Sort of. Notice how everybody rushes to help this poor woman. Here
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
29 June 2011
28 June 2011
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.
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
26 March 2011
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.
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.
12 November 2010
Chinese women prt 1219
Hey Chinese guy,
What do you think about bringing over a spouse from China. I'm getting serious about this girl in China?
Your input and suggestion is greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Kinda of nervous about a long distance relationship guy from the USA
M
Dear M.
My thoughts on this are varied (whats new). As there are many potential outcomes in how this may well pan out. I've seen many of these outcomes and how they pan out too, it can be like people. People can be good bad or ordinary.
What I've seen however tends to urk me towards the bad side, perhaps why I am so cynical these days as many women from China saw me as a meal ticket.... TCG used to be hot stuff and girls would ask me for a date fully with the intention of getting a UK passport. Many of these women were quite transparent about it. Some of them would even offer me $25,000 US to marry me with a sham wedding to get a UK passport. I never took them up on these offers because I never really wanted to be married. Being married also opens you up to red packet extortion. It was so incredibly freaky as if dinner dates, which I'd tend to pay the bill and tell her there was no chance at all. They would talk to me as if it were some kind of interview. Phases such as.
"As long as you provide me with a good home for me and our future children I don't care. You can go out and sleep with as many other women as you want as long as you keep a good home."
This put me off massively. Though with the UK going down the tubes this is happening rather less and less, which I don't mind as regular dinner dates in Asia rack up in cost quite quickly. TCG isn't as evil as he could have been i.e. jumped into the sack with them THEN said LJBF. But TCG isn't as evil as he imagines.
Alice for instance was a rural girl from China who didn't have a pot to piss in. She married and now lives in the UK off him. He works as a fairly well paid electrical contractor. He is however ugly, think car crash head jammed in an elevator and toxic crusader type ugly I jest not! Who is severely overweight, think 350lb type overweight. All my women friends find him absolutely repulsive to the extreme. However he knows he is being exploited by her, but he sits back and enjoys getting to jump in the sack with her on a regular basis as a form of 'payment'. Which is kind of like a prostitution kind of arrangement. She actually sleeps around behind his back and once asked me into the sack at a party... I kind of wonder if they'll be together in 3 years time as she will have naturalised and gotten a UK passport, ergo he is no longer of any use.
OTOH, Boscoe one of my dad's friends sons' he is an airline pilot who married a girl from Chongqing and their relationship seems to be pretty much what you would find in a average British house hold. There is attraction and loyalty, both of them work as well even though Boscoe makes enough for both of them to live.
Also at the other extreme is mostly from Russia actually, in that although news papers sensationalise back in the early 00s there were many ex USSR brides. This was because the Ex USSR countries like Ukraine, Moldova etc didn't have a pot to piss in. Such that women would try to get away. This was art imitating life in the film Birthday Girl.
Back in the day there were many stories of Russian Brides who would vanish the second they landed in Heathrow. I do not know the extent of the reality of this vs fiction.
Anyway lets step away from this a bit and go to one of my uber random tangents.
China is pretty shit if you are one of the natives. I wrote somewhere in my book that most countries are not great if you are a native of that country. Looking as an outsider it looks nice or working as an expat. For instance lets say Korea. To the ESL types who work there they think it is excellent. They have free accommodation they get paid a ton more than the locals and their working days are not as long as the locals. None of this is the case with the local Korean folks, they work insane hours. Kim for instance left the flat at 530am, and returned at 11pm EVERYDAY. He was paid a pittance (min wage in Korea is reputed to be around 2000-4000KRW which is £1.50 or $2.30). Life is expensive property is unaffordable and the constant need to keep face honor and respect restricts your life.
In China life for many men and women is pretty shit. Rock and a hard place seems to be an apr cliche expression to use here. I mean as a man you have limited options. You become an ant and work for the big corporates where you are systematically exploited and robbed for your pay. Or you go to university to fight for a government position and 9/10 times end up as an ant. If you are lucky you may work in an office. It's the way the system has been organised. this is by design.
The television dreams we had as children are as remote in China as they are back in our respective home countries.
A la Fight club philosophy (have a read of the book it is quite interesting)
The same choices exist for women, but for two more, they can become working girls to actually get out of the ant system. This is why Hong Kong and Macau especially are filled with working girls from China. You can't swing a dead cat in Mongkok without some douche approaching you and asking you if you want suckiee. You might think I'm joking but this really does happen. Macau is even worse! As mass prostitution is legal in Macau it is overt and in your face. The other final option they have is to marry off outside to somewhere else to not be an ant or to be a working girl.
How is this pertinent to you?
Well this girl could be any of the above, and tbh it usually takes an outsider to see what's going on, as men are suckers and can be blinded by women easily.
My suggestion is probably to merely take a vacation/ holiday and see her response. It is akin to merely buying a drink, if it turns out bad its just a drink. While marriage has HUUUUGE consequences.
Also to consider her motivations rationally, look at yourself in the mirror are you a fat ugly slob who would under other circumstances be unable to pull a girl of her attraction? TCG is no oil painting and therefore Chinese girls wanting to marry me it was pretty obvious (aside from them being totally blunt about it) they were not after my Adonis like body (yeah right)
Ask in depth what her plans for the future will be, ignore the I wanna be with you etc type ones that massage your ego and deflect attention away. Assess her current circumstances, if she is rich or has a rich family then the exploitation angle chance is lower. Consider WHAT she would do if she were not to go to the USA. Would she merely end up as an ant or happens to have a fairly decent job there? Call her bluff, maybe pretend to want to settle in CHINA and gauge her reactions. Age plays a factor in this too, in Asia once you hit 30 NOBODY wants you, and people tend to settle. As I've said in many previous posts there is a huge pressure to get married at a youngish age.
Have a serious think about it with your head rationally and see if it makes sense.
And for women readers, the same pretty much applies to any men you may meet out there too!
What do you think about bringing over a spouse from China. I'm getting serious about this girl in China?
Your input and suggestion is greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Kinda of nervous about a long distance relationship guy from the USA
M
Dear M.
My thoughts on this are varied (whats new). As there are many potential outcomes in how this may well pan out. I've seen many of these outcomes and how they pan out too, it can be like people. People can be good bad or ordinary.
What I've seen however tends to urk me towards the bad side, perhaps why I am so cynical these days as many women from China saw me as a meal ticket.... TCG used to be hot stuff and girls would ask me for a date fully with the intention of getting a UK passport. Many of these women were quite transparent about it. Some of them would even offer me $25,000 US to marry me with a sham wedding to get a UK passport. I never took them up on these offers because I never really wanted to be married. Being married also opens you up to red packet extortion. It was so incredibly freaky as if dinner dates, which I'd tend to pay the bill and tell her there was no chance at all. They would talk to me as if it were some kind of interview. Phases such as.
"As long as you provide me with a good home for me and our future children I don't care. You can go out and sleep with as many other women as you want as long as you keep a good home."
This put me off massively. Though with the UK going down the tubes this is happening rather less and less, which I don't mind as regular dinner dates in Asia rack up in cost quite quickly. TCG isn't as evil as he could have been i.e. jumped into the sack with them THEN said LJBF. But TCG isn't as evil as he imagines.
Alice for instance was a rural girl from China who didn't have a pot to piss in. She married and now lives in the UK off him. He works as a fairly well paid electrical contractor. He is however ugly, think car crash head jammed in an elevator and toxic crusader type ugly I jest not! Who is severely overweight, think 350lb type overweight. All my women friends find him absolutely repulsive to the extreme. However he knows he is being exploited by her, but he sits back and enjoys getting to jump in the sack with her on a regular basis as a form of 'payment'. Which is kind of like a prostitution kind of arrangement. She actually sleeps around behind his back and once asked me into the sack at a party... I kind of wonder if they'll be together in 3 years time as she will have naturalised and gotten a UK passport, ergo he is no longer of any use.
OTOH, Boscoe one of my dad's friends sons' he is an airline pilot who married a girl from Chongqing and their relationship seems to be pretty much what you would find in a average British house hold. There is attraction and loyalty, both of them work as well even though Boscoe makes enough for both of them to live.
Also at the other extreme is mostly from Russia actually, in that although news papers sensationalise back in the early 00s there were many ex USSR brides. This was because the Ex USSR countries like Ukraine, Moldova etc didn't have a pot to piss in. Such that women would try to get away. This was art imitating life in the film Birthday Girl.
Back in the day there were many stories of Russian Brides who would vanish the second they landed in Heathrow. I do not know the extent of the reality of this vs fiction.
Anyway lets step away from this a bit and go to one of my uber random tangents.
China is pretty shit if you are one of the natives. I wrote somewhere in my book that most countries are not great if you are a native of that country. Looking as an outsider it looks nice or working as an expat. For instance lets say Korea. To the ESL types who work there they think it is excellent. They have free accommodation they get paid a ton more than the locals and their working days are not as long as the locals. None of this is the case with the local Korean folks, they work insane hours. Kim for instance left the flat at 530am, and returned at 11pm EVERYDAY. He was paid a pittance (min wage in Korea is reputed to be around 2000-4000KRW which is £1.50 or $2.30). Life is expensive property is unaffordable and the constant need to keep face honor and respect restricts your life.
In China life for many men and women is pretty shit. Rock and a hard place seems to be an apr cliche expression to use here. I mean as a man you have limited options. You become an ant and work for the big corporates where you are systematically exploited and robbed for your pay. Or you go to university to fight for a government position and 9/10 times end up as an ant. If you are lucky you may work in an office. It's the way the system has been organised. this is by design.
The television dreams we had as children are as remote in China as they are back in our respective home countries.
A la Fight club philosophy (have a read of the book it is quite interesting)
The same choices exist for women, but for two more, they can become working girls to actually get out of the ant system. This is why Hong Kong and Macau especially are filled with working girls from China. You can't swing a dead cat in Mongkok without some douche approaching you and asking you if you want suckiee. You might think I'm joking but this really does happen. Macau is even worse! As mass prostitution is legal in Macau it is overt and in your face. The other final option they have is to marry off outside to somewhere else to not be an ant or to be a working girl.
How is this pertinent to you?
Well this girl could be any of the above, and tbh it usually takes an outsider to see what's going on, as men are suckers and can be blinded by women easily.
My suggestion is probably to merely take a vacation/ holiday and see her response. It is akin to merely buying a drink, if it turns out bad its just a drink. While marriage has HUUUUGE consequences.
Also to consider her motivations rationally, look at yourself in the mirror are you a fat ugly slob who would under other circumstances be unable to pull a girl of her attraction? TCG is no oil painting and therefore Chinese girls wanting to marry me it was pretty obvious (aside from them being totally blunt about it) they were not after my Adonis like body (yeah right)
Ask in depth what her plans for the future will be, ignore the I wanna be with you etc type ones that massage your ego and deflect attention away. Assess her current circumstances, if she is rich or has a rich family then the exploitation angle chance is lower. Consider WHAT she would do if she were not to go to the USA. Would she merely end up as an ant or happens to have a fairly decent job there? Call her bluff, maybe pretend to want to settle in CHINA and gauge her reactions. Age plays a factor in this too, in Asia once you hit 30 NOBODY wants you, and people tend to settle. As I've said in many previous posts there is a huge pressure to get married at a youngish age.
Have a serious think about it with your head rationally and see if it makes sense.
And for women readers, the same pretty much applies to any men you may meet out there too!
05 August 2010
Yeet hey 熱氣
Hello
Just thought I'd ask, What exactly is YEET HAY in English and How come it is only Chinese people who get it? Don't White people get it also or do they just not realize when they are ?
And what can you do if you do feel Yeet Hay
Ricky Wu
Dear Ricky
Uh oh, I was wondering when this would come up. Yeet Hey (熱氣) is a highly contentious issue which Chinese parents will tell their children constantly about. Strangely it only affects Chinese people. Caucasians, Mexicans, black people and everybody in between no such thing. Apparently there is Yin and Yang in food meaning anything which is hot is bad for you, i.e. anything baked fried, toasted, in fact anything slightly tasty or spicy. Koreans of both varieties north and South appear to be immune to it though for some strange reason.
A KFC Bucket of Chicken = Yeet hey and bad for you even if you opt for the non spicy variations
Did I say Spicy? Strangely enough Koreans AFAIK don't suffer from this and everything they eat is like eating lava.
My trek to Seoul last year after riding around Guri wondering where the centre of Seoul was I stopped exhausted and found a stand selling Tteokbokki. Which looked ok, one bite and it was like an a ball of fire in my gob. Seeing as everybody was eating it fine and not wanting to look like a pussy I ate another piece which was hotter than the first piece. I slowly put it down and had a sip of the soup, which was even hotter and I sort of lost it to the heat.
At which the old Korean woman behind the stand crapped her pants laughing at me...(then again you can tell I am not Korean due to the way I had a massive beard. I have NEVER seen a Korean person with a beard ever).
Firey Korean burgers
Ok so I go get a hamburger a Bulgogi (beef) burger from the ubiquitous family mart in Seoul and one bite and again I am eating molten lava as the inside is filled with spicy green paste (maybe Wasabi).... Slightly annoyed now and still hungry as the Tteokbokki wasn't finished, nor was the burger. I go out yet again for something safe, some 700krw cup noodles (not as bad as the 300krw noodles which shorten your life significantly) and again I am eating lava. I go back to my hotel room and throw up.
Korean Biological weapons in case the PLA ever attacks
When Park took me out to dinner we again ate molten lava. This happened throughout my Korean experience, Kimichi, Hanjeongsiketc. I found I could only eat Bimibap. Though this was more to do with the fact of walking into restuarants seeing the menu was completely written in Korean and realising I only knew bulgogi and Bimibap.
While Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim and Park in the hostel would continuously eat fiery spicy things yet exhibit no ill effects. Unlike myself, must be a different Korean evolutionary path that they can eat fire.
Young the girlie I became acquainted with in Seoul and I really do mean acquaintance (as she is now apparently a famous actress in Korea now). We'd go out regularly to Hongdae and she would eat her weight in fried foods and spicy foods which would send me thermonuclear just looking at it. And yet she suffered not ill effects at all and kept her ghostly pale skin.....Oddly she never got fat either, while my arrival in Korea was 7stn I left Korea considerably fatter at 7.5stone from the illnesses I got in Siberia. I think it must have been the cookies you can buy in Family Mart everywhere as the spiciness upset my stomach badly and I would throw up daily.
However this has often led to a great feeling of conspiracy within the Chinese youth in that coincidentally everything which is Yeet Hey always happens to be tasty. While everything which is non tasty is non Yeet Hey. I lived through years of not being able to eat good stuff, Pizza? Pies? Bacon sandwiches, even toast, pop tarts, chocolate, crisps, even frigging cornflakes ALL forbidden.... damnit my youth was just eating boring things, there sure was a hell of a lot of rice. Though curiously I drink loads of milk too most Sinotypes can't drink milk.
I discovered later on it IS (sometimes) used as a controlling mechanism by Chinese parents to control what their children eat as with the last post about Feng Shui the advice is completely inconsistent. Anything they don't like the look of is instantly labelled Yeet hay... which makes children think what the fuck? I'm getting old and my dad still pesters me about this.
But anyway where was I before I got completely sidetracked in my little anecdote.
Yeet Hey is used in Chinese medicine as a state of being too hot. As an antithesis you can also be too cold, wet or dry too. yeet Hey is bought on by eating lots of hot foods, spices and or lack of sleep can all imbalance the body and affect the Qi in the body. Symptoms of uber Yeet Hey are sore throats, break outs of zits big juicy ones which lurk under the skin. Ulcers, nose bleeds and when you take a whizz golden showers or it smells bad (hold on does piss ever smell good?) It varies from person to person. Some people are much more vulnerable than others. While others are completely invulnerable to it as per the Koreans as described above.
So what's the cure doc? Chinese mythology and medicine is dominated by the idea of balance so the cure is to re balance the imbalance. When you are too hot you eat or drink something cold. Common cures as many children of Chinese migrants will attest to are cool drinks:
In a nut shell the basic theory is that you should eat enough hot and cold things to balance out the yin and yang elements of your diet else your health will suffer. The problem is there are severe inconsistencies in this. Lychee's for instance are considered to be Yeet Hey, when they are a watery fruit (I hate the damned things though). While other watery fruit like melons, grapes oranges ya pears etc are considered to be cooling (Leung). Which is terribly confusing especially as people give conflicting advice.
Another inconsistency is that curiously how come you can't have too much Yang yet at the same time can have too much Yin? Or the other way round. My dad when he is around will regularly point out things are too Yeet Hey, but at the same time doesn't tend to point out too much cold in my diet aside from beer.
However I think the best way to define what this is though is simply this:
To eat and drink things in moderation, as excess of anything is bad....
Koreans excepted as they sure do like they spicy food oh and Soju. The Kims and Park drank that stuff like water....
Though I'm sure Korean folks have their own local things too, as I remember being fed full boned ginger chicken by Young one day. Also that Kimichi has um issues.
Still everything causes cancer these days so what's new?
Just thought I'd ask, What exactly is YEET HAY in English and How come it is only Chinese people who get it? Don't White people get it also or do they just not realize when they are ?
And what can you do if you do feel Yeet Hay
Ricky Wu
Dear Ricky
Uh oh, I was wondering when this would come up. Yeet Hey (熱氣) is a highly contentious issue which Chinese parents will tell their children constantly about. Strangely it only affects Chinese people. Caucasians, Mexicans, black people and everybody in between no such thing. Apparently there is Yin and Yang in food meaning anything which is hot is bad for you, i.e. anything baked fried, toasted, in fact anything slightly tasty or spicy. Koreans of both varieties north and South appear to be immune to it though for some strange reason.
A KFC Bucket of Chicken = Yeet hey and bad for you even if you opt for the non spicy variationsDid I say Spicy? Strangely enough Koreans AFAIK don't suffer from this and everything they eat is like eating lava.
My trek to Seoul last year after riding around Guri wondering where the centre of Seoul was I stopped exhausted and found a stand selling Tteokbokki. Which looked ok, one bite and it was like an a ball of fire in my gob. Seeing as everybody was eating it fine and not wanting to look like a pussy I ate another piece which was hotter than the first piece. I slowly put it down and had a sip of the soup, which was even hotter and I sort of lost it to the heat.
Korean Tteokbokki, Yeet Hey like nothing else, otherwords known as fire on a plate
At which the old Korean woman behind the stand crapped her pants laughing at me...(then again you can tell I am not Korean due to the way I had a massive beard. I have NEVER seen a Korean person with a beard ever).
Firey Korean burgersOk so I go get a hamburger a Bulgogi (beef) burger from the ubiquitous family mart in Seoul and one bite and again I am eating molten lava as the inside is filled with spicy green paste (maybe Wasabi).... Slightly annoyed now and still hungry as the Tteokbokki wasn't finished, nor was the burger. I go out yet again for something safe, some 700krw cup noodles (not as bad as the 300krw noodles which shorten your life significantly) and again I am eating lava. I go back to my hotel room and throw up.
Korean Biological weapons in case the PLA ever attacksWhile Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim and Park in the hostel would continuously eat fiery spicy things yet exhibit no ill effects. Unlike myself, must be a different Korean evolutionary path that they can eat fire.
Young the girlie I became acquainted with in Seoul and I really do mean acquaintance (as she is now apparently a famous actress in Korea now). We'd go out regularly to Hongdae and she would eat her weight in fried foods and spicy foods which would send me thermonuclear just looking at it. And yet she suffered not ill effects at all and kept her ghostly pale skin.....Oddly she never got fat either, while my arrival in Korea was 7stn I left Korea considerably fatter at 7.5stone from the illnesses I got in Siberia. I think it must have been the cookies you can buy in Family Mart everywhere as the spiciness upset my stomach badly and I would throw up daily.
I bet this sauce would sell well in S Korea.
However this has often led to a great feeling of conspiracy within the Chinese youth in that coincidentally everything which is Yeet Hey always happens to be tasty. While everything which is non tasty is non Yeet Hey. I lived through years of not being able to eat good stuff, Pizza? Pies? Bacon sandwiches, even toast, pop tarts, chocolate, crisps, even frigging cornflakes ALL forbidden.... damnit my youth was just eating boring things, there sure was a hell of a lot of rice. Though curiously I drink loads of milk too most Sinotypes can't drink milk.
I discovered later on it IS (sometimes) used as a controlling mechanism by Chinese parents to control what their children eat as with the last post about Feng Shui the advice is completely inconsistent. Anything they don't like the look of is instantly labelled Yeet hay... which makes children think what the fuck? I'm getting old and my dad still pesters me about this.
But anyway where was I before I got completely sidetracked in my little anecdote.
Yeet Hey is used in Chinese medicine as a state of being too hot. As an antithesis you can also be too cold, wet or dry too. yeet Hey is bought on by eating lots of hot foods, spices and or lack of sleep can all imbalance the body and affect the Qi in the body. Symptoms of uber Yeet Hey are sore throats, break outs of zits big juicy ones which lurk under the skin. Ulcers, nose bleeds and when you take a whizz golden showers or it smells bad (hold on does piss ever smell good?) It varies from person to person. Some people are much more vulnerable than others. While others are completely invulnerable to it as per the Koreans as described above.
So what's the cure doc? Chinese mythology and medicine is dominated by the idea of balance so the cure is to re balance the imbalance. When you are too hot you eat or drink something cold. Common cures as many children of Chinese migrants will attest to are cool drinks:
- leurng chahs" (literally meaning "cool teas") such as Chrysanthemum tea,
- yah-sei mei" (24-flavor tea)
- gum mo cha" (influenza tea).
- green bean soup,
- sour plum soup
- beer ~ yes BEER which is why caucasian people don't suffer from Yeet Hey at all!
- A good night's sleep also goes a long way in helping someone who is yeet hay.
24 flavor tea (which tastes as good as it looks) = good and Leung
In a nut shell the basic theory is that you should eat enough hot and cold things to balance out the yin and yang elements of your diet else your health will suffer. The problem is there are severe inconsistencies in this. Lychee's for instance are considered to be Yeet Hey, when they are a watery fruit (I hate the damned things though). While other watery fruit like melons, grapes oranges ya pears etc are considered to be cooling (Leung). Which is terribly confusing especially as people give conflicting advice.
Another inconsistency is that curiously how come you can't have too much Yang yet at the same time can have too much Yin? Or the other way round. My dad when he is around will regularly point out things are too Yeet Hey, but at the same time doesn't tend to point out too much cold in my diet aside from beer.
However I think the best way to define what this is though is simply this:
To eat and drink things in moderation, as excess of anything is bad....
Koreans excepted as they sure do like they spicy food oh and Soju. The Kims and Park drank that stuff like water....
Though I'm sure Korean folks have their own local things too, as I remember being fed full boned ginger chicken by Young one day. Also that Kimichi has um issues.
Still everything causes cancer these days so what's new?
29 July 2010
Stares
Hello Chinese fellow,It has been a very long time since I visited in China, over ten years. I enjoyed my trip very much. I stayed in Shanghai mostly with entry and customs in Beijing. I noticed something, the staring. I have been to other Asian countries as well as many countries around the world and no where were people less abashed about openly string at me. I am pretty stereotypically Scandinavian in my looks so I can understand some looking but people on the street just seemed to stare at me, straight in the face and eyes without looking away. Made me kind of feel very uncomfortable and kind of like a freak. Is this a common reaction and why did I seem to encounter so much more of it in China than other countries?
Also in contrast the customs/immigration officials did not look at my face at all. They just looked at my passport and visa and did not look up once even to match that I was even the same race as my picture. I have been enjoying reading some of the posts in your blog, I have not gotten too far yet but subscribed for future reading.
--Skeptigirl
Dear Skepticgirl
You know your email name is almost identical to a Polish poster recently?
Anyway in Europe/Western cultures your mother always taught you never to stare it's rude, in China as recently as 20 years ago staring was perfectly acceptable and some people due to the unequal changing and shaping of society is still is acceptable. The ten years ago you talk about is when foreigners were REALLY rare in China. I still remember the mid 1990s when Beijing was chocka with bicycles the bicycle footbridges still exist today but are no longer used as the car and moped have taken over. I guess you found it more prevalent in China because foreigners in China are still fairly rare China sees them in movies and has the odd English teacher but there are few large groupings of foreigners in China.
In the UK you have China town, India town, Korea town... areas like South London where the population is predominantly black. In China it is hegemonic and everywhere you look Han Chinese.
If you find it annoys you then simply stare back 9/10 time times they will look away and blush.
Don't worry though TCG gets stared at in China all the time for the most mundane things, at the end of my 2009 big motorbike ride (see link at the top of the page) I ended up in Beijing. I wore army boots because they could be ridden and walked in easily. I could feel people staring at me... Though in truth a combination of a westernised diet and environment has caused me to look different from other Chinese people. Stand me next to my relatives who stayed in China and HK and it is easy to spot me apart (I actually find it hard to blend in whilst in China. My sister has identical experiences. So don't worry about it.
The looks you will receive are usually out of curiosity especially if you are in a city where few foreigners live. When I travelled to Urumqi China (essentially the middle of nowhere) I was stared at a lot as I simply did not blend in. For most people in China their lives are not great. They work long hours in factories or uninteresting jobs which are both dull and repetitive. Your brief appearance may lighten up their day and act as some sort of interest for them to talk about later on and thus they are scanning you.
In fact many of them are having an internal struggle in their heads attempting to muster up the courage to talk to you. I mean there are 10000s of schools of English in China and yet nearly 100% of the people who go to these schools have no opportunity to use what they have learnt.
Granted this is rude to us, but it's pretty normal in China.
So you get stared at, it's just the culture. As stated earlier you can stare back! I do this whenever I get the chance (not often). Usually, the offender starer drops the gaze and turns red. If I'm nasty I will keep looking at them (though this has more than once almost led to violence).
Then smile and walk away or even approach them if you want to have a chat.
Some people may take photos of you too, the thing is they will have double standards! Yank out your camera and take photos of them or photo bomb them and make the photo look bad.
But don't take yourself too seriously in China. Have fun and enjoy the attention. People are just curious. It might get annoying after awhile but hey you're (semi) famous!
Remember as a foreigner you will need to accept that you will be stared at simply for being different. You will usually be taller, fatter, and often paler then most Chinese, and this means that the more of your white skin that you expose, the more staring you will receive. You are expected to abide by a different set of rules simply because you are a foreigner, and you will be treated differently as such even if you act or dress in the same way as the Chinese.
I'd note this will happen less in tourist heavy areas as they are used to what foreigners look like, though this is not always true. As said my motorbike trip 2009 I did look weird. I was heavily emaciated from Russian food and booze and yet I was walking through tourist places like the Forbidden City tourist trap Hutongs etc and would still get looked at.
Regarding the passport thing, they immigration officers simply don't care, and really in getting your visa the embassy should have done its job in checking who you were. Visas in China are a money making scam for the government anyway and 100% of people never dare press the button on many immigration desks asking how my service is today!
Regards
TCG
27 June 2010
bicycle!
Dear TCG
I am about to relocate to Hong Kong from the UK for a year or two and I am an enthusiastic cyclist. I own a very expensive bike in the UK and I am thinking of shipping them over for my stay there. I have a place to store them so that's no problem. However loads of people say to me that I won't have a chance to use them what are the cycling opportunities in HK? I would be grateful for advice.
Tolsky
Dear Tolsky
You're kidding right? You want to ride a bicycle in Hong Kong? There are two maybe three things against this:
#1 It's frigging hot in Hong Kong, even in Winter it doesn't drop below 14C and it is humid. I'm supposed to be from round there but merely WALKING makes people ask me if I've been swimming. The need to shower at both ends will probably destroy your skin.
#2 The pollution seriously, when I ride a tough section on my bicycle I take in huge deep gulping breaths though granted my speed up hill and on the flat is barely any different much to the annoyance of other cyclists as I use the cogs pretty effectively. The pollution in HK is horrible some of the scenic routes are hilly and you will be gulping in incredible amounts of crap into your lungs. Granted you can of course use one of those anti pollution masks but you can never get enough air into your lungs. In Beijing which is pancake flat I rented a bicycle and returned it about 5 minutes later due to the incredible pollution there.
#3 Cars, ok so in HK there are many separated cycle lanes which are built into the pavement, but these do not go everywhere. In HK the driving is aggressive not quite as bad as driving in Seoul but when you see minibuses go down roads which are 30mph going down them at 75mph you think hmm. Or the way people do not pay attention to the road is worrying. A taxi driver I always have the misfortune to encounter uses not one but 5 mobile phones and 2 net books in his taxi while driving. No doubt he'll be using an Ipad too.
As a side 4th the public transport in HK is cheap anyway so this is hardly a need to cycle to cheap out on transport is there? I mean a fare in the UK which'd cost you £4 costs £1.20.
As a 5th you don't tell me where exactly you live, as it is troublesome to get a bicycle across the Harbor and or Lion Rock. Yes I know there is a guy who cycles from Fanling to Mongkok daily (he spends 4 hours a day doing it). But better him than me.
Crap forgot to answer the question at hand. Yes in the New Territories and Lantau Bicycles will be useful due to the cycle lanes everywhere. But the closer you get to Kowloon and HK Island the less useful they will become as there is nowhere to store them. Parking on the street bicycles have a tendancy to be removed especially during festivals etc. Not to mention the above hazards.
22 June 2010
The Longer march?
Dear TCG
I have seen your motorbike trip and I want to do something similar. I want to walk the great wall of China.
[cut out lots of plans and stuff which is/was irrelevant)
Bryan.
Dear Bryan.
Erm How long have you got? The damned thing is 5000km long this does not include trenches the rivers and lakes as well not to mention it is built along the spine of mountains though the length is not the problem (more later).
Actually let me tell you about the cyclists I met in Russia. Cyclists are a crazy bunch I met loads of them (and towed loads of them) across Russia as their bicycles are slow. So while I could cruise at 40-50mph effortlessly and manage a respectable 300-600 miles a day bicycles had to ride for 16-20 hours a day at 10-18kmh and even then they would almost all overstay their tourist visas as they would crack 160-200km a day and be exhausted.
Around Chelyabinsk most of them were utterly fucked due to the steep 1st gear (on a motorbike ) hills.
On foot you'll manage what 30km a day and it'll take you 170+ days. And that is being HIGHLY optimistic as the Great wall is not what you see in pictures. on a million postcards and Internet pictures. The pictures you see on postcards and online are the bits you see near Beijing. These are not authentic they are rebuilt sections much like everything else in China (in China if you go to a temple there is a very high chance it is not authentic as most temples were rebuilt in the 1980s after being ransacked in 1970s Cultural revolution)
You go a 100km west and the walls are crumbling and falling apart. Much like the Roman Coliseum people over time saw it as a source of building materials and took bricks away from it because they could.
I'm not saying don't do it or it'll be dangerous. Simply that it isn't as simple as I can walk X miles a day the wall is Y miles long therefore I can walk it all in Z number of days. Hell if you do that all you'll be doing is walking all day anyway and what's the point of doing that? Added to the fact that once you get past Hohot it becomes really dry and civilisation begins to fizzle out markedly. Which means you have to travel away from it and back for food and supplies which will increase the amount of time needed to travel.
Have you considered this alternative?
Cycling alongside the wall? You can cycle in its shadow for much of its length passing through fairly decent roads and villages where you can get food and help daily. You will be able to keep up a higher speed and if you are reasonably fit manage it in about 75-90 days (the longest visa you can easily get for China). Maybe as well as the bicycle carrying stuff you'll need like food water etc.
I'm not saying don't do it. By all means go and have a try at it. I'm not saying it'll be dangerous as simply I doesn't know TCG ain't like the Korean the Korean knows all about Korea as Korea is a tiny country. China is massive.
However something to inspire you or scare you off even.
I have seen your motorbike trip and I want to do something similar. I want to walk the great wall of China.
[cut out lots of plans and stuff which is/was irrelevant)
Bryan.
Dear Bryan.
Erm How long have you got? The damned thing is 5000km long this does not include trenches the rivers and lakes as well not to mention it is built along the spine of mountains though the length is not the problem (more later).
Actually let me tell you about the cyclists I met in Russia. Cyclists are a crazy bunch I met loads of them (and towed loads of them) across Russia as their bicycles are slow. So while I could cruise at 40-50mph effortlessly and manage a respectable 300-600 miles a day bicycles had to ride for 16-20 hours a day at 10-18kmh and even then they would almost all overstay their tourist visas as they would crack 160-200km a day and be exhausted.
Around Chelyabinsk most of them were utterly fucked due to the steep 1st gear (on a motorbike ) hills.
On foot you'll manage what 30km a day and it'll take you 170+ days. And that is being HIGHLY optimistic as the Great wall is not what you see in pictures. on a million postcards and Internet pictures. The pictures you see on postcards and online are the bits you see near Beijing. These are not authentic they are rebuilt sections much like everything else in China (in China if you go to a temple there is a very high chance it is not authentic as most temples were rebuilt in the 1980s after being ransacked in 1970s Cultural revolution)
You go a 100km west and the walls are crumbling and falling apart. Much like the Roman Coliseum people over time saw it as a source of building materials and took bricks away from it because they could.
I'm not saying don't do it or it'll be dangerous. Simply that it isn't as simple as I can walk X miles a day the wall is Y miles long therefore I can walk it all in Z number of days. Hell if you do that all you'll be doing is walking all day anyway and what's the point of doing that? Added to the fact that once you get past Hohot it becomes really dry and civilisation begins to fizzle out markedly. Which means you have to travel away from it and back for food and supplies which will increase the amount of time needed to travel.
Have you considered this alternative?
Cycling alongside the wall? You can cycle in its shadow for much of its length passing through fairly decent roads and villages where you can get food and help daily. You will be able to keep up a higher speed and if you are reasonably fit manage it in about 75-90 days (the longest visa you can easily get for China). Maybe as well as the bicycle carrying stuff you'll need like food water etc.
I'm not saying don't do it. By all means go and have a try at it. I'm not saying it'll be dangerous as simply I doesn't know TCG ain't like the Korean the Korean knows all about Korea as Korea is a tiny country. China is massive.
However something to inspire you or scare you off even.
18 June 2010
They still haven't got the hang of English yet
For all the ESL teachers who go to China. No offence some of them are good, however the majority are absolutely shit. TCG has met loads of ESL teachers with fake degrees or that they were hired primarily due to their skin colour.
There is also a phenomenon of fake CEOs as here TGC having worked in finance is sometimes employed to talk to these people and flush them out. TCG as said is THE perfect Chameleon in Asia. Ok I am not the crying freeman But I blend in everywhere and can pretend to be almost one of any nationality found in Far Eastern Asia. I.e my prior finance training and qualifications allows me to flush these people out incredibly easily as they use buzz words constantly which sound impressive. And because they are successful nobody dares to challenge him.
I mean if Bill Gates wore a fake watch would anybody tell him it was a fake watch?
More than once TCG as favors has been asked to sit in on presentations and ask intruding questions to such fakes.
Anyway what was I on about...
Ah yes The Pearl Necklace River Bridge.
I'm sorry. What the fuck? No seriously a Pearl Necklace?
The Urban dictionary says:
I can just imagine a CCP official being bull shitted by the architect. Ah a pearl necklace? You mean like this?
Oh I gave my wife a pearl necklace for her birthday!
Cue sniggering of the architects uncontrollably.
2017 when it opens CCP will have egg on its face.
*note the SOBs changed it to Pearl River Necklace while I was typing this up, still has the same connotations though.
There is also a phenomenon of fake CEOs as here TGC having worked in finance is sometimes employed to talk to these people and flush them out. TCG as said is THE perfect Chameleon in Asia. Ok I am not the crying freeman But I blend in everywhere and can pretend to be almost one of any nationality found in Far Eastern Asia. I.e my prior finance training and qualifications allows me to flush these people out incredibly easily as they use buzz words constantly which sound impressive. And because they are successful nobody dares to challenge him.
I mean if Bill Gates wore a fake watch would anybody tell him it was a fake watch?
More than once TCG as favors has been asked to sit in on presentations and ask intruding questions to such fakes.
Anyway what was I on about...
Ah yes The Pearl Necklace River Bridge.
I'm sorry. What the fuck? No seriously a Pearl Necklace?
The Urban dictionary says:
The glorious culmination of tit-fucking, in which you blow your nuts out all over a girl's tits, shoulders, neck, and, with any luck, chin. one of the highest expressions of love and affection bestowable upon a woman by a man.Dashing Gent: Hey, I bet you'd look good in a "pearl necklace."
Big-Titted Dreamboat: Why, yes, I supposed you're right. Why don't you come on over to my place and baste my torpedo tits and elegant neck with your steaming hot man goo?
I can just imagine a CCP official being bull shitted by the architect. Ah a pearl necklace? You mean like this?
Oh I gave my wife a pearl necklace for her birthday!
Cue sniggering of the architects uncontrollably.
2017 when it opens CCP will have egg on its face.
*note the SOBs changed it to Pearl River Necklace while I was typing this up, still has the same connotations though.
16 June 2010
You want a light sabre?
No not like this you perv!
Like this:
(good bit starts from 41 seconds, note this clip was banned in the UK and took over 50 takes)
Sky News here has been telling people these made in China 'light sabres' are dangerous, no shit Sherlock, most things from China are pretty freaking dangerous anyway like the burning sofas.* Ironically, in sky telling people these things are freaking dangerous they have probably increased the market share of http://www.wickedlasers.com/ a huge deal. What was it Harriet Harman when she told people to ban a working girl website? She gave them more publicity than they could have dreamt of.
*note if you choose the uber cheapest item from a made in China manufacturer there has got to be something wrong with it, it is like curry fish balls you can get 10 of them for $8 you seriously think curry fishballs have any nutritional value?
Sky news says
Like this:
(good bit starts from 41 seconds, note this clip was banned in the UK and took over 50 takes)
Sky News here has been telling people these made in China 'light sabres' are dangerous, no shit Sherlock, most things from China are pretty freaking dangerous anyway like the burning sofas.* Ironically, in sky telling people these things are freaking dangerous they have probably increased the market share of http://www.wickedlasers.com/ a huge deal. What was it Harriet Harman when she told people to ban a working girl website? She gave them more publicity than they could have dreamt of.
*note if you choose the uber cheapest item from a made in China manufacturer there has got to be something wrong with it, it is like curry fish balls you can get 10 of them for $8 you seriously think curry fishballs have any nutritional value?
Sky news says
The device - with a beam 1,000 times stronger than sunlight on the skin - is touted by makers as "the most dangerous laser ever created".
Trading standards chiefs said they were "seriously concerned" about the sale of the Spyder III Pro Arctic model and have warned against its use.
As well as blinding, burning and causing cancer, its Hong Kong-based maker, Wicked Lasers, admits that "a split-second laser light in a plane cockpit (...) can be disastrous".
Star Wars fans are among hundreds of people who have already shown an interest in buying the laser, for sale to the general public for £135.
TCG doesn't see a problem, if you burn yourself and or give yourself cancer you only have yourself to blame take some responsibility. Children in generally do not have credit cards and thus are not capable of buying this themselves, ergo parents will probably buy it for their children who then hurt themselves and then attempt to absolve themselves of all blame. Which is bollocks!
It's like those parents who pretend to be responsible but then allow their children to use the Internet unsupervised. The events are unfortunate but it goes to show nothing happens until there are bodies.
If I was to give a loaded Uzi to my hypothetical son who's fault would it be if the theoretical CG's son went on a shooting rampage or shot himself? Would it be Uzi gaz for inventing the Uzi or mine?
Of course this does not apply if you use it against somebody else, then you are an absolute cunt of mammoth proportions, much like you are a fucking coward if you use a stun gun to attack somebody.
08 June 2010
Should I stay or should I go?
Dear TCG,
I have been given what seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity. The town I live in is offering a tourist group trip to Beijing. One week, all expenses paid, including airfare, hotel, food, and ground transit a sum of money. My mother said she would send me (Im 17) even though I would go alone. I just have a few concerns. When I pictured visiting China for the first time, I imagined it would be Hong Kong, not the belly of the beast that is Beijing. I feel a bit insecure about visiting mainland China. I feel like Id be entering a hostile environment (with all the tension in Sino-American relations lately). Im worried I might accidentally get into trouble from not being familiar with local laws. China also has all these visa restrictions for entering and leaving the country. I want to be sure I'll be able to return home safely and when I need to.
So should I go for it? (the deadline's not until August)
And if I do, do you have any tips on how to stay safe and out of trouble?
I just want some reassurance.
Kevin B
Dear Kevin.
I'll split this up a bit as I felt I'm not very lucid on this.
Visa
I believe you are getting the wrong end of the stick here, as China/US relations is just the governments who are rattling sabres at each other (I think you are American anyway). This just means they increase the cost of Visas for Americans to $150 a pop.
Visa restrictions are nothing more than a scam, they make shed loads of money out of it and put up hurdles you can jump over easily. Take note TCG actually requires a visa to visit China, as I missed the deadline of a home return permit and overseas born folks like me have certain restrictions in getting home return permits. Funny eh? From what I recall getting a Chinese visa says you have to have a flight in and a flight out and a hotel booked. At first glance people think whoa! In reality this is a piece of piss, flight in and a flight out? A hotel?
Flights are simple, though if you are North American flying is really the only option, but you can fake this too! China has no ability to check passenger manifests YET and probably can't be bothered to check yet either. The embassy staff are overworked so all everybody did was fake the flight itinerary (like I did) and go in via any means they wanted.
Doug for example mentioned in my book and faked up a flight ticket in Mongolia and a hotel booking and travelled in via bus.
Christian did the same thing but via train.
I did the same thing too I said I would fly in via the Mongolian / Beij airport. I actually ended up entering via boat into China via Incheon and Tianjin.
The visas only state a period of entry i.e. it is valid for 3 months from the date issued and runs for the length of the visa when you enter. Be careful! faking up flights stick 30 days or something between the entry and exit flights! Christian managed to get a 5 day visa for some reason.
Visas also do not state port of entry or exit as said my 2009 trek, I was supposed to enter via the Mongolia border but entered via Tianjin, I was also supposed to exit via Korea too flying out, but I left by train and went to cities not even listed on my itinerary (I put down Beijing/Shanghai and Hangzhao).
The hotel room is simple just find a hostel and pay $1 to book it print it out and there you go you've beaten the 'tough' visa scam money making machine of the PRC. TBH Russian visas are harder to get.
The border guards didn't even look at it for more than a second the hostel people did though not that they cared they just wanted to make chat. You can leave anytime you want, via any means you want I had a shiny 60 day visa and only used it for 34 days, the guard didn't care.
Politics
The anti American protests like when NATO bombed the Chinese embassy,
Or the Hainan Island incident
Are old history these days, and the blokes throwing stuff at the embassy were PAID actors, so says one of my ex-gfs who was living nearby when they happened. Also since Obama came into presidency there has been a marked warming of relations, as said it is just a government vs government thing. The Beijingers are like most people they worry about stuff their own daily lives. TCG for example does not particularly like the UK government but thinks meh, and is more worried about maintaining my motorbikes and I dedicate more to my own careers biking and writing than anything else.
You might recall an earlier post do Russians/Chinese hate each other? I travelled via the Amur region and there was no hate (ok so I got shot at, but I get shot at in the UK). On the face of it, it has been an area of tension for decades, the governments were hard line about each other for years. But when I travelled through the region on my motorbike there were no problems at all 'the incident of 4 KGB/FSB officers in my hotel room was quite funny actually'.
Chinese even in Mainland China are more savvy than the government gives them credit for they will differentiate between the people and the government 我没有投票 (Wǒ méiyǒu tóupiào) I didn't vote for him is a disarming phrase I heard many people use when Bush was still in power.
Safety
Read some of the China scam things (I have to edit them to include counter measures).
Make no bones about it, I do not know your ethnicity your skin colour or what, but if you are how shall I say it non Chinese looking you will be subjected to the attempted scams as mentioned in my earlier posts. All these scams are easy to dodge and to differentiate.
When you visit Wangfujin for example (this does not happen to me the fact I dress like a bum and I also blend in perfectly means it doesn't happen) usually 2 fantastically sexy girls in uber short skirts (can a skirt be too short? British bikers often die as a result of short skirts as people rubber neck and hit bikers we judged collectively it was worth it though) Will ask you they would like to practice English?
Meeting people is what makes your trip* you can instantly ascertain if this is a scam or not when they mention tea house say Starbucks? If they really want to meet you and practice they'll say Hao Hao, or yes or whatever. If they walk away it was a scam.
So are the Wangfujin I need 30RMB to get a train ticket home. Did I mention Wangfujin is a bad place to be? Tourist tat they see you and they'll mention special price and you can ignore it, or sometimes aggressively they will grab your wrists. Just walk away or learn a French or German phrase it confuses the hell out of them and they.
Carry a money belt seriously , and a dummy wallet usual tourist precautions.
Things to look out for
Tours, I think this is why I like the 365Inn Qinmen district as they are forthright about it, they have tours listed one with shopping one without. The shopping time included trips are much cheaper but you'll spend 2-3 hours hustled around specifically designed tourist tat shops and they really hate it when you don't buy anything.
Local and tourist menus, again why I like the 365Inn it shows prices outside to everybody.
People who flag you down to buy things, USB sticks are common which are smaller capacity than advertised.
Laws
The police generally mind their own business and never stop western tourists they stop me because I look like a bum (what do you expect I'd been wearing the same tshirt and jeans for 99 days!). Watch this video
You can't actually do this in Taipei a supposed democracy, nor London either as laws prevent taking photos and pictures (should they be used for terrorism that old excuse).
Usual laws apply as to other places, don't get too drunk, or EVER feel the need to have your hair cut, Beijing barbershops are not what they seem. Getting drunk is hard as the beers all contain this chemical preserver crap in it, due to the way Chinese people tend not to drink huge quantities of beer. This beer gives you a horrible headache a hard thumping one which is like literally being pounded over the head with a hammer constantly.
You are even allowed to bring in banned movies and books into the country, the restrictions are they just aren't allowed to sell them. The Abonination which is the lonely planet is thankfully not allowed in China, well they aren't allowed to sell it anyway. Though probably not a good idea to bring porn into the country!
Thoughts
Some thoughts, TCG hates package tours even though the price here is not too much more than a flight out there add in the visa and the hotel and food are virtually free.
I can't conform this however but I think what will happen on these all inclusive tours is that simply you'll be taken back and forth from the hotel, to restaurants which serve identical meals, and then shuttled towards tourist attractions and be taken to shopping trips between shuttle runs. Which is a sort of travel I don't like as you never really meet real people which I feel is the point of travel in the first place. If I were you (like I was in 1998) I'd go out and do it alone! But really do take sometime out rent a bicycle and get to the 4th ring or farther from the centre as the centre is all comercialised and touristy. You can get a feel for this around the Qianmen hutongs though.
Some random stuff which goes nowhere else:
Should you go for it?
Your choice, as above I personally hate hand hand holding tours and prefer to go out there myself and meet people myself, it depends on your personality tbh whereby if you are outgoing and will approach people then no problem. If you are more reserved then it is more problematic.
Sorry to sound like a broken record but you can go to most hostels pay $5-7US a night for a bed in a dorm (the girlie who stayed in my dorm kept a knife under her pillow) meet people there who will independently arrange their own sightseeing trips. Though this of course is hit and miss as you may meet touristy tourists or you may meet sensible people or crazy people. Like the Israelis , the Japanese bloke and the Korean guy pretending to be Japanese and the Russian and dutch guy.
A trip is WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT.
Ollie, The Dutch guy and myself got on because Beijing was virtually the end of our respective trips and we generally were not so much into looking at things more having some fun unwinding after crossing Russia which was rough.
I have been given what seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity. The town I live in is offering a tourist group trip to Beijing. One week, all expenses paid, including airfare, hotel, food, and ground transit a sum of money. My mother said she would send me (Im 17) even though I would go alone. I just have a few concerns. When I pictured visiting China for the first time, I imagined it would be Hong Kong, not the belly of the beast that is Beijing. I feel a bit insecure about visiting mainland China. I feel like Id be entering a hostile environment (with all the tension in Sino-American relations lately). Im worried I might accidentally get into trouble from not being familiar with local laws. China also has all these visa restrictions for entering and leaving the country. I want to be sure I'll be able to return home safely and when I need to.
So should I go for it? (the deadline's not until August)
And if I do, do you have any tips on how to stay safe and out of trouble?
I just want some reassurance.
Kevin B
Dear Kevin.
I'll split this up a bit as I felt I'm not very lucid on this.
Visa
I believe you are getting the wrong end of the stick here, as China/US relations is just the governments who are rattling sabres at each other (I think you are American anyway). This just means they increase the cost of Visas for Americans to $150 a pop.Visa restrictions are nothing more than a scam, they make shed loads of money out of it and put up hurdles you can jump over easily. Take note TCG actually requires a visa to visit China, as I missed the deadline of a home return permit and overseas born folks like me have certain restrictions in getting home return permits. Funny eh? From what I recall getting a Chinese visa says you have to have a flight in and a flight out and a hotel booked. At first glance people think whoa! In reality this is a piece of piss, flight in and a flight out? A hotel?
Flights are simple, though if you are North American flying is really the only option, but you can fake this too! China has no ability to check passenger manifests YET and probably can't be bothered to check yet either. The embassy staff are overworked so all everybody did was fake the flight itinerary (like I did) and go in via any means they wanted.
Doug for example mentioned in my book and faked up a flight ticket in Mongolia and a hotel booking and travelled in via bus.
Christian did the same thing but via train.
I did the same thing too I said I would fly in via the Mongolian / Beij airport. I actually ended up entering via boat into China via Incheon and Tianjin.
The visas only state a period of entry i.e. it is valid for 3 months from the date issued and runs for the length of the visa when you enter. Be careful! faking up flights stick 30 days or something between the entry and exit flights! Christian managed to get a 5 day visa for some reason.
Visas also do not state port of entry or exit as said my 2009 trek, I was supposed to enter via the Mongolia border but entered via Tianjin, I was also supposed to exit via Korea too flying out, but I left by train and went to cities not even listed on my itinerary (I put down Beijing/Shanghai and Hangzhao).
The hotel room is simple just find a hostel and pay $1 to book it print it out and there you go you've beaten the 'tough' visa scam money making machine of the PRC. TBH Russian visas are harder to get.
The border guards didn't even look at it for more than a second the hostel people did though not that they cared they just wanted to make chat. You can leave anytime you want, via any means you want I had a shiny 60 day visa and only used it for 34 days, the guard didn't care.
Politics
The anti American protests like when NATO bombed the Chinese embassy,
Or the Hainan Island incident
Are old history these days, and the blokes throwing stuff at the embassy were PAID actors, so says one of my ex-gfs who was living nearby when they happened. Also since Obama came into presidency there has been a marked warming of relations, as said it is just a government vs government thing. The Beijingers are like most people they worry about stuff their own daily lives. TCG for example does not particularly like the UK government but thinks meh, and is more worried about maintaining my motorbikes and I dedicate more to my own careers biking and writing than anything else.
You might recall an earlier post do Russians/Chinese hate each other? I travelled via the Amur region and there was no hate (ok so I got shot at, but I get shot at in the UK). On the face of it, it has been an area of tension for decades, the governments were hard line about each other for years. But when I travelled through the region on my motorbike there were no problems at all 'the incident of 4 KGB/FSB officers in my hotel room was quite funny actually'.
Chinese even in Mainland China are more savvy than the government gives them credit for they will differentiate between the people and the government 我没有投票 (Wǒ méiyǒu tóupiào) I didn't vote for him is a disarming phrase I heard many people use when Bush was still in power.
Safety
Read some of the China scam things (I have to edit them to include counter measures).
Make no bones about it, I do not know your ethnicity your skin colour or what, but if you are how shall I say it non Chinese looking you will be subjected to the attempted scams as mentioned in my earlier posts. All these scams are easy to dodge and to differentiate.
When you visit Wangfujin for example (this does not happen to me the fact I dress like a bum and I also blend in perfectly means it doesn't happen) usually 2 fantastically sexy girls in uber short skirts (can a skirt be too short? British bikers often die as a result of short skirts as people rubber neck and hit bikers we judged collectively it was worth it though) Will ask you they would like to practice English?
Meeting people is what makes your trip* you can instantly ascertain if this is a scam or not when they mention tea house say Starbucks? If they really want to meet you and practice they'll say Hao Hao, or yes or whatever. If they walk away it was a scam.
So are the Wangfujin I need 30RMB to get a train ticket home. Did I mention Wangfujin is a bad place to be? Tourist tat they see you and they'll mention special price and you can ignore it, or sometimes aggressively they will grab your wrists. Just walk away or learn a French or German phrase it confuses the hell out of them and they.
Carry a money belt seriously , and a dummy wallet usual tourist precautions.
Things to look out for
Tours, I think this is why I like the 365Inn Qinmen district as they are forthright about it, they have tours listed one with shopping one without. The shopping time included trips are much cheaper but you'll spend 2-3 hours hustled around specifically designed tourist tat shops and they really hate it when you don't buy anything.
Local and tourist menus, again why I like the 365Inn it shows prices outside to everybody.
People who flag you down to buy things, USB sticks are common which are smaller capacity than advertised.
Laws
The police generally mind their own business and never stop western tourists they stop me because I look like a bum (what do you expect I'd been wearing the same tshirt and jeans for 99 days!). Watch this video
You can't actually do this in Taipei a supposed democracy, nor London either as laws prevent taking photos and pictures (should they be used for terrorism that old excuse).
Usual laws apply as to other places, don't get too drunk, or EVER feel the need to have your hair cut, Beijing barbershops are not what they seem. Getting drunk is hard as the beers all contain this chemical preserver crap in it, due to the way Chinese people tend not to drink huge quantities of beer. This beer gives you a horrible headache a hard thumping one which is like literally being pounded over the head with a hammer constantly.
You are even allowed to bring in banned movies and books into the country, the restrictions are they just aren't allowed to sell them. The Abonination which is the lonely planet is thankfully not allowed in China, well they aren't allowed to sell it anyway. Though probably not a good idea to bring porn into the country!
Thoughts
Some thoughts, TCG hates package tours even though the price here is not too much more than a flight out there add in the visa and the hotel and food are virtually free.
I can't conform this however but I think what will happen on these all inclusive tours is that simply you'll be taken back and forth from the hotel, to restaurants which serve identical meals, and then shuttled towards tourist attractions and be taken to shopping trips between shuttle runs. Which is a sort of travel I don't like as you never really meet real people which I feel is the point of travel in the first place. If I were you (like I was in 1998) I'd go out and do it alone! But really do take sometime out rent a bicycle and get to the 4th ring or farther from the centre as the centre is all comercialised and touristy. You can get a feel for this around the Qianmen hutongs though.
Some random stuff which goes nowhere else:
- Bring tissues or bog roll around with you public toilets 99% of the time don't have them or have a rip off vending machine. You may need tissues due to the uber pollution spitting happens because of this.
- Don't rent bicycles from cheap places they are cheap as they are rotten or scammers.
- Don't be insulted when people are frank about things. As in my prior post.
- Don't even think of drinking the tap water.
- Unless you want to be mentally scarred don't use hutong toilets seriously so they were not as bad as ex USSR Azerbaijani toilets but real bad.
- Watch out for fake notes 20s and 50s are increasingly common
- 100RMB is HUGE in some areas though only erm $13 US or £9 UK£ you should carry some smaller money everywhere. 1RMB coins are useful for the metro
- Dark alleyways at night (the kind I walk down) should really be avoided
Should you go for it?
Your choice, as above I personally hate hand hand holding tours and prefer to go out there myself and meet people myself, it depends on your personality tbh whereby if you are outgoing and will approach people then no problem. If you are more reserved then it is more problematic.
Sorry to sound like a broken record but you can go to most hostels pay $5-7US a night for a bed in a dorm (the girlie who stayed in my dorm kept a knife under her pillow) meet people there who will independently arrange their own sightseeing trips. Though this of course is hit and miss as you may meet touristy tourists or you may meet sensible people or crazy people. Like the Israelis , the Japanese bloke and the Korean guy pretending to be Japanese and the Russian and dutch guy.
A trip is WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT.
Ollie, The Dutch guy and myself got on because Beijing was virtually the end of our respective trips and we generally were not so much into looking at things more having some fun unwinding after crossing Russia which was rough.
26 May 2010
Lucky bicycle rider
I may ride a motorbike cross countries of unfriendly people (azerbaijan) but going to Beijing last year the insanity of the traffic was an eye opener, makes London like a walk in the park.
Korea though was worse!
21 May 2010
Guns Guns Guns!
Dear TCG
A few events have had me a little concerned over the ability of the cops to protect me.
The first, and most serious event, was a last year. I lived in on a higher traffic street in a less affluent part of town. Some cars got into a traffic accident, which turned into a shooting. Nobody was actually shot, but it scared the bejesus out of me. It took the police about 2 minutes to arrive, but by that time the person with the gun had fled.
This kind of brought it home to me that bad / stupid people have guns and aren't afraid to use them. It also made me realize that police can't be everywhere all the time. They can arrive quickly, but things can get bad very, very fast and when someone is shooting a gun, 2 minutes is a very, very long time.
I have seen online some incredibly cheap deals on Chinese made carbines and rifles the SKS in particular interests me greatly but I will have to go to Canada to buy one. What is your opinion on Chinese made guns.
VJ
Dear VJ
TCG does not dabble in guns and has no knowledge whatsoever about Chinese made guns or guns made anywhere else, other than a few anecdotal stories about people shooting guns in South East Asia and the experience in Seoul where I fired a gun called a SAW.
The UK and HK are both largely gun free zones except for the police.
Therefore TCG cannot help you with this. Perhaps you should ask on more gun specific forums.
A few events have had me a little concerned over the ability of the cops to protect me.
The first, and most serious event, was a last year. I lived in on a higher traffic street in a less affluent part of town. Some cars got into a traffic accident, which turned into a shooting. Nobody was actually shot, but it scared the bejesus out of me. It took the police about 2 minutes to arrive, but by that time the person with the gun had fled.
This kind of brought it home to me that bad / stupid people have guns and aren't afraid to use them. It also made me realize that police can't be everywhere all the time. They can arrive quickly, but things can get bad very, very fast and when someone is shooting a gun, 2 minutes is a very, very long time.
I have seen online some incredibly cheap deals on Chinese made carbines and rifles the SKS in particular interests me greatly but I will have to go to Canada to buy one. What is your opinion on Chinese made guns.
VJ
Dear VJ
TCG does not dabble in guns and has no knowledge whatsoever about Chinese made guns or guns made anywhere else, other than a few anecdotal stories about people shooting guns in South East Asia and the experience in Seoul where I fired a gun called a SAW.
The UK and HK are both largely gun free zones except for the police.
Therefore TCG cannot help you with this. Perhaps you should ask on more gun specific forums.
18 May 2010
China school stabbings
Links
Here Here
Here
Here
Note this post was written a while ago, as of May 11th there have been 7 stabbing rampages.
All of them are blokes / teachers who go nuts and go on a murder spree, so what is TCG's take on all this? My thoughts are multi fold.
Firstly there are rather a lot more people in China than anywhere else attacks on children can and do happen, in the Uk there have been plenty of torture and or murders of people's children, with a population 20 times bigger you get 20 times as many. In fact there has even been a teacher beating up a child here
However (puts his amateur psychologist hat on) I think the reasoning behind this in China is complex:
Firstly in society you get a large number of sociopaths, that is one notch down from a psychopath, where they don't get the courage up take it up a level and start doing the bad things psychopaths are known for. There was a study post WWII where it was found 2% of soldiers were natural born killer socio/psychopaths therefore modern training has adapted to make soldiers shoot first then think as it makes them much more effective killing machines.
Secondly China has grown fast, psychiatric and medical help for such problems often simply does not exist, socialised medicine doesn't exist much in China, and the psychiatric help you can get costs a fortune. You can't just say I feel rather unwell please can I see a psychiatrist or a psychologist?
Thirdly China is a face orientated society, you are to hide your weaknesses and put a brave face on things therefore people who could have gone and asked for help, tend to hide their need for help and as above if they needed help where exactly would they get this help? People will think if I go and get this treated how exactly will it affect my career? TCG has had similar ramblings from colleagues in accountancy before and I know quite a few of them hid their mental illnesses as they were scared it would ruin their career. Same thing in China, where there is no welfare unless you return to your home village even then it is limited.
Fourthly we have little emperor syndrome the one child policy from 1979 to the present has created 100s of little emperors. Whereby they have one child and thus treat their children incredibly well as little emperors. My dad for instance he has 3 sisters and 2 brothers, due to the old economics thing about supply and demand more children = lower value of each one. He was treated like crap by his parents as they could just rely on another one instead. In China this is worse, the children are treated like treasure by their parents, the schools are often private and thus a going concern, you castigate the children you lose customers the boss gets pissed off at you and you get fired so you can't discipline them either. In many ways they are worse than the chavs you get in schools in the UK as quite simply you can take time off from stress, or do what my teacher in school did.
My teacher in school (a very poor inner city area) stood up in class and said to me:
"All you people won't amount to shit you're all going to end up on the dole anyway."
He then sat down and read the newspaper for the rest of the year he was 92% correct as during the school reunion of 2007 out of the year of about 102 most of the people were on the dole.
The videos below of Monkeytime are actually quite typical in China especially of wealthy children this is a 'good' class, there are worse videos of much worse classes of course but this was was convenient.
Quite simply the management doesn't give a fuck, so the teachers get the flak, the parents see their children as never wrong and thus the teacher is to blame, the teacher here even in the youtube comments gets an incredible amount of abuse.
And thus quite simply they snap and go nuts on a killing spree., as I said before there are a great many sociopaths in society they normally do not go psychopath either keeping control of their desire to murder people or never being driven to it. While here I reckon they are pushed towards it. Of course this is just my humble opinion of what is going on and I could be very wrong.
Here Here
Here
Here
Note this post was written a while ago, as of May 11th there have been 7 stabbing rampages.
All of them are blokes / teachers who go nuts and go on a murder spree, so what is TCG's take on all this? My thoughts are multi fold.
Firstly there are rather a lot more people in China than anywhere else attacks on children can and do happen, in the Uk there have been plenty of torture and or murders of people's children, with a population 20 times bigger you get 20 times as many. In fact there has even been a teacher beating up a child here
However (puts his amateur psychologist hat on) I think the reasoning behind this in China is complex:
Firstly in society you get a large number of sociopaths, that is one notch down from a psychopath, where they don't get the courage up take it up a level and start doing the bad things psychopaths are known for. There was a study post WWII where it was found 2% of soldiers were natural born killer socio/psychopaths therefore modern training has adapted to make soldiers shoot first then think as it makes them much more effective killing machines.
Secondly China has grown fast, psychiatric and medical help for such problems often simply does not exist, socialised medicine doesn't exist much in China, and the psychiatric help you can get costs a fortune. You can't just say I feel rather unwell please can I see a psychiatrist or a psychologist?
Thirdly China is a face orientated society, you are to hide your weaknesses and put a brave face on things therefore people who could have gone and asked for help, tend to hide their need for help and as above if they needed help where exactly would they get this help? People will think if I go and get this treated how exactly will it affect my career? TCG has had similar ramblings from colleagues in accountancy before and I know quite a few of them hid their mental illnesses as they were scared it would ruin their career. Same thing in China, where there is no welfare unless you return to your home village even then it is limited.
Fourthly we have little emperor syndrome the one child policy from 1979 to the present has created 100s of little emperors. Whereby they have one child and thus treat their children incredibly well as little emperors. My dad for instance he has 3 sisters and 2 brothers, due to the old economics thing about supply and demand more children = lower value of each one. He was treated like crap by his parents as they could just rely on another one instead. In China this is worse, the children are treated like treasure by their parents, the schools are often private and thus a going concern, you castigate the children you lose customers the boss gets pissed off at you and you get fired so you can't discipline them either. In many ways they are worse than the chavs you get in schools in the UK as quite simply you can take time off from stress, or do what my teacher in school did.
My teacher in school (a very poor inner city area) stood up in class and said to me:
"All you people won't amount to shit you're all going to end up on the dole anyway."
He then sat down and read the newspaper for the rest of the year he was 92% correct as during the school reunion of 2007 out of the year of about 102 most of the people were on the dole.
The videos below of Monkeytime are actually quite typical in China especially of wealthy children this is a 'good' class, there are worse videos of much worse classes of course but this was was convenient.
Quite simply the management doesn't give a fuck, so the teachers get the flak, the parents see their children as never wrong and thus the teacher is to blame, the teacher here even in the youtube comments gets an incredible amount of abuse.
- Therefore the teachers cannot discipline the children.
- Therefore the teachers cannot turn to the management of the school for help
- Therefore the teachers cannot turn to the Chinese NHS (national health service) as it does not exist.
- Therefore the teachers cannot turn to other people other than maybe their families who will tell them to keep it secret as they have bills to pay.
- Therefore the teachers cannot go to the papers to embarrass the children into behaving either.
And thus quite simply they snap and go nuts on a killing spree., as I said before there are a great many sociopaths in society they normally do not go psychopath either keeping control of their desire to murder people or never being driven to it. While here I reckon they are pushed towards it. Of course this is just my humble opinion of what is going on and I could be very wrong.
30 March 2010
Medicine
Dear TCG
Where can I get medication say V in Hong Kong? Do I need a prescription?
Can you just email me back?
Thanks
(No name attached)
Dear Mr Floppy.
V? you mean Viagra?
Oh and btw no I won't keep it private.
Hong Kong is Asia and therefore you can get anything you want over the counter at a pharmacy, strictly speaking medicine is supposed to be like in the UK or USA or Europe where you are supposed to put down $100 to see the doctor who will give you a script to go either to a traditional herbalist which is similar to Dr Herbs:
Or you can go to a normal pharmacy, which has a red cross sign, as said in Hong Kong you are normally supposed to go to the doctors to get a prescription. However this simply doesn't work out in that if you know what you need, anything even dangerous stuff like methadone you just go to a pharmacy but not one inside a Watsons as they actually enforce the prescription only meds. This isn't to say you can get cannabis, heroin or cocaine at your local pharmacy, as you generally can't get that stuff over the counter in the western world anyway. And simply ask for it.
One of three things will happen:
#1 The pharmacist will ask you how much you want and sell it to you just like that, bulk discounts apply.
#2 The pharmacist will ask for a prescription a real one and will turn you away if you do not have one.
#3 The pharmacist will ask for a prescription, at which you say here is my prescription and hand over a $100 HK note (about £10) which he will say I understand and give you your meds +10-20% mark up on them if you had a script. Hong Kong is uber capitalism and making a few quid on the side bodes well with the conscience of a pharmacist. Also because drug abuse is almost non existent the government generally can't be bothered to enforce the prescription rule.
How do I know this? I know this because I have a hypochondriac family member, well to be fair she had a problem where she constantly got ear, nose and throat infections. Easy because of the air pollution and phenomenal population density of Hong Kong (its free to smoke in Hong Kong). Also the fact that the water in the sea is horrible yet bizarrely people still swim in it, you have a look at Cheung Chau and people swim in the raw sewage there more details here . Heh there is an old expats joke. In that some of them live in a place called Repulse Bay photos here those photos were probably taken in 1930 or something, as Repulse Bay is truely repulsive. It made HK government office toilets nice (HK government toilets before 1997 were horrendous if anybody here is from Manchester you may recall a night club called the Hacienda Wanchai government offices toilets were appalling and appeared not to have been cleaned since the battle of Hong Kong). As it was truly repulsive, dead animals floating about in the water, and the water was frothy and various colours that water shouldn't be coloured.
I digress.
Rather than book an appointment and hand over $110-$200 to see the doctor (It would always be the hard to book doctor too).
I would phone Peter my mate over Skype (he is a trained physician) who would tell me what I needed. This would save me a taking her out to the doctors where she would moan at me constantly and also moan at me while going to the pharmacy. This method cut the time needed to stop her whining rather quickly.
Although self medicating isn't exactly the safest thing in the world rather a lot of people self medicate in this manner and there are no mass deaths.
Where can I get medication say V in Hong Kong? Do I need a prescription?
Can you just email me back?
Thanks
(No name attached)
Dear Mr Floppy.
V? you mean Viagra?
Oh and btw no I won't keep it private.
Hong Kong is Asia and therefore you can get anything you want over the counter at a pharmacy, strictly speaking medicine is supposed to be like in the UK or USA or Europe where you are supposed to put down $100 to see the doctor who will give you a script to go either to a traditional herbalist which is similar to Dr Herbs:
Or you can go to a normal pharmacy, which has a red cross sign, as said in Hong Kong you are normally supposed to go to the doctors to get a prescription. However this simply doesn't work out in that if you know what you need, anything even dangerous stuff like methadone you just go to a pharmacy but not one inside a Watsons as they actually enforce the prescription only meds. This isn't to say you can get cannabis, heroin or cocaine at your local pharmacy, as you generally can't get that stuff over the counter in the western world anyway. And simply ask for it.
One of three things will happen:
#1 The pharmacist will ask you how much you want and sell it to you just like that, bulk discounts apply.
#2 The pharmacist will ask for a prescription a real one and will turn you away if you do not have one.
#3 The pharmacist will ask for a prescription, at which you say here is my prescription and hand over a $100 HK note (about £10) which he will say I understand and give you your meds +10-20% mark up on them if you had a script. Hong Kong is uber capitalism and making a few quid on the side bodes well with the conscience of a pharmacist. Also because drug abuse is almost non existent the government generally can't be bothered to enforce the prescription rule.
How do I know this? I know this because I have a hypochondriac family member, well to be fair she had a problem where she constantly got ear, nose and throat infections. Easy because of the air pollution and phenomenal population density of Hong Kong (its free to smoke in Hong Kong). Also the fact that the water in the sea is horrible yet bizarrely people still swim in it, you have a look at Cheung Chau and people swim in the raw sewage there more details here . Heh there is an old expats joke. In that some of them live in a place called Repulse Bay photos here those photos were probably taken in 1930 or something, as Repulse Bay is truely repulsive. It made HK government office toilets nice (HK government toilets before 1997 were horrendous if anybody here is from Manchester you may recall a night club called the Hacienda Wanchai government offices toilets were appalling and appeared not to have been cleaned since the battle of Hong Kong). As it was truly repulsive, dead animals floating about in the water, and the water was frothy and various colours that water shouldn't be coloured.
I digress.
Rather than book an appointment and hand over $110-$200 to see the doctor (It would always be the hard to book doctor too).
I would phone Peter my mate over Skype (he is a trained physician) who would tell me what I needed. This would save me a taking her out to the doctors where she would moan at me constantly and also moan at me while going to the pharmacy. This method cut the time needed to stop her whining rather quickly.
Although self medicating isn't exactly the safest thing in the world rather a lot of people self medicate in this manner and there are no mass deaths.
10 February 2010
Is Hong Kong safe? (Building collaspe)
Dear Chinese Guy
Is Hong Kong Safe? in that in Hung Hom a building fell down
KM
Dear KM
Hong Kong is semi safe, what the hell do I mean semi safe? , the below youtube video shows the damage in Hung Hom on the 29/01/2009 when a 5 story building collapsed. 5 people were killed and 5 severely injured. Oddly enough I stopped for some cup noodles at the 7-11 just to one side of the building.
Again this is related to water in that the older the building the less safe it is, concrete can last forever, however that isn't the issue. The issue is illegal renovations whereby interior load bearing walls are taken out to carve into smaller flats. Rents are high in Hong Kong $300 (US) is typical for a very small flat, greedy landlords will carve flats up into smaller units so that they can charge more for sq metre than before.
In newer districts say Olympic this is completely illegal and enforced so it is completely safe, however in older districts such as Hung Hom, Mong Kok or Kwun Tong (a nice picture is here). It is older and therefore there is a temptation to cut the flats into smaller chunks.
Although the Hung Hom building did not fall down instantly, the builders were seen and heard running away from the building 10 minutes before it collapsed and visible cracks appeared.
What is scarier is the Mong Kok acid attacker and general decay where things literally fall off buildings. My only advise is to ignore it, the odds of being killed in such an event is tiny, and Hong Kong has a world class health system. Other than perhaps Lantau and the outer lying Islands you are no more than 4 miles from a hospital.
Is Hong Kong Safe? in that in Hung Hom a building fell down
KM
Dear KM
Hong Kong is semi safe, what the hell do I mean semi safe? , the below youtube video shows the damage in Hung Hom on the 29/01/2009 when a 5 story building collapsed. 5 people were killed and 5 severely injured. Oddly enough I stopped for some cup noodles at the 7-11 just to one side of the building.
Again this is related to water in that the older the building the less safe it is, concrete can last forever, however that isn't the issue. The issue is illegal renovations whereby interior load bearing walls are taken out to carve into smaller flats. Rents are high in Hong Kong $300 (US) is typical for a very small flat, greedy landlords will carve flats up into smaller units so that they can charge more for sq metre than before.
In newer districts say Olympic this is completely illegal and enforced so it is completely safe, however in older districts such as Hung Hom, Mong Kok or Kwun Tong (a nice picture is here). It is older and therefore there is a temptation to cut the flats into smaller chunks.
Although the Hung Hom building did not fall down instantly, the builders were seen and heard running away from the building 10 minutes before it collapsed and visible cracks appeared.
What is scarier is the Mong Kok acid attacker and general decay where things literally fall off buildings. My only advise is to ignore it, the odds of being killed in such an event is tiny, and Hong Kong has a world class health system. Other than perhaps Lantau and the outer lying Islands you are no more than 4 miles from a hospital.
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