling I always say that of the large East Asian cultures, while they're all quite different from the U.S., China is the most similar to us. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 15:43
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Happy Chinese New Year. A few Chinese coworkers at work got together and collected some money. We decorated the work place with Chinese poo poo and wrote some chinese greeting cards for the other "gui lao" coworkers and gave out some new year candies. The personalized Chinese names was a big hit.    Me personally haven't been able to feel the same "CNY feeling" ever since Guangzhou banned firecracker 20 years.
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Feb 9, 2013 16:32
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Happy Chinese New Year. 
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Feb 9, 2013 20:18
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So the Chinese AQI only goes to 300 (which is very polluted). I don't know if AQI can be compared equally across countries but at what point would it be unsafe for even young/healthy people to remain in the city?
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Feb 9, 2013 20:29
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Didn't the government throw a fit when an artist had a piece of work displayed in a gallery which depicted all Chinese citizens wearing gas masks in the street?
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Feb 9, 2013 21:10
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Deleuzionist posted:Happy Chinese New Year. Where is this?
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Feb 9, 2013 21:11
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computer parts posted:Where is this? SH VVVV Shanghai also went over too: quote:2/10/2013 4:00:00 AM whatever7 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 21:15
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computer parts posted:Where is this? http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/aqirecent3.html
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Feb 9, 2013 21:31
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Ardennes posted:So the Chinese AQI only goes to 300 (which is very polluted). I don't know if AQI can be compared equally across countries but at what point would it be unsafe for even young/healthy people to remain in the city? 151+ is considered to be unhealthy for all groups and 200+ is considered to be an emergency condition.
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