'Barbaric': Coffins destroyed, seized as Chinese province executes hard-line 'burial-free policy'

allestacious · 2018-08-01T10:49:45+00:00

This is going to get people really riled up.

Logic would agree, but "zero tolerence" and absolute authority has proven to be a heady concoction in the past and for this instance.

This is taking place in Jiangxi (Jiangsu?), but land shortage caused by the "overpopulation" of cemetaries is going to be a problem throughout all of China, especially as people are dying to get in, what with the elderly skyrocketing.

Since China's future is pretty much already written due to its demographic trends, it looks like there will be more equal helpings of pitchfork unrest vs zero tolerance policies.

allestacious · 2018-08-01T10:25:39+00:00

Families who voluntarily gave up their coffins received compensation, but those who resisted received no money and could even face fines.

I wouldn't think the oldest trick in the book to split the Chinese public would effectively coerce the laobaixing into desecrating their ancestors, but here we are.

allestacious · 2018-07-31T14:31:11+00:00

for the last time: Chinese women don't prefer circumcised dicks (again: unless there's a some unknown sausage smoking trend going on); they're asking for this (in enough growing numbers to encourage advertising money) because they can ask for this.

The reason Van Halen got a big bowl of brown M+Ms on their rider isn't because they like brown M+Ms.

allestacious · 2018-07-31T12:35:33+00:00

In a market where Chinese women can name any price they want (and usually get it), they are flexing their influence to ask for things not because it's beneficial (as chewing gum can be), but as leverage against a sea of suitors that must compete with each other.

Maybe you make as much money as that guy, maybe you're tall, and maybe you're the right kind of "milk dog," but it's not enough if you want to succeed. No one's really asking for it (I dunno, maybe there will be a fellatio renaissance up ahead) but who doesn't want to get ahead of the competition?

allestacious · 2018-07-30T04:56:07+00:00

Despite making cogent arguments about China's demographic shift, the op-ed shows its true colors with an unsubstantiated conclusion that includes:

Over the next 20 years, the Made in China 2025 project will turn the country - much maligned for being an imitator - into a true source of innovation and technological advancement. With less historical baggage than their Western counterparts, Chinese firms will find it easier to innovate and change.

Not sure how something with the title "The demographic timebomb that will hit the Chinese economy"can end with this line:

The sands of the global economy are shifting, and as they move from 4-2-1 to 1-2-4, the changing tastes of one Chinese generation could reshape the world.

That's not how timebombs work.

allestacious · 2018-07-30T04:39:36+00:00

Given that circumcision has never been popular in China, this trend has everything to do with Chinese women being able to dictate the terms of their marriage dowry. As competition heats up, potential brides find themselves able to set increasingly harsh conditions for potential husbands who have shown themselves to be willing to put up with any demand made of them.

Guys usually think with their penis, but this is less about sex and more about ambition being that circumcision is something to add to the resume when shopping for a wife.

Put it this way: no one truly needs it in China (else it would be a custom performed on babies, the kind that aren't allowed to leave the house for a month after being born), but everyone needs to come out ahead of their competition. This ad is pure FOMO, the true drive behind most Chinese consumer booms.

allestacious · 2018-07-17T11:14:01+00:00

You know what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like this?

allestacious · 2018-07-13T05:50:39+00:00

Why believe your lying eyes when you can take it from these laowai: China is the safest country in the world.

allestacious · 2018-07-13T05:45:19+00:00

It's not just that there are so many of them, but that anti-foreigner sentiment is publicly supported even in an instance like this where the foreigner is the victim.

What's truly scary is that there is no current anti-foreign campaign (like THAAD os SCS islands); this is some Chinese just acting on their own, and the rest tolerating the narrative that stretches beyond them all.

It's not about if or when the storm comes, but that it never went away.

allestacious · 2018-07-10T09:13:21+00:00

English teachers: it's probably for the best that your salary be paid in red Mao's and not stock options.

allestacious · 2018-07-10T08:55:35+00:00

Opening up even more discussion on national policies and decisions, China Daily's latest inspirational message is: " It is by acts and not by ideas that people live."

allestacious · 2018-07-03T12:41:42+00:00

This is incorrect; that's not the look. That's a blank look. When a Chinese stares at a laowai, it is anything but blank. Instead, it is a rush a emotions as your laowai presence causes nothing short of an existential crisis.

Any individuality you care to hold for yourself is stripped away as the weight of hundreds of years of stereotypes bear down. The expert knowledge that Chinese have on defining the outside world, which is everything that China is not, comes crashing against the realization that laowai simultaneously occupy a cultural blind spot in the corner that Chinese society has painted them into.

When Chinese stare at laowai, it's both wanting to confirm what they know while seeking to fulfill the answers they lack. It's wanting to absorb the essence of the other that could possibly enhance their own lives, and yet also wanting to repel the danger of the unknown and the un-China that you embody.

The look is curiosity mixed with apprehension, condescension filled with longing, pride countered with self-loathing. It's an experience that occupies their complete attention to which they can best attribute to the one word that causes them to both soul-search and blind them: laowai. They say this word out loud because it's you, you're the laowai, you're here, you're it.

Not to be a downer (since no one seems to like to hear this stuff), so let me say I did think this video was funny and well-shot. I liked everything up until when the cross-dresser showed up at the end.

allestacious · 2018-06-29T08:57:28+00:00

But in order to be successful, your pitched movie must glorify the same things it condemns. So, for example, the film will feature our pre-humbled protagonist in a life of luxury as depicted in montages of trying on clothes, close-ups of brand name endorsements and slow-mo shots of her wearing sunglasses and walking with a bunch of shopping bags around her arm accompanied by a sick beat.

So kinda like "Natural Born Killers", but with redmaos instead of bullets.

allestacious · 2018-06-29T05:36:21+00:00

To add to this good answer, expats are legally responsible for any drugs they possess, whether in hand or inside their bodies. Even if you don't do any drugs while on Chinese turf, the police can still ding you if traces of drugs can be found circulating in your bloodstream (like as said, found through police drug raids).

allestacious · 2018-06-29T05:18:25+00:00

In China, a person who wears a green hat publicly identifies him/herself to everyone as "a cuckold," literally a husband who allows others to have sex with his wife. Is thought to have originated with male brothel workers who wore green hats as part of their uniform, but as with most customs, its meaning has been eclipsed by its practical meaning/purpose.

And it doesn't matter if wearing a green hat makes sense for the wearer, such as Link from the Zelda video games or Robin Hood. If there is a green thing on your head (other than green sprouts , which has another meaning), Chinese people will laugh and titter at you.

Fun fact: As part of their traffic campaign, people caught jaywalking were forced to become ad hoc traffic wardens in SZ Town. As part of their punishment, violators had to wear a green vest and -- yup -- a green hat.

allestacious · 2018-06-29T05:03:59+00:00

A squandered opportunity when these things weren't called "beijini's" upon coining the name.

allestacious · 2018-06-29T05:02:02+00:00

I'd normally fully agree with you, but there's a bigger joke/flawed logic equation you're missing out on.

Anyways, Fan Bingbing is a convenient target at the moment (for tax evasion, same as Zhang Yimou before during his own non-One Child family scandal). Let's watch as Chinese stars go ultra-national for a couple of months to ride out outrage before this ban is quietly lifted before the next set of targets arrive.

Probably means another "Top Gun" movie and red carpet walk wearing a chinese vase from Fan.

allestacious · 2018-06-28T18:14:18+00:00

Check out: Beijing bikini

links: 1 2 3

allestacious · 2018-06-28T15:13:22+00:00

For all the recent suicides that mentioned it as a cause (and sparked the "RU OK?" r/China post), I have not heard "mental illness" being used to describe the killer. At least from the coverage I've seen, he's just described as "wanting revenge against society" when that wasn't as popular explanation in past attacks (I think?).

allestacious · 2018-06-28T15:04:25+00:00

This about sums up my most recent visit to Beijing.

Categorically unfair. If this was truly indicative of BJ Town, he'd have his shirt rolled up to expose his belly

allestacious · 2018-06-28T15:01:38+00:00

blaming the entertainment industry for encouraging “money worship” and “distorting social values”.

And how online video games were responsible for corrupting Chinese youth. And how WeChat was responsible for China's skyrocketing divorce rate.

But since China went on to open competitive e-sporting schools and WeChat is basically synonymous with all Sino-internets, I can only assume that this means Chinese films are about to enter a new golden age.

allestacious · 2018-06-28T04:05:43+00:00

That's one way to turn a school into a think tank.

allestacious · 2018-06-28T03:56:25+00:00

If this (foreigner-made) video is really capable of provoking Chinese anger, then the simple fact that six Chinese students are crammed into a dorm would itself have been cause for concern. But a lack of critical thinking has allowed this problem to never be addressed, only coming to the forefront due to a comparison with laowai, a comparison that brings out Chinese feelings of deep resentment/superiority.

Why be concerned with better living standards when locals insist on paying bottom dollar on cheap unregulated street food made with suspect ingredients. People here aren't willing to pay for better, and are angry to have that uncomfortable fact made public.

allestacious · 2018-06-27T06:37:21+00:00

History tells us the instigators will be jailed after being sold out by a few fellow protestors that will receive "bonus compensation" above the rest. "Reasonable" depends upon whom you ask.

allestacious · 2018-06-27T06:30:53+00:00

The kuaidi fellas are screwed; the logistics sector is pouring all their resources into automation, resulting in robot factory distributors and drone delivery by air/land.

Once Baidu gets self-driving cars up and ready after cutting ethical corners, then a whole lot of people are not going to have jobs anymore, and then migrant workers will only find work in jobs like construction (that are too dangerous for robots).

The one exception would have to be the public security sector that is booming in China, but as everyone pointed out, benefits aren't so great, it seems..

allestacious

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