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*overlooking slummy industrial wasteland stretching in all directions over the horizon* i am going to sell so much insurance
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Feb 16, 2017 03:10
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You want to sell handbags or French wine or whisky or something though, gangbusters.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:22
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hakimashou posted:Some of my favorite people I've known have been Chinese people, it's still an objectively terrible soul-crushing place though, and my response to it is to feel sorry for my Chinese friends. Agreed, when you find good people in China they're almost extraordinarily good, I guess it takes a special person to be able to beat and see through all the brainwashing and cultural pressures.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:24
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Fojar38 posted:*overlooking slummy industrial wasteland stretching in all directions over the horizon* My grandfather worked for AIG back when they mostly did business in China. They sold this weird policy which would cover your child against injury but only if they were wearing a special hat at the time of the accident. So the hat was basically a status symbol to show your parents are rich. Seemed to me like it might be counterproductive and increase the odds of the kid getting beaten up. 
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Feb 16, 2017 03:27
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Grand Fromage posted:You want to sell handbags or French wine or whisky or something though, gangbusters. PBR is a quality brand in China.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:27
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Glenn Quebec posted:But that date with your friend is the U.S. saying equivalent of two fifteen year olds dating. Pizza and then safe PG bed cuddling? I'd rather be alone than deal with that. Pirate Radar posted:To be fair to Haier, China's the last place you could have an excuse for being grossed out by a period. Like, hear me out--nobody should be grossed out, but if there's anywhere you really shouldn't, it's China. Haier posted:Puking AND making GBS threads AND menstruation oohhboy posted:Bloody hell, now I am coughing up this nasty poo poo from my lungs along with an almost perpetually slightly runny/bleeding nose. The air in this city really doesn't want me here. I had some expectations of pollution, but this is getting ridiculous with the symptoms at a "mild" 60 -70. Probably would have choked to death had I went up into mainland China. I would expect someone from NZ to have problems though. If you stay long enough it's just smoking, where your lungs get used to the garbage and you don't feel so gross all the time.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:28
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Grand Fromage posted:Well, don't forget that life has improved significantly for a lot of the population (the urban one mainly) but there's still hundreds of millions of people in grinding rural poverty who ain't consuming poo poo. Urban and rural China are different planets. Sorry I forgot to quote the guy, I meant it in relation to the guy who was suspect about how much of china's production is consumed inside China. The sheer numbers involved explain why China can produce and consume so much stuff domestically.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:31
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I'm glad they didnt have all this AQI poo poo to obsess over when I lived there. The first two years I was there buffeted the olympics so they had made some effort to clean up the air I guess. As with everything else in China I have no trouble believing it has gotten much worse. I remember reading ages ago somewhere some expat businessman dude smoked the fancy expensive cigarettes with the humongous long filters because he figured even breathing in cigarette smoke through that filter was healthier than breathing pure unfiltered Beijing air.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:34
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Haier's stories all make me happy with my decision to never live in and spend as little time as possible in Shenzhen.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:35
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Here is a bit of Hong Kong logic for you guys. I keep getting told that I should always go eat at a place that has a people queuing outside. The problem with this is that people here will queue for just about anything and the genesis of a queue and the length of it has nothing to do with the quality of the establishment or the purpose. The only time going into a long queue makes sense is when you already know the place you are going to is famous or excellent. But I get told to line up in random queues all the same because there must be something good at the end of it!
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Feb 16, 2017 03:35
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McGavin posted:PBR is a quality brand in China. I don't think I've ever actually had PBR but if it were a choice between that or Snow, I can believe it.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:37
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Vesi posted:Agreed, when you find good people in China they're almost extraordinarily good, I guess it takes a special person to be able to beat and see through all the brainwashing and cultural pressures. This is very true. Haier posted:The AQI was lke 90 yesterday afternoon, which is not so bad. I also had a walk yesterday afternoon and sat in the sun for a while, so I could see how less the pollution was. Somehow I did get a sore throat that started around 6pm and now I feel like a Chinese person and avoiding cold drinks because of my throat. 50 multi-steep tea bags of barley tea for 25 RMB was a good deal to help me. Hahaha, I keep ordering cold water or hell just non-hot tap water and I get either confusion, deer in headlights moment, being forced to think of a novel solution, the odd death glare or a combination of the above. gently caress Hot water, I can't drink that. I have had only one place that has given me cold water in the form of a cup of ice so I can pour the hot water into. When I asked for more they smarten up and did the pour hot water on ice for me. I drink a lot of water as walking around so much makes me thirsty made worse by the "Cold" weather. I have no really idea what girls here in Hong Kong want. My western preconceptions are next to useless here and I am obviously not/asking the right questions. I am likely over eager as I am just happy to talk to someone new and boning is a bonus. Any of you goons have any useful input? When I was a kid when ever we went out to eat Dim Sum the relatives would always wash the utensils in hot tea usually making a mess. Cue me having Dim Sum with Popo finding that they have formalised the practise by bringing a large bowl so you can do this without making a mess. I know it was "Hygiene" thing but now it is a ritual into itself and one only done at Dim Sum for older folks. My Aunt didn't do it when we went to eat Best Duck but that might have been because we were in a hurry and that it was a top end restaurant.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:53
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oohhboy posted:Here is a bit of Hong Kong logic for you guys. That kind of thing is true on the mainland as well. Not long after I first got to china, a chinese guy invited me and two other foreigners to go from Guangzhou to Guilin/Yangshuo with him during the national day holiday. He had a little car and offered to drive. It was a nightmarish trip because he refused to take the toll freeways, instead arguing with his GPS and navigating by memory along 18 hours of lovely countryside roads. Oncoming traffic would flash its brights to 'say hi' every time they passed, which lead to a splitting terrible headache for hours. He dropped us off in Yangshuo and went to go get drunk all weekend with his buddies from college in Guilin. For the ride back, he was hungover/still drunk/sleep deprived, and at one point all the traffic was held up by people pulling over and stopping in the middle of the road in some village. "Oh," he said, "there must be something very interesting here, haha" "Yeah, haha" we laughed, thinking we had found self-effacing Chinese Sarcasm. Then he pulled the car over, and seeing we were perplexed, repeated: "There must be something interesting here." It was dried persimmons.
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Feb 16, 2017 03:54
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Vesi posted:Agreed, when you find good people in China they're almost extraordinarily good, I guess it takes a special person to be able to beat and see through all the brainwashing and cultural pressures. I've found this to be true across East Asia. People don't give a gently caress about strangers but once you're in the in group, you are in and people will go to lengths for you that seem almost sarcastically absurd.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:00
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oohhboy posted:Bloody hell, now I am coughing up this nasty poo poo from my lungs along with an almost perpetually slightly runny/bleeding nose. The air in this city really doesn't want me here. I had some expectations of pollution, but this is getting ridiculous with the symptoms at a "mild" 60 -70. Probably would have choked to death had I went up into mainland China. If you're coughing up stuff then either you have a non-pollution related issue or the pollution is higher where you are (probably this one). 60-70 is what most cities are in general just cuz of cars and congestion. Just checking a map now London is 60 right now and Brussels is 70, Paris is close to 80. I mean it's still not good in the long run but if 60-80 caused major, immediate issues like 200+ can you'd hear about it way more. Meanwhile I'd kill for 70 lol it's been around 200+ for the last few months where I am and HEPA filters are starting to get expensive. I think I posted this here before but this is what the filters look like for the smaller purifiers in my office when we change them, new on the left and used for like 2~ months on the right. 
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Feb 16, 2017 04:03
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hakimashou posted:Haier's stories all make me happy with my decision to never live in and spend as little time as possible in Shenzhen. In my experience, all the insane people here are from Hunan and are ruining the city. I will never regret my decision to choose anywhere else over this place in China. This will be the last and only city I will spend time in in this country, since this may be the final time I ever come to China. It's weird to me to say that, because it's like one of those abusive relationships that are hard to leave, but sometimes you have to load up the Chevy at midnight and flee while they're passed out drunk. #whyistayed
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Feb 16, 2017 04:09
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Xiamen, Qingdao, and Dalian are all supposed to be pretty nice and clean too. Actually the longer I've lived here the more I run into people who've lived all over and Dalian comes up a lot as a nice city, people often regret leaving.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:13
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Thank you for your little story hakimashou. I had a good laugh. I haven't been dragged into a queue yet but people haven't had much opportunity to do that to me yet. I have to get the Return Home Permit paperwork started and I dread the terribleness that is CTS especially compared to the Hong Kong government offices which are efficient paper work machines. Magna Kaser posted:If you're coughing up stuff then either you have a non-pollution related issue or the pollution is higher where you are (probably this one). 60-70 is what most cities are in general just cuz of cars and congestion. Just checking a map now London is 60 right now and Brussels is 70, Paris is close to 80. I mean it's still not good in the long run but if 60-80 caused major, immediate issues like 200+ can you'd hear about it way more.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:14
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Haier posted:IMO for the way I live (can't be stuck indoors too much), Shenzhen is the best Mainland mega-city just because the weather, the less-frantic mood, and promiximity to Hong Kong (especially cheaper flights out of their airport). The air is generally better than any place where it gets cold, but the year-round sunshine is the best part. Instead of being stuck inside half the year because the air will kill you and the cold is biting, you can usually get away with a t-shirt here about 10 months out of 12, and there's tons of parks and places to be outside. Because it's so new, much of the city is laid out in a very easy to navigate grid, and there are so many landmarks you can see that it's difficult to get lost. The people are pretty chill. I thought everyone was a giant insufferable rear end in a top hat in Shanghai (including the expatz), but they are more mellow down here (still assholes though) It always just struck me as this jiade hong kong anthill of strivers and mistresses of rich old chinese dudes and miserable people far from their homes. At least in other guangdong cities where you get similar weather and stuff, you find lots of local people everywhere since they are real actual cities going back into the past. Easy access to HK is a plus though. I spent some time staying with a friend who lived in whatever part of Shenzhen is by the other border crossing with HK, where they have the soviet aircraft carrier, not the big main one. It was quieter and kinda nice over there. E: I looked it up, Shatoujiao/Sha tau kok This thread does make me pretty nostalgic for the good times in China sometimes, but there are also all the bad times, and I seriously doubt I'll ever go there again. I spent a month doing a project in HK and met up with an American friend there from my time in the mainland several years before, and we decided to get china visas and go spend a weekend in our old stomping ground. When we got there it was all different, super congested with cars, and just not the same. She said we were like ghosts haunting it. We got our money back from the hotel for the second night's room, used it to pay one of the taxi drivers outside to take us to Zhuhai and then spent a day in Macau and went back home. That was the last time I was in the PRC and probably will be, forever. hakimashou fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 04:15
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I live in Victoria and when I go over to Vancouver I sometimes cough and my lungs get fussy at all the *pollution* in the big city, had the same issue in a lot of europe too. I think Chinese air would kill me in seconds?
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Feb 16, 2017 04:20
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Baronjutter posted:I live in Victoria and when I go over to Vancouver I sometimes cough and my lungs get fussy at all the *pollution* in the big city, had the same issue in a lot of europe too. I think Chinese air would kill me in seconds? China plays the long game, so no. But dyong painfully from cancer is a real possibility!
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Feb 16, 2017 04:40
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Baronjutter posted:I live in Victoria and when I go over to Vancouver I sometimes cough and my lungs get fussy at all the *pollution* in the big city, had the same issue in a lot of europe too. I think Chinese air would kill me in seconds? Beijing good for healthy https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/feb/14/are-you-at-risk-how-pollution-increases-your-chance-of-death-interactive 
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Feb 16, 2017 04:53
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Cool they have my city Why is my town so bad for hearts??
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Feb 16, 2017 04:56
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Fojar38 posted:thanks bro How does face culture interact with canadian culture in canada? We Canadians famously apologize for everything for the sake of social harmony. For example, if two people bump into each other in a crowd or whatever, usually both will immediately say "Sorry" and if either one said something like "Why don't you watch where you're going?" that guy is now the rear end in a top hat regardless of who is at fault for the original problem. Apologizing doesn't cause you to lose face, and being aggressive doesn't let you gain face. Rich or poor, everyone makes perfunctory apologies all the time. Seems like that might be contrary to the social habits of mainlanders.
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Feb 16, 2017 05:06
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In Taiwan stores will literally pay marketing companies to send people to queue to generate that effect. If you can't measure the wait to enter a place on the grand opening in hours it's a failure.
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Feb 16, 2017 05:09
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i actually haven't had anyone be explicitly rude to me in that way; basic common courtesy seems to apply about as evenly as it does to anyone this is probably because we are not in china and the sense i get from a lot of mainland students is that they spend most of their time spooked as hell, while immigrants who actually live here tend to be just as friendly as anyone else i have noticed the same trends everyone else noticed though; you can tell if a student is an overseas student from mainland china or a second generation immigrant based on the fact that the former are pretty insular and rarely speak up in class while the latter are outgoing and inquisitive and interact with people who are not of chinese descent on a regular basis of their own choosing lots of people are annoyed by the chinese new money in their fancy cars and poo poo but that doesnt bother me because new money with fancy cars acting like assholes is par for the course in toronto
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Feb 16, 2017 05:12
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Grand Fromage posted:Well, don't forget that life has improved significantly for a lot of the population (the urban one mainly) but there's still hundreds of millions of people in grinding rural poverty who ain't consuming poo poo. Urban and rural China are different planets. also like half the urban population are old people that devote huge chunks of their day to rummaging through trash bins (public and private) for empty bottles to make fractions of a yuan or lining up for at least an hour to get some free cheap cooking oil or save a few pennies on a bag full of eggs edit: christ did i really just write 'pennies' LentThem fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 05:13
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Atlas Hugged posted:In Taiwan stores will literally pay marketing companies to send people to queue to generate that effect. If you can't measure the wait to enter a place on the grand opening in hours it's a failure. "Mister Donut is the good one, it always has a line" --a girl I knew in Taiwan, also me about other stuff, I trust the lines
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Feb 16, 2017 05:14
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LentThem posted:also like half the urban population are old people that devote huge chunks of their day to rummaging through trash bins (public and private) for empty bottles to make fractions of a yuan or lining up for at least an hour to get some free cheap cooking oil or save a few pennies on a bag full of eggs yeah what gets overlooked in the "new chinese urban middle class" is that "middle class" is a relative term and middle class in China is still below the poverty line by western standards when you hear stuff like "china lifted 800 million out of poverty!" that actually means "800 million people are now living on more than $1.90 a day" if you make $1.91 a day then the data classifies you as middle class even the wealthiest of the urban "middle class" only make about $4500 a year which is uh kind of a problem if you are trying to sell playstations for $400
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Feb 16, 2017 05:17
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BCR posted:Beijing good for healthy Some say he's still killing to this day... 
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Feb 16, 2017 05:48
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At least with cantonese people I always took their advice on what is delicious very seriously, they are very serious about delicious food. Years later, I still endure cognitive effects from China. When pumping gas or doing other things with numbers, I avoid 4 and 7 and seek out 8s. Lot of the time if I notice i'm low on gas I'll try to put 8.88 gallons in my car, maybe it is very lucky ah. Speaking of lucky things, one night I was trying to get a couple of Chinese guys to explain to me what was bad about 'seeing a ghost,' since they say "jiangui' or "see ghost" the same way we say "damnit!" in english. They thought about it for a while and one of them concluded that maybe in fact if you see a ghost, it is very lucky. hakimashou fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 06:05
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hakimashou posted:Speaking of lucky things, one night I was trying to get a couple of Chinese guys to explain to me what was bad about 'seeing a ghost,' since they say "jiangui' or "see ghost" the same way we say "damnit!" in english. I don't know, but my wife still gets super annoyed at me whenever I bring up ghosts, especially ghosts of her relatives.
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Feb 16, 2017 06:26
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Fojar38 posted:when you hear stuff like "china lifted 800 million out of poverty!" that actually means "800 million people are now living on more than $1.90 a day" True to an extent but China really has shifted a huge number of people into a reasonably comfortable situation. I mean in 1980 literally everyone was dirt poor and now somewhere between a third and a half of the country is doing okay. Not rich but relatively speaking there's no argument that it isn't better. China's not unique in that though, a lot of Asian countries have been doing that--South Korea is a good example. The thing is the CCP taking credit for it when they were the reason everything was hosed and things only started getting better when Deng Xiaoping had the bright idea of "hey, maybe let's stop and just let people get on with their lives how they want" and oh wow all of a sudden things turned right around. But I do try to keep it mind when people here are positive about the party. Anyone in China older than 20 has seen enormous improvement in their quality of life and doesn't get outside information so it's hard to blame them.
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Feb 16, 2017 06:32
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Fojar38 posted:*spends 12 years trying to get into chinese market because there are so many potential customers* Heh, I was just about to post this: https://twitter.com/DeIirus/status/831900993029808128
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Feb 16, 2017 06:59
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The boss's daughter was sitting in the office reading an illustrated children's maps of the world book (she's almost 12). I swear I have seen the same book in English, but this is in Chinese and is probably just a copied version. Each huge page has a drawing of the country, with drawings of the people, their names, foods, famous things, what they did in history, etc. She opens it to the UK, and there is Shakespeare, the Queen, and a section with some of the sports they invented (football, tennis, badminton, ping pong). I point out ping pong and badminton and say "look, these aren't Chinese inventions, but Chinese people love them." She doesn't want to believe, but the book is presenting it to her in her own language, so it must be real. We turn some pages and arrive at Greece, showing some famous philosophers and other things, and I tell her Greece was very important in history and influenced many other countries, and even some of the English words she uses have Greek origin. Ok, that was going too far! Her: "So? It is not the most important country, and has the most difficult language in the world!" Me: "What is the most important country? What is difficult language in the world?" Her: "China and Chinese." Me: "Who says?" Her: "In school we learn about Chinese history, and we learn it is the most important country in the world. The world learn so many things from China. To speak Chinese language is the most difficult in the world." Me: "They really teach you this?" Her: "Yes. We can only learn Chinese if we are born here, because it is too difficult to learn." Me: "That's not true at all." Her: "China is famous!" We turn some more pages and there's Italy. I point out Rome and mention how Rome was influential in the world, and also influenced by Greece. There's a drawing of pizza and she points to it. Her: "Chinese invented pizza!" Me: "Chinese don't even eat cheese." Her: "We learned Chinese invented pizza. That man... he come to China for a long time..." Me: "Marco Polo?" Her: "Yes. He love Chinese food so much and when he left China he could not eat Chinese food, so he make baozi at home but it was bad, so they call it pizza." Me: "No." Her: "And Chinese invented paper. If China didn't make paper, nobody would learn anything on Earth because nowhere to write it." Me: "Your school isn't good." Her: "We learned!" So, if you're wondering why they think people outside of China don't have food and can't cook (because they never invented cooking, duh), just think that hundreds of millions of Chinese kids are being taught that the world would literally be full of Cavemen if it weren't for China's blessing all of the savages. I also enjoy talking some basic non-Chinese history with Chinese adults, because every single time I am told "We didn't learn about other places, and we only had a short time to learn about China's history."
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Feb 16, 2017 07:20
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Jesus, it's like Richard Kipling wrote a curriculum.
WarpedNaba fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 07:26
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WarpedNaba posted:Jesus, it's like Richard Kipling wrote an curriculum. The famous author of Rocky Tickey Taffy and The Bungle Book.
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Feb 16, 2017 07:29
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Grand Fromage posted:True to an extent but China really has shifted a huge number of people into a reasonably comfortable situation. I mean in 1980 literally everyone was dirt poor and now somewhere between a third and a half of the country is doing okay. Not rich but relatively speaking there's no argument that it isn't better. China's not unique in that though, a lot of Asian countries have been doing that--South Korea is a good example. sure, i was referring more to the fact that you get op-eds and statistics that say "China has a huge middle class!" and your average joe thinks that means that 800 million chinese now live lifestyles equivalent to the american or european middle class gently caress, apparently even corporate ceos think this
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Feb 16, 2017 07:31
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Magna Kaser posted:If you're coughing up stuff then either you have a non-pollution related issue or the pollution is higher where you are (probably this one). 60-70 is what most cities are in general just cuz of cars and congestion. Just checking a map now London is 60 right now and Brussels is 70, Paris is close to 80. I mean it's still not good in the long run but if 60-80 caused major, immediate issues like 200+ can you'd hear about it way more. Is this real? How are people going around without constantly hacking up coal dust?
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Feb 16, 2017 07:32
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Fojar38 posted:sure, i was referring more to the fact that you get op-eds and statistics that say "China has a huge middle class!" and your average joe thinks that means that 800 million chinese now live lifestyles equivalent to the american or european middle class Oh yeah. There are those people but it's a minority of the population. Chengdu's average income is about 4,000 RMB a month last I saw, which is roughly $600. I am not sure how people manage on that. Cost of living here is lower than anywhere else I've been but even so that ain't going to go far. I guess a bunch of roommates in a lovely apartment. I budget around 3500-4000 a month to live on (student loans are great  ) and it's doable, but that's like my disposable income budget for food/entertainment/etc. Rent and bills I take out of a different segment of my mad dollaz.
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Feb 16, 2017 07:35
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