From China, With Love

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Methersgate
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One of the links in the post about Dongguan looks Ok but actually links to the previous item - I'll try again:

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BrettGC
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I suspect that the very first "Big Three" go far back in Chinese culture, as "the things needed to set up a home when a couple married", but, at any rate by the 1970's the l "three bigs" - without which a man might as well save his breath rather than propose marriage - were a bicycle, specifically a "Flying Pigeon" model PA 02, made at the Zhongzi Bicycle Factory in Tianjin and copied from the British 1932 Raleigh Superbe, minus the Sturmey Archer three speed hub and minus the double butted tubing, a watch, specifically a Shanghai Watch Factory Model A-581, a sewing machine and a radio. You will have spotted that there are four things in this list of three - that is because the word for "four" sounds like the word for "death" in several Chinese languages, so four is the unlucky number, as thirteen is for us. Chinese buildings usually lack a fourth floor.  (Deng Xiaopeng famously promised a Flying Pigeon in every home, and since there are 500 million of them on the roads of China, he achieved it.)  In Beijing there are eight million of them and residents will tell you most of them have been stolen at least twice!  You will notice that the "big three desirables" don't require electricity - the radio would be a transistor radio..   By the 1990's there was a new Big Three - washing machine, television, refrigerator and air conditioner, (yes, its four again!) so we got the "Essential Eight" (eight is a lucky number; it sounds like "money"!) . Today's Big Three are the title deeds to an apartment, a car, a smartphone  and a diamond ring!
 

 

Ahh, the commodification of a society, I wonder how many papers and studies have been produced by social anthropologists, sociologists and economists watching this process take place well after the "horse has bolted" in our society by watching it all repeat itself in China.  I wonder how many lessons learnt will be taken notice of.

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not so old china hand
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Hi jake. This is my second attempt to post an answer here. Yesterday the internet slowed to the extent that I was unable to do anything. That's a sign of the progress here: there are approaching a billion internet users here and the shear volume swamps the infrastructure from time to time. Plus the GFoC filtering incoming and outgoing messages...,

 

To address some of your points:

 

Safety.

In terms of the lack of violent crime Beijing ranks amoungst the safest cities in the world. I feel comfortable going almost anywhere in the city at anytime of the day or night (with the caveat that certain bar districts feel quite menacing late at night and I know people who have been hospitalised after beatings by bands of feral youth). Whenever I ask Chinese acquainces about this the answer is always a variation on "Of course it's safe. It's the capital and there are many police here." The corollary of this is that other cities are by implication less safe. For example when I visited Chinese friends in Guangzhou they made sure that wherever I went I was accompanied by a family member.

 

A good indication of how safe people feel here is the number of times I have seen people pay-in or withdraw the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in banks. They just carry the money round in a shopping bag.

 

On the other hand petty crime is rife. Andrew mentioned bicycle theft. If you haven't had three bicycles stolen you aren't a Beijinger. On that basis I'm a Beijinger.

 

Economic progress.

As a generization everyone in the country is far better off than they were two decades ago. However the wealth gap between urban dwellers and people in the country is growing ever wider. You can see this in the streams of migrant workers pouring into the cities from the countsyside in search of better wages.

 

Environment

The first photo was taken on my last day on Malapascua Island. The second was taken from my living room window yesterday afternoon.

post-4147-0-21902300-1405551223_thumb.gi

post-4147-0-95234900-1405551253_thumb.gi

Edited by not so old china hand
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Methersgate
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I agree entirely with everything that Terry writes in the post above.

 

The three big issues confronting the Chinese political leadership are pollution, corruption and how to sustain economic growth..

 

I used to joke that the British political classes read PPE at Oxford whilst the Chinese political classes read Engineering at Xinhua; there is some truth in this! 

 

China has a very good track record of solving problems which can be solved with an engineering approach - pragmatic, science based and with plenty of disciplined organisation and money committed to the solution.

 

Pollution is a problem that can be solved with this approach, therefore I think it will be solved, in not such a long time.

 

The other two problems are more intractable. Corruption is much the biggest danger to the continued rule of the CCP - the CCP won the Civil War because they were seen as "clean" whilst the KMT were seen as "corrupt" - in addition the KMT had inflated the currency, which made them hugely unpopular, whilst the CCP stood for hard money. The only way to sort out corruption is to use the sort of approach that Hong Kong took, but that needs a level of transparency which is alien to China.

 

I pass on the economy; clearly the "engineering approach", taken in response to the 2008 crisis, namely to commit to huge infrastructure and property projects to "prime the pump", has created an overhang of excess capacity and the situation now looks dangerous. But China has looked that way in the past and found a way out.

 

Jake asks about trusting one's Chinese colleagues. I would say that they can certainly be trusted with money; the Chinese cultural attitude to money is very different to that of some other peoples. If you make a friend in China, you make a real friend - friendship is a very important thing to Chinese people.

 

It would be foolish to discuss anything political and I never ever have done so. If someone is not a friend, don't assume that they will not do everything possible to make themselves look good even if this means making you look bad.

 

Unlike in the the Philippines, where "smooth interpersonal relations" is important, Chinese people can appear blunt to the point of rudeness; this is particularly true of Southerners. 

 

 

Lastly, this was the link that was missing in my post about Donnguan:

http://www.danwei.org/magazines/dongguan_iso_services.php
 

Edited by Methersgate
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Jake
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Nightlife? Any amount of it! This is a newly rich society, in which people want to show off.........

 

It is pretty much impossible to stay in a mid range hotel without some cutie knocking on the door or phoning and saying "You want sex?"

Even at six AM! Staying in the Hilton (not midrange, so hooker free) in Shanghai.........

 

Boy, you guys are coming fast and heavy with your wonderful insights about China.  Good thing I read more carefully

about staying at the Hilton -- I was ready to book a weekend because I thought the hookers were free.....he, he.

 

For a profession that existed for thousands of years, I guess every now and then, a massive raid into the sex industry

is needed to flush out the old and in with the new.  Perhaps for propaganda purposes or another new sheriff in town

and wants his buddies to take over that lucrative business.  I thought all along that the red light districts was strictly

forbidden for centuries because of my perceived vision of modern day street committees or compliance police officers.

 

Lucrative business indeed which must have followed the explosive growth of progress there.

 

Respectfully -- Jake

PS -- I still have visions of your young and foolish days as the James Bond of Asia.  Does the nickname Old Cup have

anything related to that.....he, he.

 

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Jake
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Plus the GFoC filtering incoming and outgoing messages...,

 

To address some of your points:

 

Safety.

In terms of the lack of violent crime Beijing ranks amongst the safest cities in the world. 

 

A good indication of how safe people feel here is the number of times I have seen people pay-in or withdraw the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in banks. They just carry the money round in a shopping bag.

 

On the other hand petty crime is rife. Andrew mentioned bicycle theft. If you haven't had three bicycles stolen you aren't a Beijinger. On that basis I'm a Beijinger.  

 

after beatings by bands of feral youth

 

Hey Terry,

 

I like that description of the youths of today.  I was wondering if they start early membership to the

Triad organization.  Or is that story blown out of proportion?

 

I've heard about China being very upset with Google and didn't realize that there is an actual GFoC

(Great Firewall of China).  Let's just hope your content is not being scrutinized when you're giving

us street level boots on the ground report.  

 

Thank you for your time in satisfying my curiosity.  Respectfully -- Jake

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not so old china hand
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I have not seen anything like a shanty town, barrio or favela in China. Terry will know much better about this than I do, though., being still resident in China

There are no obvious shanty towns in the cities I have visited. And, thinking back to when I travelled on business extensively through the Soviet Bloc in the early 80s there were no shanty towns there either (with the possible exception of Bucharest in Romania). Maybe there is a common thream here....

 

So where do the millions of migrants live? The answer, I think the answer lies in the fact that they are nearly all travelling without their families. So they either live in accomodation supplied by their employer of they live in dormitory style accomodation. They are either out of sight in basement dormitories, appartments that have been split into bed spaces, or in what I think of as institutionalised shanties on the big building sites (oh and there are no small building sites).

 

Jake I have just see. your posting on my email. I'm running out of time again so Gangs of New China will have to wait until I can post again.

 

Cheers Terry

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sandwichmaker
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I have spent 5 days in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. And I've also spent nearly 2 weeks in Taiwan- a few different places.

Shenzhen restaurants always serve large dishes which must be shared. Is the rest of China like this? I hate this with a passion since I almost always eat with 1 other person, not a group. It also means if you don't like the dish (which is half the time) - you're stuck with it. My Chinese friends told me they won't accept changes or complaints.

However, I once had a take out delivered for the equivalent of £1.10 which was excellent. I also managed to crash on someone's sofa in Shenzhen, which is handy because budget hotels are not Philippines cheap over there.

Taiwanese people are less blunt/rude than the Chinese, but English was a big problem for me there. Not many speak it. That said, Taiwan is so happy to hear of tourists coming and really people welcomed me. Like China, I was invited to eat out. But the Taiwan people would give me more of their time. Much more. Whereas the Chinese were more willing to throw their money around.

In the southern Taiwan vacation spot, I met a 45 year old lady (almost 20 years my senior), who chatted in her excellent English on the bus ride down. We exchanged numbers and met up the next day and she drove me in her car to some amazing views, where she was happy to show me and tell me stories about her vacation memories as a little girl. She told me how dangerous the Philippines is in her eyes (too much reading of the news, I think!). But it was great and saved me because down in the quiet non urban resort areas, I found it hard to find anyone to talk to in English!

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Old55
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Taipei Taiwan 40 years ago reminds me of Cebu City today. Most young people spoke some English many very well. The girls LOVED Americans.

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sandwichmaker
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Only the smart ones speak English well in taiwan. But yes taipei has better English than rural locations. Girls won't jump on you there like they do in Philippines. I've never bedded a Taiwan girl but have a Japanese and of course pinay. Perhaps that shows which places love "Americans" more? (I'm British)

Edited by sandwichmaker
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