The thing about China I like is that it is ruled by engineers and doers. NOT accountants. This means that massive projects that cost a shed load of money which are absolutely audacious are done. Ok so you get some shitty projects like the 3 gorges dam which was badly miscalculated. I was saying this in the 1990s and old people to me told TCG shut the fuck up! You are just a child older people know better. How they eat humble pie these days. However the CCP HAS to do this as Mao promised to do this sometime in 1952 and 60 years later its still not finished.
The USSR partially managed to do this in the 1960s which caused the drying of the Aral sea in Kazakhstan so it is more like a lake these days. However they merely diverted some rivers. China instead intends to reverse some of its rivers and plumb them in to a different location. Kind of like what the USSR wanted to do with the River Ob in Siberia (I've been past this river in Siberia and it goes doe 100s of miles) But the great South North Water project is underway and its cost $62bn so far and costs are set to escalate!
However its not the project that inspires me its the fact that an engineer can go to China sit in with the CCP and show him what he wants to build and there is a fair old chance the CCP will say YES built it NOW! Instead of the UK where an engineer wants to build something great and they sigh and say nope the budget can't take it... But never mind we can give all the money to the bankers instead.!
The Huffington Post has posted a photographic walkthrough of China's American colony (also known as San Francisco Chinatown). More than 50+ photographs give one a detailed look at the beauty of the oldest Chinese community in the America's, from the comfort of your computer.
China on Monday unveiled new rules to curb land hoarding by developers, its latest efforts to pop a feared speculative bubble in the nation's soaring real estate sector.
Developers will be banned from bidding for more properties if they have lands idle for more than a year, illegally transferred lands, or developed land in breach of agreements, two Chinese ministries said.
Local governments must give priority to land development projects centred on the building of affordable homes, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said in a joint statement.
They reiterated that at least 70 per cent of land supplies should be set aside for public housing or smaller apartments.
Local authorities that fail to meet the target will be barred from offering land for luxury housing, the statement said.
Beijing has imposed a range of measures since April, including higher down-payment requirements and mortgage rates, to prevent the real-estate sector from overheating and causing a bubble analysts say could derail the economy.
Transactions were relatively muted due to these measures until mid-August, but analysts have warned the surge in transaction volumes in recent weeks suggests there may have been a renewed increase in speculation.
China Vanke, the nation's largest property developer by market value, fell 3.80 pe rcent on the news in early trade Monday before rebounding 0.6 per cent into positive territory in the afternoon, sitting at 8.20 yuan ($A1.27)
China Vanke, the nation's largest property developer by market value, fell 3.80 pe rcent on the news in early trade Monday before rebounding 0.6 per cent into positive territory in the afternoon, sitting at 8.20 yuan ($A1.27)
Read about it here but essentially developers wanted to build on his land. And wanted to give him a few bucks for it which he said no to so they attempted to force him out by digging all around his home.
Demolished in 93-94 It was a functioning anarchic state, with only two laws, nothing higher than 14 stories and electricity only to prevent fires. Its a fine example of how when people say society has to be like this and that they are wrong. Some of my family actually lay claim to living in the Walled city in the 1960s and 1970s.
Today the ghosts of walled city are in Sham Shui Po district and also the big Mansions on Nathan Road Chungking and Mirador mansions. With an incredible population density of 1,255,000/km2 You can read more about it at the following links
Oddly I feel since society is quickly becoming M shaped where there is an increasing divide between those who have and those who do not that this sort of thing in China at least (where the land is hoovered up by the parasite middle class rentiers). The Hong Kong, Zuhai and Guangzhou sprawl is starting to look and feel an awful lot like the sprawl depicted in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy
“China spent tens of billions of dollars on a dazzling 2008 Olympics. It has sent astronauts into space. It recently became the world's second largest economy. Yet it gets more than $2.5 billion a year in foreign government aid — and taxpayers and lawmakers in donor countries are increasingly asking why.”
Apparently China is classified as a “developing country”. While this may have been true 10 or 20 years ago, China’s poverty rate today is below 2.8% according to the UN Development Programme.
This classification as a “developing country” also allows China to get away with murder in regards to the Kyoto Protocol and other climate treaties.
However instead of going toward relieving poverty, China spends most of this “aid” on building its military and infrastructure.
Over half of its foreign aid, $1.2 billion, comes from Japan, which has the worlds largest budget deficit. This is mainly reparations for the massacres during WWII.
Oh, and heres a figure to piss off TCG:
The United Kingdom provides over £10 million a year of aid to the communist state
Washington gave over $65 million to China in 2008, mainly for targeted programs promoting safe nuclear energy, health, human rights and disaster relief (as if thats where the money is actually going).
I cannot believe taxpayer dollars for development aid are going to China of all places. Im even more amazed that this aid has continued despite the economic recession.
China also borrows more from the World Bank then any other “developing nation”, $1.5 billion annually. China takes in all this money while at the same time showing itself off in the Olympics and the Shanghai Expo. China also gives massive mounts of aid to Africa while at the same time asking for more aid for itself.
Its good to know that a portion of our paycheck goes toward funding an oppressive authoritarian regime.
Erm sorry I lost your email during a phone Internet wifi session. It asked something along the lines of:
Why do Chinese people age slower than westerners? In that my Chinese co-worker is 30 but he looks like he is 20 or younger. The women also look much younger and thinner too why is this? How come it is so difficult to tell the ages of Asian people?
(Paraphrased)
By AB (I think)
Dear Ab
The reason as to why Chinese and Asian people age slower than Westerners is that they don't age slower than westerners. It just seems that way.
However some comical reasons as to why this maybe:
It is a commie conspiracy, the great leap forward famine was done on purpose. To keep people thin. This lead to Europeans and Americans generally being overweight. This was exacerbated by the Communist party of China inventing incredibly fattening dishes which do not exist inside China. Things such as General Tsao's Chicken, Sweet and Sour dishes or even the notorious Kung Pao Chicken. Fortune cookies and anything you may find in a Chinese restaurant. Chinese people from China will think WTF is this stuff when they visit a Chinese restaurant in the westernised countries. Which why many Chinese from China avoid it because they are part of the conspiracy too.
Chinese WMD
10000s of 'agents' were sent out from China in since the 1950s all over the world who have formed enclaves in big ones like New York, San Francisco and London. Smaller such enclaves also exist in Manchester and Paris. Today nearly every town has a CCP sanctioned hot food place which is designed specifically for this purpose.
Why?
The communist party in the 1960s and 1970s you see in the past only had AK47s. Which you'd be lucky to hit the side of a barn with. (TCG has actually fired one and emptied the clip in seconds wasting £20 in one go back when it was legal to shoot in the UK. Yes it was pretty reckless as I fired an AK when I was EIGHT). This meant that if China was ever invaded, the Chinese conscripts would have large targets to shoot at. Though even in 2010 they seem to be a bit dodgy.
While being thinner and smaller the Chinese infantry would be harder to hit. Mao however did not take this sort of advice though and the CCP did not foresee guided missiles and the invention of the segeway and infantry riding them into battle. And infantry fighting vehicles.
Try it visit China and ask for your favourite Chinese take away dish and watch the waiter gurn at you and pretend he's never heard of it. As such WMD are strictly controlled.
In seriousness though you are partly wrong Chinese men and women do get fat and old, it is just that many of them have the good sense to STAY OUT of the media unlike these British laddettes.
My aunt who lives in Fanling for example is about a metre wide and has no hair, though to be fair she did have a brain tumor and had to have open skull surgery 30 years ago.
Genetics play a part also there was a study ages ago where mice starved would live longer than well fed mice something similar to this is here. As I have mentioned in the past a few times China and the whole area is a place of starvation. Wars which caused people to be unable to work the land. Drought and dust bowl conditions occured in China. Which meant people all starved unintentionally and therefore selected their genes for longevity. My dad for instance will regularly complain, "Oh when I was a boy we were always hungry."
Additionally the culture is different families sit and eat dinner together and therefore home cook stuff rather than processed rubbish. Even in busy ass cities such as HK many people still cook at home. Mainland China based fast food is also different too. In Beijing people will have some melon on stick. Or their own version of fast food is different to Mc'ds. This restaurant I keep seeing them in Beijing. They serve the stuff Chinese families will eat at home, like steamed pak choi, steamed eggs rice, congee soup etc. While Chinese families will also forcibly medicate each other with soup and foul tasting tea even if there is nothing wrong with you. In westernised nations we only medicate when we are ill.
Finally Chinese people stay out of the sun, umbrellas appear when the sun comes out as they don't want sun tans. Sun tanning is exceptionally bad for your skin! It artificially ages it if you tan a lot by the time you are 40 you'll look 80!.
Oh and Chinese women don't smoke as much, all of the above, except maybe the commie conspiracy are reasons as to why.
We don't for example live forever and run around cutting each others heads off to absorb each other's quickening.
better video
Though it is easy to mistake ME for an immortal though, I crash my bike at high speed and get up not a scratch on me. My mate does the same at 20mph and ends up in intensive care for months! Or the way strange way I've been mid 20s for the past 300 years... Ho hum...
This little thing called work is badly interfering with my life which means I'm simply not around so much anymore...gotsta pay the bills. Though this is not the primary motivation for this kind of work...
In the mean time you can entertain yourself @
http://madengineering.blogspot.com/
Which is sort of another ask blog but doesn't advertise the fact! Whereby you can ask for ideas on how to engineer stuff.
19 September 2010
added by
The Chinese guy
As a runner to the previous post, btw Manchester airport is possibly the most depressing place on earth to return to after a spell overseas of which I returned slightly empty handed. For those of you who know me the hiring season is actually closer to March rather than September. Though some of the interviews were things I didn't want to do, sell my soul to a bank? Work as a tax expert in China? Nooo. I'm in remission already... I want to do other things. No matter I have some other things on the boil in the meantime.Though not to worry as it wasn't a case of never ever ever ever but it was the case of well you've come at the wrong time and get some more experience. At least I won't have to listen to nasty Hkers bitch about how they are scared about their slaves Filipino house maids are are paid 50p an hour. Because of the Philippines incident. Get over it! It was just one rather upset person with a gun.
I digress.
Anyway back to the topic at hand.
Actually no... although the CCP and Chinese may hate me for this, especially those Chinazis. Chinese Nazi types who keep sending me hate mail and videos which show Chinese military exercises launching missiles and military parades similar to DPRK type parades. I especially hate those who constantly say China has more people, so fucking what?
That's what H bombs were invented for....
I'll kill this here and now... I keep seeing book after book after book about China being the dominant power....
I have to say this is false... a person like my dad would say but who are you to say these things? For those of you of HPC my dad thinks Gordon Brown is an economic genius. He thinks I'm lying when I tell him he only has a history degree. But this simply means I have no vested interest.
China's rise to power is actually very temporary, as they depend too heavily on exports, if the USA and Europe are broke then they too will suffer. For starters much of the stuff they make there simply isn't a market for. Christmas crackers for instance usually contain some cheapo plastic toy, Chinese people won't buy that kind of shit. You have to think what goes through the mind of somebody working in a plant in China making plastic chocolate water guns.... Or even things like knives... having known an immense number of Chinese chefs all of them tend to use a single blade a clever type thing. While I actually prefer a smaller ceramic knife for kitchen work.
Anyway if they self consume their own goods they cause ultra inflation which cuts off their competitive edge, inflation is bad m'kay? No matter what economists say inflation is bad! If it wasn't then Zimbabwe would be the wealthiest country in the world. People demand more money just to live and you cannot hide it forever. The UK has been hiding inflation for ages but people are growing savvy of it.
There is also a massive problem China in that China is hitting a very hard well defined limit. They maybe a manufacturing powerhouse, but this has limits since their advantage is cheap labour and maybe economies of scale.
Ages and ages ago I was lectured by an economics professor, where they had a capital vs labor debate. It was shall we spend money on machines or shall we spend money on wages instead? The modern corruption of capitalism has been changed to this, as the kleptocracy has resulted in little investment just moving to lower wage countries.
The problem with hand manufacture even though it can be pretty damned awesome and fast such as:
Hand manufacture has some pretty low limits. Ever broken a phone? Look inside and just look at how close some of those soldering things are, it is pretty close but eventually it will become so close the human hand and eye even aided with specialised machines can't do it. I can just about solder bits inside my EEEPC901 JUST!. Thing is technology marches on endlessly, for example a 1980s 'mobile phone' compared to a modern mobile phone.
This trend is set to continue things getting smaller and more compact and more feature packed. Whereby it is simply impossible for a human hand to manipulate it. A current example 16/09/2010 (in case somebody cites this in the future) is a CPU chip the transistors are so close together at 45nm you have to get a robot to make it for you. Sure sure Intel has a plant in Pudong China (or used to)
But those factories are not like this picture
Those factories are filled with machines like this.
Factories with CNC type machines can produce high precision things. But this too has a limit to it, therefore you have to turn to robots for even higher precision stuff. Motorbikes from Germany and Japan have such tight tolerances in engineering you have to use a computerised robot to make it.
Now think about our westernised economies, whereby jobs have vanished due to automation. Flight engineers have vanished completely from aircraft due to advances in software and automation. This has causes swaths of unemployment, a traditional economist will start to say to me:
Luddite!
Whereby when a process if automated and productivity is increased this will be reflected in lower prices and therefore increased demand.. Also that new jobs will always be created for these unemployed. I say nay... just because it happened in the past does not mean it will happen indefinitely.
Even banks say this, "Past performance is not an indicator of future performance" for investments.
The mining towns outside London in the UK have high unemployment where jobs simply never came back where unemployment at 20-40% is normal and has been normal for decades. Martin Ford discusses it here. Simply man can currently outrun machine.
But if China goes automated then there is a bloody big problem all those 100000s of factory workers are out of jobs across the board, sure some may move into accountancy law etc but will these industries create enough jobs to absorb the army of unemployed this will cause in China?
Korea for example has a massively competitive workforce and there are many angry young men, 100000s of angry young men with no jobs are dangerous politically. This might lead to a war situation as Kaiwen tends to postulate now and again.
Unless the CCP manages to manage this incredibly carefully they will hit the decline stage western economies are at pretty damned quickly.
The year is 1991. The Soviet Union has fallen and Operation Desert Storm is nearing its end. If you were a high officer in the People's Liberation Army, you would be shitting your pants.
You have just lost your most powerful ally and you are forced to watch as US forces lay waste to Saddam's armies, who are using technology similar to your own.
This was the reality for China at the time. It is likely that this is what triggered China's massive military growth since then. Over the past 20 years, the Pentagon has become increasingly concerned over the growth of China's military prowess.
As you may have been able to tell from my post on Red Dawn, the astonishing rapid growth of China’s military is of serious concern to me. I recently came across an article on China’s new Dong Feng 21D SSM. US security officials believe this missile is capable of sinking a Nimitz class Aircraft Carrier, something no country was ever capable of doing. It has always pondered me as to why China would need such sophisticated military equipment. China’s only real “enemy” is Taiwan, but they pose almost no threat. This could only mean that China feels threatened by the the US and the Western powers in general, but China has no reason to feel threatened by America as long as they do nothing too aggressive on the world stage. That brings up the question, what are China’s long term intentions? China’s military spending has had an annul increase in the double digits for over a decade. China claims all of that money is going toward “defense”, but as I said above, defense against what? Why do I feel this kind of military build up has been done before? By a certain island nation not far away less than a century ago?
Oh thats right! Japan! Despite having no real enemies, Japan spent the latter part of the 19th century building its military, with the intent of creating an empire in the pacific, particularly in attempt to usurp China as the reigning power of the eastern world. Surely enough, Japan soon invaded China in the first Sino-Japanese War, starting a deadly chain of events that would eventually lead to the Pacific War.
Now switch the positions of China and Japan, and keep in mind Japan is used by the United States to assert its influence in the pacific. Scary isn’t it? It leads me to wonder if China is attempting to challenge America’s influence in East Asia. So far it is only doing so through intimidation, but it doesn’t take much for things to turn bloody. Im not so sure China is intending on creating an empire, but they certainly see America as a roadblock in asserting dominance in East Asia. It seems like this military build up has the intention pushing America out through intimidation and if necessary, through force.
For those conspiracy theorists out there who want to dig into this topic more, there are some interesting documents worth reading:
This is an annual report to Congress issued by the Pentagon that assesses the threat posed by the PRC as well as other concerns regarding the People's Liberation Army.
Why do Chinese people (as well as people with certain other languages like Spanish) seem talk so fast?
KaiWen
Oh I dunno about this. If you said why do Chinese people always speak loudly I'd have agreed with you. My dad has little faith in telephones you see. Therefore he needs to shout into the phone even in a quiet environment.
In that it could be ascribed to the theory whereby if you don't understand a language it will sound very fast to you. My experience in Russia where my language skills were limited to:
Benzine (petrol/gas)
Malka (milk)
Spasiba (thanks)
Piva (beer)
All the Russians to me sounded incredibly fast, this was problematic when asking for directions as to me they would speak very quickly. Mongolia was worse as they hack words. Kind of like this video at 5 minutes
Sounds like they are hacking up to spit at you when they talk. Or you met somebody who was in a hurry (I mean you do live in New York or nearby right?) I don't even want to get into the controversial theory of monosyllabic language. Vs poly (Chinese is actually a polysyllabic). But suffice to say you ain't gonna find words like this in Chinese (real words)
That is not to say you don't get complicated words such as
57 pen strokes
Anyway I don't notice it.... perhaps because I have a dual ability to think in two languages means I am incapable of noticing a difference in speed between Chinese and English (though I am of course more comfy with English because I've grown acustomed to it).
There is a war of words occurring in China. Literally. Since the PRC’s founding, the communist party has been pushing the country to adopt Putonghua (common speech) as a way to promote national unity. Putonghua is the establishment of adopting Beijing Mandarin as a lingua franca for all Chinese. While over 53% of Chinese already speak Mandarin natively, half of 1.3 billion people is still a lot. As a way to push Putonghua, the PRC government has banned using any dialect other than Mandarin in all television broadcasts, with the exception of Cantonese and Wu (Shanghainese) as they are the largest of the minority dialects. Non-Mandarin dialects are also discouraged in the public education system. Students can have their grades penalized for using Cantonese or other dialects.
Recently, the people of Guangzhou took to the streets under rumors that their TV broadcasts would mandate Mandarin. Many feel that the government is trying to replace all other dialects with Mandarin and that it will lead to a loss of identity.
While I agree that a national language is crucial for a strong unified nation, a national dialect is a little more of a hairy issue. In a country as vast and diverse as China, it becomes even more complex. In Imperial China, people rarely ventured far from their home villages (except for the Beijing bureaucrats). This resulted in thousands of dialects in different pockets all over China. It wasn’t unusual for the town over the mountain to speak another dialect. Ever since the Ming Dynasty, the government has tried to implement Beijing Mandarin as a national dialect. From then to the present day, it has been mostly successful. 53% of China speaks some accent of Mandarin but it took over 700 years. In the southeast of China, the mountainous terrain had isolated most communities from these national language efforts until modern times. As a result, lands from Shanghai to Guangxi still hold on to these pocket dialects, and they have firmly resisted Putonghua.
My entire bookmark folder is full of these interesting sites that I just have to share. If you read this blog you may find many of them relevant to your interests.
Personally I foresee him as some butthurt basement dweller who’s sworn duty is to blog and report every little misfortune that falls upon Asian Americans (no matter how small). A popular white comedian makes an asian joke? You will hear about it first on AngryAsianMan! Although you have to give him credit for all the research he does and he sometimes has very interesting posts.
A beautifully created website by a Vietnamese American Sociology Professor that tells you everything about every culture in the Asian American community, as well as their history, the challenges they face, even detailed demographics.
An interesting blog with a test you can take to see if its true that all asians look alike. The test gives you photos of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean’s and you have to decide which ethnicity they are. The results may surprise you. There is also tests for things like architecture and food.
A [white] women who blogs about issues in China and also has a segment “Ask the Yangxifu” (a foreign wife of a Chinese man) where she answers questions about relationships between Chinese and non-Chinese. It seems like TCG has competition.
An information site that can tell you everything there is to know about China. It has hundreds of articles on history, culture, people, literature, issues, cuisine, architecture and travel.
A free online language learning resource for Mandarin Chinese. I find this site to be incredibly useful. It includes many tools for helping one understand the language. If you want to learn Mandarin, this is a great place to start.
An simple website about the history of China. What makes it stand out is that it makes the history of one of the worlds oldest civilizations easy to understand and in plain English.
Now this I find puzzling. He makes videos discussing AMWF relationships (Asian Male-White Female) which is obviously a rare coupling. If you go to YouTube and look up AMWF, countless videos show up. While if you search for the more common AFWM, only 2 or 3 videos come up. But Im not going to go into this.
Meh apologies for the time it took to post this, TCG isn't home, TCG is shall we say somewhere elsewhere there are more important things going on for me to give much attentiveness to this blog. It's not as if there are queues round the block are there? Or as my dad says snake biscuits. (This is sort of a reference to coiled up nature of a snake I presume). Therefore I've been busy elsewhere pretending to be an American. Or rather the need to put on an American accent. US readers would probably pretty pissed off at my piss poor impression of an American accent. However this is pay back for all the shit British accents I see on American TV syndicated in the UK and HK.
This kinda pisses me off immensely as I stick 'like you know' and want to into wanna.... I feel so dirty doing this and the dirt doesn't wash off.
Anyway what the hell was the question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7_HPP9J2Y
Dear TCG,
Most Chinese people I know are very cold hearted, they are selfish self centred and act like robots. They will keep doing something without any feeling. Why is this is it because of communism? or just they way they are?
Simon
Dear Simon
I have to say how many people have you met? Since what you are saying is a gross generalisation of things. If you talked
about Hong Kong people though you'd be right. My family is fragmented to buggery, some how though my dad still keeps in
touch. Bush may have been a twat. Call me strange but I don't believe he was as retarded as he made it out to be. It was an excellent ploy which disarmed many people's hostility. It is like the touts on Nathan Road, there are two schools of thought where you get the traditional ones.
"Rolex watch?
"Guest house?"
"No piss, off!"
The smarter ones will ask you for directions, or will sleaze you by asking for change, and then they will mention it in passing
Christians do this a lot in the UK. You'd be minding your own business and they would come up to you and talk to you about something completely unrelated. This might be the T-shirt you wore or something. But this would dis-arm you massively. Similar to how Hare Krishna's give you a wilted flower and demand money from you.
Subsequently TCG is completely indistinct in dress and blends in everywhere. Where was I? Yes you might be right about people in Hong Kong. I've seen the horrors of HK cold selfish people. For example in my OWN circles an auntie (everybody
is an auntie or uncle TCG does not respect this though) They are purposely waiting for somebody to die to gain their inheritance. Joke is on them though as her bank account has no money in it. Because an even more evil uncle got power of attorney over her years ago and emptied the bank account. He was most insulted when I called him a fucking cunt.
Heh my real uncles even tried to steal my dad's house more than once by having a contract written out in French, he nearly signed the damned thing. Fortunately they teach us how to read and speak French in the UK. I do not know why my dad still talks to his brother these days, as said with Bush. Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me!
What I am saying is that there are people of all kinds, you get good people, ambitious people, and people who are content and indifferent. Of course HK examples above the same applies to this too whereby I've made a gross generalisation due to my own personal experiences. However there is some weight behind your generalisation though. For instance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ7_HPP9J2Y
Where they tried to give out free hugs to people. TCG even in the UK does not accept free hugs; due to expert pick pockets who dip you. The worst feckers are old people who pretend to fall over, you run to catch them and you get dipped. As nobody wants them.
Anyway what I think it is, is simply that there is both a sense of decorum to be followed in each and every social situation. Also that I have noticed anyway a sense of insecurity around. Anybody who has read Sun Tzu will know about this.
In that people tend to look for your weaknesses and therefore show little emotion and therefore give little away, even inside families this is similar where much feeling is unspoken. This has probably stemmed form the fact Chinese culture has never had much for the average man and woman for the past 2000 years. Therefore people tend to look after their own above all others and reduce their vulnerabilities by giving an impression of coldness. Still this is just my opinion though. And my opinion may well be wrong as I'm certain people will tell me.
A great Chinese tradition continues..... ok so this happens in the western nations (Lies on your CV) . We've had fake eggs, fake soy saucecopied phones etc and the list goes on... but then again when travelling in China I always tend to use Korean airlines (partially because the air hostesses tend to give you their phone numbers when you ask for them and they will actually go out dancing with you) or the train. But a great western tradition of lying on you CV has come to China which is not a surprise because of the intense competition for jobs there.... it kind of sucks when it is a pilot or something though. On the other hand we shouldn't be so smug as we have fake pilots in Europe too! Or Ryan Air where they want one pilot but again this is a publicity stunt as per usual As O'Leary always offers outrageous suggestions for saving money on his flights. Like standing room only flights and pay toilets on board.
BEIJING (AFP) - China is investigating its commercial pilots' qualifications amid revelations more than 200 of them lied on their resumes.
The probe comes after 42 people died on August 24 when a Brazilian-made jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed at a small airport in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province.
Fifty-four passengers and crew survived the crash, in which the plane missed the runway, sparking speculation that pilot error was to blame.
The investigation into qualifications was launched by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the country's aviation regulator, the central government's news website said.
Between 2008 and 2009, the resumes of more than 200 Chinese commercial pilots were found to have been falsified, the report said, with some of them embellishing their flying histories.
At least half of the pilots worked for Shenzhen Airlines, which owns Henan Airlines.
"Some pilots changed their jobs many times and they constantly distorted their resumes," the report said.
"Some of them were former military pilots and became civil pilots, after being discovered a lot of them were grounded and had to go through re-examinations and re-assessment."
Investigators looking into the Henan Airlines crash were focusing on the qualifications of the pilot, the report added.
Previous media reports have said the pilot survived the crash, but was badly injured.
The government would also check the qualifications of other industry workers such as flight trainers, airline investigators, repair crews and air traffic controllers, Monday's report said.
It gave no figures on the number of people involved. China had 11,000 commercial air pilots in 2006, with hundreds added annually as the domestic aviation industry grows rapidly, according to previous media reports.
"We must draw a lesson from this painful air accident and figure out how to control the quick development (of the industry) and use quality demands to stabilise and slow development," Li Jiaxiang, CAAC head, was quoted by the government report as saying.
Authorities have already ordered safety checks of the country's fast-growing civil aviation fleet of 1,300 planes in the wake of the disaster, China's first major air disaster in nearly six years.
Some online chat rooms, the main outlet for relatively free public expression for millions in China, expressed outrage over the resume revelations.
"Why are they allowing Shenzhen to fly? Why are they allowed to do business if they have over 100 fake pilots?" said a posting on Sina.com.
However, the lack of a major disaster for six years despite head-spinning growth indicates China has done a "brilliant job on safety," said Sydney-based aviation analyst Derek Sadubin.
"They have had rapid growth over the past decade and have been trouble-free, basically. They have a safety record that is highly regarded," said Sadubin, of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
He added that Chinese carriers have continually upgraded their fleet, giving them one of the newest collections of planes in the world.
Wait this is one of those questions you always get in quizzes, much like when people ask who invented peanut butter many people will say George Washington Carver. Its a bit of a trick question.
Much like many people will say the capital of Turkey is Istanbul (it ain't its Ankara)
The capital of Aus is Sydney (its not it Canberra)
Or the capital of New York is New York (its Albany)
Or finally the capital of Switzerland is Geneva (its bern)
Since I am a store of useless information and thus deadly useful in quizzes. Something I paid a huuuge price for in my youth. As being the smart kid always got me beaten up all of the time. Boy did I hate school because of the beatings I received. My nose has been put back so many times. It was always after school too so you would stew horribly. Which would build up an incredible anticipatory period in which to shit yourself. There were often hours between finding out you would get the shit kicked out of you and the actual event which always made it worked. You'd think bugger me am I going to have to get my nose put back again? You have to wait all day and be consumed by thoughts of exceptional pain and a life in a wheel chair. Ok so in reality your opponent of the gang who kicked the shit out of me were piss weak fighters.....
Excuse me for that rather wild tangent.
But there are lots of legends from Buddhist priests wanting to give good look to people. To secret messages during the many civil wars in China.
But it was either Hagiwara a Japanese guy or a Hong Kong guy called Jung or another Japanese guy called Kito. Since they are rather easy to copy unlike say a Jet engine whereby two people co-invented it um Hans Von Ohain and Frank Whittle. It is disputed. As to who invented fortune cookies. But they are most definitely an invention of the migrants to the USA.
Thus are not seen in Asia..... well no in 2009 a shop did start to sell them in HK. I remember the reaction of my uncle who had a bite and had.... shall we say lots of unpleasant things with diu in it as he did not realise there was paper inside.
They are served at restaurants as a gimmick probably, but only westernised ones and even then not all of them. I sometimes give a helping hand to friends (it sucks having Chinese friends who work in hot food as they never have any time off so I go visit them instead).
As to who writes the messages, it is sick sacks of shit. The last batch of cookies I handled back in 2007 had nasty messages inside. Not things which said you'll die a horrible painful death. No worse it was vague kinds of things which undermined your confidence or introduced self doubt into your psyche. It was stuff like:
You're (sic) relationship is on rocky ground. They're (sic) will have a round of redundancies at your work place. You have something growing inside you.
It wasn't mistranslation it was just being cruel, I suppose the factory workers in their shit jobs on the production line probably decided to liven up their day, but these went beyond the pale. Either that or they misheard me when I was drunk off my ass. After talking about sex, ranting and shit I always have an incredibly imaginative moment whereby I can think of clever things kind. Kind of like the madengineer here
One of my common rants since 1995 have been making a line of misfortune cookies which have negative outcomes not as bad as above just nasty stuff like you smell horrible etc. (Oh come on I thought of this in 1995 when I was thinking about the girl next door). In fact since some people are nasty pieces of work how about a range of hell lee see? Sure sure you can make them pretty easily, but people are lazy. I often see in the mornings people get into the car to go 150 metres to buy a newspaper.
I mean we have machines which negative the need for us to walk like the Segeway.....
Interestingly Mongolian cops tend to use them a lot I saw loads of them around Sukebator Square in Ulan Bator. Though the cops would race them around for fun. More lazy inventions here
You may find this interesting. Neil B a really strange guy who converted to Judaism, became a Muslim and then a Hindu he was a more complicated person than me.
Anyway he once told me 75% of the Chinese population can go underground in case of a nuclear attack. I never believed him for years until I found out about it a couple years ago. I must have walked past the entrance 100 times in the many visits to Beijing I make and never noticed it.
There is one in Shanghai too as well as Chongqing and who knows how many more...
Hey does anybody remember the fallout game series?
It appears there is some misconception on the status on nuclear weapons in China. Id thought I should clean things up.
China’s nuclear weapons program began shortly after the PRC’s founding. Mao Zedong believed China would never be taken seriously without nuclear warheads, and that they would be under constant “nuclear blackmail” from the US. With the help of the Soviet Union, China built its first nuclear reactors. They also relied on the Soviets for nuclear materials such as yellowcake. After the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960’s, China had lost its assistance from the USSR, but was determined to “break the west’s monopoly on nuclear weapons”. On October 16, 1964 China detonated its first atomic bomb, code named ‘596’, in Lop Nur. Within a few years, they tested their first hydrogen bomb and created warheads for ICBM’s.
Today, China is one of the five recognized nuclear powers. Its current stockpile is believed to be about 250 warheads. For comparison, the UK has just over 200, France about 350, the US has over 10,000 and Russia has almost 12,000 (enough to destroy the earth ten times over).
China has signed and ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. China is also the only nuclear state with a ‘no first use’ policy, meaning they promise not to use nuclear weapons against any country unless nuclear weapons are used on China first. As seen in my very first post, China has ICBM’s that can carry warheads anywhere in the world except South America.
The ROC/Taiwan currently does not possess nuclear weapons. However in 1967, shortly after China’s hydrogen bomb test, the ROC began a secret nuclear weapons program. Out of the facade of creating energy, Taiwan was able to acquire nuclear materials from the US and Canada. By the 1970’s Taiwan was able to produce weapons grade plutonium in large enough quantities for a bomb. But the US soon found out about the program and pressured Taiwan to dismantle it in 1976.
There is currently no intelligence of Taiwan possessing a bomb, yet they do have the resources to construct one. The PRC has stated that possession of nuclear weapons by the ROC would be grounds for immediate military action. With that kind of threat breathing down their necks, I highly doubt the ROC would risk having a secret nuclear weapons program.
And now for some delicious footage.
Apparently this is from Trinity and Beyond a documentary on the atomic bomb. I have no idea if actual footage of the test exists. If this is real you can easily see the huge propaganda aspect of it.
