Chinese teeth

How come Chinese people have such awful teeth?

Xin

Dear Xin

Chinese people in China have awful teeth quite simply because dentistry in China is non existent in many areas of China still. Even people with fairly good jobs even in places like HK and Taipei can't afford to go to the dentist because it is very very expensive. (these places have semi socialised health care) TCG's ex GF needed some serious dental work when TCG first met her and she had to fly to HK to get it done as Taipei dentists were and are extortionate.

When you do go to a dentist they (or in my experience) do not perform any preventative care, they will merely check your teeth and only wait for something to go wrong. While my UK dentist will tell me to do this and that and even give me freebies like micro between the teeth brushes to clean my teeth.

While in mainland China with many poor people they simply don't go to dentists nor brush their teeth. EVEN city slickers only 10% clean their teeth regularly and properly as cited here.

There is also an issue of traditional, in China you get die hards who believe well its worked for the last 5000 years why change? In regards to Chinese medicine or chopsticks (chopsticks increase the chance of bone problems I forget which one). In China the traditional method in which to clean your teeth practiced by none other than Mao was this. You drink some green tea with lots of leaves in it. You then chew the leaves a bit spit out the green leaves and wipe with a towel.... Or use twigs (I'm not sure what the twig method happens to be btw). And hey twigs and green tea are virtually free so why do I need to buy a tooth brush? etc etc thinking

Thus in a nut shell it is about cost (dentists are expensive in the UK even with socialised health care), availability and thus people don't go to the dentist.

Yawn more pish poor journalism

Ruthlessly stolen from gamespot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12885271

Precis China to overtake the USA on science.... i.e. the number of published papers.... but the thing is its quality NOT quantity... Ok ok Stalin did once say quantity has a quality all of its own but the days of mass infantry wars like Korea and Imjin river are over.... or are they?? This applies to EVERYBODY not just China though. Like that Korean bloke who cloned a human and was found out to be a fraud. Or the fraudulent actions of the Climate Change unit in the UK.

I digress, I mean research has to be worthwhile for starters I mean look at the things on this list here

Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage.

What? So somebody somewhere carried out research in that sticking a finger up your bum can cure hicupps......

Ducks can be homosexual necrophiliacs too (winner, Biology, 2003)
"The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae)", Deinsea: Annual of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, 2001.

One of the greatest sentences in modern science writing: “Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard… mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force.” Take that, March Of The Penguins.

Suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio, winner, Medicine, 2004
"The Effect of Country Music on Suicide", Social Forces, 1992

If you knew there was something profoundly unacceptable about Billy Ray Cyrus, but you could never quite put your finger on what it was, here is your answer. The man makes people kill themselves.

Dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas, winner, Biology, 2008
"A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche, 1835)," Veterinary Parasitology, 2000

Presumably the research team set up some sort of tiny high-jump bar for the fleas to Fosbury-flop over. It’s not entirely pointless; knowing which that dog fleas jump higher tells you that buying a dog is more likely to lead to getting bitten yourself.

Lap dancers get higher tips when they are ovulating, winner, Economics, 2008
"Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?" Evolution and Human Behavior, 2007

This research might be hard to put into practical use – unless you’re a lap dancer – but you imagine the (all male) research team put in an awful lot of field work.

Rats can’t always tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards, winner, Linguistics, 2007
"Effects of Backward Speech and Speaker Variability in Language Discrimination by Rats," Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 31, no. 1, January 2005

The Linguistics Ig Nobel winner in 2007. In fairness to the researchers, they were trying to find similarities between human infants and other mammals, in order to better determine the evolutionary origins of speech. But what they actually did was show the world that rats don’t speak backwards Japanese. A miss, really.

You can extract vanilla flavouring from cow dung, winner, Chemistry, 2006
"Novel Production Method for Plant Polyphenol from Livestock Excrement Using Subcritical Water Reaction," International Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2008

Riiight

Why woodpeckers don’t get headaches – winner, Ornithology, 2006
"Woodpeckers and Head Injury,", Lancet, 1976; "Cure for a Headache," Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology, 2002

It is pretty baffling, when you think about it. Woodpeckers headbutt trees for a living, experiencing impact deceleration of more than 1000 times the force of gravity. So how do they prevent catastrophic brain injury? The difference between ordinary people and good scientists is that where we just wonder, the scientist finds out.

(The answer, if you were wondering, is: brain more tightly packed into the skull; a smooth brain surface to maximise impact surface area; and minimal side-to-side movement. So there you go.)

Malaria mosquitoes are as attracted to limburger cheese as they are to human foot odour – winner, Biology, 2006
"On Human Odour, Malaria Mosquitoes, and Limburger Cheese," The Lancet, 1996 (paper requires log-in)

Next time you go to Africa, don’t bother with insect repellent or mosquito nets – just take a nice ripe limburger, leave it outside your tent, and presto! A bite-free night.

Uber Belated comedy spot

Heh...

Pocky

Dear TCG,

. I like to give it to my Asian friends on special occasions (especially the girls) because they get ecstatic over it. I tried it but it didn't taste all that special to me. What is all the hype about?

I'm not sure actually, I remember pocky from my youth too and my dad would often bring a pack back now and again from Chinese wholesale stores, it was very expensive for what it was... Though I quite like Cabee corn puff snacks, as well as Wasabi nuts which I am sure contains an addictive chemical since they are like pringles chips but even worse.... I've fallen out of favor with pringles chips. Maybe it's because I thought the eyes were the red things.



Maybe it is nostalgia of having something from their youth or sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmething since such snacks are not uncommon in China in either the past or the present.

Having a word with my dad about this....

He said Chocolate in China (even HK) in the 70s and 80s were rare. Chinese sweets typically consist of various disgusting cup jellies which you don't want to think too hard about. Caramelised sugar, biscuits and or dissicated fruit of various kinds.

TCG remembers this


Chocolate was not at all common and it was stinkingly expensive.... add in the general lactose intolerance of Asian people and few companies made the stuff. And at first appearances appeared to be brown stuff that was sweet. My dad and his entire family chew chocolate bricks



Rather than let them melt in their mouths for some reason.

Thus I think it is probably to do with nostalgia of getting it when they were children and also that unlike all other western nations Chocolate wasn't common. I mean IIRC WWI rations had a bar of chocolate in it, so did WWII.

There is a god!

I was umming and arring about moving over to Asia, with the major problem being there is no skydiving in China rumors of airfields where people go out there and find nothing there and I needed something to feed my addiction.

Pretty much thought I'd have to go and become a BASE jumper like these folks:

Base jump à Hong Kong : vidéo sur aufeminin.com

But...



There is a club just over the border! Woo.



Makes me wonder what I shall do tbh....

Does any body have the video of?

Twenty years ago I remember seeing a video like this.



Except it was hillarious rather than the mostly unimpressive stuff seen in the video above. Sure sure the spears to the throat is impressive, so is the spear to the belly but everything else is a variation on the vagrants tricks.


No what I am after is a video I saw sometime in the 1980s it showed Shaolin monks who really proved their powers and ablities. Not like above but in more dangerous (yet sickenly hillarious ways). For example they proved they could resist ANYTHING. So what does the smegging presenter do? He heats up a hot vat of cooking oil, fries a piece of meat in it to prove it is seriously hot. He then scoops up some of it and while the monks are meditating as hard as they can he pours it over the heads of the monks. It was sort of like the end of a Jackie Chan film when they show outakes of Jackie Chan breaking his head open for the 10th time or something. Where it was Chinese propagada videos where they showed the out takes.

Granted it is uber schadenfreude but I spent 8 hours today at work filing stuff due to lack of business..... and I always remember how comical these films were

Maneki Neko

Dear TCG,


I notice that in all Chinese owned businesses I see these sculptures of beckoning cats everywhere. I know they're supposed to bring good luck, but why? and why a cat?


These cats are called Maneki Neko.... in Cantonese we say Chew Choi Mao (fortune bringing cat sorta). The thing is they are not Chinese at all they are a Japanese invention and somehow crossed the straights of China and Japan to become popular in Chinese homes. It's a cat because in some folklore cats with their good vision are able to see in the dark. Thus they are able to see and scare away evil ghosts.

They are supposed to 'claw' good luck and protection towards you hence the beckoning paws, but really they are a product of Chinese polytheism.

Where they cherry pick bits and pieces of religions in an attempt to make sense of the crazy universe we live in. For example in the old Chinese woman's home down the road family members home they have a small altar which venerates their ancestors. A bowl of fruit and fake electric incense is placed to venerate your ancestors.

Move a little to the left and you see a massive fake plastic golden sycree which if was real gold I would need an extra large bank passbook to fit in all those 00s and I would retire walking into the sunset and never return...

Move nearer the TV and you have three statues Fuk Luk and Sau. They are displayed together, and their presence is said to ensure wealth, authority, respect, long life and good health. While if you go to the doorway you'll see Ba gau. A taoist symbol..... move a little back and you'll see a some shrunk mellons of some kind.

Thus people pick and choose, I know my dad did (my dad is an ancestor worshipping, Taoist, karma believer.

OD

Hello

Is it easy to over dose on eastern medicine and if u can please name the side effects.


This question I believe is impossible to answer, namely because eastern medicine covers an awful lot of things. And while something in huge quantities may not do you any harm. For example, herbal teas like Chrysanthemum tea or 24 herb tea. Or the numerous Chinese broths that are concocted up. At family dinners, spinach soup you can drink all day and all night nothing will happen to you. Ginger coca cola cold cure you can drink gallons of the stuff and nothing will happen to you. Something dangerous you can take and it will appear to do no harm but will have some long term effects Ipicac for example makes you vomit but damages your heart over time if used a lot.

On the other hand there are things which in small quantities can hurt you really bad. One of my semi relatives is currently a vegetable in an old persons home because she consumed too much of something.... I was in HK when it happened to her she had a really bad stroke and was not discovered for quite sometime and thus effectively lost all of her personality...I'm not exactly sure if it is a casual relationship between the medicine and her stroke though. Namely because her medical notes are sealed and I don't like to pry. It also makes me sad to see her abandoned like that.... I do not have power of attorney over her either. I don't know what it was but it was a medicine of some kind. Before this event she could take on tigers in hand to hand combat and win.

Therefore I can't really answer your question. As I am not a trained medical professional and it would be incredibly dangerous (and foolish) to follow any advice I give you or do not give you. I would say if you are going to a herbal doctor in China/HK, listen to him or her and tell them what you are taking in addition to the Chinese medicine. Exactly as you would tell your western doctor if you were feeling ill and needed some meds.

Right I'm tired of this

As with the Chinese quality is shit thread here

This is only my opinion, and since I am not an omnipotent type I may well be wrong.

Yet another Chinese bubble myth pops it's ugly head up. Sure Chinese GDP is faked but then again it is faked in our western economies too.

Chris Martenson tells a good story here

I mean FFS, GDP in western nations is counted really badly.... so there is a faster computer out there, even if you didn't buy it, it still increases your productivity therefore it gets added to the GDP figures. So you own your home, no I don't mean you have a mortgage but you own it outright. Ah but the government considers this how much rent would you have to pay if you did not own and had to rent. Even though you do not rent.... such silly things like that.

Or how when something gets bloody expensive people substitute it for cheaper things.... I'm not sure my car runs on anything other than petrol tbh and what I can substitute food for either. Watch some of the crash course if you have a couple of hours.

Anyway annoying me is this video doing the rounds:

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/watch/id/601007/n/China-s-Ghost-Cities

OMG China has a massive bubble, they have 64 million empty homes. Nobody lives in them electricity and water consumption confirm these are empty cities ghost cities if you will.

OMG those poor factory workers who have to work ten years to afford such apartments! Its all a massive bubble!


This Ferrari Enzo would take me a couple of life times to earn enough money to own..... except this assumes I want a ferarri enzo... however I don't, perhaps because my piece of junk 1999 sports tourer bike



Has the ability destroy a Ferrari Enzo probably maybe or at least have 80-90% of the performance of it.

Except it isn't.

Let me step away from this for a second..... why did you study hard in school? Why do you toil and work hard? Do you do it for fun (OK my dad is a nutter and works for fun but he is a rare type of person) or do you do it for a reward of some kind. You know a pay cheque at the end of the money for some $$$$$.

In the USA and Europe we have migrant workers. In the USA (although as said I've not actually been there and the TSA are doing nothing to encourage me to visit there. A certain drop zone in the USA is HIGHLY tempting though...... Anyway you get poor people from poorer countries who go work in the USA. Some of them stay and settle, while others work for a few years and take the money home to invest in something build their homes or whatever. The ones that come and go after a few years are playing wage arbitrage. They can go home and the money they earned from a pretty poor wage is effectively tripled when they go home. Poles and Eastern Europeans can do this. So while they are paid £5.92 (not much) they go home and it suddenly becomes £17. Etc.

Well the thing is China is a big country, where 900-1.1bn people are still from rural areas and haven't got a pot to piss in. This is of course changing slowly with time. These people aren't in on the empty apartments bubbles, for a start they can't afford to buy a house. Many of these workers live in company provided accommodation. Hell Foxconn even has an entire city complex to house its employees. Thus they aren't in on the property speculation you don't get NINJAS in China. Which instantly discounts 70% +of the population.

Additionally the workers work at such places because they have a goal, to save some money and go home to use it on something like investing in businesses to build their own homes etc. I mean why else would you put up with really crap conditions at work? If your boss bullied you and gave you constant unhittable targets why wouldn't you just go nuts down tools and simply walk out? I mean labour laws aren't so bad in China that you are held at gunpoint you can leave.

If you couldn't people would flip out like this



Because they do not intend to do this forever. They put up with hardship now and reap the benefit later, i.e. I have money to invest I can have a home without a cripplingly large mortgage! Thus why would the couples living in the slums in the film linked above want to buy such over priced apartments ? Sure it would take them 10 years working in their unpleasant jobs to afford a not so nice apartment. But why would they do this when many of them can simply go back to their home villages and build there instead for a fraction of the price?

Granted not everybody can do this as if your home village is now a Beijing of Shanghai suburb then the price will be uber to do this. But with 900million of more country folks (expected to decrease to 500 million by 2040) a great many can do this. Thus why buy Ferrari when I can buy a similarly performing bike as above, horses for courses of erm course.

So who owns them then?

The wealthy and the elites do.... the ones who own the factories or have big successful companies or government types that take the bribes. The problem with these people is that they have money but they have nowhere to put it for a real rate of return. China has high inflation but interest rates lag the true rate of inflation. You can't take it out of the country easily (Hong Kong is an option) so people pile it into property on the hope that it will appreciate. As they buy in cash and have no loans on it, interest is not really an issue nor is renting it out an issue to cover the mortgage either. It goes pop? 900-1.1bn people shrug their shoulders and get on with life as normal. As they were not in the bubble in the first place. The middle classes and elites get haircuts.

Unlike say the UK where a huge % of the population was in on the property bubble as above NINJAS (no income no job no assets). When it goes pop or when it went pop, these peoples mass defaults mean they hold the government hostage and have imploded the economy.

North Korea

Ages and ages ago I posted about Monkeytime going to North Korea.

I only just noticed they've actually posted the entire series up on youtube.

Here is the first part:



Part 1 is mostly exposition though

Part 2 is where it begins



A different point of view curtesy of Comtourist

Oddly enough I considered going to NK a few months ago, I think this saved me the trip tbh since I would probably say no to everything asked of me and would have gotten my ass kicked. Also TCG as a quirk of his heritage never bows or kneels EVER.

How to make an extra $50 a week in China

In China? Want some extra cash? Single? Just unzip those trousers!

Financial incentive for donating sperm in Guangdong has been growing. Those who are qualified can receive 300元 (US$45) per donation and donate up to 10 times. Giving you an extra US$457 over 10 weeks.

The only place in China were porn is legal

My basement

I don't really understand why there would be a sperm shortage in China. The one child policy limits couples to one offspring plus there are more men than women in China.

1950s USA is China?

You know this reminds me a lot about my own youth not so long ago. The person speaking talks about China feeling like the 1950s USA. In that my visits sporadically to China make me feel this way sometimes. Though of course I wasn't even born in 1950s USA. Nor do I know if the USA is how the podcaster describes either as it could be completely different. I do know though that the UK economy is absolutely on the ropes. Pay cuts all round announced today.... bugger...

Although I know memories play tricks on us, I recall the 1980s.

Back in the 1980s it felt a lot freer, I'd walk home alone from school, I'd arrive home alone. We would vanish off for the whole day on bicycles and nobody would really care our parents would say be careful and we would go out graze our knees and generally get hurt but have fun.

Maybe it's all the responsibilities I have these days which mean I'm jaded, or the way I'm constantly encouraged to move over to China, a job or two every week pops up in Longgang or Zhuhai now and again which I think I could do that....

Maybe it's the feeling of greener grass maybe it's just nothing, as I read the Korean's post and felt my experience differed greatly from his experiences...

Maybe I'm just probably rambling.

Monday Comedy: Feel the Freshness!

Can anyone identify the language they were speaking? or is it just gibberish?

No wonder car drivers all hate us

There is often animosity between two wheeled folk and car drivers.....

Sure we can filter through traffic, and generally use less fuel as well as look cool (sometimes). But when you see this it makes you think blimey



India



We should get some of these guys into MotoGP

No sheeet

http://www.sz2011.org/UniversiadeENG/index.html



Heh..... at least the university in China is being honest. In that very few people in the UK actually want the olympics nobody asked us. They imposed it on us......

Three drunks and the wine story

Somebody asked me what this story was a few days ago. Unfortunately I sort of lost the email and the name of the person who did the asking.... I do sort of remember the gist of the question though and it asked what is the Chinese parable of three men and the wine story?


There are many variations of this story and like all stories it changes with the times..... 200 or so years ago it was Chinese men who were drunk who found a jar of wine. In the 1980s it was the Nintendo power glove. In the 00s I'm not sure what it would be. But there will be quite a lot lost in translation. But as per usual it is a tale about saving face...

But the tale is this:

Once upon a time (when was the last time you read that?) There are three good friends who are really really happy, they had been celebrating a good harvest. To celebrate they had been drinking heavily at the local bar and had been drinking all night. The bar was closing and they were asked to leave.

"The night still young!" Shouted one of the men..."lets find another place to drink!"

The searched in vain and did not find another open bar, and had travelled full circle back to the bar they had been kicked out of...... one of the men spotted a wine storage shed was unlocked and found a large jar of wine like this.


The men can't believe their luck and one of the men grab the jar and drinks a mouthful..... he instantly realises that it's not wine. It's urine..... he isn't happy about it. He instantly says, GREAT WINE.

The second man not wanting to miss out grabs the jar and also tips a large amount into his mouth and again instantly realises that he is drinking urine... he too isn't happy about it... but again he said GREAT WINE.

The third man noticing the 'wine' is quickly being drunk grabs the jar and chugs the rest of it, but quickly realises that he is drinking urine. Again he says GREAT WINE..

All of them embarrassed shuffle off into the night.

The parable is supposed to teach us a few things. Firstly that saving face is not always as great as it is made out to be, in that although you saved your own face (if you were one of the first two to drink) you also dragged others down with you.

Secondly try not to laugh at the misfortune of others as they may well too attempt to save face and bring this misfortune onto you.

Or something like that, I was 14 and trapped on a boat on the Yangtze River last time I heard it. Though because of the crudeness of this story, it isn't often told either.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Fuck you MGM

How an invading Army changes from Chinese to North Korean

Ever since last year I was pumped for the remake of Red Dawn when I heard that China was playing the enemy. But then, as I was about to log off facebook and go to bed, the news came up. Due to pressure from China, as well as the hype for the video game Homefront, the asshats at MGM decided to to edit the movie to make it a North Korean invasion instead. I am at a loss for words...

EDIT: Video related:

Chinese people and abalone

Chinese Guy.

What is so special about abalone? I always see chefs on Chinese TV rant and rave all about it, my dad also talks about how good it is all the time, whats so special about it?

Daniel W

Dear Daniel

It's probably because Abalone in Hong Kong is expensive.... Chinese people appear to associate something being expensive = good. Dainese leathers are very expensive. I nearly lost all my skin when the Dainese leathers I wore fell apart on a spill once. As many of you will probably be aware that expensive is not always good. Hilariously there were a bunch of French wine tasters who rated a cheap bottle of wine better than the finest vintage wines..

In Mainland China they are even bigger suckers for this sort of pricing. A US beer firm sold a beer in China for $60 a bottle, even when you can buy it from a 7-11 for $2 a bottle.

I've had some and it didn't do anything for me tbh. It is expensive because Abalone is Shakespeare..... wait what? What has a sea slug got to do with a playwright who lived in the 1650s to do with all this?.

It's human nature really, whereby one only says or acts in a certain way because other people talk and act in a certain way. The genetic desire to fit in is pretty strong in all humans, not all but many, it's why you get religions, cults, goths and all sorts of people in between.

So what has this got to do with Shakespeare? Well old'e Wil is revered by many as the ULTIMATE writer of all time and they say things like he is

"everything to all men"

And thus relevant through the ages.... which is absolute bullshit. I remember playing Caesar in school and really being stabbed by pencils and pens before whimpering the line.

"Et Tu Bruti?"

Shakespeare is not entertaining to read and I found all of his works impenetrable and could not relate to any of it. He is not everything to all men... he is good because other people say he is good. People will exploit this and will call me a thicko for not being able to appreciate how good Shakespeare is supposed to be. Thus putting peer pressure onto me to say Shakespeare is actually a remarkable piece of work.

The same applies to abalone, because it is so freakishly expensive in Hong Kong. Most probably because of the appalling pollution in Hong Kong. Whereby the water is so polluted Granny Ruth's pointless and easily avoidable death in Dante's peak happens all the time.



The cracked article is here which means it has to be imported in which makes it expensive. People buy it and eat it and are less than impressed with it. Yet to save face they say mmm that was absolutely delicious and worth every single penny, even though they are probably suffering immense buyers remorse. Which continues the circle of deception whereby other people think it is good because other people say it is good sounds. Oddly enough Chinese parables are littered with such examples of saving face in such a manner. I'd share with you but not right now

Monday Comedy/Rage (depending on how you look at it)

EDIT: Video was removed, but there are dozens of mirrors. It should work now.



Oh god, racist or not I would plow that thing like a highway!

Gah!

You can probably tell the UK weather is crap today.....

Anyway internet stream channel surfing I came upon a short segment of this....... seriously do people think the scary Anime face is a good look to have?

Yeesh

HK's version






More here

Meh Photoshop is EVIL I tells ya (even though I made a small living out of it a long time ago)

The real Wang looks like this.

Horror films

Dear Chinese guy

Why are there no good horror films from China or Hong Kong? I can only find zombie films or comedy horror films which aren't scary at all. How come Koreans can make scary films but Chinese people can't?


George K


Dear George.



A bit of background.... a big reason as to why China doesn't make horror as we see it is simply because the censors don't like it. You know the kind of thing. We don't want people to see things which may upset social harmony. Stabby stabby psycho films such as erm..... American Psycho (a master piece the book anyway).

Scream 1 and 2 (less so 3) Saw I,II,III etc or I know what you did last summer, hell even The Fog (the 1980s version not the crappy 2005 remake). People can be very impressionable for example A better tomorrow. When A better tomorrow came out (not a horror film) loads of people copied Chow Yun Fat's character dress minus the guns of course.

China being China didn't give much credit to the people. You know the kind whereby newspapers and headless Chicken types blame movies for making people violent. Thus China's censors tended to not allow such things and or films of the super natural. It was something like 1979 when Deng Xiao Ping talked about removing the shackles from writers and artists. It was just talk though for many years. With the law about if we make a film to be shown in China then you really shouldn't make a different version sort of rule, unless we want to censor it get around double standard.

Thus when the government in China tells you NO, you simply don't do it. Unless we say so..... such is the will of a one party state....

Today writers skirt the issue by going all Dallas.



Oh it was just the imagination or it was just a dream or he took drugs (remember Winners don't take drugs!)



Which again promotes the ideology of drugs are bad m'kay....

..... while a western film would have the psycho lunge from a hidden corner when waking from such a dream just to scare people a bit more, they go all Dallas.

19 Levels of Hell for instance did a Dallas, it was all just a dream. Those that died didn't really die. Thus you get comical films about Zombies, Like Mr Vampire and Spooky encounters. Or modern day ones like erm The Phantom Lover which is sort of tense sometimes Romeo and Juliette remake. But not in your face lunging killer arrrgh make you jump kind of fear. Anecdotal I remember some might have been hell raiser or something. Which wasn't scary at all the scariest bit was when something fell out of a cupboard. Or Painted Skin, which is a knock off of Silence of the lambs. Where the protagonist goes around wearing other peoples skin.

Secondly the horror that is out there IS scary to older Chinese people. Like the dead coming back to life. While western influenced people like me see Zombies as a great opportunity to grab thy shotgun pump it like this.


One Handed Shotgun Pump

Shawn | Myspace Video

And go a Zombie huntin' ker chak! (Shotguns of the pump type are legal in the UK 3 shots maximum though)

Chinese have a general dislike of death and the undead, you know no number 4. Which goes far beyond the western fear of death maybe its the way three or four generations living under one roof is still common and Chinese people get to see their elders deteriorate. Maybe its the way many Chinese still venerate their ancestors or the way the recent dead tended (in the near past) to be buried nearby. (My grandad is in my uncles house in a jar). Such stuff about walking dead and or corpses being reanimated or ghosts is scary to many older Chinese people I know. A ridiculous movie I almost demanded my money back and the seconds of life I wasted watching had three seconds of CGI where his wife who turned out to be a ghost morphed a CGI monster mouth.... now if it were a morphed CGI dentata that would scare the hell out of me.


While I'll scoff at such films because I am a jaded city slicker. Who has met far too many weirdos to be phased much by anything.

It's like this back in 1984 audiences were awed at what was going on. While people born today see a big latex looking head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNpb8KQ-OQ0

But with the censorship and skirting around like Dallas the true horror genre probably won't take off in China for a while. Now Koreans and Japanese people on the other hand. They make pretty decent horror movies.

Long lists of Korean films and Japanese films

Decent enough for Hollywood to copy remake such films and quietly pretend they thought of the idea themselves. Ok so they aren't as gory as western horror films but pretty decent regardless.




Except this one



Where they appeared to steal the plot from the Simpsons

One of my faves happens to be Candyman 1 probably because I really like the score to the film

Fookin' A!

For absolutely no reason at all the HK government saw fit to give TCG $6000. Ok ok it's only $770 US. £488 UK GBP but it is a damn sight more than the UK government has ever given me and they gouge me for 34% of EVERY freakin' penny I make.

Here

Granted the source of this money is probably this magical device


However it is much more satisfactory than when the UK produces money like this as I get a piece of it instead of it being given to their best mates......

I is stumped

What in the world is that chime called. I saw one at Stones and Bones Natural Art Store in Savannah Georgia ten years ago. This fountain or waterfall or whatever you call it was a nice walnut box with oriental designs on it and it contained hundreds of ball that when you turned the fountain over, the ball fell across chimes for like a half hour. I'd like to find one.

Thanks and regards.

JJ


Erm anybody out there know the answer? I sure don't

Virginity in China

Virginity in women is highly valued in China (as well as various other cultures around the world). This has led many women to have to risk being looked down upon or even loosing a marriage partner if they want to have sex freely when they want. Until now. Japanese companies are actually trying to sell artificial hymens. The hymen is a thin membrane inside the vagina that is broken by penetration and has always been the most noticeable indicator of a woman's virginity (even though it may be broken by other means such as strenuous exercise). These fake hymens are made of Carboxymethyl cellulose and are designed to stick into place with surgical glue. Although the makers claim no side effects, gynecologists say they could lead to infections. Still, millions of women pay almost US$10 for these over-the-counter patches. Even so, the makers recommend faking being in some pain in order to be more convincing.

Those who want to take it a step further can have hymen restoration surgery, in which the natural hymen is reconstructed. I have no idea how they do this but some believe its worth the $1000 price tag.

Oh TCG, you're so typical...

at least thats what National Geographic says according to world statistics. A study by National Geographic says that the typical human is a right handed, 28 year old Han Chinese male who lives in or near the city, is literate and works in the services industry.

Did I just blow your mind?



Even so, that composite image does not represent humanity as a whole. It was made from over 7000 Chinese men. The reason it was only Chinese men is because there are more Chinese men than the men of any other single ethnic group. While no ethnic group makes up the majority of all humans, Chinese outnumber any other individual ethnic group. If you wanted to see what the average human would look like all ethnic groups considered, it would probably look like the cover of TIME magazine Fall 1993:

Ok, America ≠ The World, but I don't think you can find a better example as the US is definitely the worlds most diverse nation.

TCG has a new hobby

Simply TCG is busy.... and will be busy for for quite some time TCG will endeavour to answer your questions on bad weather days while waiting on the ground watching the perpetual clouds over UK drop zones.




Simply TCG has become slightly addicted to this:

The wind is distorting my face honest gov.... :)

0.25 seconds before my bollocks were turned into the consistency of boysenberry jam.

I'd show you the entire video but it is mildly embarrassing as this was jump number 6 and I wasn't particularly good by jump 6 and that was quite a few jumps ago! Thus you understand my enthusiasm for ATCG is somewhat muted compared to this.

Lei Feng

Lei Feng


Lei Feng is James Bond.... no seriously hear me out...

In that think about James Bond, he is suave, talented and gets all the girls, thus other men want to be him and if James Bond were real men would be jealous of him. For some strange reason I ended up watching a crappy James Bond film the one where Christopher Walker plays the blond bad guy. And at the end Roger Moore ends up horizontal with Tanya Roberts.

This is what Tanya looked like in the 80s.... time is a harsh mistress....



The official history of Lei Feng is flexible, if you've ever read the book 1984 by Orwell Winston Smith works in the ministry of truth. Whereby history is regularly edited to make the party and thus big brother look right all the time. Or it is changed as to make the people exceed the estimations of Big Brother.

The original official line was that he was an orphan who joined the military who sent his wages to the family of a fellow soldier who had died. He would cook for his fellow soldiers and even wash their clothes. Which stretches credibility pretty damned far...

But hey this is pre 1980 China where propaganda was pretty laughable, hell modern British propaganda is pretty laughable too.

in fact today it can be laughable sometimes. The Beijing military museum non Chinese are not that welcome unless you want to pay an extortionate fee. This place is a great example it says Mao stands for human rights and democracy.... oops that probably got me banned in China.

There are numerous examples of such propaganda, like the Long March, which wasn't as long as they claimed.

Or more Hilarious was the Dadu Bridge battle. Whereby 22 Chinese soldiers attacked and took the bridge. This was compounded by the fact that the bridge was rickety 110 metres long and had multiple machine gun nests positioned at 45 degree angles to the bridge to give better targetting aspect... I don't claim to understand it but it is a concept from WWI where machine guns did not fire directly ahead they fired in cones at 45 degree angles which made them deadlier. Yet shock and surprise none of the communist forces were harmed during the battle.

Ok ok so you get some insane heroism sometimes. Like Yogendra Singh Yadav.

Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav, 18 Grenadiers, in the early morning hours of 4 July 1999 was part of the Commando 'Ghatak' (Deadly or Lethal) Platoon tasked to capture three strategic bunkers on Tiger Hill. The approach was a vertical cliff face, snowbound at 16,500 feet. Grenadier Yadav, volunteering to lead the assault, was climbing the cliff face and fixing the ropes for further assault on the feature. Half-way up, an enemy bunker opened up machine gun and rocket fire. His Platoon Commander and two others fell to the heavy volume of automatic fire. Realising the enormity of the situation, he continued to scale the sheer cliff face alone through a volley of fire. In spite of having been hit by three bullets in his groin and shoulder, he climbed the remaining 60 feet and reached the top. He crawled up to the bunker critically injured and lobbed a grenade killing four Pakistani soldiers and neutralising enemy fire. This act was directly instrumental in facilitating the rest of the platoon in climbing up the cliff face.[1]

Grievously injured but with reckless disregard to personal safety, Grenadier Yadav now charged on to the second bunker and neutralised it with two of his colleagues in fierce hand-to-hand combat, killing three Pakistani soldiers. This extraordinary act motivated the rest of the platoon who quickly traversed the treacherous terrain and, braving hostile fire, charged onto the enemy to capture Tiger Hill, a vital objective. For his sustained display of bravery, Grenadier Yogender Singh Yadav was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest medal for gallantry.

But seriously nobody was hurt or even got a twisted ankle? Because it never happened thats why.

Anyway Lei Feng is one of those be like this guy in a twisted sort of way almost like "Arbeit macht frei". He is merely a composite of various people who is made into a shining star for people to seek to emulate. Almost like Uncle Sam's do not ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.

Kind of like Chinese parents but that is a story for another time.

The PRC wanted a role model and made one up for people to achieve which was important at the time. I.e. join the military as China had just spilt the beer of the USSR and they almost went to war (and thus needed cannon fodder). It changes to suit the culture of China today. For example the self sacrifice cog in a big machine is bollocks.

People since the 1990s have become increasingly mercenary and unwilling to sacrifice for the greater good. Show me the money! Is what is important now. Thus Lei Feng today is merely a joke.

Wushu

Chinese guy


I have a question to ask... one of my heros is Seagal, and he impresses me a lot. I read that he left home and went to Japan to train for a number of years. I would like to know how I can do this and become a martial arts student in a Chinese village. I've always had a passion for martial arts since I was 15 but I want to train all the time. Im from NJ and Im 25 yrs old.. I would like to know what villages will be willing to take me in? What will it cost? How much money should I bring? What do I have to do to get them to accept me as their student.

If you have any tips please help me would appreciate it thank you

Anon



Um..................


Er..................


Ok lets get this straight not all Chinese people know martial arts. While a lot of people gather in Chinese parks and practice Tai Chi all over the place. Some people like my granny who appears to be immortal steals Chi from trees in the park regularly I'm sure she steals it off me when I visit her as I always return with more grey hair...... never trust REALLY old Chinese people who look young.

A lot of my generation do because we had to learn to fight or would be beaten to crap by bullies. I still got beaten up a lot. Simply somebody going to a remote Chinese village to train is a western trope and it is a plot device utilised in movies and literature. Like Kill Bill 2 Where the Bride goes to train with the old Chinese stock character?

Add in a training Montage like this



and this



And woot after a short 5 minute training session the hero becomes a killing machine. Doesn't work I'm afraid. On that note I freakin' hate training montages. As it gives false hope that you can get good at something in a short often painful amount of time.

It does not happen. Consider how many guitars are lying unused in people's homes since they gave up after time. However since you're wanting to go live there for a long time it may work out eventually. Unfortunately if you went to a village in China a lot of people probably would not be able to even practice wushu properly. You may even find a shyster who would teach you bollocks and you would not learn anything at all.

I suppose you could try the shaolin temple school which is $360 a month. Note how they say YEARS on their website rather than weeks. I.e. 3rd and 4th year you get a discount. But I don't know if this is a scam or not. They also teach Northern Style Martial arts and Wushu only which southerners like my Dad scoff at Northern styles. Since they look good with great flare and style, but when it comes to fighting they are less good which explains the popularity of brutal piss poor looking wing chun and Chow gar practiced in the UK Chinese community.

Tbh I would probably find a local school and practice and ask opinions as to if he is any good or not. For instance in Manchester there is a Chow gar practitioner, he is Welsh and looks completely unauthentic but he is pretty damned good.

I would note however ALL Chinese Martial arts are not as invincible as Jet Li likes to portray, ok it is better than nothing. But simply techniques such as Wing Chun are based on superior blocking such as this video here.



This means that Chinese martial arts practitioners often are glass cannons. In that they can dish it out but because they block and parry everything they are completely unused to being hit. While watch any Thai boxing (art of the eight limbs) or even traditional queensbury rules boxing and these people spend 10 rounds knocking the hell out of each other just absorbing blow after blow. Sure sure not getting hit in the first place is probably wiser but if you're gonna dish it out you sure as hell ought to be able to take it too.



However enjoy a fake wire based martial arts film fist of legend

Food delivery in Hong Kong?

Dear Chinese guy.

Is it true that you can get McDonalds delivered in Hong Kong? Why don't they do this here?

Shin


Dear Shin

Yes McDonalds does deliver in Hong Kong, hell pretty much every hot food place in Asia delivers, I suppose it is because it is part of the lives and culture of the people. Asians work damned hard, while ass hats like me get 30 days holiday a year in Asia more than 5 days a year is considered a lot of holidays! Also because labour is comparatively cheap as well as there being a much wider acceptance of scooters and light motorcycles being used as run abouts. These being advantageous since they use less fuel and are not bothered by traffic. Combined with the uber population densities of most major cities in Asia. Compared with say Los Angeles a big American city. In the city 3.8 million people live in the LA area. While OTOH In Hong Kong you have 6 mllion people living in an area the size of erm. Santa Monica in Hong Kong. Beijing isn't as bad, but Seoul and Tokyo are obsene where maximum security prison cells make the flats and apartments there look big. Which means that in a 5 minute scootay ride you have potentially 50,000 consumers. While over here in the UK even in the city centre the population is pretty low. In Suburb land populaton density is so low that in a 5 minute radius you get barely 1000 potential consumers.

America gets Told. Hard.

Evan Osnos (欧逸文 Ōu yìwén) is the China correspondent for the New Yorker (dream job <3). On Wednesday he had an interview with Stephen Colbert where he reiterated the fact that China is beating us in everything except innovation and human rights. 

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Evan Osnos
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Evan's Blog at The New Yorker

Playing the Game: Chinese Edition

This is interesting, there seems to be a growing industry in China in helping men pick up women. Its not really a mystery as to how this came about. China is a society who's generation-Y grew up in a much more liberal society than their parents. Marriage was often arranged and happened early. Dating was not a typical part of the process. Todays generation of Chinese men didn't learn how to socialize with women from their fathers or the media, and so were left sometimes clueless on how to meet women.

So to supplement for a lack of a role model, Chinese can now attend classes on how to socialize with the opposite sex for a nominal fee of a few hundred US dollars. Keep in mind there are more men than women in China, so pickings are limited.

I see a business opportunity for you TCG.