Posts by Chris Waugh
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Capture: Ans Westra - Ngā Tau ki Muri…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
ok Here’s the new driveway that nobody can touch .
Beautiful.
Late yesterday afternoon, with the sky clean enough for natural awesomeness, waiting for the lights to let me pass under the G7 Beijing – Xinjiang Expressway (visible, mostly carries heavy trucks) and the Datong – Qinhuangdao Railway (hidden, kilometres-long trains hauling coal from the mines around Datong down to the port at Qinhuangdao).
An hour earlier in West Five Li Camp - the good news, those mountains are being reforested and just over the other side is a nature reserve set up to protect leopards.
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Capture: Ans Westra - Ngā Tau ki Muri…, in reply to Leigh Russell,
Hi Leigh. I could certainly add plenty of photos of human destruction of our earth, and I have put photos including large coal-fired power stations that kind of hint at that in other threads, but it just gets too depressing. I'm loving what you're posting, though, and thoroughly agree with the sentiments expressed. Keep them coming.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Russell Brown,
I ran out of time to work in a Huawei mention.
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The last of the clouds.
Not autumn, but just as much a relief as autumn will be. A week of gloom and grey, but fortunately plenty of rain and not as hot as it’ll be in a month… But finally some blue sky!
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Great post by Philip Patston, but when you asked your question above:
So would you (David or readers here) be happy to be ‘Paul’ as portrayed here?
My answer was yes and remains so, because I interpret that question as about the way the article was written, which doesn't worry me.
I felt Philip was reacting more to the facts and events in the real world as described in David's post, and yes, I think he does raise serious concerns.
But looking back at your questions, I see this one that I overlooked:
To assume that you are unable or unwilling to tell your own story?
Now that changes things. Give me a context and I'll be able to answer. Or put it this way, when I first arrived in China I was illiterate in Chinese and knew only "ni hao" (no tones cos I wasn't even sure of that... ). Having people who could get my story across for me was extremely helpful. Now I still find it occasionally useful to have somebody there to speak for me - there are still many contexts in which my Chinese is limited, typically high-end and/or specialised situations like law or vehicle maintenance - but for the most part I am autonomous, and jealous of that autonomy. In between those two extremes there have been many people who have presumed to speak for me when they should've shut up and listened, and that I find exceedingly frustrating to say the least. Sure, not much of a sob story, language learning has always come easy to me, but it's all I've got to go on. I have no idea how to apply this to David and Paul, best I can say is that it's worth remembering we can all easily find ourselves in situations in which we are impaired or disabled.
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ummmm..... where to even begin with this?
The Human Rights Act, an asinine piece of legislation, makes it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their family status. Naturally, some idiot went to court.
Right.... Actually, I agree with his headline, but I have a different definition of the "cash rush". The "cash rush" obscuring human tragedy is the deification of petty, selfish, mean-spirited greed that has reigned since 1984. True "enlightened self interest" would see us ensuring that all members of our society had the means necessary to lead a decent, comfortable life.
Sorry, extremely tangential to the topic at the very least, but I couldn't think of anywhere more appropriate, only that there must be a more appropriate thread somewhere around here.
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Notes & Queries: Paul, in reply to Hilary Stace,
So would you (David or readers here) be happy to be 'Paul' as portrayed here?
Actually, yes. I think David did a great job, not just in the writing, but in maintaining an appropriate level of anonymity for Paul.
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Hard News: A plea for sanity on the…, in reply to BenWilson,
Also, he hates the climate,
Huh, yeah, Beijing's climate is hard to love, and I've heard people say they love Beijing despite the climate. But on the plus side, being in the north we get central heating. I remember the winter I spent in Changsha - I was fine because I'd just come from 4 1/2 years in scarfie flats in Dunedin, but my colleagues froze their arses off because of the lack of heating. HK's not bad, being on the coast, fairly similar to Auckland, I think, but it's summers get pretty hot. Yunnan - at least, the not really high altitude areas on the edge of the Tibetan plateau - seems to be the only part of China with a really decent climate.
She’s from Beijing, it’s her town, and she likes it.
It's a common enough attitude. I remember plenty of people out in Taiyuan telling me, "yeah, Taiyuan's a dump, but it's home, my family's here". Fair enough. For my wife and I, we only want to leave Beijing for our daughter's sake, really. Education, environment, healthcare are all much better in NZ.
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Hard News: Media3: We have much to discuss, in reply to Emma Hart,
Ah, yes, thanks Emma. Couldn't remember where I'd read about it, turns out one place was right here.
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Hard News: Media3: We have much to discuss, in reply to BenWilson,
Presumably one can spot an underage dragon by its small breasts?
Didn't Australia recently have that problem, trying to ban explicit images of females under a certain bra size in case they were minors? Plenty of adult women have small breasts.
