Panda in Shenzhen Zoo Sick, Hungry & Exploited

26 Comments

1. MISSING COMMENTS

   Some posts were deleted by accident this morning and I was force to reload an old backup of the website. The website has been very slow, so I have spend the last 6-7 hours trying to fix everything. Before I reload the old backup database, I tried to save most of the comments for the new posts but I know some comments have been lost. Here are the comments I saved:

   bam
   Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 10:37 pm

   What has the world come to when animals are mistreated in China?

   shanghaizoo
   Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 11:35 pm

   i’m not surprised. i’ve been to shanghai zoo last week and it was the same, if not worse. one very sad looking panda in a very small and dirty cage. shame on them! so much for a “national trasure”

   哈哈哈
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 1:19 am

   When I was in Sichuan I went to a horrifying zoo; one of the animals there was a bear in a pit and to make money the zoo literally had a menu of animals, you could pay them and they would feed that animal to the bear. The bigger the more expensive, of course. What does it say about a people when watching animals get ripped to pieces is entertainment that you pay for? It’s not just Sichuan, because on the other side of the country in Heilongjiang they have a Siberian Tiger reserve that has the same thing. Also, the fact these types of business models exist serve to prove that there is definitely an active market for these things. Before you fenqing and panda-lovers get your panties in a wad and point out animal abuses in the West through grit teeth, remember that just because a sin happens elsewhere in the world doesn’t mean it absolves the guilt of China doing it, nor does it cancel out one’s ability to criticize it. ;D

   MLIC
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 1:40 am

   This is so sad!!! Isn’t there an international organization that deals with these sort of things???

   http://mylifeiscrap.com

   USTCer
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 4:25 am

   This is disgusting. I believe there’s plenty of funding to protect panda, so how come the zoo worker treat panda like this?

   @ 哈哈哈

   You lost your sense after the “Before you fenqing..” sentence. Can you find a single translated comment that supports the mistreat or use foreign abuse as an excuse? Don’t stereotype a country and its people. It’s funny you used the word fenqing since your comments make you fit into that category pretty well: fenqing attack everything blindly because of their childish(qing) angry(fen) mood.

   jayman
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 5:05 am

   It is so very expensive to keep pandas. There are only four zoos here that have any. They have to pay China $1 million a year and any profits to borrow the animals. The only way they can afford it is to take donations, at the zoo and on the internet. They also find corporate sponsorships to help bring the cost down. Even then each zoo loses about $4 million a year on care and feeding.

   It might be that Shenzhen just doesn’t have the money to properly care for Yongba. Maybe that’s why they try so hard to sell souvenirs.

   Samael
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 7:00 am

   lack of regulation/enforcement = lack of requirement for qualification = lack of education and qualification = anyone can become a keeper = animal abuse

   once the men at the top fix all the other crap, maybe they will come around to the zoos.

   now quit bitching noobs.

   哈哈哈
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 8:27 am

   @USTCer

   First of all, when does comments from a blog count as a proper guage of a social phenomenon? That’s a stupid thing to think of. Just because comments on that particular post show an outpouring of disapproval against the treatment of this panda doesn’t mean that animal abuse in China *isn’t* a large-scale social problem enabled by the apathy of most Chinese people. You could find blog comments on any number of blog posts that could depict the Chinese people in any number of ways (except, of course, critical of the government because those get deleted). I would think someone like you would be more intelligent than to suggest individuals use blog comments to inform their opinions on Chinese culture, because if you really subscribe to that belief I could “prove” to you with your own standards that the Chinese are a bunch of mindless nationalist idiots; they’re not, but they could be proven so by your own standards.

   No, I don’t use blog comments to sense out social phenomenon. I try to find more concrete indicators, one of which I wrote about in my comment, and you failed to address.

   Like I said above, the fact that it seems to be a regular business practice for Chinese zoos to offer the spectacle of predatory animals ripping other animals to pieces in front of whoever pays – be it adult or child – definitely means that there is something wrong with Chinese cultural beliefs on animals. We have to recall that much of China runs on a market system and the mere existence of “Pay to watch animal ripped to shreds” business plans across the country means that there are enough people in this country who are buying this service to make it profitable. Granted, you may be tempted to say “Well, not EVERYONE is paying to see a lamb get ripped to shreds by a starved bear,” but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that this is a sustainable business model and therefore there are enough people supporting it and “enough” has to be a lot for it to be operating all over China – even in a place as well funded as the Siberian Tiger reserve in Harbin. Secondly, and more importantly, the existence of this type of business means there isn’t enough social pressure from the silent majority at large to shut this horrid type of business down. In other words, not enough people care. Sure, when a bunch of super duper cute cats are rounded up in Nanjing and sent to be eaten in Guangdong, a bunch of college students try to protest – admirable, in one sense, but still disappointing because obviously forces profiting from the eating of cats managed to reschedule the shipment of cats to avoid a run in with the protesters – profits prevail. Sure, a bunch of people get indignant at the treatment of a panda, but it’s the national animal, a symbol of national pride. But it shouldn’t be about cute kitty cats or respecting the national symbol, there should be a shared, cultural belief that animals shouldn’t be treated like shit, and China has a long, long way to go. Sure, this type of mentality takes a very long time to develop and even in the West only a few decades ago things were pretty bad and even today the raising of commercial animals such as pigs and cows is pretty inhumane, but that doesn’t eliminate my right to puzzle at why such a business exists in China.

   USTCer, you are a fenqing. First of all, you seem to have a tendency to immediately dimiss anything negative a foreigner says about China as bashing. Secondly, just because my tone is snarky and sarcastic you think that negates the substance of my observations. Both of these are wrong. Foreigners have every right to criticize China, and they can do so in whatever tone they want. Likewise, Chinese people have every right to criticize, say, America, and do so in whatever tone they want. I hold this belief, perhaps because I was educated in a Western system and taught that all arguments should be heard and none should be silenced, that this is the ideal we should stive for.You should respect that right, as I do, on all sides, and analyze arguments based on their content, irregardless of tone.

   Adam
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 8:28 am

   My zoo in California has pandas and has had some success in breeding them. The pit they stay in is pretty awesome, with lots of bamboo, plants and space. However their nice arrangements mean that if you go see them they will almost always be hiding somewhere by themselves. Its better that way i guess. China seems overdue for better regulation or public pressure on animal abuse.

   amerikkkan
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 8:45 am

   never forget that mexico was the first to have panda kids, chinese vets where very idiots, while mexican vets invented special food and cares for them, china gave 2 pandas to mexico in 1975 and they had so many pandas, that they had to return some pandas to china, and of course all the knowledge to take care of them, seems that the bread they eat is a mexican recipe, but they also invented a special drink, also you will never see them asking form money to take pictures with pandas, if you are lucky and you find them outside thats all, but if any of those pandas are a gift from Mexico, and they heard about this, they could ask the pandas for return, and never forget that if you can see a panda in a zoo, is thanks to mexico, because chinese, american and any other zoos with pandas, just had them some time and then they died, because they didnt know how to take care of pandas.

   Peteryang
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 9:44 am

   Beijing Zoo is the only one I know of that treats animals right, because their stuff are morally and professionally competent at maintaining non-human’s well being and its an iconic place of china, the rest I’ve been to, including small ones in beijing and other cities, well, they simply build some pens and throw whatever in, then occasionally drop some raw ribs or carrot, so animals are worse off in these places than in the wilderness.

   Swiss James
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 9:57 am

   Am I the only one who read that and thought

   “Wow, only 10RMB to get your photo taken with a Panda? Cool”

   ?

   fireworks
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 9:58 am

   @Samael

   I think you are getting on the right track. Poor regulatory controls and lack of education and more importantly ON THE JOB TRAINING for handling animals.

   It will help if the people are properly trained, educated and paid appropriately.

   When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!

   santa
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:07 am

   Well is this a surprise to anyone who has been in China and seen how people treat animals and each other? 5000 years of civilization my ass

   PEYE
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:10 am

   Where is Shenzhen’s elite. All the people in luxury cars, fancy offices and condos. Shame on you all for letting a national treasure like this be treated in this way.

   USTCer
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:30 am

   @ 哈哈哈

   Find my ‘tendency to immediately dimiss anything negative a foreigner says about China’? Hey I didn’t deny anything about the part of your comment before the “Before” sentence. It’s the second part of your comment that looks funny to me that you think people would use foreign abuse to justify their own faults to animals, and I wanted to say something. Yes, you don’t take “blog comments to sense out social phenomenon” but why take fenqing’s words that seriously? The word fenqing is more about ability of reasoning rather than political view point (the biggest role model for fenqing, Lu Xun, is anti government and against unhealthy part of Chinese tradition).

   Peteryang
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 12:45 pm

   @ustcer

   I never knew 鲁迅 is role model for fenqings, in fact fenqings don’t deserve to be his fans. Mr. Lu had the courage to voice and stand up against corrupt government that sold china to foreign powers and then trashed its own people, this act alone is beyond impossible for fenqings to, shall we say, imitate.

   and he was full of reasoning and logic, which is another virtue fenqings fail catastrophically.

   Peteryang
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 12:47 pm

   and how do you add an avatar??

   Kai
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 1:21 pm

   @ Swiss James:

   I did. LoL. I heard of another place that lets you hug a panda but I forgot how much it cost. Something astronomical, and I bet it was because it was a foreigner.

   @ Peteryang:

   Go to gravatar.com, register, and upload your avatar. The avatar is associated with the e-mail you use when commenting, and should show up if the blog is set up for showing Gravatars. This one is.

   Michael
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   And that is how the national symbol of China is treated in the Shenzhen Park. Just as bad, if not worse, are the ostriches at the very same park that have less than 50% of their feathers. And alligators in swimming in filth.

   paul tergeist
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 3:07 pm

   Nothing new here, typical chinese zoo. Chinese are known to abuse animals for their entertainment.
   And typical chinese reaction too, hypocritical indignation when last week nobody saw any problem with treating cats as worthless living food.
   What’s the difference between a panda and a cat ? whoever says the number should consider the number of chinese people in earth human population.

   Mike
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 3:26 pm

   I actually work for a zoo in China. This is normal. There are only one or two zoos in China that actually care about animals. Most zoos still tell you how the animals are best cooked or used in Chinese medicine.

   Peteryang
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 4:14 pm

   thanks kai!

   哈哈哈
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 5:14 pm

   @USTCer

   I take fenqing’s word’s seriously becuse the PRC is not a democracy. There are thousands of vital distinctions between democracies and non-democracies. One of these vital distinctions is that in a democracy the ruling power is gains and maintains power by appealing to a majority of the populace. In a non-democracy, the ruling power gains power usually through dubious means and maintains it by preserving stability at all costs.

   In many contexts, for a non-democracy, “preserving stability” does line up with “appealing to the majority.” However, this is not always the case. A non-democratic government has to pay far, far more attention to the extreme fringes of society than a democratic government because the fringes of the society are more capable of causing unrest in a non-democratic one than a democratic one. First of all, and most obviously, in a non-democratic government there is no outlet of expression for extremist sentiments and so fringes on both sides – be they ultra-nationalist fenqing on one hand or disenfranchised, stripped-of-their-ancestral land farmers, can only made their voice heard by rocking the boat. Hard (see thousands of protests every year by disgruntled farmers, see 2005 anti-Japanese riots). Secondly, in a democratic government the political clout of extremists is blunted by the fact that the “silent majority,” your “average Joe,” has the power to vote and to influence political affairs. This is conspicuously absent in China. Cozy, comfortable middle class Chinese citizens who are not fenqing may not hold nationalist ideals but they also have no political influence whatsoever and so they are of no interest to the government in terms of political direction or ideological agendas. The government is only interested in its various constiuencies ability or non-ability to cause instability. The Party knows that middle class, educated citizens will not resort to instability as long as they’re given continued economic prosperity. The Party knows that farmers won’t cause social instability as long as they give enough concessions or as long as the farmers remain too poor or unorganized to be able to assemble. Most importantly, the Party knows the fenqing won’t become a destabilizing factor as long as the fenqing *believe* the party represents its interests and the interests of China. Herein lies the problem. The Party has to take the fenqing seriously. I believe in Chinese they even have a saying about nationalism, I don’t remember it perfectly but something like, “Once you have started riding the tiger it is difficult to get off without being eaten.” This Chinese-originated observation of nationalism in modern China reflects how even the Chinese themselves recognize nationalism’s disproportionate role in national politics. Again, the Anti-Japanese riots are a perfect example of this. The government had a sort of shaky, ambivalent role towards the riots. On one hand, by allowing them to happen the government was happy to see anger vented at Japan and not them. On the other hand when it got too ridiculous they had to move in. It’s difficult to see sometimes whether or not the government controls welling nationalist sentiment or welling nationalist sentiment controls the government.

   Here’s a summary and a simplification. Democracies are about “appealing to the masses,” and so the government has to stand somewhere in the middle of the national political spectrum. Non-democracies are about “maintaining stability” at all costs – after all, look at the motto of Hu Jintao’s presidency, “Harmonious Society.” This produces an opposite focus where the middle is neglected because they have no voting power and the extremes are paid disproportionate attention because they are the far liklier sources of instability.

   And thus, I pay close attention to the fenqing. Many of these fenqing are well educated and have close connections to the communist party. In modern China, the fact is that well educated Chinese individual who is NOT a fenqing would rather go into business or start an IT firm or something like than go into the government. Those educated individuals who still take socialist values seriously – many of whom are fenqing – are those in line to become the next leaders of China. You may say a majority of Chinese individuals are not fenqing. But China is not a democracy. If it were, than what the majority thought would matter. But it’s not. In a non-demoracy, as far as political leverage is concerned, the extremes are more important. Therefore I pay close attention to the extremes, like discontent Uyghurs and Tibetans, landless farmers, migrant workers, and of course, vocal fenqing. The people in the middle are following Deng Xiaoping’s religious tenent “To get rich is glorious” and most of them don’t give a damn about politics.

   Samael
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 5:42 pm

   i thought this ‘are they brainwashed or is it really what they think?’ debate has been covered and settled quite well in another thread somewhere.

   i say this because theres so many holes in 哈哈哈’s posts that you could write EPIC essays rivalling YC’s best efforts.

   i am super tempted but i know it would just drag on into another forum fight…maybe someone new can take this one up?

   skljfsadopif
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:31 pm

   I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading the post knowing what was coming. I guess in a country where people take pleasure eating pets, animal abuse doesn’t seem so bad to the multitude. Certain humans disgust me! My new year’s resolution to God: please bring more tsunamis, earth quakes, and volcano eruptions to earth. I want armageddon. Now!

   Alex
   Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 11:22 pm

   I guess you could say this post really pandars to the audience’s emotions

   riceagain
   Friday, January 9, 2009 at 12:03 am

   In China, what use is an animal if you can’t eat it or make money from it?

   Swiss James
   Friday, January 9, 2009 at 3:30 am

   Yeah I was so shocked at the pictures of the poor Panda that I nearly dropped my ham sandwich.

   How do we insert those rolly eye emoticons?
   # 30 USTCer
   Friday, January 9, 2009 at 8:56 am

   @ 哈哈哈

   You are exaggerating the ‘vital distinctions’ between democracy and non-democracy. Check out democratic countries around the world, voting doesn’t solve all problems and there are still cases that people are fooled by the one they selected. Will democracy solve China’s problems? At least in this animal abuse case, I don’t think so. It’s wake-up of social awareness of animal rights and government regulation that is lacked. The former is more important since without it, the majority of Guangdongness still vote their leaders who eat cats. Thus, I see the translated comments and other blog posts like the girl protecting eating cats one as positive signs because they definitely make people reflect on their traditional way to treat animals.

   There are also many misunderstandings about Chinese society in your last comment but I will leave them alone since I don’t want to fall into the class that have “tendency to immediately dimiss anything negative a foreigner says about China” :)

   哈哈哈
   Friday, January 9, 2009 at 10:59 am

   @USCTcer

   Typical response 1: pointing to failed democracies. First of all, you’re doing the typical defensive, non-thinking Chinese reaction: as soon as the word democracy comes up, your feelings get hurt (I’m using this phrase sarcastically). Many individuals I speak with in this country automatically shutdown to the conversation as soon as the word democracy appears. I’ll outline your mistakes.

   You think that whenever a Westerner uses the word democracy, the ONLY reason he is using it is as the miracle, cure-all solution for all of China’s problems. Thus, the knee-jerk reaction of almost all Chinese individuals is to point out failed democracies. As you have done here, proving that you’re definitely drawing from a vast reserve of original thinking.

   The problem is, oftentimes, Westerns AREN’T bringing up democracy as the miracle, fool-proof, cure-all solution for China’s problems. And here’s the rub: if you actually read my post, that’s precisely not what I was doing.

   In my post, I was explaining my belief as to why the fenqing, despite not being a majority at the present, should be listened to and taken seriously. I was not proposing that democracy is the solution China’s problems. Democracy as a ruling system was simply brought up as a distinct counter example to China’s system. In a democracy, the ruling government focuses on the center. In a non-democratic government focused on stability, the government focuses on the opinions of the fringe and on merely sating the middle. I was merely illustrating a model.

   So your first mistake, one often made by people who don’t know how to properly proceed in a discussion, is counter-attacking an argument that doesn’t even exist. I have yet in the dialog between you and I to suggest what I think will contribute to solving China’s social ailments. At the present, ironically, I think democracy would be quite a bad thing for China. This brings me to your second mistake.

   When on the topic of making a democracy a success, it cannot be discussed in a vacuum. The reality is, democracy must go hand in hand with a wide set of values, held in the national consciousness and implemented in reality, in order for it to succeed. These values, for example, include a free press, an independent judiciary, rule by law, transparent government, and many more. Failures of democracy all over the world, including collapsed states in Africa and South America, including Russia, and including America’s botched attempts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, are not illustrations of the failure of democracy in general, rather, they show that democracy cannot function if at the time the society in question does not firmly hold liberal, Enlightenment values.

   And so I go back to typical response 1: Chinese people pointing to failed democracies as soon as the word democracy comes up (never mind it wasn’t brought up as a proposed solution to China’s woes). These people think that by pointing to failed democracies, they have struck a blow by pointing out democracy’s shortcomings. Hilariously, Chinese people who do this are actually making a farce and a joke of their own country. By pointing out how democracy is failing, say, in Zimbabwe, to defend your system, you are simply admitting that, like Zimbabwe, China is lacking the Enlightenment values that would make democracy a success in either. Rather than saying, “Look at Zimbabwe! Democracy is a broken system!”, you’re actually saying, “Look at Zimbabwe! Like them, we have a corrupt government, a lap-dog judiciary, severe restriction of free speech, etc.” So 哈哈哈 at you. In the end, USTCer, you and I agree. At this juncture I absolutely do not think democracy would work with China. The man-eat-man life of the Mao era and the “Get rich is glorious” rat race of the reform and opening have obliterated social trust and numbed people to the mind games and machinations of the government. Democracy would definitely not work.

   So don’t answer the question, “Will democracy solve China’s problems?” because that’s not the question I asked. In sum, I merely brought up democracy as a counter example to non-democracy to illustrate the fact that different styles of government produce different priorities for government rulers. By rather amateurishly *not* addressing the point I brought up, instead giving me a exposition on how democracy doesn’t fit in China (that was right – but not in the way you understood), you totally failed to answer the point that I made in the first place: fenqing should be paid attention to by non-Chinese China-observers because their ability to prop the government or contrastingly cause instability and unrest is something the rules genuinely respect.

   Typical response 2: “Foreigners” don’t understand China.

   This is one of the most trite, cliche, stupid counter arguments in the millenia long history of China. Chinese people starting using this smug non-argument ever since the first big nosed foreign devil set foot in the middle kingdom and have been using it ever since. China is so inscrutable! Our thought is like a fort, we’ve scuttled Zheng He’s fleet, we built a Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, and even have a Great Firewall to keep our unique Chinese minds pure. My response? Total, utter BS. The “Foreigners don’t understand China” card is one of the most stupid, overused, inane observations in the history of human communication. It is the most supreme mental laziness – with it, any Chinese individual or lover of China can dismiss anything anyone has to say about China. You can be talking about your da bi zi waiguo pengyou who can’t use chopsticks, you can be talking about the chair of the Fairbank Center, but whenever the Chinese want to snort at the silly waiguoren it’s reliably “oh, silly waiguoren, China is for the Chinese!” Hilariously, this is the internet so you have no idea if I’m some hairy blonde Swede, if I’m a Chinese American who was born in America, if I’m a Chinese British who immigrated when I was 15, or if I’m a Chinese person in Sichuan whose parents hired an awesome waiguo tutor/nanny when I was a baby. Welcome to the webs. Anyways, “You don’t understand China” is a lazy, unverifiable phrase. Frankly speaking, if you want to get serious about this phrase, YOU don’t understand China, either. At this point in time, China is such a huge country with so many people it’s gone beyond possible for any one individual to understand what China is. Don’t forget that you have 56 minzu and they’re all just as much a part of the great family of minzus that if you think you understand China then you also undertstand how Uyghurs, Mongols, Tibetans, Zhuang, Bai, feel. You don’t. Another fallacy behind the “You don’t understand China” error is the assumption that there is one China to understand, there isn’t. Even if we look at the Han alone, there isn’t. And rest assured, unlike you, I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to claim that I understand *my* home country and you don’t. America, Britain, China, Japan, these are not single, distinct, uniform entities that can be “understood” or “not understood.” They’re complex social, cultural, part-real, part-imagined entities. You understand parts, components, behavior, etc.

   So yeah, remember that non-thinking fenqing always follow a model. This model is usually 1) wrong and 2) lazy. You’ve already done the “point to failed democracies” error, inadvertently admitting the sorry social state of your country, and you’ve done the classic “Foreigners can’t understand China” error which I’m surprised at since usually dumb and/or angry people use that one, and smarter people only use that after being cut down for a period of time. Two strikes.

   fcuk da lu ren
   Friday, January 9, 2009 at 12:03 pm

   @ 哈哈哈

   “The “Foreigners don’t understand China” card is one of the most stupid, overused, inane observations in the history of human communication. It is the most supreme mental laziness – with it, any Chinese individual or lover of China can dismiss anything anyone has to say about China. You can be talking about your da bi zi waiguo pengyou who can’t use chopsticks, you can be talking about the chair of the Fairbank Center, but whenever the Chinese want to snort at the silly waiguoren it’s reliably “oh, silly waiguoren, China is for the Chinese!”

   Spoken like someone who truley DOES understand China. Its funny how Chimatrons rail on about other countries, world situations, other cultures with absolute authority, but when you bring up something that does not present the middle monkey kingdom in a glowing light, you get “oh this is China, you cannot understand because you are not Chinese”

   HMMMM, my response is also, “no, YOU don’t understand China because you ARE Chinese. Let’s face it, this is country with one of the largest cases of mental instability in the world and not becuase of population. They live in a culture that promotes, lying, cheating, deceit, debauchery, ludeness, and mental control and yet claim that their “5,000 years of history” aliviates them from any form of critisizm.

   Well, as I understand it from my Master’s degree in Chinese (part of which is from a prominent Chinese university), most of that history was feudal and agriculturally based. Thus, leaving them BEHIND the rest of the world in terms of development and “enlightened” thinking. I sat through a meeting yesterday where I heard a 50+ 3rd grade educated woman ramble on about how “we” cannot understand China. She failed to grasp that I already understood that I have to pay kickbacks under a table to a “person of authority” in order to facilitate the operaton of the business I wished to commence.

   I don’t understand that? hmmmm, my 20+K a year eduation (which I didn’t cheat to get) must have failed me. In the end we have to realize that alll the people with any education or culture were either killed or now reside in “the rebellious province lol”. This country is run by peasants who siezed power, that is not character assult, it is a HISTORICAL FACT recognized by both sides.

   I don’t give a crap about democracy in China, Dalai Crappa, or any of their other “political” issues. But what pisses me off, is the Chi Mate, who cheated on his gao kao, paid his teachers in university, sleeps during the day at the office, and chats on MSN the other 7 hours, glazing his/her eyes over and launching into “5,000 years of history, that i can’t possibly understand”

   Its like watching a bunch of freshmen argue over who’s dad’s bigger, or who can drink the most beer. To all Chinese: Despite what you think, “westerners” are capable of abstract thought and understanding. We are even capable of …. wait for it…. adapting to Chinese cutsoms and cultures, unlike most of you.

   There are some great people here and great methods of articulating beautiful thoughts through language and practiced methods. But all of that flies out the window when you turn to me with your unwashed hair, dirty teeth, and stinky BO and say… “oh you can’t understand because you are not Chinese”

   Sorry for the inconvenience.

   Reply

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