fish and chips and dip posted:

Questions to the goons living in cities with a large population of new mainlanders, like Vancouver or Melbourne or similar. How common is car theft where the victims are Chinese? I ask because I lived in Eastern Europe at the height of the car-theft craze in the mid 90's and here in China I see people being very naive with their cars, even the expensive ones, i.e. sitting outside letting it run, showing off keys etc etc, rich pickings for enterprising thieves.

Sheep-Goats posted:

"Did I ever tell you about" is fine but if you meet someone that says "I ever tell you about" you're probably at a Nascar rally.

barbecue at the folks posted:

Second, China Customs has not been adjusting import numbers to reduce the effect of fake documentation used in capital-flight schemes. The problem seems to be worsening as the year progresses.

Bro Dad posted:

Vesi posted:

same

Haier posted:

UltraRed posted:

I'm going to do an effort post on why I agree with GBM that learning Chinese is a waste of time:

I started learning Chinese ten years ago. I speak it fairly fluently but am not the greatest...especially now. My reading/writing has decayed from disuse, but I still can do it.

The trap of Chinese language learning is that it's very difficult, the characters are cool, and the perceived value of it is very high. Certain types of people can get very, very sucked in by Chinese--and I am that kind of person. I think I spent a good 3-4 year period where my primary recreational activity was "studying Chinese." It was the thing I did if I had extra time. I'd drill characters for hours at a time, I'd watch Chinese TV shows that I could barely understand with Mandarin subtitles and no English as semi-immersion training. I'd go out of my way to find Chinese people just so I could speak Mandarin in a real situation.

I ended up getting quite good at it very fast--but only because I sunk so much time into it. I self-studied so much over a summer that I tested out of Intermediate Chinese so I could get into the more advanced classes quicker. Studying Chinese basically became the thing I wanted to do and base my entire career around. Of course I didn't know what, exactly, that career would be. Going back to the "high perceived value," when you are studying Chinese everyone you talk to about it acts like it's some great and valuable thing you are doing, and you start to really buy into that as well. I might not have known how exactly "being good at Mandarin" was going to benefit me in life or set a career path for me, but I knew that it would all work itself out.

So from age 20 until 24 or so I was just nerding out and studying Mandarin obsessively before even ever going to a Chinese-speaking country. I was planning to go live in China after I graduated to finish "getting good" at Chinese and becoming really really fluent etc.

I think back on this period and on all the actually useful skills I could have learned in this time. I was working between 15-20 hours per week at my university and online, and I had a scholarship paying my tuition. I had shitloads of free time that I was sinking into learning Chinese. I could have been learning any number of actually valuable skills like writing, coding, math, etc. I could have been learning one of the skills that you can pair together with being super fluent in a language to create real value rather than perceived value. What I failed to realize at the time is that for "being good at Chinese" to actually be a useful skill that is worth the time you put into it, you have to have a base skill and thing you are good at to combine with Chinese fluency. Without that, you are a dumbass who wasted all his time learning a language who has no actual skills. There are millions of people out there who speak Mandarin and English better than you simply because they grew up with both languages. You can work really loving hard for ten years to partially overcome that, and if you are one of the rare people with a REALLY good ear, you MIGHT have pronunciation as good as an American-born Chinese. But you'll never look Chinese enough to overcome being a laowai.

When I got to China, I sort of loved it at first. I felt frustrated though when very few people on the street actually spoke Mandarin in Chongqing. I had just spent all of my time learning Mandarin, only to realize that Mandarin really is a "common language" in that it's something educated people will use to reach a common ground. It's not what is widely spoken all across China in day-to-day interactions. Even my friends in Chongqing who were educated spoke in a mishmash combination of Mandarin and Chonqing dialect, meaning that my immersion and picking up new words was pretty compromised because I could never tell if the tone or sounds of the word I was learning were Mandarin or not.

Skip ahead to the end of my time in China, and I hated it. If you're non-Chinese, you will never be treated like a non-oddity. You will always be a foreigner, regardless of your Mandarin ability. You will always have people shouting "HALOU" at you, you will always have people talking about your nose shape and other super racist stuff right in front of your face as if you can't understand them. Mainland China kind of loving sucks (I can't speak for Taiwan or HK), and learning Mandarin to better understand mainland China will only make you see its faults much more clearly. Keep in mind that you can live and have a decent life in China even if you don't speak Mandarin. Sinking tons of effort and years of your life into becoming proficient at Mandarin is not like learning French or German. It will not allow you to move through society like everyone else and become more integrated. You will NEVER integrate into Chinese society, and you'll probably always have to fight to get people to actually speak to you in Mandarin rather than English.

Add in the fact that Chinese media and entertainment is totally poo poo, and there is even less reason to learn Mandarin. It's almost entirely ripped off from Korean and Japanese pop culture, and anything that isn't is insanely, racistly anti-Japanese. I hope you like watching cartoonish and racist historical accounts of WWII where a lone Chinese hero eviscerates 10 Japanese dogs who piss their pants at the sight of him. There's a few good things in Chinese film and literature, but they are so comparatively far and few between that they cannot possibly justify the time investment.

There are a few highly specialized fields where learning Mandarin would actually make sense. More likely than not learning Mandarin is an awful trap that will very likely waste many years of your life for very little gain. When I got back from China, I was fluent in Mandarin and had a B.S. in Linguistics with no other real skills, so I couldn't find a job and had to work at a grocery store until I found a lovely office job that I worked for five years. My Mandarin ability in that job allowed me to have to deal with more Chinese people (a disadvantage) while not receiving any extra pay over my monolingual coworkers.

Finally, ten years later, I've almost completely disentangled myself with Mandarin and have no interest in getting better at it or speaking it. My wife and I only ever speak English, and her parents speak a lovely dialect that I can't speak or understand, so Mandarin didn't even help me there. I finally also have a job I like that pays well and has nothing to do with China or Mandarin. I could have reached this point in my career path like...eight years earlier...if I had just never bothered learning Mandarin.

If you are learning Mandarin or thinking about learning Mandarin, think of how many skills there are out there that will result in like...$70k+ annual salary after two years of hard work acquiring the skill. There are A LOT of skills like that out there, and Mandarin is not one of them. After two years of hard work on Mandarin, you will be firmly at the "can barely hold together a stilted conversation, and you're proud as gently caress of it" phase of language acquisition.

quote:

China 'fake sanitary pads' scam sparks health concerns

The discovery of a huge "fake sanitary towel" operation in southeast China has prompted fears about the possible impact on women's health.

Police in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, say they have arrested two suspects believed to have produced millions of the fakes in dirty facilities.

The fakes are thought to have gone on sale across China since 2013.

Chinese authorities have warned against buying discounted products, saying there could be serious health risks.

The Nanchang Public Security Bureau says it seized fake sanitary towels with a resale value of more than 40m yuan ($5.9m; £4.8m) in a factory with no disinfection facilities.

The fakes were then sold in supermarkets under the trademarks of leading Chinese brands such as ABC or Whisper, the Nanchang News reported.

It is not yet clear whether they were distributed internationally.

Consumers have been urged to check the packaging before buying because the colouring of the fake products is reportedly slightly darker.

The scandal was one of the biggest talking points in Chinese social media on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of Sina Weibo microblog users posted under the hashtags #Over10MillionFakeSanitaryTowels and #SanitaryNapkins.

Some social media users have called for the "evil" suspects to be given the death penalty.

"Why would someone want to hurt me at my most vulnerable?" asked social media user Sdanler.

Another social media user, zhou6665, said someone she knew bought fake sanitary towels and suffered a urinary tract infection followed by inflammation.

Others warned that women in rural China could be especially at risk, as they have less access to information and are more reliant on cut-price products.

Baronjutter posted:

I'm working on a quote for a project and I just got modern digital plans with "Chinaman's Room" on it. I've seen a bunch of old house plans with the same thing. Looking at some old survey drawings for a big lot behind my parent's house had a "Chinaman's House" officially labeled on it too.

John_A_Tallon posted:

The notes only have value because a backer says they do. The people who have an interest in seeing this "black money" retain value would need to have the ability to back the old notes somehow. But if they were planning that far ahead they'd be in the governance business instead of being on the take.

bug chaser chaser posted:

Man this Indian currency business is fascinating. You guys got any sites with more stories about what's happening to people?

Xerxes17 posted:

Some good news from China's Taipei province

Taiwan set to legalize same-sex marriages, a first in Asia
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e9c5b9c82abe4bc987f820aa104f2893

Haier posted:

Today is Single's Day and I guess there's a collective "OMG, I AM SINGLE " thing going with tons of people. From last night and today I have been tested in the exact same way by all of my main women, who I guess read some online article or something and wanted to try it out on me with nearly the same wording. "I want to tell you that I have been talking to someone else and I have decided that I will not see you anymore so I can go him from now on." No one expected me to say "Congratulations, I am happy for you that you have found someone for a relationship," because I know that's what several of them want and I am not going to stand in the way of that. Cue them getting angry and telling me they were checking to see how attached I am to them and how could I possibly be so calm and cool when they are talking about leaving and now I am so cruel to let them go and not fight for them. I told them they always have freedom to do what they want. Big butt-hurts and getting deleted.

Except for the BBW who only sent me a two-minute video of her sucking on a grape, they are all gone, even the Mongol. LMAO. It feels... really good. Like a clean slate. I hate tests, and I think it was funny that they all tried the exact same bullshit in the same time frame. It was like dominoes falling together. Women I haven't talked to in ages (weeks, lol) are messaging me all frantic that they don't want to be alone tonight. I told them all the same thing: I want to watch TV alone in my bed tonight. "How can you stand to be alone on Single's Day?"

I would like to thank whoever put that idea out there that testing someone on a day of desperation is a good way to backfire yourself into more loneliness.

Happy Single's Day, China.

fish and chips and dip posted:

In Chinese education news:


Yup, gotta stamp out any and all independent thought! This sure will work wonders long term!

http://qz.com/821667/a-crackdown-on...source=fb1111_3

The Great Autismo! posted:

for the third time in under a week, i saw a huge street fight. got pics of it. what in the world is going on in china? people are losing their minds.

Darkman Fanpage posted:

does chinar even have helmet laws?

Haier posted:

Depending on which keyboard app they are using, it will work for Chinese but not non-Chinese words.

No, but this girl has now stated that this article about a man having sex has made her scared of foreign men. Looks like I lost another one. RIP, Impromptu Girl.

diamond dog posted:

spoiler all your chinese girlfriends are intelligence operatives

Maneki Neko posted:

Does this have some amazing other meaning in Chinese?

"THE AMAZON ECHO is remarkably useful. Alexa, the digital personal assistant within the cylindrical black gadget, plays music, helps with recipes, and orders stuff online. One thing it cannot do, however, is speak Chinese.

The LingLong DingDong can."

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/behold-chinas-answer-amazon-echo-linglong-dingdong/

Ceciltron posted:

The dingdong automatically updates your sesame credit with treason demerits if you listen to degenerate foreign music.

Jimmy Little Balls posted:

Diving.

Haier posted:

Goons,
I am in a dilemma. That 150cm girl I posted about a few days ago asked to meet me on Saturday. She's as cute and adorable as a girl could be and everything about her demeanor and physical appearance attracts me. She's polite and honest, speaks English very well, and is an overall sweetheart.
We talked a lot and I was thinking maybe I finally found that one girl that make me stop meeting the others. Then last night happened.

She was annoyed with me for some unknown reason and started asking me about stuff she saw on my Wechat wall/album. Mostly it was about India and some other things I had put up. She asked me why I am not in the USA, and why I decided to come to China, or go to other places. I told her and she replied with "I love China." From there it was like every lovely Daily Mail wumao comment rolled into the shape of tiny woman and given life. Coupled with this was the traditional Chinese viewpoint/logic of "if it's not the exact single standard or situation of which I learned about before, it simply cannot exist because there's no such thing as variation in the universe." I don't want to go into details, but I was legitimately angry by the end of it and how she was so closed-minded and dense that she couldn't even understand why I might have been offended (typical here, of course). It was seriously like every frustrating China Vs. The World internet troll but right there in chat and voice message and a few metro stops down the road.

I asked her if she's like this to other people and she very proudly admitted that her two previous boyfriends, both Chinese, left her because of how stubborn she is. I asked if she had learned anything from that, because guys in the future will do the same, and she just sent a smiling emoji.

So anyway, she wants to meet on Saturday. I told her we can meet for like 2 or 3 hours, but she started talking about bringing backpack of clothes in case she wants to sleep at my house. Normally I'd be happy about it, but after the wumao bullshit I am not on the fence of if I should not meet her at all and just delete her, or meet her for a few hours and see if she's really that retarded face to face, or throw her a hate plunge for the good of the nation. Maybe some of that foreign jeeb will help soften her stance?

Advice?

The Whoreax posted:

i cant believe it

its actually called the LingLong DingDong

i thought you guys were taking the piss

i have mentally regressed to a 12 year old and cant stop laughing