Here's to 100 Years!

Note: If you are new here, read this then this, first. You can also contact me, KaiWen, here. 

UPDATE: Epic failure on my part. I erroneously posted this on new years last year. Last year was the 99th birthday of the ROC, not the 100th. Also, although the Republic of China was officially founded on New Years Day 1912, but its birthday is celebrated on October 10th, the day of the Wuchang uprising and the beginning of the Xinhai Revolution. Today, October 10th, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. Our friends at NMA can give us a little history lesson.



Today marks a very special day. Because today marks a great anniversary. Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. 100 years ago today, Sun Yi Xian and Kuomintang Nationalists overthrew the Qing Empire and established the Chinese Republic. In the face of three bloody wars, Japanese Imperialists and Communist threats, the Republic of China has come out strong; as a new democracy and one of the Asian Tigers. Here's to 100 more years!

The Hong Kong World Financial Center totally stole the idea of launching fireworks from a building. Above is Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world (taller than any in Mainland China), and the worlds first skyscraper fireworks display. Enjoy and Happy New Year (until February)!

Some Intermission Comedy

In light of this blogs semi-abandonment I thought Id throw out a post, since TCG retained my posting privileges. Don't expect me to take over, I am most certainly NOT qualified to run this place. But to keep the spider webs from growing I'll try to throw something China related up once in a while. Heres some comedy.

I found this hilarious for more reasons than I should. Some chapping young lads from Beijing City College have opened an Obama branded KFC near campus. Dubbed, "OFC" or "Obama Fried Chicken". In America at least, there is a racial stereotype that black people crave fried chicken (it was a popular dish among slaves in the American South) Chinese appear oblivious to this. It also seems that all foreigners seem to have an obsession for Obama.

   

Also, in a moment of simultaneous triumph and fail, China launched its Tiangong-1 module into space to lay the ground work for a future Chinese space station. However, when the Chinese government created a CGI animation of the module leaving the atmosphere and settling into the orbit, they played the wrong patriotic music. Instead of something like "March of the Volunteers" they actually play the instrumental to "America the Beautiful". A joke? An embarrassing mistake? Or some kind of olive branch?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hiatus

Dear readers.



People who are from Japan and or have lived in Japan may recognise this tune and what it signifies......

This blog is on hiatus for a unspecified amount of time, initially I had considered closing it and deleting it completely but blogger hides the delete button somewhere.

Closing it also is kind of bleak and permanent. And sometimes very infrequently I get the urge to simply splatter my thoughts all over a post to rant and rave for a moment.

But having read this from the Pinoy guy

I have not written for months and been really remiss in answering the questions that are piling up because

(1) I have been so busy with work and family and (2) I simply have not been in the mood to write lately. This blog, as you know, is a “moodly” – I write and answer questions when I’m in the mood. That’s why even my loyal readers have abandoned my blog because of the absence of new entries. I don’t blame them – I too would do the same (and in fact did over the last few months).

I've simply decided to take a Sabbatical from this blog for a multitude of reasons. This may well be permanent who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I've spent the last few days typing out responses to a few interesting questions to sort of draw a line over it. Other responses which do not appear here are answered by email.

If anybody wants to take over the reins or be an author here then email me and I'll get round to setting permissions when I get a moment.

Firstly I don't really feel in the mood to be doing this anymore. When presented with something else to do this takes a backseat a lot of the time.

Secondly I'm going adventuring for a bit, who knows when I'll be back, if ever...

So thats it for now.

May I recommend:

The Korean guy
Jocelyn
www.Chinasmack.com

reverse racism

Dear Chinese guy

What is reverse racism? I sometimes see you mention it on your posts in [another place].

K G


Dear K


Reverse racism is racism but in reverse. I.e. instead of discriminating against say a minority group the majority is discriminated against. Its sort of like positive discrimination. Where to ensure equal numbers of black, indians etc get into a work place or something. Rather than the principle of merit whereby best man or woman for the job.

Much like American Basketball has token white guys playing for them..

In the context of China reverse racism is old style lazy thinking. That is to judge a book by its cover...

I.e. a persons ethnicity determines their ability in a particular activity.

Such that a lot of people think oh look he's Japanese/Chinese he must be better at Kung Fu/Wushu than a white person teaching it.... when in reality its not always the case. There is a Tong Long master in Manchester who I've seen spar against Mr and Mrs Lee... yes both at the same time. He is exceptional in his ability and nobody has been able to land a hit on him.

Back to China, anyway quite often in China PR exercises in backwater towns hire white people as actors to pretend to be international company directors or what not, thus convincing the locals oooh this must be a massive company.

Same with teaching, ah he's white must be a better teacher than a qualified non white person.

This is not unique to China of course, back in the 1990s a friend of mine went to Japan, he bummed around for nearly a decade as a fake clergyman. As it'd look better in the wedding photos.....

50 cent

Dear Chinese guy

[Snip]


How can I stop being mis-represented by 50 cent party members? People on China firums keep on making new accounts very close to my user ID. How can I stop this?


Richard


Dear Richard.

This strikes a chord with me tbh...

Simply although this isn't what you want to hear, you can't. You can only make it unprofitable and or uneconomical for them to pretend to be you.... heh interesting coincidence tbh. A few years ago I shared the user name of somebody down to one letter. Everybody kept mistaking us for each other. So we changed avatars and sigs so people could distinguish between us.

Anyway my points are these:

Firstly make it not worth their time to duplicate you, you know like antitelemarketer tactics, this means long winded posts and or nonsensical opening statements. The kind that make people have to look in the dictionary but make perfect sense to your target audience. In that 50 cent types, including the western Sockpuppet and spying tech used on western civilians have critical weaknesses in that simply it is a very labour intensive process even the sockpuppet requires a person to actually look and process what it says. AI isn't THAT advanced yet. Thus if you use complex words which even natives have to use a dictionary to look up it wastes the time of the astroturfer if they are defaming you or whatever.

This is just a variation of the tactic used against aggressive telemarketers (telesales have gotten really rude recently I suppose it is because of the unpleasant job, no pay unless you get a sale and the sheer dire market conditions of the UK).

Anyway with telemarketers if you slam down the phone the call is over in <5 seconds, this is good even though they didn't get a sale. As it allows them to move on to the next mark..... if they can make a call every 20 seconds that's 3 per minute.... usually they have some sort of hit rate (TCG once sold stuff door to door in his teens, there was a 1/250 hit rate). Therefore this allows them to move onto the next one and eventually get the hit.

But if you waste their time then it disrupts the hit process and means it takes so much longer for them to get those hits. Online we can use TL:DR and also use complicated unoften used words which native English (or whatever you are typing in) it means the person who is pretending to be you has to actually stop and think as to what the hell are you actually saying:

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Is replicated by:

Do usrsine animals defecate in the forest?

We know defecate and forest are synonyms of shit and woods. Therefore quite quickly we can work out what it means even without knowing what ursine happens to be. We can probably guess as to what ursine happens to be. But for non native speakers and readers they'll look up defecate and ursine.... which takes them time...

This does a TLDR on them and it makes them less money = you're less likely to be target ted... low hanging fruit and all that.

Of course this may or may not work... but it is merely my own opinion.

Murder law

Chinese guy. I read this:

In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. The husband's lover may be killed in any manner desired.

Is this for real?

David.

Dear David.

Nope, it is an urban legend. One of those which is repeated by lazy journalists and writers over and over. Such that it has somehow gained credibility. The kind that are based slightly on people's prejudices.

Like the NASA pen urban legend

I saw this put around on Chinese TV on a mainstream TV channel stated as fact. They asked children how to make pens work in space....

Such websites and writers participate in a group wank by citing each other as reliable sources of information. I've been reading these sorts of things in Fortean times. FHM, Nuts, Maxim you know men's magazines, I haven't touched a men's magazine in about ten years. Perhaps because I'm a bit of an outcast and suddenly realised hold on why do I need somebody I don't know to tell me how to live? Heh its things like the curse of the mummy, or the Crystal skull stories. OR even the NASA bollocks story about how NASA spent billions developing a pen that works in space. While the USSR used pencils. Its bollocks! Christ I heard this on Chinese TV the other day and it is still paraded around as fact.

Anyway I am no expert on law. Well I do have some training on consumer and contract law for an old career I once pursued. But I know where to look.

Anyway Hong Kong law pretty much followed British law after the British won the opium wars around 1840. Under British law, Murder isn't legal mostly, bar archaic laws which are on the books but in reality do not apply. Like shooting a Scottish person with a bow and arrow in York. I'm sure it may well say that somewhere, but if you did this you would be tried under modern law and thus you would be found guilty of murder and subject to this:



For example British law apparently allows you to settle disputes using trial by combat. About eight years ago a bloke attempted to challenge the DVLA (to Americans think DMV but even MORE useless if this is even possible, then reduce the usefulness and competence by 1000% then reduce it another 100000% then you have the usefulness and competence of the UK DVLA)

Here is the link BTW


In 1997 although PRC law sort of gained primacy over British based HK law, the laws of HK are pretty much the laws of the UK today but splintered off in their own way in slightly different directions.

Anyway the section of law is 212 which nowhere states that a betrayed wife is allowed to kill her husband in such circumstances. There is section 212.8 which says excusable homicide like self defence or misfortune. But nothing specific on wife allowed to kill her husband with her bare hands.

Hell Hong Kong is a grave yard for marriage anyway. With high divorce rates 99 out of 1000 (By contrast the USA is 6.8 out of 1000)

And if this was legal it would be a blood bath daily.... and Hong Kong would look like those Chinese gangsta type movies but without the guns. I mean for starters in Asia the prevalence of working women, is enormous and if there is supply there is demand (what was it those American Lawyers say?.... erm no judgement).

In Mainland China due to illegality it is slightly covert. There are 'barbershops and massage centres'. In HK it is legal under certain circumstances (again like UK law) and quite overt go walk around Mong Kok. Jordan on a evening and see how many times pimps will proposition you. In Macau it is completely overt. And there would be much much death if this law was real Hong Kong would look like this between husbands, wives and mistresses.



And although it would be mildly cool for a while the constant sound of gunfire would get annoying.

Bypassing China's Firewall

Yes, and Im going to tell you how. It's not too complicated, but a little computer knowledge helps. The key is to use a secure, encrypted connection, which can be set up using Tor.

Tor is an Onion routing system that allows you to browse the net anonymously and without interception. In Onion routing, data is repeatedly encrypted and then sent through several network nodes called onion routers. Each onion router removes a layer of encryption to uncover routing instructions, and sends the message to the next router where this is repeated. This process makes your web activity completely anonymous and makes it very difficult if not impossible to intercept your data. Sound complicated? Well it is in some respects. You can read more about it here. The reason Im telling you this is because onion encryption can be used to bypass censorship firewalls, including China's.

Before you get too exited, Tor has limitations. Due to the "detour" onion routing makes your data take, your internet speed will be significantly slower. Also, rich web applications such as Java, Flash, ActiveX, RealPlayer, Quicktime, PDF's etc will be disabled. You won't be able to use sites that completely rely on these services such as YouTube.

Here's what you will need to use Tor effectively:

Vidalia Tor Client
Mozilla Firefox
NoScript
Torbutton
HTTPS Everywhere

All of these are available for all operating systems. It is important that you download these tools before you go to China, as the websites for the Tor Project and the EFF are blocked.

Start up Vidalia, after it connects, start Firefox and toggle Torbutton. Next go to the following address:

https://check.torproject.org/

If everything is working properly, the page will confirm your connection to the Tor network and you may begin browsing. Other applications that use the internet can also be configured to use Tor, but this requires much more technical skills. The important thing is, you have a browser.

An easier way to encrypt your web browsing is to use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). This encrypts your connection with the website without Tor. I used this trick all the time to visit facebook at school. However, not all websites support HTTPS, but many important ones do such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Google (websites in the search results my not however). Use the HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extension above to automatically visit sites in HTTPS mode.

Since I do not live in a country with censored internet (yet) I cannot guarantee first hand that either of these will work, but its your best shot.

If Tor is not for you, an alternative way to bypass the firewall is to use a proxy site courtesy of PeaceFire. PeaceFire maintains an e-mail list it sends out weekly of different proxy sites that can be used to bypass the firewall. The proxy site will give you further instructions. You can join the e-mail list here.

Happy Browsing

UPDATE: One reader has commented that Tor is no longer effective against the Chinese fire wall. Im not sure as to what extent this is true, but as he said, a VPN is the most reliable method for bypassing the firewall. Although you will likely have to pay for it.

Marriage

Dear Chinese guy

As a fellow Chinese male but living in Canada how do you get your parents off your back about getting married? Every conversation I have with them and each week I have dinner with them they seem to bring up this topic. Or they will ask me to play sports with them and bring along a single girl.

I'm not really interested in getting married yet.


Raymond.


Dear Raymond..

Quite simply you can't, they will consistently pester you about marriage until the day that you get married. My parents pretty much do the above tactics all the time ALL of the freakin' time.

Its not just men that have this problem my sister has a similar problem but it is more intense as she is older.

They try all sorts of things like reverse psychology, about how having children is going to be good for you about being in the in crowd. I don't care about being in the erm in crowd. Or they will have massive dinners and play with other peoples children and hint (untactful). Wouldn't it be nice to have my own grandchildren to play with....




The Chinese parent (doubly so for tiger parents)

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are married."

Apparently Indian people and people from Pakistan have it EVEN worse.



Yeesh.

Over time TCG has become fairly adept at avoiding the marriage question. Note that these tactics may or may NOT work.

Firstly get a beard. There are women who are Lesbians who get male friends to pretend to be their boy friends, thus deflecting suspicion away from their sexuality. There are still people who care about this apparently.... this will placate them a bit.......

Except you will need to keep this charade up, i.e. you will need to bring them to dinner and they will ask intrusive probing questions. This annoys me greatly and my beards seldom last long. You can go halves with a girlie who is also facing similar grillings from her parents too to keep up the charade. I've known Men in Hong Kong to do this with working girls and it costs them massive amounts of money to hire the girl who also tends to blackmail them too.

This also has the nasty side effect of the question of when are you going to get married persisting still. I mean you're together right why don't you seal the deal and get married. Though this is stunningly effective for a while....

Second - Pretend you are gay, Chinese society is more accepting of LBT types. Its the grandchildren they want... bring home the campest and I mean campest person or leather boy home with you.

This may have the side effect of being disowned and or stabbed in the face by your dad, or they may well be extremely naive and not pick up on the hints. I have a who is gay who is a bit camp. Actually calling him a little camp is like saying Hitler was a bit naughty in WWII.

Thirdly - Beard but break up, and have a nasty break up in front of parents, pretend you are heart broken and so devastated you are not ready for another relationship. Anecdotes of how marriages end horrifically badly (i.e. one person being cleaned out by the other) are extremely useful in this regard.

Again stunningly effective for a short amount of time, but after a while. Hey why don't you come out to play badminton with us... at which you go and there happens to be a single girl there who's parents have bought along to try hitch you up....


Fourthly Nuclear weapon time - So you still get pestered all the time right, and you've tried the above and it has ceased to be effective.... this is a red button moment. I.e. it is a highly risky dangerous strategy. I'm sorry if you find this offensive but there is always the X in the top right corner if you do.

As I have written on here before Chinese people can be incredibly racist fact of life. Since our parents were born around the 40s 50s and 60s and some late ones in the 70s. They all have non liberal attitudes, ok that is a generalisation but Chinese can be terrifically racist* (if you are a laowai go outside a major city in China and it can be very overt). Therefore you exploit this to your advantage. For example all of the places my dad worked were always racist. When black people came into eat they had to pay first. I've seen a few bars in Hong Kong of all places where darker skinned people are asked to pay first while everybody else can stick it on a tab. (though I prefer to pay as I drink as I have run up stunningly big bar tabs).

much like this:

White Women's Workout - watch more funny videos

Simply get a non Chinese non white boyfriend/girlfriend and introduce him or her to your parents at dinner. Unless your parents are extremely liberal and open minded their prejudices will often take over. It will be an awkward dinner. At which you announce that you are engaged. Which is like a nuclear strike hitting Beijing, it can go one of two ways. They grumble and disapprove but most definitely will not egg you on to get married. Or like the film Festen (good film) When she brings her Black boyfriend to the party she is taken to one side and they have a talk with her.



When my cousin did this, there was a very awkward silence for a very long time as she did it at a very big gathering. Nasty nasty whispers in Chinese of course (note we in China Chinese whispers are merely called Whispers). And the encouragement to get married all of a sudden completely vanished.

However the I know a nice man/woman you'd like to meet who is better than your current b/g will still occur. As my sister encountered when she was dating an English bloke from London.

Therefore you cannot win ever ever.....

Unity/politics

Dear Chinese guy

Why do Chinese people have no political power in the UK?

Kayce


Dear Chinese guy

How come casual racism seems almost accepted in British society? Why has it become acceptable? My work colleagues talk about Chinese food as Chinky food.

Brian.


Dear Kayce/Brian

Its a simple question of numbers and unity. The Chinese population in the UK is somewhere around 600,000 people, which out of about 62 million is absolutely nothing. The fact that we are spread out all over the place unlike Muslims who are concentrated in Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford and London. Politicians are focusing their efforts on the bigger shares of the votes. I.e. the natives then the majority groups in their areas. Chinese people are not a majority group anywhere in the UK.

I mean when living in the South West people looked at me as if I were an alien or something.

Therefore since we represent so few votes politicians completely ignore us.

Secondly the lack of unity. I've written before that China is not one country. It is more like the USA - United States. China is similar in structure (if not in politics) in that it is a union of provinces under a sort of federalised centralised government. Its a bit like when I see Americans on their travels, a lot of them don't seem to call themselves Americans. They'll say I'm from Texas or I'm from California or Ohio or something (though this may well just be the lack of interaction than any Representative view).

Therefore while an outsider sees a group of Chinese people as 'Chinese people' They aren't Back in the 70s it was Hakka people Vs Cantonese people. Today its Fujian, Hakka, Hong Kong, Cantonese, Malaysians etc. Although they have commonish roots they are different.

The lack of unity is exacerbated by the fact there is less unity than other communities in other ways and less intermingling. Muslims and Indians have religion and worship to get them to join together and discuss problems they have. They are obliged to attend such forced gatherings while Chinese are not.

The Wai Yin Society in Manchester for instance the attendance is low, very low. You go sit in the waiting area at any Chinese restaurant for tea and only people who know each other talk to each other.

All of the above means there is no unity and no political power and thus we're ignored completely.


Which leads onto Brian's point, because there is no unity there is no pressure to change things. I.e. Chinese communities in general tend not to fight back.

Consider the Islamic community about 20 years ago. When Salmand Rushdie wrote the Satanic verses he had to go in hiding for decades due to the unified death threats against him.

A few years ago there was a play which was considered inflamitory to the Sikh community, they held a massive protest and applied political pressure to get it closed down after a few.

While


Oriental themed parade.... yellowed up people, coolie hats, fu-manchu costumes, stereotypical BS which doesn't actually exist. Even people pulling their eyes for news paper photos. Even bowing and the stupid Thai hands together praying sort of greeting. TCG does none of those things.

The Chinese community response? Nada nowt nothing, well one strongly worded letter to a shopper newspaper. No outcry, no violence to stop it......... hey nobody complained which means its OK....

For starters the PRC doesn't care about us. (The UK foreign office does semi look after British tourists trapped overseas). Thus there is nobody to challenge such casual racist attitudes. With a less confrontational society we're raised in few people challenge these sorts of things. I don't always challenge such things 100% Sunday for instance on board a small light aircraft somebody made a nasty comment to me. He should have known better as he's an old man. I was so very tempted to start a fist fight on board. He was most surprised when we got to the ground and I told him it wasn't funny and quite offensive.

And thus casual racism is to the natives seen as completely acceptable as apparently 'nobody complains about it'


Still blacking up these days after decades is no longer considered acceptable, maybe by 2030 it will be unacceptable to 'yellow up'

Monday comedy spot/ Wanna be a Kung fu star?

Much as I hate the word kung Fu (as it means result of ones hard work) and martial arts is more wushu than kung fu.....

In the UK the Shitty TVB Chinese channel wants YOU yes you, even Laowai non Chinese readers in the UK to become the next Kung Fu star for TVB. All you have to do is present a 30 second clip of your signature 'move' and be a UK/HK/Chinese citizen of some sort.

The application form is here

Free Internet!

The city of Chongqing is trying to establish uncensored internet access for foreigners and foreign companies, hoping to a center for the IT industry in China. They might want to be careful about opening up their internet, as this slashdot user sums up perfectly:

Be careful offering a little freedom. In former Eastern Germany, their communist regime provided retail stores only for foreigners (or specially privileged East Germans with western money). This made people there very resentful of their government ... and eventually, they got rid of it.

Although Chinese citizens won't be allowed to use the free internet, it make them feel more jealous about   having their internet censored when westerners are using it in the middle of one of their major cities.

Chinese Innovation

A Chinese man has built his own version of an iPad. Really, its a tablet PC he built from scratch! It can run any OS and is more powerful than the iPad. Best of all, it only cost him $300. He even stylized it with Apple stickers and everything.





Apple Status:

[   ] Not told
[X] Told

[X] Really Told

[X] Toldstone Creamery

[X] Told man river

[X] Told Testament

[X] Cash4told.com

[X] No country for told men

[X] Knights of the told Republic

[X] ToldSpice

[X] Toldman Sachs

[X] Pokemon Told and Silver

[X] The Legend of Eldorado : The Lost City of Told

UFC and MMA

Dear Chinese guy.

Why are there no prminent Chinese MMA or UFC fighters? Why aren't there some Chinese kung fu masters competing? They might even win!

Joe

Dear Joe

This is my theory and I could be wrong, but it boils down to several things:

One Chinese men are by and large smaller than caucasian and black men, sure we get people like Yao Ming who is massive and Mongolians who can be massive. But these are the exceptions and not the rule.

Apparently I'm a fairly tall Chinese person who is overweight..... I weigh 10 stone, I have to wear weight to skydive and a fast fall suit because I fall so slowly. My English native peers are about 4-5 stone heavier than me and much taller than me.

Take for instance Bruce Lee, he is a pretty small bloke compared to western natives. And he was half German. Or Bolo Yeung, Mr HK a massive massive body builder when stood next to Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. But not that big compared to westerners who primarily make up MMA, UFC.

I mean would you fight against a bloke who had 100 pounds on you in pure muscle?

Secondly, a great deal of Chinese martial arts emphasise defence by parrying, blocking and avoidance. I mean look at any wire work Jet Li movie. Yes it is a movie, but it shows him avoiding, blocking and parrying. Compare this to fist fights in Western movies. They pretty much stand there and knock the hell out of each other. Which was lampshaded by Tom Cruise in the film Far and Away. It sort of makes sense, i.e. it is better NOT to be hit than to be hit and to take less damage. I mean would you rather be punched in the face or not? Southern Martial arts based around Wing Chun for instance all emphasise superior blocking and parrying techniques.

But then it sort of like a Samurai sword duel first blow is almost always lethal and is the winner.

Compare to boxers who can pummel each other repeatedly and get used to the pummelling. Ali fighting Foreman took a massive beating for ages and ages. Joe Frazier did the same to Ali. Or Muay Thai Kick boxing, the proper proper art of eight limbs Muay Thai (though even the westernised softened up version seems pretty brutal to me). They pound each other like no tomorrow, they brutalise and train themselves and they get used to it.



Thirdly erm (for laughs)


Granted those people can probably snap my neck in a pinch


Fourthly Martial arts is dying out, the old grandmasters are dying out and people simply don't have the time to practice their skills and hone them. There is little incentive if you are a trainer in China, as very few people get into the training program to be an instructor and when they do become instructors the wages are LESS than working in factories. Thus while there may well be a lot of theory and lots of in action a lot of people simply don't bother. I mean you gonna fight hand to hand against this?

Asian Turf War

I recently saw an episode of South Park in which the Chinese guy who owns City Wok is forced to contend with a new sushi place that moves in next door. The whole thing turns into a giant episode spanning fight between them, while most of South Park thinks that China and Japan are the same. Its quite hilarious.

Embedding is not allowed so heres a link. I think its viewable in the US only.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e06-city-sushi

Angry Canadian

American aren't the only ones.

Chinese vampires

Dear Chinese guy.

How do you kill a Chinese vampire.

Mike.


It depends do you mean a Chinese person bitten by a vampire or a Chinese Jiang shi type vampire.

If it is a Chinese person bitten by a vampire, then the usual things apply, stake in the heart, beheading, garlic, true faith, tainted blood. Holy Water and sunlight..... though Chinese people are naturally adverse to sunlight anyway. Since tanning is bad m'kay (people think you are a low class farmer or something). Fire is also good as are Applied Phlebotinum weapons like UV bullets as seen in underworld.

If it is a Chinese Jiang shi type vampire then you have all sorts of problems. As Jiang shi are nearly indestructible. Jiang shi are less vampires and more akin to zombies from Quake, you can shoot them but they keep getting up, much like the terminator

Depending on which movie you see them in they are invulnerable to many things western vampires get killed by:

• Daylight does not kill them. They do however go and rest once a rooster makes its morning call.
• Holy water is useless.
• Garlic is useless.
• Explosives are useless
• Sharp stabbing and slicing weapons are also useless even to the head eyes, heart neck.
  

However you can stun Jiang shi or 'hurt' them to make them go away for a bit. Note stun and not kill.

Stunning is often via a yellow bit of paper on their forehead. Which contains a spell of some kind written in blood. This only freezes them to the spot though. They are very much alive you remove that yellow bit of paper and it'll tear your head off and spit down your neck. In fact if you should encounter such a Jiang shi and happen to find your head detached from your body and a copious amount of spit which does not belong to you in your neck then the thing I told you did not work. Ok so I made that up since they don't spit at you.

I will be happy to offer a refund on bad advice which gets you killed. Heh.

In various movies various things hurts Jiang shi that makes them retreat recover for a day or two and come back even stronger. Does anybody remember the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3? When you killed it with one weapon it would take double the amount of damage from the same weapon which put you in a whole world of shit.

As said it varies from movie to movie.

Rice will burn Jiang shi lightly.

Blood of various types will stun Jianshi, Chicken blood which has been blessed and the blood of a black dog works. And in Typical teenage horror movism. Peeing on them if you are a virgin will work like Holy Water against said Jianshi. Women probably need not apply.

Duck eggs will stun Jiang shi.

Large caliber guns will push them backwards a bit like house of the dead:



But you didn't ask that you asked how to kill them.

Fire much like this



Or the much more dangerous method is the vampires kiss. In some mythology Jiang shi exist because it draws one last breath in its body it cannot rest. Therefore you have to kiss the damned thing and suck out this last breath. Which will make the Jiang shi instantly deanimate. This is akin to kissing a pissed Grizzly bear which can tear you limb from limb. Except the Grizzly bear is indestructible doesn't feel pain. Kinda like the speech from the Terminator:

"It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

Good luck with that.

As a note if you attempt to try the vampires kiss, or rather the vampires suck Jiang shi are worse in that they too turn you into Jiang shi if they bite you as well.




Alternatively prevention is the best cure...

Therefore:

Choose cremation over burial.

Do not piss off dying relatives and leave things unresolved, i.e. give absolution to the dying.

Unfortunately TCG did leave something seriously unresolved with a buried relative recently which is why I keep a bedside flame thrower when I am in Asia (it is actually a chemical weed whacker which I tried with petrol and set myself alight but still works as a flamer).

Unfortunately I am not kidding either..... as my mum has seen a zombie. Her uncle died suddenly and the body 'moved' when it was left alone during the wake. The body was found to have moved upstairs and had opened up a secret cubby hole with the life savings of the family in a box it was clasping. And these stories seem a bit too common to be all lies.

Qianziwen

I didn't think it was possible, but it turns out theres a nursery rhyme for learning Chinese characters (well sort of). Its called the Qianziwen (literally: Thousand Character Classic) and was created by Zhou Xingsi by order of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty as a way to help his son learn Chinese characters. It consists of 1000 non-repeating characters arranged into 250 four character phrases. Not only does no character occur twice, but the whole thing rhymes! Its not used anymore however because it follows the grammar of Classical Chinese, which may confuse those trying to learn the modern language.

Still, you can read the whole thing transcribed and annotated, here. You can also find it broken down by character here.

Still not satisfied? You can even listen to the damn thing!

	Zhou Xingsi - Qian Zi Wen .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Remember the kidney guy?

Prepare to have your faith in humanity tested yet again. Remember that rather silly kid who sold his kidney for an Ipad? Here

Here we go again...... girl offers to sell her virginity for an Iphone4, Here. I detect however a viral advertising method though seeing as Steve Jobs (in my opinion) is evil.

Something

Sort of. Notice how everybody rushes to help this poor woman. Here

Evolution

Dear Chinese guy

Is evolution taught in Chinese schools?

Hannah.

Dear Hannah.

A variation of evolution and creationist theories exist instead (note how I say theory since although there is compelling evidence different people have different beliefs...... cripes I sound a lot like my environmental science professor over ten years ago).

A commonly theory is most people came out of Africa. The Out of Africa theory. In a nutshell as I understand it, humans can all be traced to a small tribe over time which sort of moved out to colonise the entire African continent and eventually moved out over other land masses.

An opposing theory is that humans developed all over the place rather than originating from one tribe.... (hey look your GF is your long lost sister!). Which is gaining some sort of traction as there was a jawbone found in Southern China in a cave somewhere. It was carbon dated to be 110,000 years old. Which is inconvenient to those who believe in the out of Africa theory. As Chinese folks or rather the people who became Chinese folks were only supposed to have migrated out of Africa 70,000 years ago.

I'm not a biologist per se but there is a strange anomaly in that as a whole we're pretty compatible in terms of baby making.

Here

Whats new?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13923082

Chinese being attacked in Paris...... tbh whats new this has been going on for decades if not centuries......

Asians and Chinese people are seen to be prosperous says the report, what it doesn't go into is the back breaking labour put in to become prosperous. My work week (hence my lack of updates and postings and rantings) has grown somewhat and I average at 80 hours a week now, sometimes going over 100 hours a week.

People see me as 'lucky' to have so much money and they think it just appears in my pocket or something.....meh.... I need a vacation or something

Voting

Dear TCG,

How do elections in Hong Kong work? I know it isn't completely democratic
but can you give more clear explanation than Wikipedia?

凱文



I'm afraid not, namely because I don't actually vote, no I am not a non voting felon either its just that tbh I don't believe in voting and believe it is an activism sponge when really only direct action works.

A Taste of American Politics Part 4

It just keeps getting better.




Heres a bonus video for the lolz

China gets 1-up'd

Story

In October 2010, America was once again beaten by the Chinese. When the National Computing Center of China in Tianjin unveiled the Tianhe-I, the worlds fastest supercomputer. At 2.5 petaFLOPS (Im not even going to bother trying to explain what that means) it beat out America's former top contender, the Cray Jaguar which ran at 1.75 petaFLOPS. But now even China has been out done, by their neighbor. Earlier this month, Fujitsu of Japan unveiled the K Computer, which runs at a whopping 8 petaFLOPS.

America and Japan have been neck and neck for the last decade in the race to see who can build the worlds fastest supercomputer. But now China is entering the race, and its proving to be a powerful contender. The International Supercomputing Conference releases its list of fastest computers twice a year. I'd be interesting to see if China reappears on the list come November.

Views 2

Hey. KaiWen got me hooked on your blog.

I guess my question is, and forgive me if you've answered it before, what do Chinese people actually think of Americans? Do they think we're nice? Ugly and stupid? What's the deal?

You might be interested in my blog. I do a lot of current event stuff so check it out if that interests you. http://wanderingamericantravelblog.blogspot.com/ Stay cool.


Um this was sent to me, but answered here

Extraordinary Fidelity

Movie Time!

The CIA, yes the CIA, has released a documentary called "Extraordinary Fidelity". It tells the story of John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau, who were two CIA agents shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. Their mission was to extract a Chinese agent who was organizing a guerilla rebellion to take down Mao's government. The two were captured and imprisoned for 20 years.

The film wasn't originally intended for the general public, but as a video for new recruits to help them learn about the agency's history. But now its coming to a YouTube link near you! (or embedded here)

Wanna be in the Movies (UK only again)

Wanna be on TV (UK only)

Picked this up from somewhere

The BBC3 Series The World's Strictest Parents is looking for British Chinese teenagers (16-18 years old) to feature on the program.

In the series teens get sent to a family around the world for a week this summer where they live by their rules and their cultural expectations. In past series teens have been sent to India, Kenya, Barbados and the USA. We are looking for teens who would benefit from this the most, may it be that they are partying too much, not focusing on their education or not spending enough time with their family.

We have never featured a teen with Chinese parentage on the series and felt it would be interesting to address this imbalance.

If you are interested or know anyone who may benefit from this please do get in contact with the World's Strictest Parents team on 02074247706 or jamiefranklin@twentytwenty.tv

Thanks and best of luck.

Here is a family from Alabama.



Heh

Lest we forget

Vietnam

Dear Chinese guy

What is the issue with China and Vietnam?

Richard.

Dear Richard

Erm.... I'm thinking you probably mean the Spratly Islands whereby there have been slight skirmishes in the waters around there..... heh a slight skirmish in the Gulf of Tonkin caused a massive war. The Spratlys being 400nm from China while only being 83nm from Vietnam. They've been contested for decades if not centuries. Tbh. With potential oil fields in those there waters who gets them gets the $$.

Stranger things have happened. For instance the UK lays a claim to the Falklands which are over 8000 miles away compared to Argentina which is in spitting distance. 2010 oh look oil has been discovered there...... maybe.

But it's simple, money and power.

We unfortunately live in a world where the right thing is not always done and MIGHT IS RIGHT. To hell with the consequences. Most countries are guilty of this sort of behaviour at one time or another when you are bigger and badder than the other guy. Though remember China got its ass handed to it in 1979.



Or

163 years ago a joint task force imposed its might against Imperial (the shadow of) China and got multiple concessions, various opened ports and then some.

Or

Diego Garcia whereby we exiled the natives to build an airbase on their homelands.

Etc etc.... its just power playing might is right BS. I'm not even going to take sides or say who is right or wrong I'm simply not going to go there at all!

Three questions

1.Why do Chinese people respect fish so much

It's like the number eight, in many dialects fish is very very close sounding to plentiful or abundance and thus is lucky. I don't know about fish much but apparently carp like fish of which gold fish are I think related are admired because I remember hearing about some sort of legend about how Carp like fish are like Salmon. It swims against the strong current and thus gives a middle finger (figuratively) to the crowd. But this is also not universally applied either.



(Cantonese tourists in Taiwan apparently)

2.Whats with Chinese people and plants why do they care so much about them

I have direct experience of this, when my dad buggers off somewhere he asks me to water his plants. This takes a long time because he simply has so many of them. He likes roses, peonies and money plants as well as Yukka. My understanding is that it is two fold for luck (which is why a lot of Chinese people have enormous money trees)


These things (Jade plants) not money money trees
This is not universal however! As the CCP pretty much ravaged the country in the 1960s. Whereby they thought they would deforest hills and mountains to plant vegetables on them. Then they got landslides and landslips and villages getting buried by mud slides and then planted them back. In modern day China tree surgeons are extremely brutal. While the tree surgeon climbs around my dad's cherry tree carefully cutting bits off in HK the tree surgeons pretty much chop all the branches off then skin it of bark and leave it to die. Though there are exceptions like the Lan Tseun wishing tree. But this is obvious because it brings them a shit load of money in suckers buying rotten oranges and throwing them over the branches to make a wish. The original two trees are nearly dead. But they have tons of house plants in an attempt to reconnect with their village like roots considering most people in China today live in concrete boxes on concrete streets where everything is covered in concrete.

3.and Why do Chinese people like rice so much

Rice is an easy one. Rice is not grown everywhere in China, in the past it is considered to be a wealthy persons food as it was in limited supply. Steamed bread, wheat cakes etc was the staple of poor people. Over years and mutant strains of hybrid rice created meant more people could eat it even though the arable land was the same. As I've said a few times before Chinese people don't eat that much rice. Northerners eat wheat and potatoes as it is dry up north. Southerners where there is more water eat rice as the climate conditions are more favourable to grow rice.

Mag

Things Mexico Stole from China: Piñatas

See Here

OK not exactly. What I meant to say was that the Piñata may have been developed independently in both Meso-America and China. Piñatas were created in Meso-America in pre-columbian times out of clay pots in the shape of their gods that would be swung at with sticks until they broke, releasing pastries symbolizing their god showering them with wealth. But it is also believed that it could have also come about in China. During the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) Marco Polo's diaries described them as hanging paper figures in the shape of oxen or other animals (probably according to the zodiac) which would be struck by Mandarins, releasing seeds. The "pinata" would then be burned and the ashes gathered for good luck. However I would be skeptical, as there are no oral or written records (that I know of) that document this practice, and the Chinese were very good at writing their history down.

fangzi, chezi, piaozi no more!

Real Doll comes to China sort of.

Link


Heh...

Maybe it'll stop the fangzi, chezi, piaozi gold digging which is freaking rampant these days... though tbh Made in the USA is perhaps a better choice ;)

Sorry for the lack of updates btw, I've gone and started yet another business of my own and running all of them is severely energy draining. Which has a nice side effect of making me money, but has the unfortunate side effect of some women looking at me like a meal ticket. Yeesh.

Totally worth it

I have lost faith in humanity. Again.
A boy in Anhui has reportedly sold his kidney to buy...

Food? No.
A house for his family? Nope.

One of these;

Story Here and Here

Zheng, a high school freshmen reportedly sold his kidney to a Fujian businessmen for 20,000元 (~US$3000) so he could buy an iPad 2. Yes, an iPad.

What ponders me more is how he did this without his mother knowing until it was too late. Well, at least if he wants a supplemental kidney, there's an app for that ™

Names

Dear Chinese guy,

I am going to have a baby in the near future with my Shanghai-nese wife. Given that you have experienced both cultures, Could you recommend a boy or girls name that would share both British and Chinese culture. We have yet to decide if the UK or China is the best place to raise a family and giving the baby two names, I feel would be rather alienating.

David G

Dear David

That's a tough one namely because what may sound great in one language can sound shitty in another. And may well get your child beaten up (in the UK that is, I got beaten up a long and the kid who was called Wang was beaten up even more than me). Children can be so incredibly cruel, in fact children today are still incredibly cruel sometimes!

For example Ming 明

Which can mean shining or to indent/inscribe/write . In itself a fairly common upbeat name a neat Chinese name. Except in the UK this will likely get you called a Minger and thus violence and or insults and or humiliation of your child in the UK.

Or Dong 东

Which means East, but its pretty obvious as to what the connotations are in English. My dad has a friend who has a son called Dong. Southern Chinese say his name as dung. Also something with lots of potential for verbal abuse. Heh it is perfectly acceptable to put your dong in a woman's hand in the street in Vietnam.... because it is the currency of Vietnam.... I mean what else were you thinking of?


Brought to you by FileHurricane.com

Your child may hate you for this as well and will go to the deed poll office! Of course as they grow up it may or MAY not stop the verbal fun making for instance. My old boss who had me by the balls used to be quite nasty about it. My cousin Ho, yes Ho, still calls himself Ho, even though there are many negative connotations

On the flip side some coolish sounding Chinese names are also subject to odd remarks. My uncle for instance was called Yun (Wun in Cantonese) (云). Which means cloud, he was apparently made fun of because of this, what? You're named after a clouds? (Children being children will ALWAYS find a method in which to demean, humiliate or find advantage over somebody!).

Or simple ones like May 美, you have to be careful as to what the second part of the name is. I know a girl who is called May. The other part of her name is gold (I don't know how it is spelt. Hey baby can I have a look at your passport please?) Beautiful is also short for America as in
美國 (beautiful country). Gold as with silver is considered to be money. American ~ gold = dollar. Which makes her sound like a exotic dancer with a made up stage name. Her parents are 2nd generation Chinese in the UK and thus did not understand the implications of naming!

Those are a couple of limited examples I can think of off my head. There are many more. For instance a old friend I lost contact with 15 years ago (he went the 2.4 children mortgage route. I chose a different path) who shall remain unnamed had a name which in Sichuanese Mandarin from Chongquing meant Hero of ones family. At least thats what I think it meant as said it was 16 years ago since we last met. Oddly enough you move south a bit. And when spoken phonetically (not the characters themselves) it sounded like Chicken scent. Though only I am tactless enough to actually mention it, I am completely tactless foot in the mouth.

Think long and hard, and consider the pronunciation in the various flavors of Chinese and then the pronunciation in English and run it through urban dictionary and see what comes up. I comically remember over 20 years ago a kid called Feltch. 20 years ago it probably meant something else.




My other thought is there is nothing wrong with having two different names. Lots of people have multiple names. For instance my mum uses both her married name with my dad's surname and yet also in parallel uses her own name as per Asian tradition. While my dad has a completely different unrelated name in English as well as in Chinese.

Even famous people do it.

李小龍 Bruce Lee for instance - His Chinese name reads Lee Shi Lung (Lee , small dragon)
except that wasn't his birth name 李振藩 he was born Lee Jun Fan

It was fashionable in the 1980s and 1990s to have an English name as well as a Chinese name, they do not have to be the same or relate to one another.

Myself I have three names. With more unofficial handles. I'm considered weird because my English name and Chinese name are phonetically identical and mean exactly the same thing. But seriously do some research think long and hard and if you can't think of anything just use two different names.

sex

Sex in China.

Chinese guy...

I was in Beijing a few weeks ago and stayed in a pretty big hotel near Wangfujin. One thing I noticed that there were large numbers of well dressed what I can only describe as white men who were in the hotel lobbies sat around in the lounge. Sometimes they would leave only to come back a little later on I saw some evenings.

Whats going on?

Ash.

Dear TCG

Why are there so many men in suits lurking around the edges of night clubs in Beijing?

Connie


And others




Dear All

They could merely be employees or guests of the hotels and patrons of the night clubs out to enjoy themselves to kick back and have some fun sometime. However that is a terrifically boring answer so I'll speculate a little.

OTOH they could be ducks. What are ducks then I imagine you may ask. Ducks are gigolos, men who get paid to have sex with women. You read that right men who get paid to have sex with women. Ash is a bit of an androgynous name you could be a man or a woman.

But simply women need some luvin' too.

You might think hold on with the gender imbalances in China why on earth would women go to ducks to get some time in the sack? I mean women can just go to any bar and walk out with a man easy.

While the reverse is less easy!

The thing is this is China, and much like Asia although it is rapidly changing, sex is still rather taboo and kept under wraps. Sex? Whats that? I use artificial insemination mate......

Secondly in China you have what we call well they call left over women. Since TCG sees nothing wrong with dating a woman in her late 20s and 30s. I haven't dated anybody older though so I can't really comment on any age range outside this. Women who simply focused upon other things instead of a love life. Things get in the way like work and education.... they put off love lives or simply don't want love lives and boom they hit a certain age and suddenly men don't want to go out with them. Or so it seems that way anyway. A myriad of reasons. Though TCG sees nothing wrong with not being married and absolutely hates the way in which being married is seen as a milestone everybody has to achieve in their lives.

*Cough*


Part of this is something else though. Kazuo Koike & Ryoichi Ikegami wrote something similar in the 1980s Manga Crying Freeman about Emu Hino. Her father was a uber rich businessman and as a result men would be afraid of her father. Thus nobody would dare approach her to ask her out. Thus the power and money isolates this person.

I mean remember this is China, money = power (yeah ok so money makes the world go round everywhere) And Tbh to make big piles of money you have to generally do things which are shall we say questionable. Like IBM's creators and stock holders being in bed with Hitler. Or Tony Blair who made millions from Iraq and tried to cover it up. Sure sure you get exceptions like erm......

Give me a moment.....

I'll think of one sooner or later.

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Moving swiftly on... (feel free to provide examples)

Sort of like Mr Burns from the Simpsons who fictionally has done a ton of questionable things. Anyway Money in China is power as it is in many places around the world. Thus it can be risky.

As lampooned in Red Dwarf where they find an escape pod. 6 minutes and 40 seconds into this video



Death or a date.

While on the otherside, the wealthy woman is worried about attracting the wrong kinds of people. I.e. male gold diggers (all is fair in love and war right?) and thus even if there is some guy willing to be her partner she can't be sure if it is true feeling or if it is money. This has been played straight in various movies from Mainland China recently. Which are copies of the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America

Anyway before I go on another wild tangent, thus to get some erm ...lovin' SOME people have to turn to this avenue as flicking the bean would probably get old sooner or later.

On the other hand they could merely be guests of the hotels and men just out to have some fun in night clubs. I mean for quite some time I used to stand around the edges of night clubs until I felt more confident.

Perhaps to confirm you could ask them, I take NO LIABILITY if you get punched in the face for insulting them though.

We Chinese

I stumbled upon this interesting project via ChinaHush. Created by Scott Brauer, the project, known as "We Chinese" aims to document how modern Chinese feel about their country and where it is going. Well, heres their description:

We Chinese grew out of a curiosity to find out what Chinese people think about their country and their future. In 2010, I traveled throughout major urban centers in eastern China stopping people on the street to ask the same two questions about their country and their future. The respondents filled out a one-page typewritten questionnaire that included these two questions and some basic information including name, age, and occupation.

The questions were interpreted variously, and the responses range from prosaic to poetic, from rote to inspired, and from unemotional to patriotic. While it’s difficult to draw conclusions about the entire population, the people photographed here expressed a sincere love of country and optimism about the country’s future development and peaceful position in the world. I started the project as a way to respond to friends’, family’s, and strangers’ questions about the global direction of China and their stereotypes of the people. “Should we be scared of China?” or “Where is China headed?” or vague assertions about the collective character of billions of individuals that make up the country.

The project also comes from suspicions of my own methods in documentary work. My work imposes visual and written narratives on situations and cultures. By photographing anyone willing to be a part of the project, using the same set up for the portraits, and asking the same questions of all the subjects, I hoped a narrative about China and its people would emerge naturally.

There are hundreds of responses from people across China with many interesting responses. Check it out sometime.