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It looks like Sinica is still monitoring this thread, because next week's episode is about - drum roll - sex in China: https://www.facebook.com/sinicapodcast/posts/566210083412031 quote:Everything you ever wanted to know about sex (in China) but were afraid to ask: This week, we'll be talking to Richard Burger, the blogger behind The Peking Duck and author of the book "Behind the Red Door: Sex in China." Got a question for Richard? Let us know soon! Jeremy & Kaiser will have him and publisher Graham Earnshaw on the show, and we're recording Tuesday night CST.
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# ? Apr 15, 2013 18:48 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 09:42 |
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ReindeerF posted:It looks like Sinica is still monitoring this thread, because next week's episode is about - drum roll - sex in China: It would be best if H7N9 can be worked into the question.
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# ? Apr 15, 2013 19:23 |
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So I'm not super familiar with China and Chinese politics and stuff, but I still listen to the long-form episodes of Sinica for funsies, and I think they mentioned last time that Jeremy got a new job for Sina Weibo or something, and made a joke about that making him / Sinica less trustworthy? I guess what I'm wondering is they seem like they're a little apologetic about Chinese policy sometimes. Are they somehow beholden to the government narrative? I don't get the impression they're explicitly told what to say or anything, obviously, but they sorta seem to toe the critical lines sometimes.
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# ? Apr 15, 2013 19:43 |
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If you want to avoid getting banned in China you have to tiptoe around certain things. The China History Podcast does the same thing with sensitive topics. It's not exactly beholden to the government but you have to keep it in mind. Like the CHP, he doesn't lie about anything but he will avoid things.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 01:19 |
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Neither Sinica nor CHP are beholden to the Chinese government and that should be clear to anyone who has even a vague understanding of all those supposedly off-limits topics. They just SEEM to be, because the usual narrative in the Western media is so anti-Chinese by comparison, and the Chinese government isn't literally a moustache twirling super-villan. Sinica addresses this in their Q&A ep a few weeks ago, they don't generally talk about Tibet or Xinjiang because dumb laowais who want to talk about that poo poo are invariable ignorant ideologues who really just want to stir up trouble. This is the correct decision. I've never heard them shy away from any of the other sensitive topics.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 01:32 |
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Fangz posted:Seriously, this argument is far too anecdotal (on both sides) for my taste. Does anyone have any survey data or something? Well that's the thing about China right? It's a black box in many respects. Before the internet even anecdotal information was hard to come by. Jeremy's company got bought by the Financial Times, that's not the same as getting a new job at Sina Weibo. Unless I missed something? I also found their analysis of Xinjiang and Tibet exactly right: Western activists and the Chinese can't even have a conversation. They have no common ground, and they don't understand what each other are saying. Therefore there's really no point to hosting a discussion that will go nowhere and might very well get Mainland guest commentators in trouble. Fandyien posted:I guess what I'm wondering is they seem like they're a little apologetic about Chinese policy sometimes. Are they somehow beholden to the government narrative? I think Kaiser is an optimist, or at least plays one because it goes well with Jeremy's cynicism. He's usually the one to at least explain why the government might do something. I really like their interplay; it serves to humanize the Chinese government who go to a lot of trouble to project an image of inhuman composure. Kaiser can empathize with them, and Jeremy can point out when they did something really stupid. I think you might be getting this from Jeremy being off the show for a few weeks! I still agree with Jeremy about the Xi administration; the Hu administration also made a lot of noise about reform when they came into office and it went nowhere. It's better to be skeptical until they prove they're actually serious about making policy. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 02:28 |
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Pretty much every episode, Goldkorn manages to work up a rant that sounds something like, "Well the Chinese government are a bunch of idiot children and if they want to be taken seriously among other world powers then they need to grow the gently caress up and learn how to deal with [whatever]!" He's definitely had at least one of those always-entertaining outbursts since Danwei got bought by FT, so it's hard to imagine how he's censored except on the topics mentioned above. Kaiser just enjoys remarking on his employment by the FT media machine to give him a hard time about being a company man who needs a disclaimer before stating his opinions, which goes along with their good cop/bad cop thing in which Kaiser is constantly baiting Jeremy (this is entertaining for me). They're like Ehrlichman and Nixon in the famous "HOT PANTS" exchange. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 02:39 |
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Throatwarbler posted:Sinica addresses this in their Q&A ep a few weeks ago, they don't generally talk about Tibet or Xinjiang because dumb laowais who want to talk about that poo poo are invariable ignorant ideologues who really just want to stir up trouble. This is the correct decision. Soy Division fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 02:43 |
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I know on CHP he's said he was avoiding topics to not get banned, but I can't reference because I marathoned it all in a week and have no clue where anything was. He was tiptoeing a lot during the Tiananmen discussion in the Deng Xiaoping series, I remember that. I mean it makes sense, it's not something to blame anyone for. The Chinese government does censor/ban poo poo with wild abandon and is paranoid as hell, if you're concerned with not getting banned in China you have to take that into account.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 02:46 |
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Gail Wynand posted:There is a historian at my university who literally wrote the (English-language) book on Xinjiang, and is not a political activist. He was banned from China for several years because he wrote a chapter for an edited volume on Xinjiang compiled by an ex-US government official. Somebody in the Chinese government got their hands on the book and decided that it was part of the grand US conspiracy to destabilize Xinjiang. Sure there are a lot of dumb laowais out there talking about Xinjiang/Tibet but the authorities are also paranoid to the point of excess. I seem to recall that this book was actually recommended in that very episode. Anyway it was basically a creative decision and I'm fine with it. The Dalai Lama has plenty of other channels with which to communicate his position and I'm glad this isn't one of them.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 02:59 |
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Are there really many Western activists interested in Xinjiang? I've only ever seen academic works related to the issue or things published by the World Uighur Congress or whatever.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 03:17 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Just curious, because our media has been mentioning it all the time, but is there any mention in China about the Free Trade Agreement between Iceland and China? It is the first time a Free Trade agreement has been made between China and a W-European nation and our Prime Minister and her wife are going over for a visit in a wekk, so I've been curious about it. Finally got an article about this on the SCMP. But it's actually an AP article, and it looks like they failed with Iceland knowledge, since they keep referring to the Prime Minister as 'Sigurdardottir' which I understand is a patronymic and not a surname. So they failed at Iceland knowledge, and then proceeded to word the article like China did this in an inscrutable oriental plot to take over the Arctic. Pretty cool.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 03:30 |
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While we're on the topic of China's actual first FTA with a western nation, is there any mention in China of the one they have with New Zealand? I know some famous actress tweeted on Weibo about her wedding here, but it'd be nice to know if we meant any more than that to the general funded public.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 04:18 |
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Bloodnose posted:Finally got an article about this on the SCMP. But it's actually an AP article, and it looks like they failed with Iceland knowledge, since they keep referring to the Prime Minister as 'Sigurdardottir' which I understand is a patronymic and not a surname. So they failed at Iceland knowledge, and then proceeded to word the article like China did this in an inscrutable oriental plot to take over the Arctic. Pretty cool. It did link to this one http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1211498/chinese-gay-parents-invite-icelands-pm-and-her-wife-coffee where she was sadly too busy to attend but at least some peeps were heartened by her arrival. Forget sometimes how people think a lot about this sorta stuff.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 04:47 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Hahaha, that article is fantastic. Yea, you could call her Jóhanna or I guess "Icelandic PM" if you wanted to avoid the name but using the Patronym is very wrong. Jewish names used to be like that too right? So you'd get how silly it sounds. Deceitful Penguin posted:It did link to this one http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1211498/chinese-gay-parents-invite-icelands-pm-and-her-wife-coffee where she was sadly too busy to attend but at least some peeps were heartened by her arrival. Forget sometimes how people think a lot about this sorta stuff. Wikipedia posted:This is an Icelandic name. The last name is a patronymic, not a family name; this person is properly referred to by the given name Jóhanna But it's an interesting article nonetheless. I remember when she first got elected, it was a big deal that she's a lesbian, but I forgot about it until now. There's an article about a trans woman in Hong Kong who can't get married to her boyfriend because she was born a man and it would be a same sex marriage. That may sound par for the course in a conservative society, except that Hong Kong recognizes her legally as being a woman now, and actually subsidized her gender reassignment surgery. The government here does that. It's completely The lawyers for the marriage registry are arguing that procreation is a necessary component to marriage, but at the same time recognizes that fertility isn't an issue, but merely something like the platonic notion of the possibility of procreation. It's really crazy. I would hope that PM Jóhanna's visit would get some more attention to gay rights in Greater China, but I doubt it. I'd be really surprised if many Chinese people knew that 1. Iceland was signing this treaty 2. Where Iceland is 3. That Iceland is a country
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 05:02 |
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Throatwarbler posted:Sinica addresses this in their Q&A ep a few weeks ago, they don't generally talk about Tibet or Xinjiang because dumb laowais who want to talk about that poo poo are invariable ignorant ideologues who really just want to stir up trouble. This is the correct decision. I support their decision not to talk about these topics, but "invariable" is not the correct word to use here. There are intelligent, knowledgable laowai who discuss these things.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 05:06 |
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Bloodnose posted:
4. Iceland is not famous for ice wine
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 05:22 |
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ReindeerF posted:The colonial thing doesn't explain Thailand, though. Whiteness being cool isn't a Western colonial holdover here, but the issue may be that I'm assuming you're using colonial as a Western/Eastern dichotomy. If you consider the Chinese colonial in Thailand (I do) then I can agree with you. If you google back to ads for THAI airways and other products in the 1970s you'll see darker-skinned (i.e. Thai) people in most of them. It's not until the last 20-30 years that everyone became light skinned. What else happened in the last 20-30 years? The rise of the Thai-Chinese in business and politics. quote:Granted, immigration and intermarrying goes back centuries and touches all levels of society, but the mass exodus of Chinese in the mid-20th century changed the face of Thailand drastically. People no longer have a Chinese ancestor or surname, they have two Thai-Chinese parents born to 100% ethnically Chinese grandparents - they're 100% Chinese, basically, and largely live as such. The image of Thailand presented in the media is created by the companies that run and own the media and advertise therein and they're largely white-skinned Thai-Chinese playing on that skin-tone stereotype that's pervasive in Asia. It makes sense if you're selling consumer goods, right? Who has money? And if they don't have money, just create tension in their minds over the fact that they look different from the people who do have money and they'll buy too. I understand that dominance business and politics plays a part in shaping society's role models and hierarchy. However, I think media trends play a more significant factor in what you saw in the last 30 years too. If you look at the bigger picture this period was also the big asian wave for film, tv, music, etc..Prior to that you had a few major artists but back around the late 80's it went berserk and suddenly you had these effete j-pop/k-pop/c-pop guys prancing around on stage, asian actors/actresses with crossover appeal, etc.. These are the people celebrities and the regular middle/upper middle class folk in smaller asian countries tried to model themselves after. If you look at let's say the look of Thai actresses they try to look and act more like J-pop/K-pop singers than typical Chinese canto/mando stars. So it's more trendy to cast lighter models these days with that Korean look complete with heavy plastic modifications. The lighter skin preference also predates even Chinese immigration or their rise to economic/political prominence in SE Asia. It just so happens that Chinese fit the "model" for the sort of prejudices that already existed. To me Thai-Chinese aren't very Chinese at all. Most of the ones I met don't speak any Chinese and are way more Thai in their general cultural quirks and what have you. They may follow some basic traditions and hang red stuff all over. They might also buy into the brutal status climbing instilled in them by first gen Chinese grandparents browbeating several generations into submission but they are still Thai. Just like how most mainland Chinese (or Taiwanese) I have met think that there's no way in hell i'm really Chinese either. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 17, 2013 |
# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:35 |
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Longanimitas posted:I support their decision not to talk about these topics, but "invariable" is not the correct word to use here. There are intelligent, knowledgable laowai who discuss these things.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:59 |
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Modus Operandi posted:There is a degree of sinicization in the Thailand's upper class but the Thai-Chinese have been a pretty common sight in commerce for a few generations. The Thai-Chinese immigrant is much much older than the one in the U.S. by at least a couple generations for example. The U.S. had its big Chinese immigrant wave in the 60's and most Chinese-Americans are still first/second generation. Thai-Chinese are easily third and fourth in most cases. Most self identifying Thai-Chinese have a grandfather or great grandfather who came down from southern China. Supposedly this 18th century Thai king was ethnically Chinese, so yeah this stuff has a history. Of course there were much older waves of Chinese immigration to the US, especially where I'm from on the west coast. Until the 90s, the second largest ethnic group in Nevada after whites wasn't Mexicans like you'd expect, it was descendants of 19th century Chinese miners and railroad workers. America is just better at eroding (or incorporating, or however you want to call it) ethnic divisions away and mixing people together, at least outside the big cities where enclaves tend to form. When I first heard of people in cities in America asking Asian-Americans where they're from or treating them in some way as foreign, I thought it was the weirdest thing. In Nevada (excluding Vegas), I would expect any Asian-looking person to be a native English-speaking American just like me. That 60s wave of Chinese immigration (the Cantonese and Hokkien one) has been pretty much absorbed by American culture by now. The mainlandy, Mandarin one that started in the late 80s is still ongoing, but in a few decades they'll all just be fat-rear end Americans.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 03:57 |
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Bloodnose posted:They still are. I have a Hebrew name with a patronymic, although it's not my legal name. We use them in the synagogue. Bloodnose posted:That one's actually by an SCMP staff writer, and again they used the patronymic. Come on people, it's right at the top of her Wikipeida page Bloodnose posted:But it's an interesting article nonetheless. I remember when she first got elected, it was a big deal that she's a lesbian, but I forgot about it until now. There's an article about a trans woman in Hong Kong who can't get married to her boyfriend because she was born a man and it would be a same sex marriage. That may sound par for the course in a conservative society, except that Hong Kong recognizes her legally as being a woman now, and actually subsidized her gender reassignment surgery. The government here does that. It's completely And I remember when my foreign friends asked me if it was true our new PM was a lesbian I couldn't remember. I voted for her in our party elections but it didn't really pay attention to who she was with. Did know she was an air stewardess like my sister though. Bloodnose posted:I would hope that PM Jóhanna's visit would get some more attention to gay rights in Greater China, but I doubt it. I'd be really surprised if many Chinese people knew that caberham posted:4. Iceland is not famous for ice wine Modus Operandi posted:I don't think people who want to discuss Tibet/Xinjiang are all troublemakers either but it does bring out the dickheads and culture warriors en masse. It's like horn of Gondor for idiots. I haven't had anyone be too obnoxious, a lot of the time they're just telling me what they know to be polite but you'd think they'd know a little bit more about China than the Great Firewall and about Tibet.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 04:18 |
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I'm curious how China's media is covering the Boston attack; it was announced today that one of the three killed was a Chinese national studying at BU, and I've been hearing conflicting reports about what SCMP and Xinhua have been reporting.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 04:25 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:We're pretty small after all. When I was younger I liked making people guess where I was from and they never got it right. Then I made them guess how many we were and they never got that right either. Good times. You should start an Ask Me About Iceland thread. I find Iceland really interesting for a lot of reasons. I'm from Reno, Nevada. It's a small gambling town in the high desert mountains of one of America's least populous states. And yet, there are more people in the Reno-Sparks Metro Area than in Iceland. Who decided you people get to be a country? Also I studied linguistics in college and I think Icelandic is a fun language. So yeah, do that. In Hong Kong news, horrifically stressed-out high school students are now taking the HKDSE (Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education) exam, the be-all, end-all test that determines your future in higher education. This is the second round of DSEs to be held ever, after the secondary school system was revised to be less British and more Chinese, and after replacing the old HKCEE test that served the same purpose. Interestingly, this round is the first exam that will include a test on Liberal Studies. Causing some controversy is the fact that there is an essay component of the Liberal Studies exam, and it's included some politically sensitive questions. Here's a cool editorial about it. Kelly Yang posted:I remember teaching a critical reasoning class last summer to a group of secondary students. I split the class into two and asked the students to take opposing positions on domestic workers' right of abode. To my disappointment, those opposing residency rights immediately made points which were offensive, such as the helpers "all have too many children". Those on the "yes" side started to giggle. Before the "no" group had a chance to make their second point - that "helpers are unintelligent" - I shut down the exercise and used the rest of the class time to discuss tolerance. There have already been students reporting that they made pro-establishment arguments in hopes of earning a better grade. What can they do? Their futures depend on it.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 04:39 |
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Deceitful Penguin posted:
Iceland in Chinese is 2 characters, "Ice" and "Island". Ice wine is also 2 characters, "Ice" and "Wine". Ice wine is a kind of sweet wine made from grapes that were flash frozen on the vine, or something like that (I don't drink) that makes for a neat little gift that people bring back from Canada. So if you don't know anything about the outside world as most Chinese people don't, you might be inclined to think that ice wine was produced in Iceland.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 04:39 |
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Bloodnose posted:Supposedly this 18th century Thai king was ethnically Chinese, so yeah this stuff has a history. quote:That 60s wave of Chinese immigration (the Cantonese and Hokkien one) has been pretty much absorbed by American culture by now. The mainlandy, Mandarin one that started in the late 80s is still ongoing, but in a few decades they'll all just be fat-rear end Americans. Modus Operandi fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Apr 17, 2013 |
# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:14 |
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Teddybear posted:I'm curious how China's media is covering the Boston attack; it was announced today that one of the three killed was a Chinese national studying at BU, and I've been hearing conflicting reports about what SCMP and Xinhua have been reporting. She was. It is known within the Chinese community at BU who it is but the family has requested that her information not be publicly released. Xinhua published an article on her and then promptly withdrew it. If you don't know who it is, you don't know her anyway so best to not go prying for now and just respect the grieving family's wishes. V Well that is a needless thing. :/ edit: The victim's name and information are public information now. Her family was being harassed by media in China, truly terrible. NHK snooping around campus today. What a mess. hitension fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Apr 17, 2013 |
# ? Apr 17, 2013 15:10 |
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SCMP Don't Give a gently caress They were keeping her identity respectfully under wraps for a few hours, but ended up updating with her full name and photos and everything.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 15:26 |
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Can anyone explain why China is working so hard to deny/censor the story about Xi riding a cab to his hotel? I'm not sure I get how a story like that would be at all embarrassing... Wouldn't it make him seem down-to-earth and likeable?
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 00:22 |
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OSheaman posted:Can anyone explain why China is working so hard to deny/censor the story about Xi riding a cab to his hotel? I'm not sure I get how a story like that would be at all embarrassing... Wouldn't it make him seem down-to-earth and likeable? Sounds more like an off hand remark of how he gets around. Security issue.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 00:31 |
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Because it turned out to be fake?
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 02:21 |
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The loving Chairman doesn't take a taxi. In fact, in Beijing, nobody takes a taxi. They're impossibly difficult to hail, especially during the rush hour. There's a major shortage.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 02:27 |
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That reminds me - Traffic in China's major metropolitan areas. How's the public transport, what are the large scale systems they use to relieve pressure on the inner city roads? Hopefully it won't involve more bullet trains
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 06:49 |
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WarpedNaba posted:That reminds me - Traffic in China's major metropolitan areas. How's the public transport, what are the large scale systems they use to relieve pressure on the inner city roads? The HSR system is great and I hope they continue connecting the country with more lines. As for metropolitan areas it seems that every major city is building or expanding their subway/rail/bus systems. How much these will improve traffic is yet to be seen though.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 06:59 |
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The thing is that public transportation in China is pretty damned good, but they weren't built to relieve traffic congestion. When the Beijing subway was first under construction, there were like three dudes with cars in the whole country. Now, a car is seen as a major status symbol and in Hong Kong at least is considered a prerequisite for marriage (a man must 有樓有車, own a home and a car). Local manufacturers have made extremely affordable models that the lower middle class can afford, so they're rapidly proliferating. Finally, there's an incredibly hilarious vicious cycle taking place. Horrible pollution is making it so people don't want to walk outside, like for example to a bus or subway stop, so for health's sake they commute in a car. Then the obvious happens: more cars = more pollution. Isn't that great? So now a lot of cities have congestion rules where even or odd number license plates or those that begin with the letter አ can drive only on x days.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 07:06 |
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Sounds like a step in the right direction, to be honest. Public transport down under the hemisphere is a joke, so we'd love to grab a couple of your engineers.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 07:09 |
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Anecdotally, the roads running east out of Hujialou and Tuanjiehu aren't nearly so bad since they opened subway line 6.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 07:19 |
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Bloodnose posted:In fact, in Beijing, nobody takes a taxi. They're impossibly difficult to hail, especially during the rush hour. There's a major shortage. I am pretty sure that Xi Jinping could get a taxi if he wanted one. My bet is on the government handling this story to make it look like an attempted cover up when it is really a staged equivalent to the ambassador-rides-a-minivan kind of stuff that they don't want to appear staged, because fake-humility is just creepy. Seriously, they would need to bury it just right to get "the netizens" working for them, but if they do Xi will have a new demographic. Not that he needs one, but hey.
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 12:08 |
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I suspect whoever is in charge of media control is just acting on instinct. Politician in the interwebs?!? PUSH THE COVER UP BUTTON!
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# ? Apr 19, 2013 13:25 |
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Fangz posted:I suspect whoever is in charge of media control is just acting on instinct. Politician in the interwebs?!? PUSH THE COVER UP BUTTON! Even security wouldn't be a good enough reason for "them" to cover this up. If Xi wants to attack the kind of corruption which puts a village chief in a ten car motorcade then taking a taxi across town is the best way to do it. He can't be seen to be doing it for that reason though. China has spent more time and energy controlling "its internet" than any other nation on earth. I am not saying that they have done a good job of it, but I do believe that its worth giving the wumao bosses the benefit of the doubt on an occasion like this. It's all conjecture of course. [edit] Remember, this is the same Xi who had all of those "informal" photos leaked. GuestBob fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Apr 19, 2013 |
# ? Apr 19, 2013 13:31 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 09:42 |
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So there was an 7.0 earthquake in Sichuan today in Ya'an, a city south of the provincial capital of Chengdu. It was felt throughout Sichuan, but it appears the damaged areas are only those around the epicenter. The worst hit counties are reporting 50% of the buildings collapsed. The deathtoll is at 76 with 1000+ injured. Not to ignore the horribleness of all that, but it will be interesting to see how the new leaders react. After the last big Sichuan earthquake in 08 (which was along the same fault line as today's), the leaders came down and rolled their sleeves up for photoshoots. I'd image Down-to-earth Xi is going to do the same thing.
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# ? Apr 20, 2013 08:27 |