What's ur opinion about China? (country, train, people, culture)

[guycsz]

I have just watched a TV programme about China Today
We have to admit that China,develop so quickly during the last decade
and many things,from family appliances to clothes etc.
What's you viewpoint about China?

[grmike]

has over 1.3 billion people and an economy about the size of Germany's (over 82 million people).
the world economy is not stable and when a major crisis hits (big increase in food, oil prices) an overpopulated country with a very low gdp per capita could go through a very hard time. over a fifth of Chinese exports go to the US and that's where most of the world's economic problems are coming from.

[texdav]

I thnik it maybe the consumer market of the future. That said it has a long way to go in being equal to any western country really as far as overall living stanrdard;ignoring the government issue.Its cuurency is head for problems from everything I read.

[Neutre]

It's a huge country with a huge population. Yet it's western half is quite empty.

[Tiger Beer]

I am fascinated by it, mostly because I have lived over in Asia the last ten years.

I see most of the world's money going to CHINA over this century with no end in sight to that.

[FlourChild]

Tiger Beer--where did you/do you live? Which country, I mean? Just curious.

I lived in Changsha (largest city in Hunan province) for a year. That doesn't make me an expert, but it was an education, living there. The Chinese love--no, worship--of their country can only be compared to a southerner's feeling for the south. Respect is paramount; to embarrass someone is to make an enemy. There is a brand of chivalry, on its way out now, based not on gender but on age. I gave up my seat on a bus one day to a very elderly man and was applauded, literally, which was sort of shocking.

While I was there, I saw a lot of billboards and PSAs about the value of girl babies, but there was still one incident that summed up the long-held attitude: I was on a bus one day and saw one man drop a lit cigarette onto a two- or three-year-old girl. She cried, of course (who wouldn't?) and her father tore a strip off the smoker, who retorted "It doesn't matter--it's just a girl." Well, after that, it was ON. The conductor (a girl who MIGHT have been 19 or 20, about 5' and 80 lbs.) threw them ALL off the bus.

China's social engineering has had some unforeseen consequences, like most such attempts. The last I read, there were something like 114 boys for every 100 girls, which some political scientists believe may actually make women more valuable b/c they're scarcer there. Others theorize that China may actually be more willing to engage in an eventual ground war, as there are "surplus males" to dispose of. (Sounds weird, I know.)

Economically, China is powerful, but I've read some stuff recently that indicates it isn't as much of a juggernaut as projected. China's government is notorious for its lack of transparency. In other words, what really goes on vs. what the rest of China--and the world--hears about, are two vastly different things. There's very little way of knowing what the true, hard figures are.

China probably faces more trouble from within than without, even given the recent protests over its treatment of Tibet. AIDS is becoming more widespread, due largely to the reuse of needles (although it is usually blamed on "contact with foreigners") and to government indifference to public health. Human rights violations, documented for decades now, will inevitably come to a head. The availability of the Internet, although sometimes hampered by crackdowns on "illegal" net cafes, is helping to open China a bit ideologically, as is the less-well-documented spread of Christianity there.

Communism isn't the big deal in China that it used to be. Chinese nationalism predates Communism and has outlasted it as well.

While there, I was homesick, often frustrated nearly to the point of screaming, and often physically miserable. Yet every time I was just about ready to march into the wai ban's office and buy out the remainder of my teaching contract, something unexpectedly beautiful would happen, and I don't care how silly that sounds. I was physically attacked twice (once in Nanjing, once in Beijing in Tiananmen Square, oddly enough) but I also made some friends whom I will love forever.

[sssjordan]

I love it ,cause I am a Beijinger.

[Hermosaa]

Complicated regarding documents etc... Every year visa issues
My passport gets filled with stamps everytime I have to go to Macau or Hongkong... So much trouble with Immigration that it gets tiring to cross the boarder.
Every time you go to a Hotel, you always need to show passport
Too many blocked internet sites
Cutting in line almost every day every where

[UTHORNS96]

It's an amazing culture and history that has unfortunately been tainted by terrible politics.

[Chava61]

Originally Posted by Hermosaa

Complicated regarding documents etc... Every year visa issues
My passport gets filled with stamps everytime I have to go to Macau or Hongkong... So much trouble with Immigration that it gets tiring to cross the boarder.
Every time you go to a Hotel, you always need to show passport
Too many blocked internet sites
Cutting in line almost every day every where

One also needs to show identification documents to buy train tickets in China. If you are foreigner your train ticket will have your passport number on it.