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Seeing as there's a Taobao recommendation in the OP and I am still an idiot tourist despite living in this country 2 years, is there any way we could get a guide on how to register an account on Taobao/Alipay? When I've tried it seems that not having a Chinese ID number is an impassible barrier to using Taobao.
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Jun 20, 2013 03:33
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 18:00 |
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I'm actually buying internet service for the first time after living in China for two years so I get to post in the thread like a stupid newbie. How do I bought internet?  A Chinese friend advises me that the community service is the best price:performance deal but neglected to mention where to go to actually buy internet and how they hook it up and do I need my own wireless router or will they provide one?
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Jun 25, 2013 03:33
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Good luck Gapultos, we're all pulling for you!
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Jul 1, 2013 15:55
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What kind of coffee?? Good brewed coffee or Nescafe 特别 ~为农民~ Special Deluxe VIP Blend
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Jul 9, 2013 06:51
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Longanimitas posted:Being in a similar boat, I found that I could usually make myself understood when speaking putonghua, and would even get comments like "your Mandarin is better than mine" from the locals. People will tell you that this is flattering nonsense but sometimes when you're told "nlei di putonghua bi ngo men suo di haohao." you can't really disagree.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:54
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It's supposed to be Mandarin with a bad Changsha accent. Sichuan doesn't have the ng initial and I don't think I've heard de change to di here.
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 16:20
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Hunan or Xiang dialect is one of the southern dialects so its not surprising they share sounds.Magna Kaser posted:Arglebargle ain't guai enough to sichuanhua like a pro. He don't qio things like true chengdu mo'fos, just another meiguizi in town. This is true though. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 11:30
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In the interest of good taste I hope someone steals that and dumps it in the bay.
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Jul 17, 2013 05:07
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No you can't go with a Russian-American because they will blow up your boston marathon. Russian-America is already not safe. We country still good.
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Jul 19, 2013 16:14
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The Worst Muslim posted:What the gently caress? 俄美国已经不安全了，我国还好。 I was trying to parody an wumao but apparently I'm psychic or something because CHINA IS ALREADY NOT SAFE LE!!!
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Jul 20, 2013 15:02
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"You look down and you see an Englishman, Leon." "Englishman? What's that?" "... you know what a foreigner is?" "'Course." "Same thing." "I've never seen a foreigner. But I understand what you mean." GuestBob posted:"An old lady is taking a poo poo in the street. And You're not helping Leon. Why aren't you helping?" "Describe, in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother." "My mother? Let me tell you about my mother." "She has a round face and two big eyes, and a big big smell."
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Jul 21, 2013 17:29
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Oh man Elysium is coming out in October and its art direction is being done by the same guy who did Blade Runner and at least one pre-screener has called it better than Bladerunner and I am so stoked. edit: Bloodnose I'm reporting you for being a backseat mod! My dad is SB35! Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jul 22, 2013 |
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Jul 22, 2013 03:43
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Wow, that's verging on unenforceable as written. Knowing China it will not be enforced as a rule, and only ever be enforced when somebody wants something.
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Jul 23, 2013 15:02
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BadAstronaut posted:Also: that holiday schedule thing sounds crazy and horribly inhibitive if you like to actually go away on your off days. Yes it is. It's also actually a new policy that started in the mid 2000s, so Chinese people hate it too. Weekend makeup days are universally loathed and even if 100% of the staff comes into work there is an unspoken understanding that very little will get done. Stupid weekend makeup days.
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Jul 25, 2013 03:26
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DontAskKant posted:Wait, does this mean that in China 40/45/50 minute classes don't equal 1 hour? You guys work more than I thought you do, or rather I work less. A few places in Korea do it that weird way, that's how I got stuck teaching 40 classes when I only actually taught 30 hours. Sneaky Christian bastards. That's balls, you shouldn't even be teaching 30 hours a week much less 40 classes packed into 30 hours. I think the worst part of this education boom is the huge number of managers with no idea how teaching works. You can't schedule 30 hours of class in a week without having a 50-60 hour workweek or just throwing quality out the window.
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Jul 25, 2013 17:20
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I just did something genuinely stupid. I bought a grey market Samsung Galaxy S4 from "foreign" (from the plug looks like Korea) for Y3760 but the catch is it's GSM only. I promptly went down to the China Telecom place to get it set up and was told their 3G network is CDMA only and I can't get the broadband-3G package deal that I was planning to. So I laid down $600 on a brand new non-3G phone. The lesson here: don't trust random coworker whose old gaming buddy works at a cell phone store. Trust caberham. I'm going to play around with it and see how much the roaming internet costs but if the service sucks I will likely end up dropping another $300 on the Xiaomi caberham recommended. The Galaxy S4 is a sunk cost.  The only consolation is the grey market Galaxy S4 and the Xiaomi phone together will end up costing the same amount as a full-price Galaxy S4.Oh well now I have a really nice phone... for when I'm in the states. One more motivation to get that master's degree. 
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 10:25
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Tom Smykowski posted:That sucks, where'd you go? TaishanNan Lu or whatever by Chunxi lu? Yup. Helpful people, you are on notice! 
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Jul 26, 2013 10:55
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I'm aware of this possibility and I'll check them out tomorrow; originally I had discounted them because they haven't rolled out their fiber in my area yet so I can't get internet+phone through them. Two fiber networks, holy poo poo is fiber not a natural monopoly? 
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Jul 26, 2013 13:27
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My old place on the 3rd ring road had a pool. It's not weird.
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Jul 27, 2013 08:09
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DontAskKant posted:The bigger shock is... The Chinese can swim? I don't think I know any Koreans who can. Only small children with floatation devices. The adults stand or just stay out of the pool. Hopefully the next generation will teach itself to swim. 
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Jul 27, 2013 08:52
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Tom Smykowski posted:Every goddamn convenience store in Chengdu is only putting expensive waters in the coolers. Like 15rmb. Cheap beers in the cooler, though. I need ideas for what to do tomorrow. Are you guys in the city at all this weekend? Because Jeoh is here.
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Jul 27, 2013 15:28
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Eat This Glob posted:Long shot, but is anyone here familiar with rural Hebei Provence? I'm going over for a trade conference between Iowa and the provence as the international correspondent for my (two person writing staff) weekly newspaper. My boss - the other writer - was originally going to go, but doesn't want to any more, so I'm off to China for a week to write about people talking about pork, soybeans, and corn. I don't have an itinerary yet, but if you wouldn't mind me bouncing some general questions off you, send me a PM, or let me know where I can email you! White wine is not white wine, it's white liquor. If you are offered white wine, be aware that it is a translation error that has somehow become codified in the education system. It's mostly 100 proof and mostly terrible. No matter how much you drink they will pressure you to drink more. You cannot actually avoid refusing at some point. This will be important to you. What Rocknrollahayatollah said, offer to drink beer instead. Really the whole baijiu pressure drinking thing is the worst thing to try on newly arrived foreigners. It's like some Chinese guys were sitting around trying to think of how to provoke and offend Americans. "Let's get an American who has a much stronger sense of self-respect and fairness than the average Chinese, put him in a room, and pressure him to get drunk while making ever-more flimsy pretenses to excuse ourselves from drinking. This COULDN'T POSSIBLY BACKFIRE." I've been to a banquet where the petty bureaucrats were all pissy and disapproving afterwards because the Canadian they managed to get drunk became openly contemptuous of them, his hosts. I guess I was more acclimatized to the culture because I managed to only be quietly contemptuous of them to the people sitting next to me. There needs to be a bulletin for Chinese men who interact with foreigners that standard behavior at banquets is likely to cause an incident. Come to think of it, I don't get it even with Chinese people. The people sitting at the head of the table pressuring people to drink and openly laughing at their protests and drunken antics must have been in the other place before. They have to be aware on some level that nobody else is having fun. Maybe I've just been to the wrong banquets but the pressure to drink and the obvious abuse of power relationships makes what should be a nice evening turn into something I can't enjoy. I guess the solution is just to go eat with your friends and try to avoid any institutional banquets. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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Aug 1, 2013 04:51
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Big Alf posted:Though that said, I have never seen what you described happen before. Glad you felt qualified to comment then!  It's not Americans being unable to handle their alcohol, it's getting Americans drunk WHILE putting Americans in a difficult cross-cultural situation. The Chinese culturally acceptable thing is to roll over and take whatever unfair bullshit your host is putting you through. The American culturally acceptable thing is to call your host on the fact that he's pressuring you to drink and lying his rear end off (just one more, just a little bit, I'll have one too, these are all lies that Chinese people stop even noticing) and clearly not drinking when he said he would. This is a bad idea unless the Chinese host wants to leave grumpily muttering about how the Americans were "rude" i.e. failed to adapt to his culture's most offensive aspects to Americans... while drunk. Seriously turn the situation around, if you were hosting Chinese or Japanese guests would you put them in such a culturally difficult situation or insinuate that it's their fault for not reacting in a culturally appropriate way? Of course not. It's just a bad idea.
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Aug 1, 2013 06:16
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Big Alf posted:That's fine, but again my point is this is not China-centric. Just because someone has only experienced this sort of behaviour in China does not mean it only occurs here, or is a cultural phenomenon. I dunno. I've never been to a work party where people use their company authority to force other people to drink while they watch. I guess it might happen but I've never seen it in the U.S. and I have in fact been to company parties where people drink. I have also been to company events where this doesn't happen in China. I feel like there's a magic number of assholedom; like if you have 2+ tables full of people this doesn't happen, and if you have a small gathering it doesn't happen, but if there's three or four high muckety-mucks at one side of a table of 8-14 people they suddenly get the idea to make everyone else drink because you don't say no to US. MeramJert posted:I think you have a bad boss. My boss's boss is a sleazy rear end in a top hat.
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Aug 1, 2013 13:00
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My general rule is to not drink Baijiu if it's under 600 yuan per bottle. Therefore I don't drink baijiu. It's true the expensive stuff can be good, I have had expensive baijiu that goes down smooth and tastes fruity with an even chocolatey aftertaste. 20 kuai baijiu tastes like puke.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:45
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VideoTapir posted:You're going to have to seal the edges somehow. Duct tape, I guess. It depends on what you're doing with it. If you're putting a filter on some kind of intake fan then you need to, but if you're trying to build a scrubber that will sit in the living room then sealing is unnecessary. All you have to do is force air through the filter.
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Aug 6, 2013 07:17
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VideoTapir posted:And if you dont' seal the edges, you're just forcing air AROUND the filter. Some of it will probably go through 
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Aug 6, 2013 08:12
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Magna Kaser posted:Basically if you're gonna be doing most of your downloadin' from outside China, it might not be worth it to find a super fast 100M+ connection. This. I have an 8M connection (was going to switch up after a month) and I realized that I basically do all my browsing through a VPN which tops out around 300 kbps. I realized that was fast enough for me.
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Aug 7, 2013 10:32
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VideoTapir posted:Sometimes DNS service will go out entirely, but leave non-DNS services unaffected. Is this ever not the case?
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Aug 7, 2013 10:37
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VideoTapir posted:I'm posting right now without a VPN? I just mean when DNS goes out other services are always unaffected; unless the service outage is wider in scope. It's kind of a tautology.
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Aug 7, 2013 11:41
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Wow using that speedtest site I get about 4M with no proxy and about 10M with proxy. Only thing is the ping is 10x higher with the proxy.
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Aug 7, 2013 16:16
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ReindeerF posted:As well, remember to keep a US bank account and credit card Definitely, I closed my U.S. checking account (minimum balance deductions! ) and I have regretted it since.
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Aug 7, 2013 18:43
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Also important to understand that western sites will randomly slow down and time out and stop working for 5-10 minutes because the Chinese government/internet industry complex wants to keep people from using western web services even if they're not blocked.
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Aug 8, 2013 03:51
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I wonder how China will ever develop a domestic software industry. MK probably knows about this kind of thing.
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Aug 8, 2013 16:50
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MeramJert posted:Details about your ex? One of the few things I remember about my late-night post-transpacific flight visit to the Hong Kong goons (aside from Caberham being a chill dude of course) is everyone bitching about Bloodnose's girlfriend.
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Aug 9, 2013 10:22
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Magna Kaser posted:China actually has a decent number of domestic success stories for mobile, not to mention companies like Tencent which are absolutely gargantuan. I think software is the one place China has really already had a lot of success outside of making things for cheap. I was aware of this but what I don't totally understand it. How are Chinese firms going to enter the domestic desktop software market when it's inundated with high quality pirated software?
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Aug 9, 2013 10:24
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What the hell are those symbols at the top?
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Aug 12, 2013 15:53
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Don't forget to include simplified! "请帮我找 XXXX 航空公司， XXXX 航班, 门口， 千万别相信香港人，他们都是贼！” 
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Aug 14, 2013 04:09
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MeramJert posted:But I have coworkers that basically refuse to eat Chinese food and it really is expensive. Whyyyyy Chinese food is like the only legitimate quality of life perk here.
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Aug 14, 2013 16:05
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 18:00 |
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Chengdu is nice. I hear Kunming is nice too. I live in Chengdu. I've never been to Kunming.
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Aug 16, 2013 06:31
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