China
Lived there nearly six years. Loved it for about five. Hated it by the end.

It can be an amazing place to live. It's developing so fast that "Opportunities" by the Pet Shop Boys should be played in every urban centre. The sense of possibility is ripe in the air, both in major cities and smaller towns. (My wife thinks she comes from a village, it only has about 50,000 people and an airport). I met some of the most interesting people ever during my time there, and the work ethic and will to improve on a personal and societal level is remarkable. There is an almost lack of visible crime apart from petty theft in tourist/transport areas. Chinese people are often amazingly hospitable, and it's really easy to make good friends there - so different to the closed-off British mentality.

But SO MANY THINGS SUCK. The correlation of everything developing fast is that everyone is in a rush (to get rich), and they'll push you out the way without a thought. Everybody wants something (usually for nothing) - and so many relationships are transactional: I give you, you give me. Also personal manners are generally terrible - hawking up loogies on the street, pissing in the subway, shitting in elevators, all frequent: a sense of decorum was deemed "bourgeoise" and the older generation in particular is amazingly coarse.

One of the worst aspects is that as a society, nobody trusts anyone. People trust their immediate family, and that's it. The Cultural Revolution was only about forty years ago, with its mass denunciations and terror. Today, nobody trusts anyone if there's a chance that person could benefit from it. All the norms and politenesses you take for granted in a stable society (except, say, Kings Cross, or with smackheads) do not exist. You can't even trust doctors, who will "upsell" lots of pointless medicine.

The most infuriating thing though is the constant opacity. Nothing is transparent. This comes from the top down. The government operates in a cloud, its motivations unknown, its workings hidden. This maximises its room for manoeuvre. And so it goes on all the way down the line - bosses are under no obligation to inform staff of anything, teachers are petty tyrants, parents are godheads to their children. Trying to get information is impossible. Want to know how to register your child for school? Who your supposed "representative" is? What the guidelines are for a visa? What taxes are due for a startup company? What things are forbidden to discuss under censorship? Why was this website blocked, that thing deleted, that company sequestered? Hahaha, good luck!

In the west we've got used to public institutions opening up, and the internet has helped in this process, but this remains anathema to the Chinese. The entire political process/power structure is top-down, not bottom-up. I've never seen people as obsequious before bosses (nor bosses being such utter cunts) as in China. I once was invited to an acquaintance's birthday party; she'd invited her boss, who was some kind of big-shot in mining. When Mr Big arrived she expected us to all make a fuss over him, saying "He's rich, he's a millionaire!" like we should give a fuck. Arse to that.

Lots of political things about China suck, of course - the hukou system practically is apartheid for rural people; you can't own property ("houses" are only a seventy year lease); the healthcare system is an abomination; and people trying to take the constitution seriously, stand for election, hold "officials" to account is a combination farce, tragedy and monstrosity. But the day-to-day quality of life for people is in many ways dreadful. Maybe it will improve, I don't know, but life is too short to spend it furious, so I had to get out.
(McChinaman banned, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:09, 29 replies)

What you wrote. Their nunnies go sideways.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:20, closed)

A typically nuanced critique
Cheers
(McChinaman banned, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:32, closed)

To be fair I've only ever had relations with one Chinese girl and she was from Greenwich.
I'm assuming the foofs gradually rotate as they get further from the meridian.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:38, closed)

tl:dr velly solly, ha so

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:20, closed)

Jesting aside by all accounts it's fucking mental over there.
My gf and my mother have both been and said it's amazing + really fucking weird
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:21, closed)

It's a little perturbing when practically every home has a glorifying picture of a murderous despot on the living room wall.
And also the horizontal hoochiecooches.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:23, closed)

Once you start on that business
it's a slippery slope
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:33, closed)

gf?
lol.
(username failed moderation, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:19, closed)

You're teetering on the edge of a meltdown today.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:27, closed)

.

(username failed moderation, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:28, closed)

Typical grownups!

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:35, closed)

It's approaching flounce o'clock.
They always get cranky between rusks and lunch.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:31, closed)

The thing is,
ls and rs are confused in Japan, Korea and (to a certain extent) Guangdong / Hong Kong, but for your Mandarin-speaking Beijinger rs are if anything pronounced too strongly.
I know I'm being a boring cunt here, I just wish people would put a bit more research into their racist humour.
( Zuowan, Sun 18 Aug 2013, 4:50, closed)

Been. Business. Alien. Scared. Excited. Alien.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:33, closed)

I read this in an Alan Partridge TEA OR COFFEE robot voice

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 10:49, closed)

Robot voice is better than chinky chonky alien jibber jabber.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:03, closed)

I read this while site in that voice.
It's 8% funnier.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:05, closed)

Really?
I read all of team boohoo's posts in the voice of 'Gordon Brittas'
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:10, closed)

You read them??

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:14, closed)

I print them all out.
I'm making a satirical collage.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:26, closed)

wAn^k_eRs
(McChinaman banned, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:35, closed)

China is OK.
One just needs more guanxi (loosely translated: "connections") with the right people, then there are lots of opportunities.

No connections? Not much hope of escaping the hell that Dr Chinaman described, and possibly even worse.
(EffinNitWit asks his tobacco where his whisky is, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:50, closed)

Guanxi is overrated and misunderstood.
It's just nepotism + networking. Everyone hates it, but it's the way things get done. And if you've got nothing to offer it doesn't matter how much guanxi you have.
( Zuowan, Sun 18 Aug 2013, 4:44, closed)

I liked this, have a click.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 11:52, closed)

me too
neatly encapsulated my experience - with bonus adroit analysis
(justin(e), Mon 19 Aug 2013, 13:56, closed)

alright, dr chinkychonk
this thread needs more casual racism so i read it all with my eyes pulled out at the corners while saying ah so

you're welcome
(alright alright, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 13:04, closed)

(McChinaman banned, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 13:39, closed)

Not a rascist.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 14:29, closed)

r l
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Fri 16 Aug 2013, 16:33, closed)