rolling china thread 2011

if youre a white guy in china you just need to say like 3 words and everybody will cheer and guffaw and bring you wine to drink

idk what can be said about this, but china sure seems fond of small-number sets like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Furnaces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Classical_Novels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Books_of_Song
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Great_Kung_Fu_Masters

this is a thing, right?

yeah dont underestimate the penchant for grouping things together

also the idea that if you take a bunch of good things and combine them you get a super thing

or if you take something and make it bigger it becomes better

or the idea that if you build a replica of something that implies superiority

or the idea that the more expensive something is the better it is

sorry, just ranting

what are the other four great taxonomic penchants?

http://gizmodo.com/5852973/350kg-stainless-steel-fake-leicas-arent-fooling-anybody

this piece of hubris, for example, I'm sure was justified by the idea "it contains elements of the the leica m3-m9, it must be great!" and completely misses the point of a leica

smh

the idea that the more expensive something is the better it is

this is a classic 'nouveau riche' trait right? which makes sense, in context

where's the hubris? it's just a crappy sculpture. if it misses the point of a leica, then leica themselves are missing the point. they paid for them.

i think the blame is all on leica for commissioning that piece of garbage.

see also:

http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/shop/only-china-leicas-24carat-camera-154867

Grouping stuff actually helps retention for a learner, e.g. 10 heavenly stems, 12 属相. Probably does sod-all for a native speaker though.

if youre a white guy in china you just need to say like 3 words and everybody will cheer and guffaw and bring you wine to drink

― dayo, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 22:48 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This principle elevated our previous (and probably next) PM to Chinese stardom. I don't know precisely how good he is at Chinese but the Chinese carry on like he's a genius. Saw his Chinese biography in a shop the other day, it seemed to cast him in a better light than anything written about him here.

there is a leica shop opening the next block up from where i live, the first one outside shanghai/beijing/guangzhou, i think. hope it features a giant stainless steel homer simpson car leica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-anti_and_Five-anti_Campaigns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Represents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four

"homer simpson car" is the guiding design principle for china

http://asiancorrespondent.com/59851/chinese-man-builds-home-made-ipad/

it's like cool, you spent all that time building a... windows tablet

http://i.imgur.com/9FTPk.jpg

two trucks carrying 72 tons of dynamite explode at a gas station

like, really?

nakh, is this football with chinese characteristics

http://shanghaiist.com/2011/11/01/shenhua_coach_invades_pitch_to_lift.php

there was a story many years ago about china taking its best football prodigies to some outback location in brazil where they were to be intensively coached by native talent, ready to explode onto the world stage about.....now, i guess

lol at homemade tablet w/ apple logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yW6Y54168&feature=player_embedded#!

two trucks carrying 72 tons of dynamite explode at a gas station

like, really?

― dayo, Wednesday, November 2, 2011 11:08 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

O_O

global times says：

Nobody likes trucks of dynamite exploding at a gas station, but China cannot singly pursue trucks of dynamite not exploding at gas stations.

ahaha

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-03/the-busiest-place-on-earth/3611032

I love the hell out of Mong Kok but I've never lived there (obv) and 4'11" 'er indoors couldn't see over the swarms of people. Didn't know until now that it's the densest human population on Earth but it's no surprise at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/world/asia/03iht-letter03.html?_r=3

interesting look at chinese historiography

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/the-china-conundrum.html

I think this has the potential to be a really good thing! I'm totally cool w/ the rest of the world using the american university system as a luxury good, if it means we pay less. and a chinese 20 something probably is getting more out of the university of delaware than most americans there.

http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f12279621o1p0.html

is that the woman falling from a bridge one? might need a warning.

I think this has the potential to be a really good thing! I'm totally cool w/ the rest of the world using the american university system as a luxury good, if it means we pay less. and a chinese 20 something probably is getting more out of the university of delaware than most americans there.

― iatee, Thursday, November 3, 2011 10:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

dunno if it's a 'luxury good' - a lot of times these kids are blowing through their parents + extended family savings. chinese families are willing to fork over a hell of a lot more for anything education related.

otoh, most universities in china outside of the top tier ones are frighteningly bad. and qinghua/beida barely crack the top 100 worldwide.

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/04/human-rights-watch-reports-abuses-in-chinese-run-mines-in-zambia/

surprise, surprise, but q: are conditions in zambian mines better or worse than conditions in chinese mines?

also remember stories about chinese bosses in africa opening fire with machine guns on the disgruntled local work force, and getting away with it

yeah that's a good point I was looking at this from the 100% 'what's good for americans' perspective.

xp

very cool

http://shanghaiist.com/2011/11/04/portraits-government-buildings.php

http://i.imgur.com/54JwN.jpg

yeah that's a good point I was looking at this from the 100% 'what's good for americans' perspective.

xp

― iatee, Friday, November 4, 2011 2:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah. otoh I am pretty sure that the majority of these kids come from upper middle class and upper class families. after all they're renting apartments off campus! and I bet you'd see a lot of designer labels and luxury handbags if you could briefly survey them.

still though, it's a lot of money - $60k a year for four years = $240k, or about 1.5 million chinese yuan

the average college grad in shanghai makes 3300 yuan a month or about 6000 usd annually

let's assume that going to an american university triples your earning potential and you can land a 10000 yuan a month job or about 18000 usd annually

that's still not a very good return investment

but most of these kids probably go home to plush jobs in their father's factory, I bet, or maybe they just play a lot of ps3 and xbox

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/world/asia/the-privileges-of-chinas-elite-include-purified-air.html

lol - they don't even breathe the same air as the commoners

“They don’t have to eat gutter oil or drink poisoned milk powder and now they’re protected from filthy air,” said one posting on Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular microblog service. “This shows their indifference to the lives of ordinary people.”

the ccp hierarchs should take a lead from that japanese mp who drank fukushima water and publicly feast upon congealed poison milk deep fried in gutter oil

a big plate of thick sliced donkey dick tossed in congealed poison milk deep fried in gutter oil

there it is

http://images.buddytv.com/articles/Image/blinky-the-fish.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-independents-20111106,0,3629826.story

innaresting barbara demick report, independent candidates for people's representatives

yeah, surprise surprise

kind of lol'd at this in the sidebar

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-jews-20111016,0,1440710.story

okay. is this kaifeng jews thing for real or not? i guess it doesn't matter now, since they've decided to go to israel and get into it. but i think even sidney shapiro, famous jew in china and scholar of judeo-chinese things, concludes that there were very, very few jewish families a long, long time ago and that there are now probably very few little scraps of history, like a surname or two, a street name....

http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/china.htm

kaifeng is beautiful btw if u are ever nearby.even if it doesn't have jews, it has a huge christian populationa nd the little alleys are full on sundays of processions of people going off to chruches, official and house. it's like the appalachians of china:; it's mostly fucking poor and the henanese have their accents made fun of and are the subject of tons of jokes and discriminatd against by hr people at factories down south where they go en masse 4 work. but if it's possible to say that a place "has nice people" you can say it about henan. and about most of the forgottoen brutally poor parts of central/western china.

haha every place that's not a city in china is like the appalachians

some thoughts about li keqiang's visit to HK earlier this summer

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MK01Ad01.html

think I posted about it before but it's a real fucking shame how quickly HK's leadership is falling into china's arms

I was sad that I didn't get a chance to visit the synagogue in HK before I left

you jewish bro?

i was trying to find the sexy beijing episode where she interviews her dad who was a refugee in hangzhou in the 40s...

no but there's a jewish side of my family

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2010/12/09/judaism-with-a-hong-kong-flavour/

I saw it a few times from looking out the windows of buses but I never walked around that area, so sad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GpZ20EYV2s

yo that dude went HARD

do i click play y/n

i dont like the look of that cunt whatever it is