Just in case you were getting sucked into the Mao as Mickey Mouse bill of goods…
:roflmao: Now THATS funny! 
So what shade of white colored glasses are looking through? Why don’t you ask some imigrants of color if that statement is true?
Pretty rich from a guy who goes after some countries with a vengeance but thinks his is a modern day Athens.
:roflmao: Now THATS funny!
So what shade of white colored glasses are looking through? Why don’t you ask some imigrants of color if that statement is true?
Pretty rich from a guy who goes after some countries with a vengeance but thinks his is a modern day Athens.[/quote]
Ｉ ｗｏｕｌｄ ａｌｓｏ ｌｉｋｅ ｔｏ ｉｎｃｌｕｄｅ Ａｍｅｒｉｃａ ｆｏｒ ｂｅｉｎｇ ａ ｐｒｅｔｔｙ ｉｎｈｏｓｐｉｔａｂｌｅ ｅｎｖｉｏｒｎｍｅｎｔ ｉｆ ｙｏｕ ａｒｅ ｏｆ ａ ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｔ ｒａｃｅ。
Must be why so many are rushing to get there.
Because right now it’s easier to ask you which bit you think is incorrect. Does Australia have laws that discriminate on ethnicity or race? Does China?
HG
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Must be why so many are rushing to get there.
Because right now it’s easier to ask you which bit you think is incorrect. Does Australia have laws that discriminate on ethnicity or race? Does China?
HG[/quote]
Well arrive in Australia as an undocumented immigrant or asylum seeker and you might end up in some kind of “detention centre”. Having said that Western countries do not generally use the various guest labour schemes (often compared to bonded labour) employed by Asian countries who need to fill labour shortages (although Germany did in the past), and offer legal migrants a path to citizenship. Formal equality however does not mean that immigrant communities will be paid the same as the indigenous population, or be treated in the same way.
In China this is not so much as issue at present as it obviously has a huge pool of surplus labour. However I imagine the PRC, as with the ROC, has legislation that discriminates against people who do not have Chinese ancestry.
You mean the bigots from the UK trying to get away from all the “unsavories” in their own country?
Wow, the Maoists are out in force today.
I think you need to ask them yourself. You’re the one who needs convincing.
For ‘undocumented immigrant’, read ‘illegal immigrant’. Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers are a completely different topic.
For ‘formal equality’ read ‘laws which enforce equal rights for immigrants, including pay’. That’s what we’re talking about. Of course it’s entirely possible for a local employer to underpay an immigrant, but in Australia to do so would be breaking the law and the immigrant has legal recourse. The immigrant has access to legal means of redress. That’s why it is extremely uncommon for immigrants to be treated differently by their employers or underpaid.
Similarly, whilst it’s entirely possible that an immigrant may not be treated in the same way as a local, the fact is that the law requires they are, and the immigrant has access to the legal means of enforcing the law.
All of this is why immigrants in Australia have access to the same rights and pay as locals. This is completely different to the situation in China, which is the point under discussion.
[quote=“Fortigurn”].
All of this is why immigrants in Australia have access to the same rights and pay as locals. This is completely different to the situation in China, which is the point under discussion.[/quote]
Sorry what immigrants in China? China does not need to import workers because it has plenty of surplus labour. The few white collar workers who are in China I’m sure are treated well enough.
Other Asian countries DO have labour shortages (Korea, Taiwan, Japan) and have tried to resolve this with guest worker programmes (as Germany did in the past). To me these programmes are racist…for example in Taiwan a foreign resident can apply for citizenship after 6 years. However foreign labourers are made to leave the country every three years so it is impossible for them to meet this requirement. Of course the “good” foreigners (i.e. us) have no such restriction.
Western countries do not have such racist laws…BUT immigrants are increasingly unwelcome unless they are high skilled white collar workers. I don’t think you would be so naive to suggest that formal legal equality or protection actually means every group enjoys the same treatment. What about blacks in America, Gypsies in Romania, even women pretty much anywhere?
Except China of course, where they get to hold up half the sky . . … . while the blokes smoke fags and torture the slave kiddies.
Does the term “fucking drongos” ring any bells? It should.
HG
Except China of course, where they get to hold up half the sky . . … . while the blokes smoke fags and torture the slave kiddies.
Does the term “fucking drongos” ring any bells? It should.
HG[/quote]
Or child labour in India, but that’s okay because it’s the “Hindu class system”
Really I don’t know what the point of that post was, I was making a point about the difference legal equality and actual equality with regard to immigrant communities. I know bad stuff happens in China, I am already aware of that story. It has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make.
:roflmao: Now THATS funny!
So what shade of white colored glasses are looking through? Why don’t you ask some imigrants of color if that statement is true?
Pretty rich from a guy who goes after some countries with a vengeance but thinks his is a modern day Athens.[/quote]
Immigrants of colour? You mean like all my Taiwanese friends who went to work in the rail industry in Australia and are getting paid in the top 1% of incomes? I’m actually quite familiar with Australia’s immigration process, but if you’re unsure, perhaps you should speak to Satellite TV who actually worked for Australia’s immigration department.
I lived in Taiwan for seven years. I visited China for four weeks, so I am in no way an expert on China, although I probably know more about the place than the average tourist. I tried to be as unbiased as possible. My impressions of the place were… eugh.
One occasion was particularly repellent and telling; the ‘free tour’ my hotel provided to the great wall. The wall was beautiful and surrounded by the kind of countryside I’ve never seen before. The weather was bright and clear and icy cold at -15 degrees. It was one of those experiences that makes you- forgive the cliche- grateful to be alive.
Unfortunately, we only spent 90 minutes there because the rest of the day was wasted being trailed around hideous tourist factories for crappy vases, low grade marked up jade, fake Chinese medicine stuff and the most awful restaurant you can imagine.
We went to a ‘Chinese medicine centre’ where the ‘doctors’ felt everyone’s pulse and pretended to do consultations. The doctors just chatted with the nurses and then the nurses pretended to translate into English. All very friendly until it was my turn; I said, in Chinese; ‘Nah, I don’t need a consultation, thanks, I saw a doc in Taiwan last week. Can anyone here give me acupuncture; I’m getting an ear infection and that really clears it up’. Nervous laughter because they knew I’d heard them bullshitting everyone and I was ushered into another room very quickly and given lots of tea to drink. Later I heard someone in the clinic reprimanding at the tour guide. Afterwards, on the bus, lots of the dumbasses had bought pills for about 7000NT, all the same stuff.
Now I’ve done this before in other countries (Thai sapphires, anyone?), but it just seemed so much more gross and pathetic, here. Chinese people are so so fond of wittering on about Chinese dignity, then why don’t people act with integrity? The whole attitude towards the tourists was, for the large part, ‘we despise you, now give us money’. Of course, you can’t tar a whole nation from the behaviour of some shitty Beijingers, but tourists, that is what people see and Chinese government wonders why the west also wants to make money from China without respecting it in any way, then, well, look within.
Another anecdote from my China trip; I’d managed to rip the sleeve of my warm winter coat and I’d been pounding the Beijing streets, going into all sorts of stores trying to find a seamstress or even just needles and cotton to mend it myself with no luck. I asked yet another general store owner if she sold these. She looked me up and down in a not particularly friendly way and ordered me to take it off and sit down near the heater while she fixed it for me. Everyone came to say hello and were completely ‘normal’ with me. I treasure that experience. People are great when they forget all the crap they are filled up with.
I didn’t like China much from the few days I’ve been there - I visited a client there.
I flew to HK, got the ferry over. Got massively ripped off on a taxi to the hotel. Met up with more people from work there, they’d been advised to never leave the hotel under any circumstances except to use the free shuttle bus to the client. Unlike in Taiwan, people on the street looked pissed off, unfriendly and frankly a bit scared. Work in a Chinese company was spooky to - much less conversation than you’d expect from Taiwan. At lunch one guy said things like “People here used to work for foreign companies, but now they get higher salaries working for Chinese ones!”. This struck me as not true, passive aggressive and rather rude, since he was basically saying that the only reason anyone would have anything to do with foreigners was if they had more money and that that was no longer the case. I mentioned Japan and he said “we all think the Japanese are weird”. No one else at lunch spoke, though they nodded whenever he said anything to make it clear they agreed with everything he said and probably thought.
Stayed late with one other guy from HK. Managed to pick up my email with a prototype phone and said “I’m quite surprised this works here actually”. Chinese guy “Why”. Me “Because it’s VPN to a foreign country. VPN hides what you’re doing”. Chinese guy ignored this comment completely. The product they were developing seemed very unpolished compared to Taiwan companies too. Actually, everything there seemed unpolished compared to Taiwan or Japan, like people were going through the motions of stuff like a cargo cult without really caring about the details. E.g. the very expensive hotel looked ok, but interior door handles would fall off when you used them because screws were missing. Oh and the cut off CNN to static every time CNN mentioned Tibet or Taiwan too, even in a ‘foreigner farm’ hotel.
Crap place basically. A crap place full of people telling you in a wide variety of ways that it is not crap, but is now a Great Power That Has Eclipsed Foreigners After Centuries of Humiliation. I suppose Japan was like this in the 1930’s.
Well, just a quick story. Had my cell phone nicked on my last trip and in one restaurant we stopped in on a tour to Qinghai Lake I just told the waitress to recommend something (as everything on the menu was Y18). Unfortunately one thing was 81 and that’s what she gave me. When I found out I complained and guess who helped me out? yes, the other Chinese in the group, one going so far as to chastise the manager for ripping off foreigners. We invite foreigners to come to China to see our country. How can we treat them like this?
As for the cell phone, I got lots of help from the locals who saw it happen. One mother even accompanined me to the police station to help file a report.
Lots of assholes in China and lots of great people. It’s a big place.
One of the few really sensible things anyone has said in this thread.
One of the few really sensible things anyone has said in this thread.[/quote]
Well spotted! It’s good to have someone with taste, intellect and vigilance, pointing out these things!
they did put on a very nice Olympics opening ceremony, so they must be a superpower now.
9,000 of the 14,000 performers were from the military: amazing.
There was a ‘fun’ front page on the The Guardian (UK) newspaper today; 08.08.08; War and Peace and then two photos; one of a tank in Georgia exploding something, the other fireworks over the Bird’s Nest stadium. Pictures very similar looking. Slightly weird perspective, to say the least.
A Beijing resident comments to the Guardian about the murder and suicide in Beijing:
“Why are you paying so much attention to this. Murders happen all the time. You should pay attention to the two gold medals that China won today,” said a middle-aged woman in a floral-patterned shirt.
One of the few really sensible things anyone has said in this thread.[/quote]
Well spotted! It’s good to have someone with taste, intellect and vigilance, pointing out these things![/quote]
Ho hum, and in the 1930s Japan was busy invading Manchuria, while today China is busy …organising the Olympics. China knows that it has not eclipsed the West, and they know it, that is why they are so sensitive about everything.
However, it has come a long way in the last 30 years and it seems churlish not to recognise this.
As for China’s crapness, much of the east coast area is pretty bleak. Many things are indeed are truly crap, China is after still a developing country. But there also some truly incredible places to travel, my favourite is western Sichuan for its absolutely breathtaking scenery.
However if you visit Shenzhen on business or take the “free” tour to the Great Wall then you are likely to be left with a negative impression of the place.