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Yes, of course. But the point is salary raises have to come first, or as part of a package. You can't do a corruption crackdown with such a huge incentive for corruption unchanged.
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# ? Apr 25, 2013 06:55 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 16:13 |
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Hey guys, instead of kids street making GBS threads, it's elevator poo poo time http://shanghaiist.com/2013/04/24/husband_keeps_watch_as_wife_poops_in_shenzhen_metro_elevator.php https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiHVtptu3CM Mainlanders do have amazing legs, from all the squatting they do
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# ? Apr 25, 2013 07:03 |
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Arglebargle III posted:Yes, of course. But the point is salary raises have to come first, or as part of a package. You can't do a corruption crackdown with such a huge incentive for corruption unchanged. And you can't have salary rises without a corruption crackdown (which nobody wants). Quite the little dialectic. Actually, who am I kidding? Of course you can have a salary rise without a corruption crackdown, you're the loving CPC, you can do what you like. What's going to happen? Some bad noise on QQ? gently caress it, that's what the Daioyu Islands are for. If the netizens get really festive about things then just lift the filter on a bunch of porn sites: any emerging social-media based revolution would wank itself to a sticky halt in no time. [edit] Obviously I am exaggerating but the point is that if there was a real will behind this then it would get done. [edit redux] Caberham posted:making GBS threads shanghaiist.com/tags/poop GuestBob fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Apr 25, 2013 |
# ? Apr 25, 2013 10:14 |
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Sorry, was at the summer house on the first day of summer with my folks. Only snowed a little, was nice. So, you guys had some questions about Iceland, I threw them up in a swell thread over in A/T. Here's the thread and your answers, Bloodnose, hitension and Teddybear.Bloodnose posted:The more I read about Timothy Tong, the former commissioner of the ICAC, the more pissed off I get. It's really a shining beacon of light in east Asian politics, but he really pulled some hosed up poo poo:
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# ? Apr 26, 2013 00:52 |
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Well in the 50's and 60's Hong Kong was super corrupt. Everyone wanted tea money or some sweetener. Want a fireman to put out a fire? Better cough up water money. Want the nurse to provide you water? Good luck, you better pay the care taker in advance! If you don't want to pay, you just name drop. Does this sound awfully familiar? Like China There was actually a rampant drug problem and some of the gangsters were actually police officers. Getting arrested is not a pleasant thing, besides getting your rear end beaten, the legal process was really weak. You were better off calling a police officer friend to get out of jail Police officers back then were considered as thugs in uniform. But those were more minor problems. Larger ones come from shoddy construction projects similar to Sichuan schools. Lots of public housing projects had short piling problems and collapsed during heavy tropical storms. The straw which broke the camel's back was Godber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fitzroy_Godber A corrupt police officer who just used his policeman passport to skip immigration and leave town when the police investigation office questioned him. Which was a loving joke because the police investigation office back then is just like the police complaints office right now. Located within the same building and consists of regular cops who just happen to be transferred there. So the whole city became really mad that a white guy could just leave town. Maclehose was an angry Scotsman and started the ICAC. Just like the movie "the Untouchables", they were actually masqueraded as the Inland Revenue department and reported directly to the Queen or the Governor. It was a house cleaning operation and over half of the city's cops were under arrest by the ICAC. But not everything was rosy though, it was desperate times for desperate measures: in several investigations, extra legal procedures were used. Wow so much back story... So what do the ICAC do? They actually do a lot of research and community out reach. How does corruption occur and why? Not everyone in Hong Kong was out to nickel and dime their way for more money but some people were truly a victim of the environment. You have the herbivores who just follow the crowd and participate in collective corruption who to prevent being ostracized. You have the opportunists who love exploiting drug dealers/pimps/whores/smugglers or whoever was against their moral compass. Then you get the gently caress you got mine assholes, the top dog carnivores who just wants everything. The key to foster a corruption free environment is like raising animals, isolate the herbivores and make them the dominant species. Shady older cops were encouraged to retire early and personal habits examined. Morally pure yet crazy Christians were given priority for promotion and instead of gambling and whoring, lots of officer recreation facilities were built afterwards. Officers were encouraged to go hike, do group activities and kind of act like a fraternity (without the drinking). Joining the ICAC? Unfortunately, after the handover you need dual proficiency in written and speaking for Chinese and English even though almost all the government documents/reports are in English There's an ethics test, and a trip to a deserted island for 3 days. You are given food which explicitly can not be consumed. And a whole bunch of other aptitude tests. Other qualifications? If you have a finance degree or other hard skill sets the government will welcome you. In this bad economy and expensive houses, everyone loves kissing Grandpa Mao's rear end and work for the government. Great pay, great holidays, and special housing benefits.All that ICAC talk. It may be a separate body but still not as powerful as Singapore's police affairs. Hey guys enjoy this racist picture Top (Hong Kong) : 18 people immediately pushed a mini van out of the way to save a woman Bottom (China): Poor Yue Yue got crushed by a car and ignored by 18 people. the worst joke is that, not all mainlanders are bad, it takes 19 people to save one caberham fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Apr 27, 2013 |
# ? Apr 26, 2013 07:27 |
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caberham posted:Joining the ICAC? Unfortunately, after the handover you need dual proficiency in written and speaking for Chinese and English even though almost all the government documents/reports are in English There's an ethics test, and a trip to a deserted island for 3 days. You are given food which explicitly can not be consumed. And a whole bunch of other aptitude tests. Other qualifications? If you have a finance degree or other hard skill sets the government will welcome you. In this bad economy and expensive houses, everyone loves kissing Grandpa Mao's rear end and work for the government. Great pay, great holidays, and special housing benefits.All that ICAC talk. It may be a separate body but still not as powerful as Singapore's police affairs. And that's drat interesting, I thought the ICAC was older than that, but I always forget how short it is since the handover. Have there been any like hella impressive busts they done since? And why weren't them dudes in Sleeping Dogs? Why did my videogame omit such an awesome organization??
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# ? Apr 26, 2013 17:08 |
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http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/what-happened-to-chinas-rivers/275365/quote:As recently as 20 years ago, there were an estimated 50,000 rivers in China, each covering a flow area of at least 60 square miles. But now, according to China's First National Census of Water, more than 28,000 of these rivers are missing. To put this number into context, China's lost rivers are almost equivalent, in terms of basin area, to the United States losing the entire Mississippi River. And so it continues. Dustbowl getting more likely.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 11:16 |
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Warcabbit posted:http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/what-happened-to-chinas-rivers/275365/ Holy poo poo. Most Americans still think the Dustbowl was some unavoidable natural ecological disaster not a man made gently caress-up. If something of that scale happens in China it's going to be way more devastating to the agricultural sector.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 12:04 |
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Warcabbit posted:blaming climate change allows offici-l˜òþζ¼h«¬Ò§Ø0Û°²J"‹N=l§_ŸÆ poor management, governance, lack of groundwater extraction controls, and rapid development Climate change is, in general, caused by a lot of these things in the first place. How do they think is this absolving anything? WarpedNaba fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 30, 2013 |
# ? Apr 30, 2013 12:40 |
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Warcabbit posted:And so it continues. Dustbowl getting more likely. I don't disagree with the depletion of water supply and the drop in the water table but China could feasibly manage an administrative error of that scale. China needs more geographers. The last time there was a drought in Yunnan, local TV carried broadcasts of village officials proudly digging dozens of wells (for the umpteenth time). Yes, because that's a sustainable water management solution for a hot area.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 13:09 |
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Well there's some news from the little countries thread that I thought was worth a repost here. Thanks to ReindeerF for finding this originally.quote:'Honey Laundering' Is An International Problem Fake honey has been a well-known problem here in China for a long time but I'm surprised to see it moving out into the U.S. You tend to think of the U.S. having decent food safety standards. I suppose we can assume that something will be done about it in the U.S. (no doubt spearheaded by domestic honey manufacturers) while in China nothing will happen.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 18:02 |
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All my honey claims to be made locally so I generally trust it. Also the fake stuff is terrible so I'd hope I'd notice. Oh god my honey!
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 18:06 |
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WarpedNaba posted:Climate change is, in general, caused by a lot of these things in the first place. How do they think is this absolving anything? Climate change is a global process for which China can't be solely blamed.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 18:42 |
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Silver2195 posted:Climate change is a global process for which China can't be solely blamed. Granted, what is happening to the water table in China is probably beyond just climate change, as more and more water resources are needed for an urbanized population and an massive industrial base. Also there is the fact that the water resources left are being contaminated on a continual basis. China in some ways was just unfortunate from circumstance, the Western world had already industrialized and it means their emissions are happening while the West's emissions are still being put out but there are plenty of their own choices at play that are also contributing to it.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 18:54 |
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Arglebargle III posted:Well there's some news from the little countries thread that I thought was worth a repost here. Thanks to ReindeerF for finding this originally.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 22:38 |
Cefte posted:Does domestically manufactured American honey proclaim loudly on its label that it's been ultra-filtered? Because that's a pretty strong piece of evidence that it's been adulterated, since adulteration shifts the pollen count within the liquid, which can't be measured after filtration. Not the stuff I have, but the stuff I have is definitely no-pollen honey. Well, the Inter-American Foods bear-shaped plastic bottle honey anyway. Not the giant mason jar full of honey with some of the wax still in it, pretty sure that's fine.
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# ? Apr 30, 2013 22:53 |
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Sorry to barge in like this, but I have a question for the resident Hongkies - got any recommendations for cool art galleries, boutiques, or the like? I'm going to be in HK for the weekend of June 1, and I've got zero interest in spending my free afternoon touristing around shops or visiting the usual attractions. I've heard Chai Wan and Sheung Wan (and Gough Street in particular) are the areas to look at, but I don't really know anything more specific than that.
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# ? May 1, 2013 12:37 |
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TetsuoTW posted:Sorry to barge in like this, but I have a question for the resident Hongkies - got any recommendations for cool art galleries, boutiques, or the like? I'm going to be in HK for the weekend of June 1, and I've got zero interest in spending my free afternoon touristing around shops or visiting the usual attractions. I've heard Chai Wan and Sheung Wan (and Gough Street in particular) are the areas to look at, but I don't really know anything more specific than that. You want the other megathread, probably, it's way more active and more for general questions.
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# ? May 1, 2013 13:33 |
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Bloody hell, I didn't even know there was a second one. Thanks! As you were.
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# ? May 1, 2013 14:46 |
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The government seems pretty convinced that protests are brewing in Chengdu tomorrow over an oil refinery in the suburb of Pengzhou at the terminus of an oil pipeline constructed at great expense from Lanzhou in Gansu province. Critically, the refinery and pipeline were planned and started before the Sichuan fault zone became active in 2008. In 2008 there were also protests over the oil refinery. Now... well I'll let the article tell you.SCMP posted:Chengdu ethylene plant halts construction over quake safety fears Of course, nobody in China believes for a second that the safety inspection means anything, and anyone with a memory longer than a goldfish recalls that they did the same thing 5 years ago and re-approved the project. The end result is an oil refinery in a densely populated region in an earthquake zone, with no popular support and no credible safety oversight, which is the sort of thing people might get upset over. On a side note, the government has rescheduled classes for Saturday with only one day's notice to keep high school and university students indoors for May 4th. As a teacher, I would like to say: gently caress this gay refinery. Anyone want to give odds or speculate on the many, various, and indubitably spectacular possibilities of mixing oil refineries and magnitude 7 earthquakes? Remember, the refinery was designed on the assumption that Sichuan was geologically stable!
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# ? May 3, 2013 06:24 |
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Hmmm, volatile fuels, hazardous substances and a good chance to get wrecked by disasters? Sounds like Fukushima all over again, except that had the necessary precautions taken.
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# ? May 3, 2013 08:40 |
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WarpedNaba posted:Hmmm, volatile fuels, hazardous substances and a good chance to get wrecked by disasters? Sounds like Fukushima all over again, except that had the necessary precautions taken. Seriously, if the Fukushima plant had been built with China levels of safety regulations, there'd be a good chunk of Japan missing today... ... and Chinese crowds would still be going crazy with sheer delight.
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# ? May 3, 2013 14:25 |
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No wonder they're pushing for Thorium reactor research in the mainland, no matter how you gently caress it up, it just doesn't blow up or melt down.
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# ? May 3, 2013 21:55 |
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This is kind of a general HK question, but are there plans for the end of the two systems period? What does the central government say is going to happen in 2049?
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# ? May 4, 2013 00:14 |
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It's 2047 and no, no one says what will happen. It's kind of crazy to think about what might happen then. China could have democratized, or Shadowrun could become a reality, or we could just maintain the status quo. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma said we should keep common law. I think most people at this point like the status quo.
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# ? May 4, 2013 05:10 |
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Bloodnose posted:It's 2047 and no, no one says what will happen. It's kind of crazy to think about what might happen then. China could have democratized, or Shadowrun could become a reality, or we could just maintain the status quo. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma said we should keep common law. I think most people at this point like the status quo. If there will be laws that needs to be kept by then =]
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# ? May 5, 2013 04:06 |
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There is apparently a protest today outside the chemical plant in Pengzhou. Central Chengdu is locked down pretty tight but it's just bored policemen and closed-off areas, nothing seems to be happening in the city center.
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# ? May 5, 2013 05:36 |
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No tanks this time? Where's the passion?
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# ? May 5, 2013 07:47 |
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Arglebargle III posted:There is apparently a protest today outside the chemical plant in Pengzhou. Central Chengdu is locked down pretty tight but it's just bored policemen and closed-off areas, nothing seems to be happening in the city center. I'd be surprised if businesses didn't whine about this. Today was the deadest Sunday I've ever seen in Chengdu, and was down around Chunxi and the Financial center. I wonder how much money these businesses lost cause of this lockdown/don't go out stuff that people apparently listened to. Thankfully that meant my theatre for Iron Man 3 was empty
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# ? May 5, 2013 09:19 |
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Yeah this is a hugely boneheaded maneuver from every perspective except one -- the city officials who are afraid their careers will be ruined if a major protest breaks out. It's bad for publicity, bad for public trust, bad for the economy, bad for students, obviously bad for free speech and the environment... but it's good for the cadres. We all knew the government's priorities (me, myself and I) but this is a terribly crass way of showing it.
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# ? May 5, 2013 10:37 |
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There was actually a large protest in Kunming today (coincidence?) over a PX (paraxylene) plant under construction there, the same type of plant that has been run out of Tianjin and Ningbo by similar protests over the last few years. Kunming officials neglected to move the weekend and stage an earthquake drill/combat exercise (the Chengdu government seems not to have had its story straight on that excuse) on the day in question. A square in Kunming: A banner reads "Still [return?]* our beautiful Kunming! We want to survive! We want health! PX project get out of Kunming!" *I don't know the local dialect and I rarely see 还 used this way in Mandarin but it seems likely from context. Maybe I just don't know, my Mandarin is not perfect by any means.
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# ? May 5, 2013 10:51 |
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You are right,it means return. In thus case it's "give me back my beautiful kunming"
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# ? May 5, 2013 11:11 |
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Arglebargle III posted:
還 huan/hai are the same character, so ya, gimme back my Kunming! (take it! take it!)
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# ? May 5, 2013 12:04 |
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CCTV aired a Jon Stewart segment under a headline that roughly translates from Chinese as tuquoque.flv
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# ? May 7, 2013 06:49 |
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Haha wow are they hoping their audience won't immediately notice that he's doing something they would never be allowed to do?
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# ? May 7, 2013 06:59 |
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Yes, they're hoping people will focus more on "Wow, the American government is horrible and how dare they criticize China about human rights?" i.e. tu quoque.
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# ? May 7, 2013 07:04 |
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It's an appeal to the master Han race. I really hate lazy arguments based on some fuzzy value. Western-democracy International standards of fairness Hong Kong's electoral system is fair and broad enough because it reaches an international standard of fairness even though there is no Universal Suffrage. Geeze guys, can't we be the ones who set the international standard for once or do things better because I don't know... we can? It's always getting by with the bare minimum
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# ? May 7, 2013 10:12 |
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What are the cancer rates in China compared with the U.S. ? The U.S. seems to lead the first world by a wide margin in cancer so this makes me curious. I think all the processed sugary food and exposure to household chemicals is what does most Americans in cancer wise. China has even less stringent regulations concerning products, air quality, or factory placement so I imagine there must be skyrocketing lung, stomach, and colon cancer.
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# ? May 7, 2013 17:34 |
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I'm going to hazard a guess of 'unreported' and also 'wait ten years for things to flower.'
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# ? May 7, 2013 18:15 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 16:13 |
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What? No cancer is a big thing here and there's lots of information on it. Have you never heard of "cancer cities"? Lung cancer and all cancers have indeed skyrocketed especially in heavy industry cities. It's a thing that people have been studying for quite some time.
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# ? May 7, 2013 18:30 |