what do you want to know about PRC?

petty officer1 said:

I have chinese friend that been to the military camp in china.

one day we were talking about it he said all they do is learn how to march...
march and march all day long. then at night they have to do post.

but the most interest thing is he say they teach them to resembel a AK blind folded!

I think it is a good thing to teach some spoiled kid how to behave, because he say before the training he was god in his family! now the platoon officer in the camp tuned him up pretty bad. after that he got alot better grade and came to TX Now he is nicer to his parents when I went to his house.

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Chinese kid spoiled!?!?!?! That is hard to imagine.
My parents are like slave drivers... always do this do that, work on your grades, get more A's...
I used to think that all eastern asian parents were like that...

To Vytautus, I have NEVER in my life heard of that tradition, and I've lived 11 years in ShiJiaZhuang, capital of Hebei province, has visited Beijing and Xi'an.

Yes, we do use spoons, but usually for soup, and it's usually porcelaine spoon.

Edit: FuManChu I have never heard of such absurdity in my whole life. Where did you learn that Chinese parents do that. Provide links please.

And I seriously doubt Chinese people would break a perfectly good pot just for naming their children. Here's a little story: A famous poet in China, Li Bai (Li being his surname, Bai being his first name), got his name at the age of 6 because he composed a poem, and his father was so surprised by the quality of the poem, that he named his son Bai, the word being the last word of the last line of the poem. The poem was describing a kind of flower (I forgot which kind), the poem survives today.

My Chinese name is Yan, I will not mention my surname. Yan is a kind of bird, and is associated with elegance, ambition, and strength (for those who can read Chinese, it's 雁, not 燕).

So you see, it's not just a random "sound", it has a lot of meaning. Just like the name "Clayton" means "mortal".

never heard anything about throwing pots on the ground. i think that's some something non-chinese people made up because they don't actually know what chinese name means. for example, my full chinese name is Xia Chong Yu, Xia is my last name, which means summer, can't decide that. buy the character for Chong is one of many Chongs that's in the chinese dictionary. in fact, the character my parents picked for me is so rare, only xinhua dictionary and kangxi dictionary have it. the chong in my name means "to fly up into the sky", and yu in my name is part of the word "universe". so if you put it together it means fly up into the universe. but to someone in the west, its just another sound. i know some people that have their names derived from famous Tang poems. so throwing pots on the ground just make so sense. and hundreds of years ago, most peasants have dirt floor, if you throw metals on the ground it will only make a "thund" sound.

girls and boys are about the same now in cities, girls are actually perfered in my family. but i n the country side, boys are perfered since you can use them to do labor. but they can have two kids.

chinese people use spoons, when they are like 3 years old and haven't learned to use chopsticks yet. other than that, it's pretty much all chopsticks. it's one tool that replaces what europeans do with 3 (spoon, fork, knife). so i say it's pretty efficient, good idea to keep it. only time people really use spoons is when they drink soup or congee, then its the chinese ceramic spoons. ever use forks and knives?? almost never.. unless of course you go to a western restaurant.. and i don't mean Mcdonalds.

Man, I feel kinda dumb now... I have never been able to use chopsticks. It's funny, when I try to hold chopsticks, I never can seem to get it right and I sit there with my hands all contorted in a weird position, and I look like an idiot. I might as well have just used one chopstick and stabbed the damn peice of sweet&sourpork, probably would have been better off. So it's and even funnier situation when nowadays if I go to a chinese place I have to ask for a fork and spoon

Anyway, about the PRC. I would like to know the truth about the law in your country that limits the number of children you can have. I have heard some strange things like if you exceed this certain number, the pregnant mother can be forced to have an abortion, and/or the father can be castrated? Is there any truth to this?

i think that question is answered in one of the previous pages of this thread...it's somewhere in the forum for sure.. and since i'm too lazy to post everything again or find it.. just look through this thread.. there's quite a bit of stuff to that one.

Wow long thread, reading through it the questions have been answered already
But I'll quip a little about the brief military training. Note that I never went through this, being educated almost entirely in the US. This is what I heard from my gf. I was rather curious.
She had a few weeks in HS and a few weeks near the start of college. They just do basic stuff like drilling, marching, and probably some of the survival things already mentioned. She did mention getting the chance to shoot. 5 shots from what I suspect was an SKS, her shoulder was sore. She couldn't even tell if she hit the target board at 50m It's not for training riflemen, but rather just let the students know what it feels like to fire a gun.

You guys have already speculated on exactly why. It has basically no military value and China has plenty of reservists and militia for a people's war, if it ever comes to that. But for helping young people mature, it might be useful. And some of the boys might enjoy it, who knows. Now if they let the students shoot a significant number of rounds or fire a training PF89...

Anyway, my gf took these photos at Guangzhou's new college park. Poor freshmen going through their mandatory drilling in the late August heat. Mind that the photos are pretty crude since the camera is little more than a toy Note the uniforms.

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Hey guys, has anyone come across Hu's new "be good little kiddies, please" list? It's a hoot!




I hope this isn't too political, I thought it was more "social" - while still giving insights to the way the people at the top still think in China and the current challenges China faces.

Well, I am sure Zhi Yang does not sound like breaking pots or thunder. I have never heard of such thing either, from Han or from the Manchus.

Who here wants to go to such type of a boot camp? *raises hand*

And what'd you mean by hoot? He's just trying to tell the people to stop being bad selling counterfiets and corruptes.

sumdud said:

And what'd you mean by hoot? He's just trying to tell the people to stop being bad selling counterfiets and corruptes.

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Because it's so daft to believe that all China needs is a "good education campaign". Neither I, nor my friends (PRC) believe that this will make a jot of difference. There is corruption in China because of the growing economy, the wealth gap and the lack of accountability. Political education has been going on for decades in China - so why will President Hu getting up and mouthing off some unimaginative prose make a difference?

To put it another way, if Tony Blair came up with a "list of virtues" for the British people, we'd tell him to mind his own business - or laugh ourselves silly at the idea a politician felt morally superior to lecture us on our failings. Governments are there to make legislation, not tut-tut on morality - that's what religion is for. And as I rather implied, the idea of a CCP politician lecturing Chinese people (or any politician to any people) on morality is hilarious.

Perhaps Hu should actually make some real reforms, rather than just put the onus on Chinese to be "good" and not complain about their lives - this wasn't just about money, it was also about "rocking the boat".