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There's so many things wrong with China all I can do is say how bad it is. There are no redeeming features. The culture is toxic, the government is bad, the environment is worse. Medical and educational standards are piss poor, college graduates think computer screens can give you a tan, I've had someone insist that cats only eat fish. People's tastes over there suck, individual morality is dead, nobody has any manners, they're all loving brainwashed by their parents into some 500 year old backwards mindfuck and then the government throws in too. I don't think I've ever met or even heard about a Chinese businessman who wasn't overtly crooked as gently caress. The government will probably never reform and even if it does the national character will just mean it ends up being Russia 2.0. I could go on all day.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:04
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MeinPanzer posted:http://qz.com/269243/people-in-the-west-need-to-stop-obsessing-over-learning-chinese/ article posted:So if you’re looking to learn an Asian language, your country and your job prospects may well benefit from a non-Mandarin option. The same goes for your kids. You might even choose Cantonese, which by some measures has around 60 million speakers, many of whom live in economically important coastal Chinese cities. I never understood the scramble to "LEARN A USEFUL LANGUAGE". Language skills are great but it's more supplementary than core asset. Being fluent in X doesn't get you job offers left and right. All those millions and millions of folks probably use English for international businesses and if you are trying to get into the Chinese market, you are better off working with a local sales team. It's the curse of the Lingua Franca language speaker, everyone else is trying to learn your language! And the article is a bit disingenuous about Cantonese speakers. Yeah, it was the main language for all these Chinese communities in South East Asia and China towns but not so much anymore. All the younger Chinese immigrants from the mainland nowadays are mandarin (to a certain fluency) speakers. Singapore, Malaysia and Thai Chinese communities are adopting simplified Chinese for their newspapers and entertainment/media is coming from the glorious CCTV. HONG KONG IS OVER  Lucy Heartfilia posted:Are they still calling all the other languages in China dialects? It's not just a dialect. 方言 (fangyan), it literally means "far away (from civilization) speech". Freaking Beijingers. On a side note, historical movies about the modern Chinese history had actors mimicking different accented mandarin. That was a nice touch. Nowadays, Deng and Mao sound like TV news anchors. TheBuilder posted:Has anyone ever seen a good infographic or chart that can might simplify the weird relationship between the PLA and the CCP, and also who's groups have the real juice in the PLA, Zemin, Hu Jintao's People, or the Princelings. What did you think of the OP 
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Sep 23, 2014 17:11
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Chickenwalker posted:I don't think I've ever met or even heard about a Chinese businessman who wasn't overtly crooked as gently caress. Hello, I'm from the internet, nice to meet you! When you come to Hong Kong, please give me your bank account number so that I can use it for my world of warcraft gold farming business.
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Sep 23, 2014 17:13
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Chickenwalker posted:There's so many things wrong with China all I can do is say how bad it is. There are no redeeming features. The culture is toxic, the government is bad, the environment is worse. Medical and educational standards are piss poor, college graduates think computer screens can give you a tan, I've had someone insist that cats only eat fish. show me on the doll where Mao touched you
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Sep 23, 2014 17:26
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Chickenwalker posted:There's so many things wrong with China all I can do is say how bad it is. There are no redeeming features. The culture is toxic, the government is bad, the environment is worse. Medical and educational standards are piss poor, college graduates think computer screens can give you a tan, I've had someone insist that cats only eat fish. Nice opinions. Not! Nice racism though.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:14
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I was in Baltimore last week and I didn't meet a black guy who didn't accept a piece of my leftover New York Fried Chicken.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:16
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Way more Chinese people speak Mandarin than Americans speak Standard American English so I guess the world should just give up on learning that useless English language.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:33
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Bloodnose posted:Way more Chinese people speak Mandarin than Americans speak Standard American English so I guess the world should just give up on learning that useless English language. You don't get it. Only 7% of people in Mainland China are proficient in Mandarin. It's official.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:38
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caberham posted:
WOW, I'm dumb. Thanks for pointing me to that. Its still really complicated.
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Sep 23, 2014 18:49
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Farecoal posted:show me on the doll where Mao touched you the lungs, also wherever it is heavy metal poisoning collects (nervous system i think?) icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 19:07
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Chickenwalker posted:The government will probably never reform and even if it does the national character will just mean it ends up being Russia 2.0. I could go on all day. So does that mean that Pierre Woodman will be having some castings in China soon?
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Sep 23, 2014 19:15
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icantfindaname posted:the lungs, also wherever it is heavy metal poisoning collects (nervous system i think?) Nice! 
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Sep 23, 2014 19:50
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Chickenwalker posted:There's so many things wrong with China all I can do is say how bad it is. There are no redeeming features. The culture is toxic, the government is bad, the environment is worse. Medical and educational standards are piss poor, college graduates think computer screens can give you a tan, I've had someone insist that cats only eat fish. Go on...
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Sep 23, 2014 23:33
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So what's up with Chinese people here in Germany not trying to learn the language? I swear some people have been living here for 4+ years without speaking a single word of German, just getting by with English. Everyone else, no matter where they come from, signs up for language lessons or at least gets some books when they come here. But not the Chinese. Whats going on here, are they waiting for us to learn Chinese and are too polite to tell us?
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Sep 23, 2014 23:50
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I'm guessing most of them are enrolled in some degree program that is taught entirely in English and they have enough trouble with that so they don't want to bother with German Also Chinese people can't pronounce the German 'r' for poo poo sie sind vergückt haha
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Sep 24, 2014 00:00
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waitwhatno posted:So what's up with Chinese people here in Germany not trying to learn the language? I swear some people have been living here for 4+ years without speaking a single word of German, just getting by with English. Everyone else, no matter where they come from, signs up for language lessons or at least gets some books when they come here. But not the Chinese. People have been saying this about Turks for like 10 years now.
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Sep 24, 2014 00:09
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In all fairness German is the only language I feel I wasted time studying, and I've done proto-indo-european.
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Sep 24, 2014 00:10
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Every Turk I met in Germany spoke German for what it's worth
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Sep 24, 2014 00:16
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So it's really nothing cultural? Then I guess it's just convenience, since everyone can speak English anyway.systran posted:I'm guessing most of them are enrolled in some degree program that is taught entirely in English and they have enough trouble with that so they don't want to bother with German Come on, it's hard work not to learn a single word in 4 years. computer parts posted:People have been saying this about Turks for like 10 years now. Turkish students and graduates speak German like champs. No complaints here. Ceciltron posted:In all fairness German is the only language I feel I wasted time studying Don't we all? At least you had a choice in that matter.
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Sep 24, 2014 00:21
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I'm not actually justifying them and I agree with you it's really weak, but I'm trying to explain their justification. They likely will also plan to move to Canada or something after they graduate or go back to China. There are also a lot of Chinese people here in the US who don't bother learning English! When you have Chinese bubbles and your PI and whole lab is Chinese, why bother?!
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Sep 24, 2014 00:23
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I know it's already been covered but man, the Ilham Tohti conviction is a load of poo poo. This is the most reasonable fuckin critic you could ask for, and wham, life in prison. Also for more on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama thing, the dudes own statement from 2 or 3 years ago covers his options pretty well: http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/753-statement-of-his-holiness-the-fourteenth-dalai-lama-tenzin-gyatso-on-the-issue-of-his-reincarnation It's important to note exactly how bad Beijing's handling of the Panchen Lama was- they essentially have a useless figurehead now rejected by the Tibetan public, while the real guy is languishing somewhere, hopefully not dead, since 1995. The lineage is pretty much hosed, which is a huge loss for Tibet considering how important the 10th Panchen Lama was in helping Tibet recover from the worst of the Mao years. The Dalai Lama would be crazy to allow Beijing to do that to his lineage, especially with Tibet on the ropes like it is now. The Dalai Lama is an extremely reasonable person and Beijing could sow this up pretty easily if they wanted, but today of all days I think we can all agree that Beijing doesn't want or care about being reasonable, especially where the ethnic minorities are concerned. I just don't think they understand that the death of the Dalai Lama still in exile isn't the end of their problems, but rather the start of new and in some ways much harder to manage problems that won't ever have a clear endpoint. This thing about Beijing wanting him to come back and go on pilgrimage to Wutai Shan is interesting, and would be a good way to start mending their relationship... if it were true. For now it's all just rumors and anonymous blog posts: http://www.savetibet.org/blog-on-dalai-lama-china-talks-posted-in-prc-prompts-speculation/
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Sep 24, 2014 00:25
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systran posted:I'm not actually justifying them and I agree with you it's really weak, but I'm trying to explain their justification. They likely will also plan to move to Canada or something after they graduate or go back to China. There are also a lot of Chinese people here in the US who don't bother learning English! When you have Chinese bubbles and your PI and whole lab is Chinese, why bother?! It's the same here in Korea, honestly. I know an Irish woman who has been here for 12 years, still hasn't learned Korean. Some people just cannot be bothered to learn a langauge.
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Sep 24, 2014 00:33
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I have a question about Alibaba and I do not know where ask to ask it, so here goes! How did Alibaba get so huge? They are basically an online market place, but they get all of their money by selling advertisements for... products they sell. Given that China censors the internet heavily, did Alibaba get so huge because other e-commerce sites were subject to censorship and Alibaba was treated more gently? Possibly because it paid taxes and/or bribes to the right people? I am genuinely curious for input on any or all of that. Am I right or way off base?
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Sep 24, 2014 01:59
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Diogines posted:I have a question about Alibaba and I do not know where ask to ask it, so here goes!  and so you needed a middleman to coordinate import/export stuff. Then they made the Chinese version of Ebay and Paypal.
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Sep 24, 2014 02:04
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Was their success a result of intervention by the Chinese government, or did they succeed on their own merits as it were? That is what I would really like to know.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:01
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It's Chinese Ebay that beat the real Ebay because of protectionism. I don't think Ebay was ever censored outright but they probably essentially refused to let Ebay do business in the PRC and/or gave very preferential treatment to Alibaba
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Sep 24, 2014 03:03
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Diogines posted:So they started in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan? Was their success a result of intervention by the Chinese government, or did they succeed on their own merits as it were? No, they started in China but the internet was a novel thing in 2000 in China so they were first to market. Their main business is selling poo poo from one business to another.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:05
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Alibaba created the online buying infrastructure in China; they are bigger than just eBay and PayPal. Alibaba started out as a business-side service connecting businesses to potential buyers, then built an escrow service and a consumer front-end. Taobao doesn't have quite the market dominance it once did but for a while it had most of China's e-commerce market. They may make money by selling ads, but they got there by building the whole e-commerce infrastructure and then decided how to monetize it. Taobao is the consumer-facing online marketplace, it's only one part of Alibaba's e-commerce empire.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:14
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It wasn't direct Chinese intervention. But the nature of the closed wall payment system of Union pay did protect alibaba. It's still hard for visa, master card, american express and even JCB to set up shot in China. People were still on dial up in early 2000's. Google and facebook were not blocked and almost non existent in China. The thing with these American tech companies is that the Asian market is more of an afterthought. It's only 2013 that Hong Kong could get transit directions with google maps. Anyways, yeah Jack Ma basically succeeded on his own. His product Alibaba was a business to business portal, linking manufacturers from China to US and the world for small to medium scale orders. Small import/export companies made their riches through the portal. His sales team initially had to pretend to speak with the thickest American accent and deny being a Chinese company because no one ever trusts Chinese companies. He also got some funding from venture capitalists a few years after and Yahoo was a big investor. With his seed money he just basically set up other clones, like the yelp clones, blog clones, twitter clones, etc. What made him really rich was setting up alipay and it's all over the country. It's a piece of poo poo Active X bloatware but you can practically pay for almost everything. You can instantly top up your cell phone credits, pay for hotel rooms on the spot and do bank transfers. Heck, even the alibaba financial products/mutual funds pays you through alipay. It's synonymous with other Bank transfer methods and there is probably some shady back room deal to make that happen. To his credit though, he popularized payment on delivery. You can inspect your item in front of the courier and then proceed to pay. So none of this buying a box of bricks funny business.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:25
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Diogines posted:Was their success a result of intervention by the Chinese government, or did they succeed on their own merits as it were? That is what I would really like to know. This comes off as rhetorical, almost. Almost every situation is Government Intervention.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:25
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augustus gluten posted:This comes off as rhetorical, almost. Almost every situation is Government Intervention.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:26
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quote:Literally everything on the Chinese internet is a piece of poo poo Active X bloatware but the Active X bloatware software 360 will let QQ install a bunch more spyware onto your Windows XP computer
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Sep 24, 2014 03:29
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waitwhatno posted:So what's up with Chinese people here in Germany not trying to learn the language? I swear some people have been living here for 4+ years without speaking a single word of German, just getting by with English. Everyone else, no matter where they come from, signs up for language lessons or at least gets some books when they come here. But not the Chinese. My experience in germany was that I would say poo poo in german and they'd reply to me in english. I'm sure after a while you'd stop giving a gently caress and just speak english
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Sep 24, 2014 03:29
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systran posted:Literally everything on the Chinese internet is a piece of poo poo Active X bloatware but the Active X bloatware software 360 will let QQ install a bunch more spyware onto your Windows XP computer
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Sep 24, 2014 03:38
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I was going to get a Xiao Mi (HK Edition) because they removed all the spyware, or so they said. Turns out the user's information is forwarded to a proxy in Singapore every 30 minutes so they hosed up again.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:41
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You forgot to say pirated XP  augustus gluten posted:I was going to get a Xiao Mi (HK Edition) because they removed all the spyware, or so they said. Turns out the user's information is forwarded to a proxy in Singapore every 30 minutes so they hosed up again. Yeah that was hilarious. Huge Barra had to step out and say "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK GUYS"  There's the OnePlusOne with Cyanogen as the default OS. On the other hand, I trust government brute force inefficiency than NSA's spy programs.
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Sep 24, 2014 03:48
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Peven Stan posted:My experience in germany was that I would say poo poo in german and they'd reply to me in english. I'm sure after a while you'd stop giving a gently caress and just speak english German shopkeepers probably just see a Chinese person and decide not to even attempt speaking German.
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Sep 24, 2014 04:01
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this NYT article implies this Ma fella is smart and has given stakes to protectors a few steps away from power, but this might not be of his own volition. IIRC Yahoo was squeezed out or any control years ago for this or that. Foreign investors are definitely throwing money in a hole.
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Sep 24, 2014 04:45
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computer parts posted:No, they started in China but the internet was a novel thing in 2000 in China so they were first to market. That was what they got big doing, but Taobao and maybe even Tmall and Alipay are more important now.
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Sep 24, 2014 05:53
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caberham posted:Yeah that was hilarious. Huge Barra had to step out and say "IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK GUYS" Tell me more about his huge barra
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Sep 24, 2014 05:53
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