Posts by Chris Waugh
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to linger,
except that that additionally implies we have a duty first to understand why the locals do things their way, before we decide not to follow them.
Not quite what I meant, I don't think. I meant that so long as it is possible to maintain standards of common courtesy, we should. The lack of consequences for discourteous behaviour should not be an excuse to either troll or do the spoilt, obnoxious expat thing. And I don't understand the inclusion of 'except' there. Local, tourist, temporary foreign resident or immigrant, we're all human and should treat each other accordingly. It's that whole "Do unto others... " thing, which seems to crop up in a variety of ancient sources of philosophy, ethics and scripture.
I do think that expats/foreign residents/immigrants do have a duty to try to understand why the locals do things their way, but I don't really want to drag this off into a "What's wrong with Expatria" thread, not right now.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
But isn’t that absolutely what happens? Humans behave, often, appallingly badly towards people they have no connection with – people they don’t know – whereas when they do know them, because there’s a connection there’s a disinclination to be offensive.
You're absolutely right, unfortunately. But in my less misanthropic moments I do believe humans are capable of rising above the tribalistic nonsense we so often wallow in. And the way I see it, if we can behave better, we should behave better, even if, or perhaps especially when, there are no consequences.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Islander,
You're welcome. Although I'm pretty sure there is at least one other based in China who is far more active on these pages and has much more useful stuff to contribute.
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Up Front: Fairy-Tale Autopsies, in reply to Steve Barnes,
It's certainly not only white people... but that's a whole other discussion.
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So this is my 15th post since January 2007, it seems. I guess that makes me a lurker. As apparently one or two other expat lurkers have said (it's taken me a few days to read through this thread and get to the end at a time when I don't have to rush off somewhere and therefore have the time to comment), it's largely relevance. Time zone isn't such an issue for me, being only 4 hours behind NZ standard time. I like to read what's going on here, but having lived in China so long I really don't have much to offer discussions here. If you all started writing more China stuff, I'd have a lot more to comment on.
But that's ok, because I don't come here looking for immediate relevance to my everyday life in Beijing, or really anything about China. I come here because reading intelligent posts and discussion by people still in NZ helps maintain my faith in the country I intend to bring my wife and daughter back to in the not-too-distant future. NZ Herald and Stuff have the opposite effect. Also, I'm trying to reeducate myself in preparation for the move back to NZ. Keeping up with the news is part of that, but the discussions that go on here are so much more useful to increasing my understanding of what's going on back there.
And might I say that although I don't actively participate much, I really appreciate the strong, caring community that you've got going here? I very rarely have anything to contribute, but I feel totally comfortable contributing when I do, and that is awesome.
As for trolls and tinks... Well, I did react to what seems to have been the original trolling post on that "Perverse Entertainment" thread, and I'm not proud of it. See, I saw this comment I found thoroughly offensive and that included a word that looked like a rather rude description of a snack commonly sold from hole-in-the-wall eateries around here, and just couldn't help mocking the offensiveness. My apologies.
Having said that, I can almost understand the tink phenomenon. People get themselves so convinced they're right that it's too big a psychological risk to admit any other possibility. Or, people depend so much on their beliefs to make sense of this world that the psychological.... made that point already.
Trolls, though, I could never understand, although I do see certain parallels between trolling and expat life. See, living as a foreigner in places like China is really liberating in that the locals expect you, on the basis of your skin colour, to be weird. Therefore you are free from all the social expectations and restrictions you would face in your home country. Therefore you can get away with a lot more than you otherwise would. Apply that to the old "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon. The anonymity allows people to get away with so much more than they would be able to in the real world. Some people take this freedom a tad too far. But why would they do that? What do these people see when they look in a mirror? Even in my single days I don't think I could've handled knowing I treated Chinese people like crap just because the fact I'm obviously foreign allowed me to get away with it (I'm now married in to China, so there's no way I'd be allowed to get away with anything), and yet I constantly meet Westerners - including some with Chinese spouses (how do a Chinese woman and a white supremacist wind up married to each other?)- here who behave as if the International Settlements were still functioning and extraterritoriality still applied. And how do trolls face themselves knowing they abused the anonymity of the internet to behave like complete arseholes to random strangers just because they could?
What is really confusing is people I've met in the real world, and quite possibly online, whose True Believingness can swing between tinking and trolling depending on the mood they're in or the key words that have set them off.
And this shows why I generally prefer to lurk. I can't even comment on this without relating things back to China. Sorry.
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Hard News: Perverse Entertainment, in reply to ,
An "ass burger" is more commonly known as a 驴肉火烧/lǘròuhuǒshāo, and is made of donkey meat stewed, chopped finely, and perhaps with a few herbs (cilantro being most common), put in a small bun similar to pita bread. It is a specialty of Hebei Province, and although the many small restaurants around Beijing selling "ass burger" usually advertise themselves as specialising in the 河间/Héjiàn version, it is also known as a specialty of nearby 保定/Bǎodìng.
Although when I was in Norway I did see in a fish market hvalbiff, I saw no evidence of actual trolls, let alone troll meat turned into anything vaguely burger-like.
I am unaware of any syndromes associated with burgers made of either donkey or troll meat.
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Indeed, being on the dole is the most soul-destroying experience of my life. Standing in the queue listening to Manic Street Preachers singing "if you tolerate this, then your children will be next", only to be told a few minutes later, "You're overqualified, we can't help you find a job" [and that anecdote is an amalgam of real events] is not a lifestyle choice anybody would make. Of course I'm bloody overqualified for the dole! Everybody is! I just want out of this office, off this queue, and to be doing something useful!
Could somebody please tell our government and business "leaders" (because they never listen to me) to cut the bollocks and create the jobs?
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One question living in China has raised in my mind is this: How the hell can New Zealand ever have incidents of road rage? Even Auckland's congestion moves much more smoothly and with far less trouble than regular rushhour traffic on any of Beijing's main roads. And I was in Auckland last February, so my impression is not totally out of date.
For all its faults, and there are many (you think NZ driver training is poor? My brother in law got his licence without ever learning how to open the bonnet, boot or petrol cap, let alone learning basic terminology or even what a lane is. And then consider that somewhere in the region of half of Beijing's drivers have had their licence less than three years), China's drivers, even the arrogant, selfish ones who invade cycle lanes to try and jump queues, understand and respect the fact that they share the roads with cyclists, tricyclists, and similar vehicles with small petrol or electric motors. Still, China's roads were built for cyclists, mass car ownership is a very recent phenomenon, and there are still huge numbers of people who commute by bike, so the set-up is vastly superior to New Zealand's. Only the smallest roads don't have cycle lanes, and the cycle lanes are wide. I have to say that there have been only a very few times involving stupid behaviour by a driver (every country has its idiots) that I have felt in any danger cycling in China.
Who was it who said something about cyclists just "popping out" of traffic? I believe this is largely because Kiwis generally don't consider bikes to be a proper part of the traffic mix and numbers of cyclists still aren't that great (though apparently growing, which makes me happy). When people change their attitudes towards cycling and numbers of cyclists reach a critical enough mass, cyclists will become more visible because people will generally expect them to be there. Of course, I'm not denying that stupid behaviour by some cyclists is a part of the problem, I'm just saying that the presence of a cyclist seems to be a big surprise for far too many NZ road users, be they pedestrians or drivers.
And I love bus lanes and cycle lanes. Bus lanes take the buses out of the congestion, which can only improve public transport outcomes, which can only encourage more people to take public transport, which encourages further development of public transport. Creating a dedicated safe space for cyclists can only have a similar effect.
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chris, I think it's useful to remember just how far China has come over the last 30-odd years as well as how far it (and all other countries, if we're going to be honest) still has to go.
Re Google, probably what's frustrated me most about the kerfuffle they've generated is all the melodrama they've stirred up. Too many have been talking as if the internet is Google, or Google + Baidu. Although I do understand John's sentiment, as extreme as it may be. A shutdown of Google (on top of everything else that happened last year - and that talk of an internet whitelist?!) would really stoke up my fears of the advent of the Intranet.
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Those who think the authorities don't get mocked here might want to check out the long-running battle between the Grass Mud Horse and the River Crab (which sometimes wears three watches).
Teabaggers? We only have teabags for Lipton Yellow Label (and why would you drink that when you're in China?) and in hotel rooms. Middle class Chinese have been known to go for strolls all at the same time in cities like Shanghai, Xiamen and Chengdu, and in the case of Xiamen, at least, successfully. A couple of years back a poster announcing the impending demolition of one of our neighbourhood markets and its replacement with a hospital was met with posters appealing to the relevant laws and regulations. A couple of days later all the posters disappeared, replaced with a banner calling for people to go about their business harmoniously. In smaller towns and the countryside things can be different, sometimes to the point of extreme violence.
And if you read Chinese blogs and bbs's there's plenty of discussion of China's various problems. Of course, posts crossing a certain line are deleted, but they keep reappearing and being redeleted and reappearing... But it seems to be increasingly rare to go to jail for expressing yourself. Liu Xiaobo is behind bars, but how many of the other Charter 08 signers were also arrested?
Does China have human rights problems? Absolutely. But it's never so simple as "evil totalitarian China and its hordes of brainwashed drones". Too much of the China threat rhetoric is of that nature.
As for China's alleged military threat, I would only worry about the borders with India and Pakistan, the South China Sea, Taiwan and Diaoyu Dao. There'll be the occasional exchange of heated words with the Koreas over China's border with North Korea, too, and Russsian Nationalists fearing an invasion of the Russian Far East, Mongolian Nationalists with similar worries. But a naval base at Nadi?! Why?
China's got so much more to worry about. Territorial integrity (especially where it's disputed), stability, prosperity, development of the rural and inland areas, resources, the environment, water. Yes, water. China has one quarter the world's average per capita water resources. Beijing is rapidly drying out, the deserts are expanding, and the glaciers that feed so many of Central, South, and Southeast Asia and China are rapidly melting. I would suggest these issues will occupy far more of China's excess manpower than tiny islands far away.
As for what was supposed to be the topic, I like Sinosplices post:
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/01/14/worry-about-the-internet-in-chinaIt has also occured to me that this could be one more step towards the Great Chinese Intranet. And this year has been so disappointing in that respect.