Posted On: Monday - February 10th 2025 5:06PM MST
In Topics: China
It's been more than 2 week since our post about China called Back to China: All that glitter.. Peak Stupidity criticized pundit Ron Unz's view of all that glitters in China based on his viewing of youtube videos by (I'm guessing pretty) young Western ladies living or visiting there. I posted a long comment extracted from the long thread of comments under Mr. Unz's post. As SafeNow wrote in the PS comments, no, just looking at the peeling paint on buildings and stuff like that doesn't say too much.*
The commenter in question had some other good details too that refute the glittery views, but true, it was narrowly focused. Having been to China either 11 or an even dozen times, and, more importantly, having dealings with Chinese people I can trust there, I can say that I know a bit more about the social and economic scene than a guy who has watched a lot of youtube videos of pretty woman narrators. ("The bubble-headed beach blonde, comes on at five ...")
Let me start with that peeling paint though. ;-} The longest time I stayed in China was for 6 weeks. The apartment building we stayed at was OK, but then with concrete construction, interior walls need a lot of decoration to look nice. There was no elevator in this 8-story building. That was not a bad thing for me, on the 6th floor, as I needed that cardio exercise, but for old ladies and movers(yikes!), I don't know. OK, well, I figured the building was 25 or 30 years old from this and the general shape of it, but, nope, it was 8 years old.
All the dozens and dozens of new 35-30 story buildings in this "village" have elevators, of course. The facts that property is only owned for 70 years before it belongs to the government and that the owners aren't responsible for the outside - including the rarer detached houses - means effort is not taken to clean and repair the exteriors. This includes the often rusty or broken burglar bars - wait, burglar bars?! See Cat burglars and entrepreneurship in China.
I read comments such as "I didn't see any trash cans in Shanghai. The Chinese are so neat and tidy." Haha! That's when I realize I'm dealing with a propagandist or a dupe. No, dummy, the Chinese throw all manner of things on the ground and in the bushes, but there are armies of low-paid old ladies continually sweeping, sweeping with those non-American style brooms.**
OK, well, enough of that, because they do have a large 2-D network of high-speed trains, many new airports being built each year, new coal and nuke plants being put on line weekly, and a population smart enough and conscientious enough to build it and keep it running. We've written plenty about this - see our many Planes, Trains, and Automobiles posts with pictures from Summer '23 here. Also, the governments there, no matter how greedy corrupt, and often Totalitarian, are not doing evil things like flooding China with foreigners.
So what's the problem, besides some minor things being shoddy? Aren't the people in the videos right that China would be a pleasant and convenient place to live out one's life, assuming they'd let you do that, which they won't, as I just noted? Or, are the videos made to show that "your country sucks now compared to ours, so nah, nah!!" They've got a point in that our country sucks compared to the old America that none of the young people, Americans or Chinamen can imagine. However, China has its inherent problems, enough that I really think I wouldn't move there even if I could, for life. The future I see for both places tells me that we Americans still have a better chance against the Globalism and Totalitarianism than the Chinese people do. (Maybe they just don't mind all that... good for them, I suppose, but this is part of the reason I don't think so much of the place.)
There will be no analysis of the Chinese economy here. Other than that I'm sure that the Chinese real GDP has surpassed that of America years ago - "P" stands for Product(s) - I have no numbers to give the reader. One can get numbers from the Chinese Gov't that are worth even less than those out of our BLS. (At least, with the latter, we have a good idea about how and where the BS is introduced.) One can watch Epoch Times videos and see that the whole Chinese economy is about to implode any day now. Then, one could read Unz Review propagandists and get a rosy picture about the huge, happy, and prosperous middle class, or look at graphs from one Godfree Roberts*** that show how Mao Zedong greatly improved the Chinese economy, including that Great, but meatless and vegetable-less, Leap Forward even. The truth is in there somewhere. [/Fox Mordor]
I've just got anecdotes of real people, factory owners, Chinese yuppies, single Moms, Mooncake boys, and Fat Boys.
The factory owner is a real piece of work, trying to pawn off a whole rejected (by the German customer, naturally) shipping container full of goods on the Mexican customer, who, dammit, somehow had learned Chinese, and that was that. Enough about her.
The Chinese yuppie has the now-government favored "big" family of a husband and 2 kids. There are 4 grandparents around, along with the hard-working 2 parents, to dote over the 2 boys. The parents still must work long days in their white-collar jobs, for the pay that is not a whole lot more in spending power than some welfare queens here. They do have cars, as do a number of people that I'd seen back in '17 not have any. Then too, so do welfare queens here. This Chinese middle-class family does have an apartment that is worth something like a million US dollars at this point, so that is their big savings account. They're doing OK. For some reason though, rents are cheap enough that they just don't pencil out for any kind of return for a landlord. A month's payment for one place elsewhere was only $300 or so, yet the apartment was still worth a quarter million or so. Is the rent subsidized in places, or is the real estate in a real bubble?
The single Mom has only the one child, as required, though he's grown-up now. When I first met him I noticed he had a wide face, not unusual, but I called him the Moon-face kid, due to that there's no freaking way I could remember a Chinese name, were it not written out for me in PinYin (phonetics). That somehow morphed into his being the Mooncake kid. He dropped out of college that his mother worked very hard 6 days a week to pay for after his 7th semester. (Yes, that's out of 8!) That "Lying Flat" thing that you may have seen in videos is not necessarily a widespread thing like say, the hippie movement in 1967 America, but some kind of national malaise is not out of the question.
The social ills that we see in America are not things that Chinese people are somehow immune to. One would think that jobs should be easy to get, what with all the amazing infrastructure work, the manufacturing, and the AI and Orwellian software and networks being built, with a much smaller labor force compared to the flood of young people 20 years ago.**** Lot of the actual manufacturing of consumer items has been outsourced to Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia and what-have-you though. Then, with their engineering prowess and lack of such things as California Air Resources Boards to stop them, the Chinese have automated a lot of work. I suppose that's what it is.
There is much competition for the good jobs now. This Mooncake boy has some sort of job now, but he's kind of dropped out in a way. His single Mom finds it very hard to get hired at new jobs - they say it's difficult above a certain age. The employers must still want that lower-cost and higher-energy young labor that they could get 20 years ago.
The Fat Boy was born during the 1-child policy but he does have a sister. (That caused some trouble for the family.) He was born about a decade after the time of food ration cards, and his Mom could afford to feed him well, if by well, one means all the rice he can eat. White rice has one high-ass Glycemic Index, and so unfortunately, this guy's always been fat. No, he's not people-of-Wal-Mart level fat, but he'd have been called obese in 1970's America. What was he doing hanging around at 3 PM away? I wasn't sure what day it was due to our travels, but... yeah, it was Monday. "Oh, he works for the country government. They've got good hours." His pay is not good though. Back to the "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us." thing? Almost.
That same Godfree Roberts*** could show you a poll on how much Chinese people love the CCP and their national government. Firstly, one thing about China is you can get away with quite a bit - drive like a maniac, pop a beer that spews out everywhere at the airport in the morning*****, pop off a bunch of firecrackers outside the restaurant just for the hell of it, and you won't see cop 1. However, you cannot go railing about the government and Pooh Bear up there in old Peking. No, no, none of that. So, as little as I trust polls in America, I trust those social polls in China even less.
China is not as Orwellian (YET!) as I'd thought before my '23 trip, those thoughts having been based on my reading of a book titled We Have Been Harmonized****** back in '20. I've seen videos about the Social Credit system, but I don't have much to report on that unfortunately. I don't think these scores go into effect at all if you're a pretty young White Western lady taking pictures to show all the glitter as gold.
One can still pay for goods and services with cash, albeit with cameras focused for that purpose in the big cities, train stations, airports, etc. The use of smart-phones for payments is very common, and as with the crazy '22 Kung Flu re-Panic documented here on Peak Stupidity in pictures and even video, I think the Chinese will be mostly compliant when the system gets completed and
I'll insert here something about High- v Low-trust societies. America has been changing much for the worse in this respect. China is a place that doesn't have much social trust at all. I had thought for years that this was due to the 40 years of hard-core Communism laid on them. Now, I'm not so sure. The cause may go back a lot farther than that.
A big reason for not wanting to live in the China is not the present but the future. With the Globalist threats and Orwellian AI stuff coming, we've got a few important factors here that will be of help: Guns and Trump. OK, OK, maybe not Trump himself - we'll see - but the kind of people that can and do vote for Trump... and have guns, lots of 'em.
Finally, with all that glitter - the bright lights (and they DO like their colored lighting there) of the city, you go to the Great Wall, the very symbol of the Middle Kingdom, and you still see that they have had to put up a sign that says in Chinese "No peeing or poohing in the corner here". (At least that's what my source says.) The American version is errr, cleaner, but unclear on the concept.
* SafeNow sees a difference in mindset between Western and Chinese people being important, and he linked to an article (just reading today) to explain. I can't get into all that here, today at least.
** They are neither our normal sweep brooms nor push brooms as we know them, but you do push them rather than sweep.
*** ;-} While doing a search to find this guy's writing on The Unz Review, I found a number of comments referencing the guy. This one was by Mr. Unz himself, badmouthing both Mr. Roberts and one Larry Romanoff, both of them near-idiots who Mr. Unz had picked in the past to write for his site! Not a good judge of character, this Ron Unz ... He's got an open mind... scary open ... I quote: "This is an alt-media website, so I’ve published numerous articles by both Larry Romanoff and Godfree Roberts, so I’ve very familiar with their work, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever trust it." Heh! Oh, and there's a comment by our own Mr. Hail there too (2nd page).
**** That 1-child policy was implemented by Chairman Deng in about 1980. That means the number of people under 45 is a lot smaller than those over that age, who are now not exactly ready for hard intensive work, as they look to retirement at 55 - 60.
***** See I had it in my luggage due to having been forced into a 1st-class ticket, wanting my money out of it, and forgetting it was in the luggage for a week. Then there was the Chinese version of the TSA, so, it wasn't going to waste.
****** Our 4-part review: Part 1 - - Part 2 - - Part 3 and Part 4
Comments:
The Daily Stupid
Tuesday - February 11th 2025 9:12AM MST
PS: Good morning, gentlemen,
The Army and other military branches will begin recruiting efforts at a prestigious White engineering event this week, gaining access to a key pool of highly qualified White applicants amid Dernald Blomph's executive order blitzkrieg.
Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had shunned the White Engineer of the Year Awards, an annual conference that draws White students, academics and professionals in science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
Some recruiters, however, cited concerns that participation in the exclusively White event could run afoul of our jewish overlords feelings and longstanding policies of discrimination against White men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryxlv_Uc8jU
(Or something like that.) 🙂
Cheers! ☮️
The Army and other military branches will begin recruiting efforts at a prestigious White engineering event this week, gaining access to a key pool of highly qualified White applicants amid Dernald Blomph's executive order blitzkrieg.
Until this week, Army Recruiting Command had shunned the White Engineer of the Year Awards, an annual conference that draws White students, academics and professionals in science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
Some recruiters, however, cited concerns that participation in the exclusively White event could run afoul of our jewish overlords feelings and longstanding policies of discrimination against White men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryxlv_Uc8jU
(Or something like that.) 🙂
Cheers! ☮️
Moderator
Tuesday - February 11th 2025 6:32AM MST
PS: I read those, Mr. Hail. That's tricky, like that deal with not actually renaming KIng County in Washington State (Seattle being in it) but just saying that it now stands for Martin Rev. Luther, M.D.-Proctology King. That was about 15 years ago, best I can recall.
The people of the ctrl-left are very tricky, and I see that's the trick they are pulling here, as you found out by doing some digging. Here's what's got to happen - some high-up officers in the base must have a modicum of courage (do they have ANY of it anymore?) and put up pictures of the actual Confederate General Bragg, etc., etc. around the bases.
It's all so tiresome ... as the man saide.
The people of the ctrl-left are very tricky, and I see that's the trick they are pulling here, as you found out by doing some digging. Here's what's got to happen - some high-up officers in the base must have a modicum of courage (do they have ANY of it anymore?) and put up pictures of the actual Confederate General Bragg, etc., etc. around the bases.
It's all so tiresome ... as the man saide.
Hail
Tuesday - February 11th 2025 5:15AM MST
PS
J. I. Errican tribute to PS' prescience on the Fort Bragg renaming:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/my-substack-stevesailer-net/#comment-6989792
(plus two replies from me on the meaning of the move)
J. I. Errican tribute to PS' prescience on the Fort Bragg renaming:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/my-substack-stevesailer-net/#comment-6989792
(plus two replies from me on the meaning of the move)
Adam Smith
Monday - February 10th 2025 6:46PM MST
PS: Listen for the screeching sound...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7BWHiEpsmQ
☮️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7BWHiEpsmQ
☮️
Moderator
Monday - February 10th 2025 6:19PM MST
PS: The spelling errors are not a Boomer thing though.
FIRST!!
OK, back to the post.
FIRST!!
OK, back to the post.
Moderator
Monday - February 10th 2025 6:18PM MST
PS: Hey, rather than duck videos, what's wrong with:
"FIIRST!"
I only wish this blog was that popular such that people felt the need. I guess it's kind of a Boomer thing ...
"FIIRST!"
I only wish this blog was that popular such that people felt the need. I guess it's kind of a Boomer thing ...
Adam Smith
Monday - February 10th 2025 6:10PM MST
PS: How to pick up a duck...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0NMFj99v1s
☮️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0NMFj99v1s
☮️
https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/gop-rep-unveils-bill-empowering-trump-to-acquire-greenland-rename-it-red-white-and-blueland/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTiKjpQ-FUE
Satire is dead. Long live satire! ☮️