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Are people in China that delusional or that scared to say that there is something deeply wrong with China?
I think many foreigners watch too much negative China news and are delusional. They do not understand that some "problems" they assume are not really problems in China, because China has always been like that or "worse" before. They only get to know China recently and do not have all the context.
That being said, it is true that some new issues start to emerge in China, and the policies may not be as friendly to foreigners as before too.
I think your expections are too high. China has always been an authoritarian state. 30 years ago China had the Tiannamin massacre, 25 years ago blood contamination led to HIV, 20 years ago China abused Falun Gong people, 17 years ago China had SARS, 12 years ago China had the milk scandal that lead to 54,000 babies hospitalized, 10 years ago they restricted the internet at full force. Why did you move to China, did you expect China to change?
The perception also depends on one's personal development, I think.
When people are young, their life is generally getting better: getting more money, finding the love, trying new jobs and seeing new things every day .... After a while, it is just family life with a more or less stagnant career. Nothing is particularly innovative or interesting.
It happens to most people in the world no matter where you live and people call it the "midlife crisis".
It can happen earlier in certain circumstances too. For example, I heard many IT workers in their 30s say they already see what the rest of their life is, and there is nothing exciting anymore. They are often immigrants without a strong social network in the US. Other than their technical skills, they do not have much else to sell either, and there is also family responsibility.
I think many foreigners watch too much negative China news and are delusional. They do not understand that some "problems" they assume are not really problems in China, because China has always been like that or "worse" before. They only get to know China recently and do not have all the context.
That being said, it is true that some new issues start to emerge in China, and the policies may not be as friendly to foreigners as before too.
When China used to get good press about the economy and development, Chinese dimwits would never **** about how much China's grown and transformed and how it's a powerful nation now and all that jazz.
But when a horrendous tragedy happens in China like this virus or when other countries are asking China to own up to its own doing, suddenly it's "China has always been like that or worse before" or "China is a developing country". It's never China's own fault, the blame is always on other countries or foreigners who dared to criticise the laughable 5,000 year-old civilisation.
Just accept it: China is a piece of **** and a laughing stock, nobody likes China, and it's entirely your own fault.
When China used to get good press about the economy and development, Chinese dimwits would never **** about how much China's grown and transformed and how it's a powerful nation now and all that jazz.
But when a horrendous tragedy happens in China like this virus or when other countries are asking China to own up to its own doing, suddenly it's "China has always been like that or worse before" or "China is a developing country". It's never China's own fault, the blame is always on other countries or foreigners who dared to criticise the laughable 5,000 year-old civilisation.
Just accept it: China is a piece of **** and a laughing stock, nobody likes China, and it's entirely your own fault.
China has always been praised for its development. The impressive part is how China went from a dirt poor country into a middle income country, not how amazing China is. Comparing Chinas living standard to western countries is ridiculous.
Its not that black and white. I agree that Xi Jinping has not been good for Chinas international relations, but you cannot expect everything to always go the right direction, sometimes you get setbacks.
The perception also depends on one's personal development, I think.
When people are young, their life is generally getting better: getting more money, finding the love, trying new jobs and seeing new things every day .... After a while, it is just family life with a more or less stagnant career. Nothing is particularly innovative or interesting.
It happens to most people in the world no matter where you live and people call it the "midlife crisis".
It can happen earlier in certain circumstances too. For example, I heard many IT workers in their 30s say they already see what the rest of their life is, and there is nothing exciting anymore. They are often immigrants without a strong social network in the US. Other than their technical skills, they do not have much else to sell either, and there is also family responsibility.
Good point
One thing I thought about, is that this time must be very difficult for people who have problems in their marriage. They can no longer hide in their office, or spend all their time with their friends. Right now they have to to spend all their time with their family.
The perception also depends on one's personal development, I think.
When people are young, their life is generally getting better: getting more money, finding the love, trying new jobs and seeing new things every day .... After a while, it is just family life with a more or less stagnant career. Nothing is particularly innovative or interesting.
It happens to most people in the world no matter where you live and people call it the "midlife crisis".
It can happen earlier in certain circumstances too. For example, I heard many IT workers in their 30s say they already see what the rest of their life is, and there is nothing exciting anymore. They are often immigrants without a strong social network in the US. Other than their technical skills, they do not have much else to sell either, and there is also family responsibility.
I thought you were dead or in a quarantine cornavirus camp
I think your expections are too high. China has always been an authoritarian state. 30 years ago China had the Tiannamin massacre, 25 years ago blood contamination led to HIV, 20 years ago China abused Falun Gong people, 17 years ago China had SARS, 12 years ago China had the milk scandal that lead to 54,000 babies hospitalized, 10 years ago they restricted the internet at full force. Why did you move to China, did you expect China to change?
I suppose perhaps you are right that it was naive to assume that China's would continue to make progress since its recent (last 150-ish year) history has been a comedy of errors.
When I moved to China, it seemed as though it was generally getting better. In addition, I planned to be here for six months and that's extended to six years, in large part because I got married to a local who initially insisted she could never leave (after traveling elsewhere she agrees ultimately that it's best we move though or timeline was initially further out). In the last few days she has finally seen the writing on the wall and we are putting things in motion to leave in the next few weeks. China's economy won't allow for any meaningful growth for at least the next two quarters, so the longer we stay, the more we spin our wheels.
Also, my businesses here have been successful, and the realities of doing business in China - dishonest, untrustworthy, and unreliable staff, endless waves of face money and government interference, etc - make it difficult to break away without risking major losses. Now that the economy has cooled it's harder to sell, and again due to endemic dishonesty I am reluctant to do a partnership with a local person. My wife agrees that this is a huge issue, though for the purposes of saving face for her nation, she insists that it's the same everywhere (it's not). Whether our businesses survive in my physical absence or flounder is unknown at this point. We would rather they do well of course, but if they don't, we are willing to accept it as a loss and move forward.
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Also, its not like your home country is perfect. High gun violence, high povery rate, expensive health care, corrupt politics and more. And related to this virus, they gave out faulty test kits and apperently they refuse to test anyone who has not been in China. Even in Singapore people have started to hoard because of the virus, I expect a much worse reaction in the US if more cases start appearing.
Where would any pro-china argument be without whataboutism? none of the US' donating failings have anything to do with China's, but since you brought it up: It doesn't bother me.
Healthcare in the US is expensive, especially if you don't have insurance (I do). China's is vastly cheaper in the first plaCe - an MRI only costs about 50 USD. The problem though is the quality of the care, which is generally *terrible.* I have managed to find a few good doctors in the public healthcare system here but most of them are remarkably clueless and will prescribe you a bunch of expensive and worthless TCM to pad their comparatively-low income (this is a problem that Chinese people themselves acknowledge). Also, as far as catastrophic events, there is no Hippocratic oath in China, or if there is, it is not consistently instituted. Debt, or death? I would choose the former.
America has poverty; so does China. It's not visible in the big cities because they won't allow it but rural China is a step back in time, as I'm sure you're aware. I would like to see the US do more to alleviate poverty, however, issues surrounding poverty won't likely affect myself or my family. That may sound crass, but it's the truth.
Similarly, the areas I will live in have crime rates on par with European cities and the odds of being caught in any sort of mass shooting event are exceedingly low, regardless of media sensationalism. There are also knife attacks at schools in China though unlike the US, the media generally buries it rather than sensationalizes it.
American politics is a mess and yes, there is corruption, but to try to compare it unfavorably to China is, to be quite frank, massively stupid. China's "anti corruption drive" was by and large simply a restructuring of nepotism. Open bickering is in my mind preferable to an opaque and closed system where the entire direction of the nation relies on the whims of a single ideologue. Clearly many people disagree.
Also, you earlier made a jab about believing random people on Reddit, and then posted a link that is literally just that. The other one, which linked to an NY times article, is somewhat irrelevant when taking into account that this is a new and unexpected viral outbreak and the Chinese who are dealing with the vast bulk of cases themselves have been stumbling over the very definitions of what constitutes infection. I'm sure you'll have a retort to that, but I hope that you can see that you are in no way inured to the whims of hearsay and confirmation bias yourself. Go ahead and believe outlets or random individuals on the internet that take a more anti-US/Western, pro-China stance on the virus and economy which you find more palatable all you want. Let's come back to this discussion some months later and see where we are at.
Here is an article from Barron's on the statistical impossibility of China's states coronavirus statistics.
For me its more about, where can I have a better life. Even under the virus outbreak, I am totally fine. I just spend time home with the family.
That's wonderful for you. China has been a beacon of sorts for westerners who had a harder time achieving a desirable work/life balance in their home nations, and the effort-to-QOL ratio has been quite good. However, once the economy goes south, so will the ease of this lifestyle.
I am not in this predicament; my lifestyle back in the US was nice, and while I've been successful here, that success had been hindered by a variety of problems unique to China: aforementioned chronically-unreliable and dishonest staff, random periodic calls for face money from authorities, arbitrary law changes and enforcement which target foreign-owned or -catering businesses, etc. Am I thankful for my time here? Yes, of course. And I'm also thankful to China for what I've gained here. But, I've hit a point of diminishing returns where my effort is rewarded less and less, which will only accelerate as a decade of missteps and hubris come to a head, with this epidemic as another obstacle.
Leaving will be bittersweet but I'm choosing to focus more on the "sweet" part. Hopefully in another few weeks, I'll fly into LAX, buy a new car, drive to Scottsdale for our self-quarantine period, and set about doing business back home in a more hygienic environment with blue skies. I'll still be back and forth from China for the rest of my life because of family here, and also hopefully business. But I am ready to refocus elsewhere.
China has always been praised for its development. The impressive part is how China went from a dirt poor country into a middle income country, not how amazing China is.
There have been several examples of dirt poor countries graduating into developed countries. China isn't anything new. It's just bigger.
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Comparing Chinas living standard to western countries is ridiculous.
Except no one is doing that.
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Its not that black and white. I agree that Xi Jinping has not been good for Chinas international relations, but you cannot expect everything to always go the right direction, sometimes you get setbacks.
And this has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
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One thing I thought about, is that this time must be very difficult for people who have problems in their marriage. They can no longer hide in their office, or spend all their time with their friends. Right now they have to to spend all their time with their family.
The fact that you and Bettafish are associating legitimate complaint about China's bull**** with some out-of-nowhere, alleged marital problems and alleged mid-life crisis only shows how laughably ridiculous you two are.
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I suppose perhaps you are right that it was naive to assume that China's would continue to make progress since its recent (last 150-ish year) history has been a comedy of errors.
So you came to China thinking that it will soon progress into a western country, and then soon realized that China was not what you thought it was? Yes, you were naive. And now you have become way too pesimistic because China did not fulfill your way too high expectations.
China has not changed that much the last 6 years. The first time I was in China was 9 years ago. Back then I could not get access to western goods, I could not buy cheap things online. Even though the internet is bad now, it was much worse back then. Also, at that time I had to spend much more time waiting in line for different things, there was hardly any subway lines and no taxi apps.
So what exactly got so much worse? The only thing I can think about is the growth rate, but did you seriously expect China to keep growing forever? China did not change, you did.
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Where would any pro-china argument be without whataboutism? none of the US' donating failings have anything to do with China's, but since you brought it up: It doesn't bother me.
You did not understand my argument. The point is not that China is better than the US. The point is, US is not a perfect country.
Remember, when foreigners move to China, they are often moving from a middle class or poorer in their home country to become among the rich in the richest cities in China. The problems in the US affect them a lot more than the problems in China.
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Here is an article from Barron's on the statistical impossibility of China's states coronavirus statistics.
Even more conspiracy nonsense? When they said that a 0.7 is normal every red flag should be raised in your head if you knew what r squared is. 0.7 is normal for a linear equation in a scatter plot, not when you try to fit an equation to an aggregate number.
When you can pick any formula you want, and pick a few data points, then of course you will get a high R squared. If you do not believe me, create some datapoints of what you think the numbers should have been, insert them into Excel, try to create a polynominal formula and check its R squared. I put in these random numbers (500, 650, 850, 1050, 1350, 1600) and got 0.9986 for 2nd order polynominal formula. If I change 1350 to 1300 it becomes 0.9996. If I change the order to 5, it becomes 1.
There have been several examples of dirt poor countries graduating into developed countries. China isn't anything new. It's just bigger.
Of course it matters that it is bigger. It is much more difficult to develop a country of 1.4 billion people than a country of 24 million people. I do not even have to pick the rich city states in China to compare, if Jiangsu with 80 million people became its own country, its nominal GDP per capita would be almost as high as Taiwan and Portugal.
Its not that many countries who has gone from dirt poor to rich. The only countries that went from dirt poor before ww2 to developed today is Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. And those three has gotten a lot of praise. So why can't you praise China for the things they have done right, instead of keep saying China is **** over and over again.
Last edited by Camlon; 02-17-2020 at 02:46 AM..
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