Helping the homeless? That sounds like a keeper!
Guy
2 Likes
Hahahaha. 
A temple in Yunnan China offers in their funeral services “prayers by our monks to assist reincarnation as an American” if the deceased person’s family members are willing to pay an extra RMB 500. If they can’t run from 
while they’re alive, they can do it as a ghost.
Source: https://twitter.com/nthusharon/status/1680029948491476993
Guy
This was translated from an original post on Zhihu. Echoes what @Brianjones saying about travelling in China. Also why I wont go there unless with a local who will help with everything. Way too annoying now compared with anywhere else.
Also China tourism industry is 99% domestic focused. Foreign tourists are more of a hindrance now
Qft, was not very comfortable in the first place.
I had amazing times travelling in China before. Was super easy. Could apply for visa in HK before 9am, and pick it up at midday and then cross into Shenzhen. Everything was easy to do and could pay in cash. There were loads of foreigner-oriented hotels. South West China and especially Yunnan used to be firmly on the backpacker trail(come up through Vietnam and then back into Laos
Fair enough, that was the easiest route by far.
tbh even paying with a CUP (china unionpay) card is challenging. Many shops, even back in 2019 (last time I was in China) just accepted wechat/alipay payments. no cash or cards allowed. Christ, at a maccas in Shenzhen I couldn’t pay with anything since they didn’t take my cash nor cards (and I had 2 HK issued CUP cards, of which one double currency HKD/RMB)
Now wechat and alipay said that they will allow foreign cards to be added as top-up method, but it is still not a foreign friend environment for payments outside the big shopping malls.
I agree, had my fun up and down the border while in HK. Some days was just popping in Shenzhen and staying at the Hyatt there (so much cheaper than HK) for weekend trips.
Well, that time has passed.
You guys are giving me tons more reasons not to spend my hard-earned salary in that country.
With a sense of economic contraction in the air (as posted in other threads), I suspect that domestic consumption will already be tightening too. Who needs visitors to inject more money into the local economy? Evidently not today’s China.
Guy
For interested forumosans:
Guy
It might sound like an implausible gambit. But zoos in China have courted public ridicule in the past for trying to pass off pets like dogs as wild animals.
In 2013, a city zoo in the central Henan province angered visitors by trying to pass off a Tibetan Mastiff dog as a lion. Visitors who had approached the enclosure expressed shock when they heard the “lion” bark.
Visitors at another Chinese zoo, in Sichuan province, were shocked to discover a golden retriever sitting in a cage labeled as an African lion enclosure.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/01/china/sun-bear-claims-china-hangzhou-zoo-intl-hnk/index.html
I got involuntary puckerhole when I clicked on the article’s link.
Just when think OK that’s about all that could happen, these guys can still surprise you.
Starting Oct. 15th, China will ban all academic tutoring, including 1-on-1 tutoring.
Stated goal is to reduce out of pocket spending on kids education so people will have more kids.
Source: https://twitter.com/liqian_ren/status/1705208375619752003
Guy
These measures are quite popular with parents or some of them. They just aren’t enforced properly.
The rich can game the gao Kao through buxiban and tutors
With or without this new “rule,” I suspect that the rich and the connected will still finds ways to do things.
Guy
They just use “baby sitters / child minders”.
This is almost as stupid as the clothes thing.
Next they (XI) will be sending urbanites to hunt sparrows and starlings to save the harvest.
Abd melting down their iPhones for tractors (well some things will never happen over their dead bodies).