China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Longanimitas posted:

More liberal than America's with regard to harmless drugs such as weed, shrooms, etc. Don't even mention opiates, though, even in casual company.

I'm not surprised about the opiates but I am surprised by the "harmless" drugs. I figured it would be more like Korea or Japan and have a huge stigma even on weed (while drinking like fish in Korea or secretly taking meth in Japan).

# ¿ Feb 17, 2012 01:35

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 11:32

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Farecoal posted:

Oh. And why would they use that instead of just using traditional characters?

There's a lot of characters and it could be done to romanize their language, as the Vietnamese and Turkish languages were. I'm not saying they should, but that is a reason.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2012 07:02

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

I remembered when I tutored some Korean professors in English (very smart guys, but their English needed some help), they would tell me about the Chinese claiming basically anyone who was of value and near the current Chinese border as being Chinese like Genghis Khan sometimes. I took this with a grain of salt because people sometimes get a bit defensive of their country's history but I could see it happening.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 04:32

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Modus Operandi posted:

All asian countries are full of ultra nationalistic ethnocentric fuckwits though. Revisionist history is like the norm. You should hear some historical "arguments" on various issues between NE/SE asian nations in matters of culture or territory. Sometimes it's hilarious and sad because of the blatant disregard of facts or reality. Like for instance Thais outright manufacture their history and it's full of magic and fantasy. Anything to avoid admitting that they might have been part of the Khmer empire.

Yeah I know that, it just gets to be a pain when people seem to fight more over who was what 5,000 years ago and it's fun to make fun of it while seeming to ignore a lot of the controversies from the last century. The fun thing is when basically all of Asia gets angry at a Japanese politician saying something very, very terrible.

# ¿ May 9, 2012 06:09

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Donraj posted:

God I hope you meant to say "Korean War"

No, South Korea did deploy forces in Vietnam during the Vietnam War at the urging of the United States. Korean deployments to Vietnam peaked at 50,000 with a total of 320,000 Korean soldiers at one point deployed in Vietnam, making it the largest deployment of foreign troops besides the United States.

ADDENDUM: The US paid the South Korean government, the Park Regime, $235 million for the deployment which ended up quintupling the GNP.

LP97S fucked around with this message at 07:43 on May 9, 2012

# ¿ May 9, 2012 07:41

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

shrike82 posted:

I can't speak to Korea but this is really NOT the case for Japan. ESL education in Japan is terrible, Japanese workers are terrible at English considering the amount of effort they've put into it and a section of blame should be apportioned at the private ESL industry. To be fair, it's largely due to the curriculum.

I can speak about Korea's ESL from some anecdotal experience, people do learn how to speak it pretty well and wit daily use and practice, like any language, can become quite fluent. Writing on the other hand can be a nightmare because I don't believe that they learn syntax properly. I won't blame this on the teachers or influx of westerners either, seeing the textbooks show that the course is often poorly written.

# ¿ May 22, 2012 16:55

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

whatever7 posted:

~~These morons are destroying Japanese cars in anti Japan rallies again. Sigh. I thought only people in backward inland cities do it. No, even kids in ShenZhen.~~

I don't know why you're shocked, anti-Japan sentiment is something that's drat near universal for many reasons, many terrible. Examples are abound like the constant stuff in Korea and the Japan Bashing of the 70's, 80's, and 90's in the US.

EDIT: I'm an idiot who over simplifies genocide and the allies coverup of Japanese warcrimes.

LP97S fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Aug 20, 2012

# ¿ Aug 19, 2012 21:36

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Fangz posted:

...

Comparing East Asian anti-Japanese sentiment to US racism is almost insultingly simplistic. You are ignoring the vast elephant in the room of massive genocide Japanese perpetrated against Chinese and Koreans, for which in the opinion of most they never properly atoned for, in part due to the realpolitik motivated leniency exhibited by the US. Part of the whole business with the Pinnacle islands issue is that, in the view of the Chinese and Taiwanese, they were conceded by Japan following their surrender (Potsdam convention stipulated that "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine", 'we' including the Chinese), but that the US unilaterally decided to give the islands to the Japanese.

EDIT:

A lot of people think this is about oil and gas. From my understanding, it's not. The current known gas reserves in the area (if my sums are correct), are worth only 5-20 billion dollars, depending on the gas price. Which is tiny compared to China-Japan trade. Barring a *large* discovery in the future, this dispute is all about pride, not economics.

EDIT: The original post is over simplistic and makes me look like a poo poo head, I'll try to explain it below.

I understand those current issues, I also understand that the US flat out massacred hundreds of thousands of Japanese and even got ready for their genocide later in the war but still bitched about them getting off too easily. You're also ignoring the realpolitik of the Cold War where suddenly there was communist China, it wasn't the US "being lenient" it was the US "wanting to gently caress the Soviets". Like wise, the Japanese lost Formosa, the Korean Peninsula, and the Kurils from a time where the rest of the world was stealing poo poo left and right as well.

EDIT: I'm an idiot who over simplifies genocide and the allies coverup of Japanese warcrimes.

LP97S fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Aug 20, 2012

# ¿ Aug 19, 2012 23:41

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

You're right, I'm being a complete loving idiot about this. Sorry for casually linking two very unlike things.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2012 00:08

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

shrike82 posted:

I honestly don't think the Japanese electorate gives a poo poo about Senkaku.

As been mentioned, the electorate matter very little in modern affairs. The big question is if there's any actual oil or gas resources under the hunk of rock, because both China and Japan, thanks to their boneheaded new energy policy, need that oil and gas if it exists.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2012 06:52

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Grand Fromage posted:

I bet people would be a little more willing to consider it if China hadn't just finished trying a bald-faced bullshit land grab in the South China Sea. Makes it look like their strategy is going around making nonsense claims on any island vaguely near China that might have natural gas deposits, whatever the validity of their claims here might be.

This could be a factor, particularly with the Battle of the Parcel Islands on 14 January 1974 between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Vietnam. The battle concluded with the PRC gaining control and occupying all of the Parcel Islands, formerly under the control of the Republic of Vietnam. The battle was memorialized with a propaganda film called Storm of the South Sea (南海风云).
To this day, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (successor state created after the defeat of the Republic of Vietnam by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) maintains that this and the next set of islands are part of Vietnam.

On 14 March 1988 the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam fought what is called the Johnson South Reef Skirmish where the Johnson South Reef, held by Vietnam since 1975, was attacked and eventually occupied by the PRC. Currently, both of these groups of islands are under the administration of the People's Republic of China currently under the newly created Sansha city which itself is part of the Hainan Province.

Apologies for any incorrect Chinese, I am merely copy and pasting the Chinese.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2012 08:49

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Arglebargle III posted:

Speaking of just-so stories, you would not believe how many times I get the "Asian eyes are squinty because of snow" story. Whenever I debunk it (my old evolutionary biology teacher would be dishonored if I didn't try) I get condescending explanations about how no, really, "we" know this and I don't understand evolution.

Because natural selection is a purposeful process that always leads to intuitively satisfying developments! AND natural selection is the only force that operates on evolution, because it's the only one I've heard of!

I hate to ask but what's the actual reason? I never took a college level biology course and looking it up leads to either the 'snow' argument or details of Mongoloid features in the year of our lord 2012.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2012 13:44

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Arglebargle III posted:

NO DATA

It could be that there was a selection pressure from trying to see in bright snow, could be sexual selection, could be a random mutation that got promoted by a founder effect, could be genetic drift, could probably be a wide variety of other things that I don't even know about. I only took the one course on evolution. I know enough to know that finding a "why" for a change in phenotype that happened hundreds of thousands of years ago is a fool's errand.

Some parts of DNA are "not highly conserved" which basically means they're not very important. If your eyelid takes on a slightly different shape and still works fine, natural selection likely won't care.

Thanks for the info, not too surprised there with how common people are genetically.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2012 14:01

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Since this is the China thread, can I ask for the Chinese reaction to American-Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen's Dry Bones Project? In case you're wondering what it is, I'll let the website do the talking.

Crazy Racist Cartoonist posted:

Dry Bones Project is a tax-deductible project of Report Org

The mission of Dry Bones Project is, through research and analysis, to create an educational outreach to advance popular understanding and to correct willful rewriting of history. The project intends to do so by means of cartoons, cartoon history books, and other works and through educational lectures.

History is being rewritten to portray Israel as a colonial State built on the lands of the indigenous people, the Palestinian Arabs. This willful erasing of 3,500 years of Israel's history has not yet infected the 1.3 billion Chinese.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2012 08:58

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Deceitful Penguin posted:

Hahahahahaha, wow, an entire 3 days, why, whatever will they do with all that time?

Just a fun reminder, that is still infinitely more time than one can take in the US.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 01:35

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

It would be quite a thing China piss away it's entire standing in Asia and see nations like the Philippines and Vietnam support Japan on an issue.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 10:38

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Bloodnose posted:

Pretty sure he's referencing this ironically.

Anyway, check out this badass new game:

Apparently the Global Times made it. It's called "Take Back the Diaoyus." "The Chinese nation's determination to protect the Diaoyu Islands is unwavering!" I haven't tried it yet. Like most Chinese games, it probably sucks. Especially if it was in fact developed by a nationalist newspaper.

They've gone from making the movie Storm of the South Sea after stealing islands by force and now just make flash games about wanting to, man the propaganda isn't as good as it used to be.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2013 02:48

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

InspectorBloor posted:

Oh, semantics. The word socialism doesn't mean the same to an european as to an american or chinese or russian. Communists and social democrats will refer to themselves as socialists, but the meaning is different.

No, it's not semantics it's just knowing what the hell the word means. If I started calling Deng's philosophy "Two Dogs" it wouldn't be right.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2013 20:24

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Looks like the thread title been made into a comic, courtesy of the political cartoons thread.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 03:15

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

Torka posted:

That sounds hilarious, care to elaborate?

Older comic books (First Superman, first X-Men, etc) were valuable due to their rarity and were often sold at auctions for lots of money. Soon everyone is either buying up the old ones or trying to sell old ones and with the help of speculators for a brief year value of comics exploded. Seeing a chance to make money, the comic industries flooded the market with one issue with four diffent covers and special editions and by 1995 the comic market was wiped out with both DC and Marvel nearly going under and the two biggest distributors merging to prevent dying out altogether.

Here's a good article about it.

LP97S fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Sep 28, 2013

# ¿ Sep 28, 2013 06:04

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 11:32

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

WarpedNaba posted:

I can sorta believe that. If it's been planned for years, so have the other 200 or so plans by competing internal agencies.

Judging by South Seas I think one plan is just a guy in the back saying "Okay, what if this is all a dream?".

# ¿ Nov 10, 2013 20:32

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