Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

I recently had the opportunity to holiday in China for over 3 weeks and HK for 3 or 4 days. I didn't appreciate this country when younger, but this really is a nation with many faces.

I live in Melbourne, Australia and have done so for 15+ years (I'm 24, just graduated).

I didn't hit up like tourist haunts cos they're basically alike (nightclubs, bars etc) but instead stayed with my grandparents, so fire away about stuff you are curious about about common life in China - stuff like food, living standards, the economy, "free-market Communism" etc.

I'll try to answer your queries in a concise and timely manner.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

Various tidbits:

#1: in most public toilets, including places like McDonalds and KFC, you'd have to squat to poop

#2: there is an exam for further education once you reach the end of year 9, or your 3rd year of high school. The failure rate is high and the costs to continue schooling exhobirant. This is presumably why I only ever get served by cute chicks that would most certainly be jailbait in any place that attempts to "Western" like cafes or steakhouses.

#3: a popular drink sold widely in Fuzhou (north of HK/Taiwan, just south of Shanghai, located right along the eastern seaboard) is olive juice, which is basically the consistency and appearance of apple juice but with no apples, but olives. I like it.

#4: apparently the going rate for a massage/hooker in a hotel is $100 RMB, which is like ~US$13. I did not take her up.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

It's sooooooooooooooooooo darn HUDGE!

What spots would you reccomend (outside the big touristy traps like the great wall) to get a "taste of different parts" of CHina on say a 2 week visit. (I'm in Thailand so the jump isn't too far for me.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

NewTeaBag,

for all the hustle and bustle of the major cities, a little further inland reveals truly beautiful mountain-sides. I went to Wuyi Mountain during my trip, one of the 4 major UNESCO listed heritage sites in China. Just gorgeous, you could take a barge along the river in the morning and see the mountainside from the water. You could climb various peaks and sample the local tea which is really really excellent. The star attraction is undoubtedly the beautiful views from the mountains. There is now a genuine developed township, with tons of hotels and restaurants. Stay in the cheap places and you could have a great time for not much at all. The shops in the mountains itself are pretty expensive though.

I assume the 3 other world heritage sites are similar, though I understand Wuyi Mountain is the smallest in scale.

It was a 5 hr one-way train trip from Fuzhou (the capital of Fujian province).

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

What are your thoughts in regards to the political climate amongst the population? Your grandparents must be really interesting to talk to since they have lived through so much.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
How do I buy chinese stocks?

[/ QUOTE ]

Make a trading account with pretty much any HK bank, they now allow mainland stock trading. I was in HK, made an account and wired in like A$10k in a matter of about 10 minutes. You just need your passport and driver's license for ID. It takes 3 days for the account to clear though.

The "rake" or brokeage fee is pretty high IMO, 0.35% for each transaction but with the bull market the way it is who cares I guess.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
What are your thoughts in regards to the political climate amongst the population? Your grandparents must be really interesting to talk to since they have lived through so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

Everyone is just trying to go along in the daily lives. While personally I've had an uncle under house arrest without charge for a few years, stuff like that is almost accepted as the cost of doing business and building relationships. He's now out and freely buying into gaming floors in Macau.

My thoughts are that there is going to a huge rise in the number of the educated middle-class over the coming decade, and they are going to form families and have children it is going to prove incredibly difficult to provide for their wants without isolating the rural poor. It is going to be impossible for every middle class family to own a car without f'ing up what is already a very chaotic and messy roads system.

As far as I can tell, there are no politics in China. The Communist Party is in charge, and that's really that. Dissent from public figures like actors, directors, authors, playwrights and artists are very quickly clamped down. In general the people are just going about their daily lives in this free-market economy and not interested in Grand Ideals.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

whats the RE market like in australia? is it in shambles like the US?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
whats the RE market like in australia? is it in shambles like the US?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think there has been oversupply in mid-price apartments around the CBD in Melbourne, but demand for residential housing in suburbs near the city have been strong for a long time now. In certain suburbs what land you could've bought for 80k 10 years ago is now worth 500k+ which obviously means you're beating the market for a fair clip [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] There has been a rapid gentrification of previously unpopular residential suburbs as industrial towns become residential towns as work move offshore.

The thing is that interest rates are basically at historical lows, but in relative world terms Australia actually has a very high interest rate.

I would have to do more investigation regarding default rates on mortgages, haven't done much homework in this area cos I'm too poor to invest in RE anyway.

BTW: ask me about China

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

Zeestein,

OT but, what part of Melbourne? I moved down here (again) about 2 months ago. I also lived in China for 5 months at start of 2007.

Ever go down to Crown?

China questions now:

What city were you in?

Thoughts on Mao?

How economically and politically powerful do you believe China will be in the next 25 years?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
How do I buy chinese stocks?

[/ QUOTE ]

You might consider FXI, which is an ETF based on the Xinhua China 25 index. There are also some very good mutual funds that focus exclusively on China. MCHFX is probably the best of the lot of them.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

How bad is the pollution in China in the areas you visited?
What places did you stay in, were they hotels or whatever? What was the pricing like for your lodgings?
Could you give us a general indication of prices for common staples?
What language did you speak whilst you were there?
What television channels did you see most people watching (apart from CCTV)?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

I visited china and was struck by the apparent high regard they still hold Chairman Mao in - It seemed like everyone had been brainwashed.
- Do they really still revere him or is this just a facade?
- Are people aware of some of the darker sides of his regime?
- Was he a better leader than most in the west would believe?

Also why do people spit so much?
How many instant cup noodles are eaten each year? (They were awesome)

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

A friend of mine has hinted at opening a bar in Shanghai in the new year and asked me to go over and help him. How awesome would this be (if it happened)?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
Zeestein,

OT but, what part of Melbourne? I moved down here (again) about 2 months ago. I also lived in China for 5 months at start of 2007.

Ever go down to Crown?

China questions now:

What city were you in?

Thoughts on Mao?

How economically and politically powerful do you believe China will be in the next 25 years?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I used to go to Crown all the time when I first started playing, then I got good @ t3h unlimited betting 6 or shorter online Hold-Them pokerz, and felt really really angry about the rake I've paid in relation to my bankroll. Now not so much, also I ran the worst in my life, literally 000's:1 when I dropped like 10k in the 5-10 game like ages ago. I lost like a 80%, 96%, 92% and 96% and a few flips for 150bb+ each time, then just regular not making draws etc. Not my biggest loss, but def closest to suicide watch!

If you're this young guy that for some reason wears sharp sportjacket/suits with dress pants and has/had an Asian gf, I definitely remember you (I used to be good friends with you gf's ex).

2. I was in Fuzhou. My grandparents are basically loaded in Chinese terms, I lived with them mostly.

3. Chairman Mao is an ideologue. You can easily equate his disregard or willful ignorance of the human cost of his social programs with many other historical figures, Stalin, Kissinger, Rumfield, Cheney, Dubya, the other Bush. The difference is that Mao kinda had the capacity and did f' up the industralization and modernization of a nation of a billion people, and directly contributed to the deaths of millions. He had good intentions though.

4. Oh man, everyone in the West think China is on the verge of like busting a cap in the rest of the world. The ruling Communist Party have a ton more stuff to sort out before that ever happens. Imagine the challenges that national infrastructure face when 500 million reolcoate from rural farming villages in the centre and western China to coastal industralized cities on the Eastern seaboard. Imagine the potential instability of the stock market bubble popping loudly (it's clearly a bubble) when more and more of China's middle-class are investing their liquid fortune into the stock market. Imagine rising inequality, only there's going to be 600-700 disenchanted and disenfranised urban and rural poor. Imagine a housing

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
How bad is the pollution in China in the areas you visited?
What places did you stay in, were they hotels or whatever? What was the pricing like for your lodgings?
Could you give us a general indication of prices for common staples?
What language did you speak whilst you were there?
What television channels did you see most people watching (apart from CCTV)?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I been to Shanghai, HK, Guangdong, Xiamen, Fuzhou. I'll disregard the tourist-Mountains. The air up there are fine. From best to worst is probably Xiamen, Fuzhou, HK, Guangdong and then Shanghai. I swear I need a breathing mask just to walk around in Shanghai. There simply cannot be cars for every household in a nation with hundreds of millions of the middle-class. There is no enforcement on basically any level of world-class legislative enviromental schemes either.

2. Like I said earlier, I stayed with my grandparents mostly who lived in this country villa in a compound complete with security gates. I did stay in a hotel for a couple of nights, and was propositioned within like 20 seconds for massage/hookerage by some chick. I think its cos she loves me. The price was 80 RMB/night (~US$11) for a double bed, with TV and bathroom.

3. Put it this way, if I wanted to eat 3 decent meals for US$2, I could. I could just as easily spend like US$20 for a crappy steak in trendier more western places too. There is a definite two-tier economy. Chinese food are generally way cheaper/better value than western stuff.

4. I'm functionally fluent in Mandarin, and the local dialect. The former is more widely used.

5. Dunno, I only watched TV for sports ala sawker. Me and my sister bought a ton of cheapass DVDs. My grandpa watch TV serials and TV galas (Oct 1st - 7th was China's celebration of the installation of Communist rule, and there was a bunch of these gala things on). Strangely there are also some realtiy TV in dubbed Chinese like Project Runway.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
A friend of mine has hinted at opening a bar in Shanghai in the new year and asked me to go over and help him. How awesome would this be (if it happened)?

[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming you're a single young white guy, I would dare say you would get to have lots of sex if you wanted to with lithe smooth-skined small-chested Chinese girls. The language will be a problem though, but regular hos are vv cheap.

The pay would be pretty crap when thought in US real terms, but stuff is also tons cheaper.

Assuming you're not going to be upset that China is actualy not like the US at all (!!!), I'd give it like 8 on the Awesome-O-Meter!

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

they eat dogs in some areas. more than you would think too. so sick.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

suzy,

you mom eats dog. dogs eat your mom. holy man

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

Hey OP a few more questions!
Do you know if there are any poker games in China? Did you play in any?

How much power do provincial or municipal government authorities have compared with central government?

What are the living standards for urban poor (bottom 30-40% of urban households)? Do they have white goods (fridge, TV, microwave)

How much did the pork scarcity affect people?

Is price inflation for staples a serious concern?

How many people know about the stock market? What's the opinion on capital controls liberalization (dudes being able to buy HK shares through Tianjin?)

Thanks!

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

wtf is sick about eating dogs? when compared to smarter animals like pigs.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

I have eaten dog in China on numerous times, I find it very nice, if anyone has any questions about some other stuff like playing poker, living or studying there I can answer but just pm me.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
wtf is sick about eating dogs? when compared to smarter animals like pigs.

[/ QUOTE ]
The problem is that we selectively bred dogs for looking cute/being loyal/being useful in some way (hunting, searching for truffles etc). We selectively bred pigs for better tasting/more meat. Therefore, we have a creature that we can relate to better vs. one we cannot, so we naturally don't want people eating dogs.

I don't have a problem with it on an intellectual level, but it's bad on an emotional level and that's what ultimately tells us what to do.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hey OP a few more questions!
Do you know if there are any poker games in China? Did you play in any?

How much power do provincial or municipal government authorities have compared with central government?

What are the living standards for urban poor (bottom 30-40% of urban households)? Do they have white goods (fridge, TV, microwave)

How much did the pork scarcity affect people?

Is price inflation for staples a serious concern?

How many people know about the stock market? What's the opinion on capital controls liberalization (dudes being able to buy HK shares through Tianjin?)

Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I wish, sigh.

2. Beijing issues the policy directive, but often municipal branch just ignores those edicts. Corruption and cronyism is a huge problem despite high profile cases of guilty guys being executed. It is impossible for Beijing to track the thousands of branches of local government without public whistleblowing from neighbouring provinces, and there often just ins't the incentive for neighbouring province leaders to do so.

3. yes, but think 2nd hand 15" TVs and small delapidated fridges. There are households without whitegoods. You don't get the feeling that everyone is out to hustle everyone else though, people truck along just fine.

4. poorer households don't really have meat in any great volume anyway. Seafoods is ridiculous cheap. Live prawns are like US$1.5/pound. As a % of income, raw staple prices aren't that big a deal.

5. everyone knows about the stock market, and want to be in it. It doesn't really follow the rules, the market rose sharply after the last 2 interest rate hikes. Everyone wants in.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

can you own land?

can you own a condo?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How bad is the pollution in China in the areas you visited?
What places did you stay in, were they hotels or whatever? What was the pricing like for your lodgings?
Could you give us a general indication of prices for common staples?
What language did you speak whilst you were there?
What television channels did you see most people watching (apart from CCTV)?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I been to Shanghai, HK, Guangdong, Xiamen, Fuzhou. I'll disregard the tourist-Mountains. The air up there are fine. From best to worst is probably Xiamen, Fuzhou, HK, Guangdong and then Shanghai. I swear I need a breathing mask just to walk around in Shanghai. There simply cannot be cars for every household in a nation with hundreds of millions of the middle-class. There is no enforcement on basically any level of world-class legislative enviromental schemes either.


[/ QUOTE ]


Here is an example of a 'sunny day' in Shanghai from my last visit...

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/3824/img0240rn6.jpg


Looking straight up, you could see blue sky [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
can you own land?

can you own a condo?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes

yes

Bytor, Shanghai sux.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

bytor,
you lived very close to gubei?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
can you own land?

can you own a condo?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes

yes

Bytor, Shanghai sux.

[/ QUOTE ]
wow, really? i am surprised about being able to own land.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
bytor,
you lived very close to gubei?

[/ QUOTE ]

no, my wife is from Shanghai

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
wtf is sick about eating dogs? when compared to smarter animals like pigs.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think eating pigs is bad too.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/ar..._of_50000_dogs/

is this ok too? can you imagine walking your dog and someone comes and beats your dog with a baseball bat? i also read in another article how they buried most of them alive.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

China seems to have a smeared image. I imagine a lot of it is exaggerated. But the problems stem from the shear size and number of people.

Is it possible to fix the country's problems without exerting extremity?

How do you think the government is doing right now? Do you believe that the people will eventually find their own freedoms without intervention?

I am led to understand that economically, the problem stems from a mix of communism and capitalism. Do you believe that Communism is going away?

What do you mean, exactly, when you say that Mao had good intentions?

That's all for now, but I have plenty more questions.

Olympics 2008: Are you going?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
can you own land?

can you own a condo?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes

yes

Bytor, Shanghai sux.

[/ QUOTE ]
wow, really? i am surprised about being able to own land.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe this is correct you will need a chinese co-signer. Ofcourse there are invariably loop holes, but it is not so simple, that is my understanding.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

[ QUOTE ]
China seems to have a smeared image. I imagine a lot of it is exaggerated. But the problems stem from the shear size and number of people.

Is it possible to fix the country's problems without exerting extremity?

How do you think the government is doing right now? Do you believe that the people will eventually find their own freedoms without intervention?

I am led to understand that economically, the problem stems from a mix of communism and capitalism. Do you believe that Communism is going away?

What do you mean, exactly, when you say that Mao had good intentions?

That's all for now, but I have plenty more questions.

Olympics 2008: Are you going?

[/ QUOTE ]

With regards to China's current leadership it's interesting to note that despite the fact Hu is in President many of the key positions are still held by Jiang Zemin's appointees. The National Congress which is coming up soon is seen as somewhat of a turning point in Hu's Presidential career as the key positions will now be "his" people. And the following five years will reflect most strongly on how his term is judged.

Hu himself was was a party secretary out in the Tibet, so on the one hand has a very real concern and understanding of the inequalities between the richer coastal provinces and central and western China. However part of his rise to power was also as a result of his hardline approach to uprisings, most notably in 89' when monks in Tibet were beaten to death much like in Burma.

I think, though maybe just hope, that Hu and the current Chinese political culture is one of openness and honesty at the highest levels, however I believe corruption at the provincial, city and town levels of government is seriously underestimated and a national approach to small scale corruption is what the Chinese desperately need.

The CPC will not let communism die, Hu especially has seen that throwing open the doors like Jiang did actually has some very devestating consequences, I expect China's social welfare to be an important goal in the next 5-10yrs.

Mao was good because he unified a country that was historically not particularly stable. There's more to write on him, but my brain isn't good at remembering facts and I'd have to go and dig around old books to make a case. I don't think anyone can say that the great leap forward wasn't a horrible misguided failure, but the man and the vision was at the beginning inspiring.

I hope this answers some questions and honestly I don't know much I just have a superficial understanding of some very complicated ideas.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

I might be going to the olympics but the tickets are well and truely on sale and I have no girlfriend there any more and have lost a little bit of my passion for returning there very quickly but I hope to spend another two years or so there in my later twenties after staying in some other parts of the world. But I still think about the country almost everyday and miss it alot at times.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

I will probably read on Mao in my own time. I guess this doesn't compare really, but I know someone from Russia who will tell you why Stalin and Lenon are to be appreciated. As an American, it is hard to wrap my brain around this.

Are you familiar with Qiu Xiaolong? I have read his books, and he has an interesting style that balances appreciation and brutal honesty about his own country. I find Chinese books to be fascinating for a glimpse into a different outlook and psychology. Perhaps you could expand on some of these?

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

Okay a few questions. How popular is soccer there? Aren't they really bad, how would I go about playing professional soccer in China?

I want to live in China at some point in the future (so far I went there for 2 weeks on a kung fu trip with my school from MA, and also studied intensive Chinese at college for 1 year). What advice do you have on this? I guess my plan right now is to go to Beijing, find a langauge school and hang out there for a few weeks, then do the same in Shanghai, and then take it from there.

Why is it that Chinese people are so cool? I hate making sweeping statemnets about a people or place that are illogical, but I really have to say I like Chinese people the most. They seem straight forward and down to earth to me. I think it might have something to do with the fact that a lot of Chinese have lived in poverty and went through hard times with Mao and stuff. It's my not well thought out theory that people that have suffered come out as people I like. As opposed to spoiled brats.

Re: Ask me about China - a Chinese-born Foreigner\'s Impression
 

bump