China the Beautiful

bodawei

April 21, 2010, 01:36 PM posted in General Discussion

I think of China as America with beautiful writing

Why? The people of both countries ..

a) appear to be vying for superpower status (one on the way down one on the way up?)

b) occupy a large area of the Earth's surface

c) accommodate a wide range of behaviours deemed normal

d) obsess about ‘bigness' (eg. the population of cities - it is a point of pride to come from a large city, or come from a country hosting many large cities, and the numbers might be a tiny bit exaggerated)

e) use a voting system that remains a mystery to the rest of the world

f) speak a language that spends far too much time on the letter ‘r'

g) take comfort in a level of self belief that confounds lesser peoples

h) eat a lot of corn

i) [despite h] above] have a younger generation growing up rather on the obese side (not that there is anything much wrong with that)

j) tolerate a health care system that is inequitable at best

k) reject the bicycle as a practical form of transport

At a personal level I find both societies inscrutable - I barely understand the culture of either country (which is my defence for the above list.) Can poddies add to my list (or more likely tear it to shreds?)

zhenlijiang

March 16, 2010, 09:39 AM

I'd be interested to hear what anyone from or familiar with Russia would have to say.

bodawei

Actually Canada would also tick off a few of the boxes (except maybe ambitions as a superpower, and definitely the state of the health system?) Actually I think of Canada as Australia with Winters.

I don't know enough about Russia to make fun of it.

bodawei

March 16, 2010, 12:36 PM

Actually Canada would also tick off a few of the boxes (except maybe ambitions as a superpower, and definitely the state of the health system?) Actually I think of Canada as Australia with Winters.

I don't know enough about Russia to make fun of it.

Tal

April 21, 2010, 02:04 PM

bodawei, don't take the lack of responsiveness to heart. Speaking just for me, this is one of those posts that I tend to pass over nowadays simply because I can't spare the time, (I have a 1-year old running around day and night these days and find it difficult enough to find time to go through the latest lessons.) I didn't even notice this the first time.

I'd like to say though that I find your suggestion (that the US and China are intrinsically similar) rather absurd, but your list is quite amusing. I've never been to the US actually, but I don't see how you can possibly suggest it's just like China. Wouldn't your daughter immediately tell you that you can get 'nice things and shampoo' in the US, 呵呵.

The idea that China could be a US style superpower is way off the mark.

xiaophil

April 21, 2010, 02:35 PM

Well, I'm an American, and recently I made a post that asked poddies to say why they liked China, and like yours, it got very little response. The point being, I'm an American, and I like China.

I don't find the two to be too similar, though. In fact, that is one reason I like China--it seems exotic to me. As you know, I am critical of China sometimes, but I am also critical of my own country. (America is at least half the worlds punching bag, so I don't mind throwing my own punches.) There are two reasons I prefer America over China. One, she is my country. Two, she is a democracy. (I can hear snickering... electoral system, Florida recount and so on, but still, the person the people wants in most of the thousands of elections is the person the people chose.)

That said, I greatly admire the way China has at amazing speed transformed from one of the poorest countries to at least one of the most powerful ones, and speadily richer by the day.

I wish I could debate you on some of the points above, but I am really afraid I will get sucked into it too far.

China the Beautiful

bodawei

zhenlijiang

bodawei

bodawei

Tal

xiaophil

xiaophil

xiaophil

jasonchen1988

jasonchen1988