(The Peoples' Republic of) China Page
Since I lived here in Shanghai China for 4 years I think it is appropriate to make a page about China and some things about the country. To say the least China is not really a bad country, then again it isn't so great either. I'll just list some good and bad things about China.
While I'm at it I wonder why they call it the People's Republic of China? I mean it isn't a democracy (well, economically except for the banks it is a free market system YES!), so they shouldn't really call it the People's Republic. Even worse is North Korea (Democratic Republic of Korea???????). Don't see nothing democratic about that country.
Good stuff
1) Most things are really really really cheap.
2) Next to free software. Woohoo!!!!!!
3) It ain't no communist state (unlike what some people think). You can do pretty much anything you want.
4) We get drivers to drive us around! Actually we kind of need them (see below at Bad points for explanation).
5) Most people in the cities are pretty decent people.
7) Good food to eat.
8) You can explosive material (Boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
9) You can buy cool chemicals most of the time (gimme some concentrated hydrochloric acid please). The shops don't care!
Bad Points
1) Some necessities are very very very expensive.
2) The people here drive like madmen (hence the drivers).
3) Most people in China don't live in cities.
4) Very very very annoying procedures for the most minor of things (you don't pay a cashier, you pay the cashier to get a receipt then you walk all the way back to store to collect whatever).
5) Everyone smokes, so everyone has some kind of respiratory problem, therefore everyone spits on the streets.
6) Noise problem. Everyone seems to be deaf, because everyone yells really loud.
7) 500 million too many people.
8) It seems to the local people patriotic to rip foreigners off, because they charge anything from 5 to 30 times the price for some things. Taxi drivers sometimes rip people off crazily.
9) Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!! No good TV channels!
10) Two million different dialects of Chinese, just knowing Mandarin ain't enough. Ta ma de!
I have read some stories about China which, in my mind, are completely ridiculous. Here they are
1) Christian persecution - complete bulls***. Our helper in my own house is Christian. She goes to church every Sunday. Maybe in one or two completely isolated regions of China the cops are so stupid and out of date that they still think Christianity is anti-communist (it used to be). Overall the Chinese government is way more concerned about economic development than arresting Christians.
2) Tibet - apparently some people think that Tibet would be better off if they became independent. In my own personal opinion I don't think so. They are economically dependent on China. The human rights issue I agree on, the government needs to pay some attention to that, but if Tibet became independent they would get nothing done. The only single reason Tibet is not as poor as hell like it was before was because of foreign investments from both China and overseas.
3) Communist KGB style spies - ummm, that doesn't make a lot of sense anyways. China is not an old Soviet style communist state. The word they use is socialism (a lot better). Apparently some guy said these guys follow foreigners around to make sure they don't spread democratic ideas. Maybe 20 years ago, not now. I read that article in 1995, if it was written in the recent past, then that person had definitely not been to China recently.
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