China is Still Very Poor On Average....A Realistic Appraisal with Supporting Pics and Articles

I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

You took time to travel to Kunming and Li Jiang last year while
condemning that China is so poor and filthy, and you wrote that the
Mainland Chinese are lower than cats and dogs? Who paid for this, since
you yourself wrote that you can't even afford an out-of-state holiday?
Everything you write is a LIE, Paki Whore !


RichAsianKid wrote:
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

RichAsian Kid ,
what you have written about China is very true .


Li-Jiang is a good place to visit , previously full of Tibetans
..

China has 600 million consumers , not the 1 billion the other
people are talking about .

the other 600 million Chinese who live in the hill side has no
money .

But 600 million consumers are still good enough for any nation
..





RichAsianKid wrote:
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

This is one of tricks used by poor to earn their living in China to ask for
a small sum of money for living. You don't have to give if you don't want
to, in fact you should not give because it gives them wrong idea of earning
money the easy way.

In Singapore, we can see many whitemen are using little toy to trick the
kids in the food court . Their aim is to stir up the desire in kids wanting
to have the little cute toy, then he will ask for high price to make the
parent pay for it.

Japs businessmen also use the many tricks, and they cheat even more money by
making customer pay even more.

"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
ups.com...
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

In article om,
says...
China has 600 million consumers , not the 1 billion the other
people are talking about .

the other 600 million Chinese who live in the hill side has no
money .

But 600 million consumers are still good enough for any nation


RAK is also making the common mistake of passing opinion about a
snapshot in time rather than looking at the rate of change. There is a
reason why many intelligent, worldly Americans are concerned about the
emergence of China as a powerful economy. As Robert Rubin (former US
Secretary of the Treasury, now Chairman of CitiGroup) put it, the
emergence of China and India as modern economies may be the most
significant economic event since the emergence of the USA, or perhaps
even the industrial revolution. And Rubin has been criticized by some
American commentators of taking China too lightly.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200...twoedged_sword
..php

China certainly has problems, some of them huge. But progress has been
stunningly fast over the past decade, and I can't see any reason why
that rate of improvement won't continue. For example, just 10 years ago
service quality in Chinese retail stores ranged between indifferent and
outright hostile. Now, the service in some Chinese retailers is at least
as good as the average American retail outlet. And the staff lap up
compliments about their service like hungry puppies, bending over
backwards to serve you even better! When was the last time you found
that in the USA?

RAK's posts about China sound more and more like American hubris. Or
maybe he's just trolling??

Verno

Tora wrote:
This is one of tricks used by poor to earn their living in China to ask for
a small sum of money for living. You don't have to give if you don't want
to, in fact you should not give because it gives them wrong idea of earning
money the easy way.

Asking strangers for money is not easy. Try it sometime. Mao Zedong
did it. I tried at Beijing's Summer Palace in 2005, and I picked on
the "westerners" for a few RMB for bus fare thinking it would be an
easy pick. I didn't get any money.


In Singapore, we can see many whitemen are using little toy to trick the
kids in the food court . Their aim is to stir up the desire in kids wanting
to have the little cute toy, then he will ask for high price to make the
parent pay for it.

Japs businessmen also use the many tricks, and they cheat even more money by
making customer pay even more.

"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
ups.com...
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

Like white men using Singapore women for sex to increase their values to
Singapore men?

wrote in message
ups.com...

Tora wrote:
This is one of tricks used by poor to earn their living in China to ask
for
a small sum of money for living. You don't have to give if you don't want
to, in fact you should not give because it gives them wrong idea of
earning
money the easy way.

Asking strangers for money is not easy. Try it sometime. Mao Zedong
did it. I tried at Beijing's Summer Palace in 2005, and I picked on
the "westerners" for a few RMB for bus fare thinking it would be an
easy pick. I didn't get any money.


In Singapore, we can see many whitemen are using little toy to trick the
kids in the food court . Their aim is to stir up the desire in kids
wanting
to have the little cute toy, then he will ask for high price to make the
parent pay for it.

Japs businessmen also use the many tricks, and they cheat even more money
by
making customer pay even more.

"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
ups.com...
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

that is what you do, wet noodle wonton dirty vagina ******* !!!!!


ardeedee wrote:
Like white men using Singapore women for sex to increase their values to
Singapore men?

wrote in message
ups.com...

Tora wrote:
This is one of tricks used by poor to earn their living in China to ask
for
a small sum of money for living. You don't have to give if you don't want
to, in fact you should not give because it gives them wrong idea of
earning
money the easy way.

Asking strangers for money is not easy. Try it sometime. Mao Zedong
did it. I tried at Beijing's Summer Palace in 2005, and I picked on
the "westerners" for a few RMB for bus fare thinking it would be an
easy pick. I didn't get any money.


In Singapore, we can see many whitemen are using little toy to trick the
kids in the food court . Their aim is to stir up the desire in kids
wanting
to have the little cute toy, then he will ask for high price to make the
parent pay for it.

Japs businessmen also use the many tricks, and they cheat even more money
by
making customer pay even more.

"RichAsianKid" wrote in message
ups.com...
I was in Kunming and Li Jiang just last year.

Sample pic of Kunming from the web:
http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~powerk/...g-downtown.JPG

Great cities, great trip. From the pic, obviously Kunming is *not*
exactly your poor rural China, and yet I swear there are all these
*children* and beggars on the streets just hugging your feet chasing
tourists down in desperate poverty! There are some families who release
them to tourists and they go fetch money for them. Unlike some
countries in SE Asia, these people know no shame and never let go until
you'd paid them. Then that's trouble - another group just swarms you.
They are not allowed near the hotels though, so if you just wander
round the immediate vicinity of your hotels you may not see them. But
walk a few blocks away and you'll run into them invariably. More
children beggars than adult beggars actually. Gotta to learn the trade
early!

A casual search on the web, btw, will show people the real China is in
spite of all the self-congratulatory posts by some:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.image?id=6401

See the other side of China:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/3906641.stm

Or more beggars!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...2_world300.jpg

Bottom line: if you've been to China, you'll realize that a lot of
posts or reports of Chinese success is really hype. Hype in the sense
that there is a great disparity of wealth and it's simply wrong to
generalize from a few exceptional wealthy nouveau riche cases at the
top to overall levels of wealth in China. People need a reality check
here and not just romantic fantasy. Why? People should know this in the
interest of truth about China in general, as these are primarily a
*.culture newsgroup, and NOT business newsgroups which would have a
better reason of focussing on the very top and exceptional. And when
travelling it is best not just visit the tourist attractions but go and
see how an ordinary citizen lives his/her life, rather than see a
country through the distorted lens of journalists and the commercial
hype of business media.

Obviously China has improved compared to before. Yes, a very small
fraction of the population *did* make millions and even billions. But
again, the relative successes of a very few in Shanghai and Beijing
often do not trickle down to most poor mainland Chinese. First of all,
unemployment rates for university grads may be as high as 39% according
to a China Youth Daily survey as posted before (1), and this is
consistent with why most mainland Chinese students who study in Hong
Kong choose not to return to mainland because there is little
opportunity - they choose to remain in Hong Kong or go to the West
because of the low earning power in China(2).

After graduation, whether one's employed or not, there's the starting
of family. Why there is such a wave of pregnant Mainland Chinese women
flooding to Hong Kong to anchor their jackpot babies? (3) Why are so
many eager to flood this rich former British crown colony and obtain
Hong Kong citizenship? To get the Hong Kong benefits of course - and
HOng Kong is not exactly known as a very generous provider of welfare
or other social services. But Hong Kong does offer the rule of law,
democracy, and is ranked the richest in the world by net worth per
capita PPP adjusted, or 2nd highest in the world after Japan by net
worth per capita by exchange rates. The abrasive fact remains: the
average Hong Kong citizen is worth more than 66 times that of typical
mainland Chinese. Likewise, the average net worth of a mainland Chinese
is an abysmal $2613 US per capita (US exchange rates) while the average
net worth of a Japanese (highest in the world) is $180,837 - the
average Japanese is worth close to 70 times the average mainland
Chinese etc. (4)

Just look at this pic. This was taken NOT in a hospital maternity ward.
It was taken at the "Chinese Travel Agency" where you obtain a
permit/Visa (valid for 10 years) to go to China! Hmmmm. Look at the
red writing on the right hand side of the pic on the wall - it's the
China travel agency!! And look at the third world nature of things -
how ugly people are dressed etc. (Why was RAK forced to be there? Well,
another story, but just enjoy the pic for now.)

http://i18.tinypic.com/2rna134.jpg

And think of it - the quoted stats from other posts are very damning
even if you look at the top. Though growing, only ~ 0.025% of China's
1.3 billion people have $1 million US or more - what a ridiculously
tiny razor-thin microscopic fraction. (5)

Guys, if you don't believe RAK, just visit China - outside the very
core of Shanghai or Beijing (remember that last scene in Mission
Impossible 3? Rural and undeveloped Shanghai in the core of the city
just outside those skyscrapers to give the movie a nice ending, a very
nice contrast, and contrast that was!!) and perhaps Shenzhen and a few
other places the country and you'll immediately see that most of China
is still essentially rotten. (People say how things have improved, wow,
guess China must be real **** in the 1970s and 80s!)

Travel advice: remember: don't stay in your 5-star hotels - the hotels
are not bad actually (but hot water often remains a problem, and there
are some accusations of cheating and overcharging I heard) and I find
them acceptable - and don't just hog those continental breakfest
buffets and think that's the real China - you won't see the real ugly
China, how the average Chinese lives, if you go on a tour group and
just visit tourist attractions. You'll get a very biased and rosy
picture of China and leave with a very wrong impression of how most of
China still lives.

Who would want to live like an average mainland Chinese mired in abject
poverty? Everyone has their own choice. And some Chinese relics and
sites are nice to visit. But so is that exotic forgotten pristine
island in Thailand for, say, spiritual growth, as to disconnect from a
wired world. Yet most of us would not want to abandon the comforts of
materialistic wealth and technological civilization and live
permanently as a primitive native inhabitant over there.

For most in the first world, China is (still) really not liveable. And
many average mainland Chinese have already voted with their feet (if
they have the resources and power to leave, that is) to escape the
country - or at least to seek an escape hatch in case China messes
things up and turn sour - to live less repressed lives and to spread
their previously clipped wings in a world that offers much better
educational and economic opportunities for themselves and for their
families.

* * *
References:

(1)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_664943.htm
"About 51.5 per cent of the respondents said they had learnt nothing
practical in university and 39.2 per cent said they couldn't land a job
with a bachelor's degree, the survey said."


(2)
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/...04_328261.html
"Only 2 percent of Chinese mainland graduates from Hong Kong
universities returned to the mainland to work in 2006, according to a
survey by the University of Hong Kong."

(3)
http://en.ce.cn/National/Local/20061..._9770882.shtml
"Government statistics show that the number of babies born to mainland
parents in Hong Kong had risen from 620 to more than 10,000 in five
years. Also, some mainland women had not settled their hospital bills,
putting more pressure on the SAR's medical system.

The government generally welcomes tourists, Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee said, but some pregnant mainland women were not coming as
tourists, even though they had valid tourist visas, but to misuse Hong
Kong's public resources. "

(4) Based on UN WIDER 2006 study database:
http://tinyurl.com/yd4hh4

(5)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/stor...945637,00.html
"Yet the Chinese are becoming increasingly well off: according to the
CapGemini Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific wealth report, there are already
320,000 'high net-worth individuals' - those with more than $1m
(£525,000) of net financial assets, excluding their houses - and the
number is growing rapidly. "

just trollimg? are you getting to be senile? he IS a troll !


Vernon North wrote:
In article om,
says...
China has 600 million consumers , not the 1 billion the other
people are talking about .

the other 600 million Chinese who live in the hill side has no
money .

But 600 million consumers are still good enough for any nation


RAK is also making the common mistake of passing opinion about a
snapshot in time rather than looking at the rate of change. There is a
reason why many intelligent, worldly Americans are concerned about the
emergence of China as a powerful economy. As Robert Rubin (former US
Secretary of the Treasury, now Chairman of CitiGroup) put it, the
emergence of China and India as modern economies may be the most
significant economic event since the emergence of the USA, or perhaps
even the industrial revolution. And Rubin has been criticized by some
American commentators of taking China too lightly.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200...twoedged_sword
.php

China certainly has problems, some of them huge. But progress has been
stunningly fast over the past decade, and I can't see any reason why
that rate of improvement won't continue. For example, just 10 years ago
service quality in Chinese retail stores ranged between indifferent and
outright hostile. Now, the service in some Chinese retailers is at least
as good as the average American retail outlet. And the staff lap up
compliments about their service like hungry puppies, bending over
backwards to serve you even better! When was the last time you found
that in the USA?

RAK's posts about China sound more and more like American hubris. Or
maybe he's just trolling??

Verno

In article . com,
says...
just trollimg? are you getting to be senile?

A simple but effective test for senility is whether someone remembers
what "" means, so I'm not the one who is getting to be senile.

Verno



Vernon North wrote:
In article om,
says...
China has 600 million consumers , not the 1 billion the other
people are talking about .

the other 600 million Chinese who live in the hill side has no
money .

But 600 million consumers are still good enough for any nation


RAK is also making the common mistake of passing opinion about a
snapshot in time rather than looking at the rate of change. There is a
reason why many intelligent, worldly Americans are concerned about the
emergence of China as a powerful economy. As Robert Rubin (former US
Secretary of the Treasury, now Chairman of CitiGroup) put it, the
emergence of China and India as modern economies may be the most
significant economic event since the emergence of the USA, or perhaps
even the industrial revolution. And Rubin has been criticized by some
American commentators of taking China too lightly.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200...twoedged_sword
.php

China certainly has problems, some of them huge. But progress has been
stunningly fast over the past decade, and I can't see any reason why
that rate of improvement won't continue. For example, just 10 years ago
service quality in Chinese retail stores ranged between indifferent and
outright hostile. Now, the service in some Chinese retailers is at least
as good as the average American retail outlet. And the staff lap up
compliments about their service like hungry puppies, bending over
backwards to serve you even better! When was the last time you found
that in the USA?

RAK's posts about China sound more and more like American hubris. Or
maybe he's just trolling??

Verno