It's all about China

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MomTo2Boys
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It's all about China

Post by MomTo2Boys » Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:45 am

Hi, guys! So... in another thread, WiseOne and Reub both were asking about my time in China (by the way, I live in Japan now).

Reub said:

"Yes please share your insights on China with us. Did you live in a big city and for how long? Is there any pure capitalism going on there? Is the economy totally fake? Do you think that they are due for a real estate/stock market crash?"

My white-as-white-bread American family and I lived in Chengdu, China for a little more than two years. Chengdu is the fourth biggest city in China and its population is roughly 14 million.  In order to get to that population, you would pretty much have to combine New York City (8.4 million), Los Angeles (3.8 million), and Chicago (2.7 million).

The question about capitalism is... tough to answer. In my mind, white-bread-American capitalism is a combination of a company trying to make money in the confines of a society that's sure as hell gonna know if it dumps metric tons of company waste in the nearest river while being watched over by a government that is reasonably free from graft and will freak out if that dumping happens while also operating in a society where everyone has the freedom to take pictures with their cell phones and put them up on Twitter if the rivers turn purple/blue/green, etc.

China is... different.  On one hand, Chinese (and, of course, Japanese) people work a thousand circles around a typical American. Capitalists could find this attractive, of course. A capitalist might be really thrilled by the idea that in China there really aren't weekends and the average worker gets one day off PER MONTH. Also, in China the workers sometimes come from other parts of the country and leave their children behind. This is because in China children tend to be raised by the grandparents, and this is because there are mandatory retirement ages (in the 50s for both men and women though the men are usually allowed to work a bit longer than women), so that there is really no such thing as older workers.

The family relationship in China is one where the husband and wife and child also have the husband's parents living with them in a tiny little apartment. The husband and wife both work, the grandparents were mandatorily retired years ago, and take care of the grandchild. The husband and wife might work where they live or one or both might work in another city altogether tons of miles away. They all might see each other once or twice a year. This is why "golden week" or other such vacation weeks are so incredibly important... it's when families see each other.

Sons are more valued than daughters not because one gender is more prized than another but because sons are usually an aging parent's only hope for a semi-comfortable retirement. When you grow old, you move in with your SON, not your daughter, for your daughter already married some guy and his parents already live with them and there ain't no room for you and even if there were, it's not what's done. If you have no son, you're pretty much screwed, unless you've amassed money, but that doesn't happen for the typical worker in China.

Sure, there is unbelievable wealth in China, but the typical worker doesn't have any of it. Business and moneymaking in China is wrapped in graft, rolled up in intellectual property theft, and includes generous amounts of corporate espionage.  One could argue that it's actually far more capitalistic than what you see in America! Businesses, free from that pesky EPA, can (and will) dump what they wish in the rivers.  Free from labor laws, they can (and will) have workers working 16 hour days with only one day off a month.  Free from any kind of court system that functions, they can (and will) steal intellectual property from any and all without shame or even self-consciousness.  There was an "Apple" store (the fake kind) just down the street from my apartment the whole entire time I lived in Chengdu. It looked and functioned EXACTLY like a real "Apple" store. They had the logo out front, the same shirts worn by the workers inside, the same displays/posters/advertising, the same everything. Anyone would have thought that it was a real Apple store, but it was total fraud from start to finish. And no one cared at all or did anything about it, because in China it was totally normal.

American businesses that moved to China repeatedly had intellectual property theft/corporate espionage committed against them. It's kind of...China's way. China lures the businesses to China, steals all their trade secrets, and then opens up a new business making the exact same things far cheaper using subpar materials. The only businesses that truly seemed to do well after transplanting to China were cheap chain restaurants like McDonald's or KFC because you really can't steal a template for a Big Mac and then make it cheaper another way and have it still sell well. But cars, computers, everything else - my husband and I would just laugh when new American companies would move to China. Wave goodbye to your trade secrets, guys! Prepare to be stolen from, copied, and then undercut.

China's economy is graft rolled up in a shell game of mirrors. Everyone with money has their hands in someone else's cookie jar. It really is just the way things are in China. Local government guys need bribes and corporations need bribes and the government needs bribes... it's just the way it is.  It's so, SO different from anything in America that the two cannot be compared.  That's why, when people talk about the strength of the yuan vs. the dollar I just laugh.  The dollar is backed up by a country that has a government that is tangible and real. That has survived downturns and is incredibly stable, even in the bad times. The yuan is backed by a government that has no idea what in the world it is doing other than whatever it can to keep the country somewhat stable while still making money. 

On one hand, China hates us.  It thinks we tell everyone what to do and bosses them all around (and they're right), and they already feel like they've been bossed around one time too many and so they want us to leave them the hell alone or at least treat them with huge amounts of respect while also leaving them the hell alone.  On the other hand, there isn't a single person in China who wouldn't cut their own off limbs in order to become an American or even travel to America.  They're busy sending their children to college in America in hopes that they can get a job in America after college in hopes that they can naturalize in hopes they can then send for their parents. Bonus points if it's a son! And we're busy giving a large percentage of Chinese visa applicants visas to America, knowing full well that many of them will steal our corporate/scientific/technological secrets and take them back to China when their visas expire.  It's really lame, but it's the cost of doing business with the Chinese and not closing our borders to them. Don't even get me started on this. We just recently started giving TEN YEAR visas to Chinese applicants! Again, don't get me started on this.

The average Chinese person is incredibly hard working, incredibly nice, very sheltered from what life is like anywhere but in China, very loyal to their country, truly cannot fathom that their country actually controls their internet or news sources in any way, is very loyal to their family, a huge saver of money, very respectful, and coughs/wheezes/sneezes/hacks a lot from the pollution, which they don't even think exists because that's the only way they've lived. They think that anyone on the fringes of society (like those who are trying to point out that the news sources are all controlled by the government or that only what the government WANTS to have on the internet is what's on the internet) is a criminal and a troublemaker, just like the government does.  The government does a wonderful, masterful job controlling the society and molding what the normal Chinese person thinks, says, and does.  And it seems to work for them, all in all.

You cannot even begin to believe how regulated the internet (and, actually, everything) is in China.  Most websites Americans are used to (Facebook, all blogs and news sites, etc.) are banned in China.  I guarantee that at least 75% of all websites you normally go to are banned in China.  I had a VPN while I was there but it was taken down every few days.  China is AMAZING at internet control.  I heard that China has a cyber army (in the millions) that would put our capabilities to utter shame, and this I wholeheartedly believe.  They could never, ever, ever, EVER wage any kind of real war on us (ever), but they sure as hell could hack America within an inch of its life in no time flat. 

The government controls every inch of the monetary system and all businesses in China. If there ends up being any kind of stock market or housing crash, it will be over the government's dead body.  The government is ONLY in power as long as the people don't get really angry at them over something.  The internet control isn't enough, the pollution isn't enough, even the pretty awful inflation isn't enough.  All of it together thus far isn't enough to anger the Chinese people and make them want to rise up against their government.  But I will say this... if anything like 2008 happened in China, the government would be in some serious trouble.  This is because 2008 can happen in America because we're a country that doesn't respond to things like that by rising up against our government.  China?  They wouldn't weather a 2008 well, let me just say. So the government will do EVERYTHING it can not to let anything even remotely like a stock market crash or housing crash happen (or, heaven help them, both simultaneously). And since the government owns all the businesses and controls all the money, I would be very surprised if anything major happened like that in China anytime soon. And I would see gorgeous, high-end new apartment buildings going up in Chengdu all the time... with no one moving into them. But that's just me. I could be wrong.

No, I would never, ever, ever, EVER invest in ANYTHING in China, if that's anyone's question. You have to understand that China is only about outward appearances.  If someone really important came to Chengdu, for example, Chengdu's government would shut off the factories. Poof - instant blue skies!  And they would have to know about the visit a year or two in advance, so they could plan where the important person's motorcade was going, so they could paint just the buildings along the motorcade's path.  Buildings one block away would be untouched - buildings along the motorcade path would look sparkling new (on the front - the backs wouldn't be painted, either). Of course, the motorcade would never deviate from the set path.  The person visiting would never dream of asking and, of course, the Chinese would never let them even if they asked.  Then they would have to know exactly which businesses would be visited so the whole building could be remodeled and the workers could be handpicked for that particular day. Nope, I wouldn't invest in anything in China.  But that's just me. 

I have painted a pretty awful picture, but I haven't meant to.  It's just that America and China are so different.  China doesn't really care that it steals intellectual property - it wouldn't even call it stealing. It thinks that if it can end up with intellectual property through its hard work/skill/wit then it deserves to be able to make money off of it, just like you do. Why should you make all the money?  It wouldn't care that it controls the internet - so what? So the average Chinese person can't go on the internet and read lies. Isn't that a good thing? It also hasn't bombed anyone in Iraq or Pakistan, it would say to you, like warmongering Americans.  Schoolchildren aren't shot in Chinese schools like they are in American schools.  Chinese aren't fat like Americans. There's far less drug use in China since drug use is punishable by death... etc.  It's just that America and China are just so... different.  :)

_____________

[EDIT:] Oh, and by the way, that fake Apple store I talked about? I speak passable Chinese, so I went in to the store one day just to talk to the workers and try to feel them out about their (fake) store. And you know what? They all genuinely believed that their store was a real Apple store. Truly and genuinely, they believed it. Without a doubt in my mind, every last one of them thought that they were working for a real Apple store and were real Apple employees.  It's just all so very... China.
Last edited by MomTo2Boys on Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by flyingpylon » Fri Jan 02, 2015 5:21 am

Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective... very interesting.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by dualstow » Fri Jan 02, 2015 6:31 am

Thanks, Mom.

Last night, when I opened up my Kindle which has a half year free of the Washington Post, I saw a disturbing article on tiger farms in China. I peeked at the BBC news and the top story was that gmail is blocked again in China, just as it was when I was visiting my in-laws.  My wife's -- she's Chinese -- story of the week was that she was talking to her friend from another part of the country. That friend said that in middle school, parents bribed teachers so that their kids could be seated near the front. And this was in a public school!

I have read articles about how the United States was the intellectual property rip-off king of the world in its early days. Back then, it was British textiles. So, I don't think there is something inherently cheaty about China. They're just going through their ugly period of industrialization, obscene materialism and conspicuous consumption, and hustling. I do wonder, though, if they're going to get through it the way western countries have. There's no telling, but it's going to be a rough ride as far as I can see.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by barrett » Fri Jan 02, 2015 6:45 am

MT2B, What a terrific and thorough post. My Chinese wife and I often discuss cultural differences and you have covered some of the reasons that she made her way to the US in the first place. But I also think you have hit on some things that my wife just expects that I surely already know, which is a real help. I have been to China a couple of times (1984 & 2008) and speak some Chinese but I can sure use some help in getting the big picture straight in my head.

A couple of books on China that I loved:

1) Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China's Other Billion
2) Iron and Silk

Both are from visiting American perspectives but in each case the author spent a similar amount of time in China (I think between one and two years). Just fascinating stuff.

Something that my wife always says is that Chinese people treat ME well because I am a foreigner but that they treat one another terribly. Specifically that when she is in China or dealing with other Chinese people here in the US, she is dealt with in a very cold, calculating manner. Fortunately, there are obvious exceptions to this but she always says the claim that "Chinese people are very nice" is just not very true... at least from her perspective.

My wife likes to speak her mind and figured that she would eventually run into trouble with the government if she stayed there. It probably would have happened before (she left for good at age 35) but she was just so darn good at her work - and was essentially a government worker - that she was cut a lot of slack.

When my mother-in-law visited from China in 2008 she couldn't even begin to fathom freedom of speech. Going online and watching some silly youtube political parody was just too damn subversive. The beginning of this clip made her run out of the room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adc3MSS5Ydc

The mimi jingcha (secret police) might find out, I guess.

Just rambling a bit here but this stuff is really interesting to me. Hopefully Dualstow will weigh in. He's spent some time in that part of the world.

Ah, I am too slow, I see. Dualstow was up earlier than I!
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Re: It's all about China

Post by dualstow » Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:55 am

Well, I spent way more time in Taiwan and have only visited the mainland. There are some similarities (graft, pollution, much of the culture, entrepreneurial spirit) and also huge differences (much more freedom, attitude toward politics, etc). Taiwan graft without the heavy-handed government makes it into a sort of "gangster island". I do love it, though.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:14 am

Fascinating post. Thank you!

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Re: It's all about China

Post by Pointedstick » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:34 am

Absolutely fascinating! Really awesome perspective to have.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by barrett » Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:09 pm

I shared that epic post with my Chinese wife and she concurred right across the board. One thing she added was that from a woman's point of view, if you want to move up in any kind of organization, it's almost obligatory to have sex with the boss. Clearly that goes on in many cultures including here in the US, but her feeling is that people are not necessarily rewarded for their hard work in China. The equivalent for a male worker who wants to advance would be to bribe someone. But women have to do that as well. My wife's youngest sister is now 42 and is still dealing with this crap on a daily basis.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by WiseOne » Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:54 pm

This post is priceless!!  Thank you for taking the time to write it, it was so beautifully laid out, and will be so helpful for interpreting news stories about China.

One thing that struck me is that this is exactly how Chinatown in Manhattan operates.  It's THE place to go for illegal knock-offs, pirated DVDs, and cheap junk of all kinds (think: stocking stuffers).  It's a great place to grocery shop because items are ridiculously cheap, which I'm sure is due to major tax & regulatory evasion.  All the stores along Canal Street have fake back walls, behind which are the illegal sale items.  When the police turn up, the back wall is shut and if you happen to be shopping back there, you just have to wait until they open it up again after the cops leave.

So my guess is that the intellectual property theft behavior is cultural, and will probably never change.  It's interesting, though, how things in the business arena are so loosey-goosey, but personal/public lifestyles follow such a strict regimen.  In those same Canal Street shops, you can expect to pay appropriately for traditional art objects from China like jade statues, that really are beautiful.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by Ad Orientem » Fri Jan 02, 2015 5:08 pm

This is one of the best reflections on modern China that I have read. My own take is that China's economy is in many respects the sort of unrestrained Capitalism that we had in the United States prior to the twentieth century. It sounds like China is experiencing it's own "Gilded Age." The one big difference being that we had a semi-democratic system of government, though in the main, it was as corrupt as China's is today.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by HB Reader » Fri Jan 02, 2015 5:50 pm

MomTo2Boys,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective on China.  Much to admire, much to question. 

Having lived Latin America as a child, and now as a retired USG employee that dealt with foreign officials over a host of monetary/economic issues, I think few Americans really appreciate the transparency of American society and its government.  We certainly aren't perfect, but I think the fashionable knee-jerk cynicism we often have about our own country seems to lack cultural perspective.

It's a big world out there.         
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Re: It's all about China

Post by MomTo2Boys » Fri Jan 02, 2015 9:49 pm

Wow, guys! Thank you all so much for your kind words!

Dualstow - Yes, I think each and every one of us could wake up every morning grateful to not be an animal in China...particularly any animal through which or with which one could make money.

For example, the big animal-linked expat outrage while I was there were the gallbladder bear farms. Evidently, the liquid (bile?) that a bear's gallbladder produces is very valuable and is used for all sorts of Chinese medications/cosmetics/who knows what. Thus, Chinese businesspeople, anxious to meet the need for this commodity, had set up extensive farms/facilities where bears had perpetual tubes extruding from their gallbladders so as to capture the bile. The tubes were never removed and the bears were restrained so they couldn't claw the tubes out. I'm sure this is still going on, because the expats were the only ones outraged. Capitalism? Even more pure than that you could find in America, with its pesky rules and regulations about animal welfare?

White-bread-American friends of ours lived in Shenyang (way, way north- and very cold!) during the time that we were living in Chengdu (mostly warm).  Right across the street from their apartment building was a dog restaurant. Of course, dogs and cats are eaten in China (there's actually a certain dog breed that tends to be used for food), so it's not so very shocking for an expat to come across a restaurant that serves dog meat.  But the shock of that restaurant for my friends was the fact that behind the restaurant, in stacked cages, were... the dogs. Waiting. Outside. In cages. In the cold/wet/etc. Just... waiting.

I'm sure Chinese folks would laugh at us because we in America euthanize unwanted dogs and cats when they could otherwise be used for food. There's no such thing as a stray dog or cat in China...at least, I never saw one. They are picked up off the street and cooked. I've seen it done - the apartment buildings being built near mine, where the workers were living (in China, the workers building the apartment building would actually live in the shell of the building the entire time that it was being built, most likely because the workers have come from far away for the building job), would have small animal carcasses hanging off the balconies, waiting to be cooked. What's the saying? In China, they eat everything with four legs but the table, everything with two legs but each other, everything that flies but an airplane, and everything round but the bowl. We Americans could be horrified that chicken feet are a delicacy and even make up holiday meals in China, but they could point out that chicken feet go completely wasted in America, which is shame and a waste of food. 

As to the bribes for letting children sit up front in a classroom, well, I'm sure that's because of the insane pressure there is in the schools.  This is in no small part due to the gao kao (pronounced: gow cow, with those words rhyming). The gao kao is... terrifying. It's the Chinese equivalent of every SAT or ACT test a high schooler would ever take together with all the high school grades they will ever earn. Chinese high school students get to take this enormous test ONCE. A test that literally determines the rest of their lives. Do well on the gao kao, you get to go to college.  Do badly on the gao kao, you may end up washing dishes.  Forever. 

In America, if your high school grades suck or you don't do well on your SAT, you can still be whatever you want when you grow up. You shake your high school track record off at a community college, do well, get into a four year university, and can still go to law school or med school or whatever.  Not so in China. The gao kao is so terrifying that Chinese high school students, when leading up to the gao kao, may actually get IV fluids at school in order to study all day and all night long.

And this actually leads me to my soapbox - the comparison of American high school students to those in other countries.  It's easy, so very easy, to look at American students' test scores (like math scores or what have you) and think that they are abysmal compared to those students in other countries. But what you must understand is that, in other countries, many students have been pulled into non-educational tracks (and put into job-prep tracks) in late junior high or early high school.  The students who are left taking math classes in mid or late high school (the ones compared to ALL American high schoolers) are only those who are truly gifted in math. So what you are doing is comparing ALL American students' math abilities with only those high school mathematicians in other countries who are extremely gifted in the subject.  Of COURSE American students will look ridiculous in comparison.

Public schooling in China is no joke. If some random Thursday or Friday is a holiday... the students might get that Thursday or Friday off, but will be in school that Saturday and Sunday to make up for the day(s) off they just had.  At the end of the school year, a Chinese friend of mine who had a daughter in elementary school was terrified by the mandatory parent/student assembly coming up, at which scores for the yearly tests would be revealed. Students who did well - they and their parents would stand up and be recognized. Students who did badly on the test? They and their parents would also stand up and be publicly shamed for their horrible performance. If her daughter (I think she was in the equivalent of first grade?) did badly on a homework sheet, she had to re-do her homework sheet TEN TIMES. You betcha there's corporal punishment in those schools, though I think that's starting to wind down as there's been a bit of a backlash building against it.

I haven't been to Taiwan, so I don't have the ability to compare it to the mainland.

Barrett - I am quite sure that foreigners are treated better, as you say. I could walk anywhere I wanted at any time of the day or even in the middle of the night without even the slightest hint of worry because crimes against foreigners are punished quite severely.  My understanding is that if a Chinese person so much as stole my backpack from me, that crime was punishable by death. I could be wrong, but I did hear that. That and you'd be crazy to attack/accost/steal from a foreigner because there's a huge chance that they're being monitored by a Chinese government source and then you'd REALLY be found out and punished - you'd have no chance of evasion. So yes, my experience was much different from that of a Chinese national. I'm white, I'm different, I stick out like a sore thumb.

The police structure is quite different than in America. In America, local police, or county police, or federal officers - they are all separate. In China, they are not. They are all the same structure - they are all ultimately law enforcement officers of the Chinese government. 

As for women sleeping with their bosses - why not? Again, there's basically no court system in China, so there aren't those pesky sexual harassment suits or such like we would have in America. It's easy to criticize our "litigious" American society, but let me just tell you, life in a country without a court system is reallllllly not attractive to me. 

For example, naive American students or young adults would come to the mainland to "teach English." Sometimes this would go well for them.  Often, it would not.  Contracts are not binding in China, so say before they agreed to teach the person had been offered, whatever, plane fare to China and back and a stipend in exchange for teaching English. Then they show up in country and realize that their tiny room has no heat, no a/c, no warm water, that they share it with 6 other people, that they've taught English now for two months and haven't been paid a penny, that no one will commit to when they will be allowed to leave, and that the head of the "English School" seized their American passport their first night while they were sleeping ("for safekeeping").

But there's no court system that will force them to pay you what your contract, which is more worthless than the piece of paper it's printed upon, says you are owed. If you're lucky, you can reach your nearest American consulate or embassy by phone (except making long distance phone calls in China is NOT intuitive for an expat) and whisper in English that you have no clue where you're located and don't speak Chinese so you can't hop in a cab and try to leave the "English School" and ohmygod please please help me.  If you're particularly unlucky, your "English School" will be located in a city a thousand miles away from an American consulate or embassy, you won't know how to get to any transportation hub, you most likely won't have the Chinese necessary to go anywhere on your own, you don't have your passport because they took it from you, etc. Have fun with that.  This is called: not-everywhere-is-America baptism by fire.

Desert - Yes, Japan is as different from China as night is from day. I'm still kind of absorbing the Japan of it all. I'll be more than happy to write about Japan when our time here is over and I have a better grasp on it. :)

WiseOne - Black market items are even more rampant in China, believe it or not! Especially black market items aimed at foreigners. My husband and I would have run screaming in the other direction, but there were some expats who we were friends with who took advantage of all of the items available.  American tv shows/films/etc. on DVD available to you for a pittance if you went to a certain stairwell at a certain time and were white.  Hotel rooms? Many of them came together with a... female companion, shall we say. Chengdu is famous for its... um... pretty ladies.  It's sort of the... pretty lady... capital of China. Corporations would even have their meetings at the....pretty lady places.

That and everything - absolutely everything - was available to be stolen online. You can't go to Facebook but you can totally rip the movie that just, kid you not, had its first showing in America an hour ago. Or maybe even hasn't showed yet in America at all. You can torrent/rip/steal/whatever that bad boy even though you can't read your sister's mommy blog.  All your email in and out is read and therefore delayed but darn straight you can steal the tv show that hasn't even aired yet in the States.  Oh, China! Such a super interesting place.

HB Reader - I totally, totally agree 100%.
Last edited by MomTo2Boys on Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
(Trying hard to not screw up handling the money that my husband and I have traded untold life-hours to earn...)
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Re: It's all about China

Post by Ad Orientem » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:05 pm

Mom
You reeeaaallly need to write a travel or ex-pat guide. But only when you are 100% certain you will never be returning to China.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by WiseOne » Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:29 am

This is a wonderful perspective not just on China, but on the U.S. as well.  A great way to start the New Year!

Interesting to hear about the selection bias in high school performance measures.  Could this also explain why Americans lag behind virtually all other industrialized nations?  There is something similar in the UK for example, where kids start following different tracks by age 16.  Maybe our problem is forcing kids to choose between dropping out and completing a college prep curriculum that's useless for many of them.  The resulting watering down of the college prep curriculum in turn feeds into a proliferation of third rate colleges whose main purpose in life is to saddle students with debt.  Tracking kids who are academically limited into vocational career paths would make a ton of sense.  This would necessarily involve judging academic performance in ways that may be politically unpalatable in the US, but it doesn't have to be as draconian as it is in China.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by dualstow » Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:26 am

Sure they have a court system. Haven't you seen Qiu Ju;)

Anyway, learning a lot from you, Momto2.

I just picked up some pasture-pig bacon. I've never lasted long with vegetarianism, but it's nice to know that no 'sow stalls' were involved. I'm very sad to read about the dogs and bears in your second post, but we have to remind the world about these goings-on.
As to the bribes for letting children sit up front in a classroom, well, I'm sure that's because of the insane pressure there is in the schools.  This is in no small part due to the gao kao (pronounced: gow cow, with those words rhyming). The gao kao is... terrifying. It's the Chinese equivalent of every SAT or ACT test a high schooler would ever take together with all the high school grades they will ever earn.
Yeah, that test is big in Taiwan, too. In Japan, it used to be that students would study their asses off so that they could get into the right university and then party for four years. Then, they would work their asses off until death. I think they have a special word for working yourself to death, karoshi or something. (?)

My wife thinks even high marks on the dreaded gao kao won't cut it anymore; you need bribes on top of it. Don't know if that's true.
Last edited by dualstow on Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by MachineGhost » Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:13 am

MomTo2Boys wrote: For example, the big animal-linked expat outrage while I was there were the gallbladder bear farms. Evidently, the liquid (bile?) that a bear's gallbladder produces is very valuable and is used for all sorts of Chinese medications/cosmetics/who knows what. Thus, Chinese businesspeople, anxious to meet the need for this commodity, had set up extensive farms/facilities where bears had perpetual tubes extruding from their gallbladders so as to capture the bile. The tubes were never removed and the bears were restrained so they couldn't claw the tubes out. I'm sure this is still going on, because the expats were the only ones outraged. Capitalism? Even more pure than that you could find in America, with its pesky rules and regulations about animal welfare?
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nann ... ear-rescue

I donated.

IMO, the #1 problem with the Chinese is they have no respect for themselves or for other lifeforms.  China is nothing but a paper tiger, literally.  And once they go through their eventual Great Depression, maybe they'll do some deep soul-searching and then they'll get a fucking clue.

Other than that, China sounds like a living Orwellian-Libertarian nightmare.  They are nothing but teenagers at best and worthy of contempt.  >:(
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by dualstow » Mon Jan 05, 2015 8:26 am

MachineGhost wrote:   China is nothing but a paper tiger, literally. 
Figuratively, probably,
but thanks for that link!
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Re: It's all about China

Post by MomTo2Boys » Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:04 am

Oh my goodness, MachineGhost - that's... wow.  I had no idea there were bear rescue facilities in Chengdu, but there obviously are.  Thank you for posting that, and thank you for donating. 

There are some fantastic folks on this forum, there really are.

Dualstow, believe it or not, I *have* seen that movie.  I saw it back in 2011, so it's been a while, but yes, I saw it.  As for whether bribes are now needed in addition to great gao kao scores... I'm sure your wife knows far more about China and those sorts of things than I do.  I will say that the ability of wealthy Chinese families to be able to easily send their college-bound students who don't do well enough on the gao kao (or even those who do, if they wish) to colleges in the United States takes a lot of pressure off the Chinese government, I should think, in this area.

WiseOne, yes, I think so.  My 16 year old son actually has been attending a school for a while that is based on the British educational system.  It's completely different than the US system.  Basically, in the British system, they teach all students all subjects until the end of what we in the States would call 10th grade.  By the end of (the equivalent of) 10th grade, British students have had roughly of all English, math, science, history, etc. as a typical student would would have if he or she had completed all 12 grades in the US (without having taken AP classes, theoretically, although right now my son has learned far more than the equivalent of 12th graders in the US in several subjects).  Anyway, then at the end of that equivalent of 10th grade, students take huge, long tests in every single subject.  And we're not talking multiple choice tests or scantron tests, oh heck no. We're talking essay tests - big, long, HUGE essay tests that each go on for pages and pages and pages - multiple tests in every single academic subject.  The testing goes on for something like six weeks at the end of (the equivalent of) 10th grade.

When the dust clears and the test results are back, the students then face the next academic year (our equivalent of 11th grade).  What happens then is that the four academic subjects that they scored the best in (this is a rough idea of the way it works - I'm trying to simplify a bit) are the four subjects they then take in 11th grade.  The subjects are taught at the college level... very in depth.  So, basically, students who are not strong in math will wave goodbye to math after our equivalent of 10th grade.  Those students who are incredibly strong in math will continue on into our equivalent of 11th grade.  There is more subject weeding out at the end of 11th grade; only a student's THREE strongest subjects are then taught to them in our equivalent of 12th grade.  Thus, if you compare British 11th graders and American 11th graders, well, almost all Americans are still taking math of some type in 11th grade, whereas at that same time a large amount of British students have funneled out of math, and only those who are quite strong in math are still taking it.  I hope this makes sense. This is why you absolutely cannot compare math capabilities of British students with those of American students in the later grades with any kind of fairness.

On one hand, the British educational system is FAR superior to the American system.  My son's education blows my mind.  I am very math-y and science-y, and I envy him the ability to learn with this curriculum.  The American high school educational system is just... broken...especially in math and science, I think.  That said, one aspect of the British system is... rather sobering.  That is the idea that, once you leave a subject behind, it is my understanding that this very much impacts your choices from then on out.  In America, we pretty much teach everyone everything until, what? The end of your freshman or sophomore years in college, roughly? And only then are you expected to begin really focusing on what you want to pursue? In Britain, if you want to pursue math or science (or any subject, actually), you had best do well in them on your 10th grade tests or you will be leaving them behind, maybe forever.  It narrows your choices later on, and at such a young age. 

For example, if you want to be a doctor, you must score well on your math and science tests so you can continue on in math and science at the end of your 10th grade year.  Then you have to do so again the end of your 11th grade year.  Then, in your 12th grade year, you apply to medical school, which literally starts at the beginning of your first year of college (the same year in the US that would be your freshman year). So different! And the path began narrowing when the student was just 16 years old.  So that is what I consider to be a possible downside to the British high school educational system.  I like how the American system really keeps your options open for far longer. 

 
Ad Orientem, that's hilarious. I can't even tell you what a horrible job I would do! Believe it or not, I suck at things like sightseeing or what hotel to stay in or what restaurant to eat at, lol.  But thank you and TennPaGa for the very kind words.  :)
(Trying hard to not screw up handling the money that my husband and I have traded untold life-hours to earn...)
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Re: It's all about China

Post by lordmetroid » Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:05 pm

In Sweden the path narrows at age 16 as well. However instead of a big test determining what you are good at and deciding for you what subjects will be dropped, the student must choose for himself and apply to the programs he is interested in. Of course if there isn't sufficient available seats available then their grades will determine who gets the offer of a seat first.

However, you are never locked into one path or another. Our education system recognize that people can have a change of mind and allows the student to reapply for different programs or  optionally complement their studies with the courses that are necessary for choosing a different path at university level.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by WiseOne » Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:25 pm

Thanks Mom2!!  That was my understanding of the British system also...one of my collaborators is in the UK and attended Oxford with David Cameron, so I've heard lots of stories.

Its nice to preserve an escape hatch, but for many kids narrowing choices at age 16 makes a lot of sense.  Sometimes I think the purpose of our educational system is to generate lots of money for the educational lending business.  Meanwhile, math and science majors apparently need to be imported.  Just a weird, weird state of affairs.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:56 pm

WiseOne wrote: Thanks Mom2!!  That was my understanding of the British system also...one of my collaborators is in the UK and attended Oxford with David Cameron, so I've heard lots of stories.

Its nice to preserve an escape hatch, but for many kids narrowing choices at age 16 makes a lot of sense.  Sometimes I think the purpose of our educational system is to generate lots of money for the educational lending business.  Meanwhile, math and science majors apparently need to be imported.  Just a weird, weird state of affairs.
I don't think it's actually so weird. Most U.S. state institutions have been twisted into thinly-veiled subsidies or bailouts of private industries that would be largely unable to exist in their current form in a more competitive market. Defense, agribusiness, textbooks, student loans, pharmaceuticals, insurance, you name it.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:20 pm

Well, we may have to import math and science engineers, but all the great concepts and ideas still originate in America (to be manufactured in China), so I don't think pigeonholing kids at 18, nevermind 16, makes any sense at all.  Who the hell knew exactly who they were and what they wanted in life at those ages?  And think of the ongoing terror of having to decide your own Brave New Worldish fate.  That makes for good conformists, not freethinkers.

Not to be snarky, but what exactly have the British accomplished since the Suez Canal crisis?  They're simply not relevant at anything anymore except as a tier player to the USA and except for London being the center of Forex or emerging market hucksters.  Likewise for the rest of Europe or China.  America has dynanism going for it even if it comes with some pretty unfortunate social costs.

Don't confuse me with a patriot.  I actually dislike American suburban-sprawl-shopping monoculture from coast to coast.  I think it is intellectually stiltyfing and to see the model replicated worldwide is a great source of eyerolling.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by WiseOne » Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:06 pm

MachineGhost wrote: Not to be snarky, but what exactly have the British accomplished since the Suez Canal crisis?
Royal weddings and princes of course!  Stephen Hawking comes to mind also.

Do you know any outstanding engineer or scientist who wasn't obviously proficient in math and science at age 16?  Anyway, if a late bloomer did materialize, they could still join the party when able.  The point is that future auto mechanics and Macy's retail clerks really don't need to be continuing along the college prep pathway past age 16.
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Re: It's all about China

Post by Ad Orientem » Tue Jan 06, 2015 11:16 pm

WiseOne wrote:
MachineGhost wrote: Not to be snarky, but what exactly have the British accomplished since the Suez Canal crisis?
Royal weddings and princes of course!  Stephen Hawking comes to mind also.

Do you know any outstanding engineer or scientist who wasn't obviously proficient in math and science at age 16?  Anyway, if a late bloomer did materialize, they could still join the party when able.  The point is that future auto mechanics and Macy's retail clerks really don't need to be continuing along the college prep pathway past age 16.
And they still hold two small remnants of the Empire, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands (which they had to fight for in '82).
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Re: It's all about China

Post by MachineGhost » Sat Jan 24, 2015 3:13 pm

I am encouraged by this article:

Cat and dog lovers are a relatively new breed in China. Up until the 1980s, keeping pet dogs was illegal in Beijing, because pets were considered to be a bourgeois affectation. Restrictions were loosened in the 1990s and early 2000s. (A height limit on dogs is still in place.) By 2012 the city had more than 1 million registered pet dogs, now served by more than 300 pet hospitals, according to the Beijing Small Animal Veterinary Association. China has become the third-largest pet market in the world, after the U.S. and Brazil, according to Euromonitor International, and is home to 27 million dogs and 11 million cats.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... population
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes

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