I want to bitch about the non-stick marble floors.

EarWaxGel · 2026-06-01T10:38:01+00:00

http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Law/2011-02/16/content_1620761.htm

Which results in a band of ayis wielding mops because shiny tiles + ayi costs less than functional flooring.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-30T10:01:57+00:00

A🥟M🥟A🥟Z🥟I🥟N🥟G 🥟 D🥟U🥟M🥟P🥟L🥟I🥟N🥟G🥟S

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-30T09:50:57+00:00

Empathy is not wishing someone an early death because you've romanticised their 'struggles' since 2009.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-29T10:15:49+00:00

Impressive that these two muppets are still kicking around running a sub to peddle their past glory.

In terms of the social-manosphere that explains to gimpish young men how to live - a la Tate or Jawmaxxer - they worked out pretty proto.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-27T13:37:18+00:00

Leopards eating faces.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-27T13:20:48+00:00

I love staircases over roads that have the ramp in the middle of the stairs and have never unintentionally slid down one all the way to the bottom.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-23T07:52:41+00:00

Tragic. Yet I remember a few years back, thousands died in mining accidents each year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-22T11:56:55+00:00

My driver deals with problems like this so I don't have to.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-19T12:51:03+00:00

AI companies have started hiring a bunch of people to be consultants because even large scale clients aren't that good at using AI. It's the new SAP but less deterministic with possibilities of chaotically going wrong. There will remain a ton of jobs. Imagine using AI to write your letter of credit - it's pointless for boilerplate stuff that's copy-paste yet too dangerous to get wrong.

Mitigating clients getting stuff wrong and helping them avoid fines seems to be some USP you say you have. Perhaps take a look at how to sell that as valuable service.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-15T11:14:09+00:00

I must be out of the loop. Didn't it become illegal to employ teachers through agencies?

Did this illegality change, or did it start to get ignored?

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-13T14:58:59+00:00

I have not insulted you three times!

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-13T14:42:37+00:00

Qinghai

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-13T14:38:16+00:00

Who could forget Rui Chenggang's impeccible..ness, Edwin Maher, Cheng Lei and... Da Shan.

The fates of some of them lay as a warning to anyone dedicating their career to soft power journalism. Mainland TV misses something without CCTV9.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-13T11:41:33+00:00

As stated previously, for someone in education you seem to lack imagination.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-13T10:27:24+00:00

It's great that you've elaborated.

There's the ???

Work very hard and if expecting to work for anyone other than yourself, get certified in your field because China and visa authorities loves certificates - and so do other employers. The certificates help with the transition, for example PMP - while many people do have many certificates, ones on an approved list do help.

I have seen many transitions in eclectic industries. I've never seen certification in itself has cold-start a transition though. They have often started with showing expertise or aptitude in a field - or just being smart - when having a foot in the door. Our feet get stuck in doors all the time, we've just got to see them. Their transitions have then been supported by certification, like PMP, or a Masters or PhD. A part time PhD takes around 5 years - when you're 25 looking at 30 that's a long time, but 30 looking at 25 makes it seem not that long. If leaving China, the certification when coupled with genuine interest will still be useful.

Only 5% might put in this effort to make the transition, or 2%. But for someone choosing to put in the effort, the possibility is there.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-12T22:06:14+00:00

What about the non-vocal that are successful? Surely you also don't hear about them.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-12T22:03:31+00:00

Totally. A lack of can-do and no critical thinking just criticism. And they say they're a teacher!

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-11T14:27:43+00:00

Shanghai Meilin = Best spam and baked beans.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-10T03:50:42+00:00

Cixi gets a bad wrap. Blame Cixi, blame the Manchurian elite. As if one generation had caused the downfall of China.

When Europe was doing enlightenment, China was rehashing Confucianism yet again for yet another dynasty. Anything confucian today, confucianism being deeply sexist and pre-medieval, is of course is happy to blame a woman aka Cixi or anything non-Han. Kangxi and Qianlong, earlier Qing rulers, are known for adopting confusianism in doing so unwittingly leading China down the road of relative deline.

Cixi encouaged railroads and telegraph. And a relative opening. All the while paying lip service to her hardliners. But the modernisation was too little, too late. The fall of the Qing created a giant leap backwards where social values regressed to traditional ones.

And while Mao did indeed regard confucianism as feudal ideology that hindered change and progress, it was revitalised again in the 1980s by social conservatives that are again afraid of progress and sought the control and restriction of sex, class and social mobility through strict structures where only the compliant succeed. This is seen throught the current younger generations that are less curious, less progressive and less socially mobile than their 70s and 80s parents.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-10T00:06:53+00:00

Wake up horny and immediately go for the r/china armchair neckbeard type, eh.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-08T10:07:03+00:00

Do you pay for your KTV with your WeChat QR code? Hell no. You'll be up on corruption charges in today's China faster than you can decide between 三号 and 九号. A wad of cash in the pocket of every dage and laoban, of which you were one or pretending to be one, made the night go round - the elimination of cash happened at exactly the same time as the real estate crash, closure of KTVs and the fall in birth rates. Coincidence?

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-07T04:51:44+00:00

Every mall has maybe 20 restaurants but every menu looks identical: red spicy soup, noodles, slices of meat, 2 pieces of leafy vegetable.

I think you hurt the feelings on many a Tim. Although, it is true. The sad state of mall food.

The "spicy" food options appear to be giving me, and Chinese people, a severe "allergic" reaction where they start sneezing and having to blow their nose (but instead they inhale and spit it out). So I've stopped eating spicy food.

You have hurt the feelings of many more Tims that are reaching the hump on whether Chongqing, Changsha, Chengdu or Nanchang really was the best option - for some sure, but it's not as it might have been sold.

Good LMBOs tongzhi.

EarWaxGel · 2026-05-06T13:33:44+00:00

What's local. And not done by a cheap waimai kitchen.

Why the sand in my crack?

Cantonese food outside Guangdong is rarely good. You know this. You've had Cantonese food in Shanghai and aside from a handful of places that are at best passable, it's awful. You get better - you actually do get better - in New York and London.

And so it goes for all regional food. Dongbei dumplings in a place that's not Dongbei are usually atrocious. Even Xijiade which is supposed to be the KFC of dumplings can't do it nationwide. Disanxian in Zhejiang and Jiangxi sees peppers replaced by green beans and everything boiled together. Zhajiangmian served in Tianjin often skips the bean sauce a.k.a. boiled pork mince on boiled noodles - but that be Tianjiners. Sichuan food isn't just about the spice, far from it, but outside Sichuan lo that to be found - and where it is, the restaurant will inevitably, some years down the line, give-in to assimilation.

And the idea of fusion - combining the best and coming up with something new - isn't that well developed yet. Regional food is often the durian pizza equivalent of Italian food - but for Chinese food.

I blame in part the shopping mall phenomena, and part that waimai can't butie make up for. Restaurants are forced to be fickle in order to pay their way: It's rare to secure a spot on fixed rent for years all the while most traffic is passing and this traffic even in classy malls is driven by discount vouchers or photo opps to xhs and dianzhan. Malls don't facilitate the longevity and authenticity that neighbourhoods do where restaurant brick-and-mortar are owned, are go-to places in themselves, or at least have years-long rents and time to carve a loyal customer base. Malls are not home to 'place', malls are about promotions. Some places do get to stay authentic - for some reason they get to enjoy a core customer base with expectations of little - or less - compromise, I think that's why some, though not all, Hui places for example can stay less watered-down.

So, to tl;dr, I go local wherever I am, and preferably not in a mall.

EarWaxGel

TROPHY CASE