what do you want to know about PRC?

Azn boi said:

Well I can answer your question about what happens out of view. If they were taken to prison they would be torture/beat up etc by the cops. My uncle was a civil engineer that lives in china he was a wealthy man but a guy told the cops that he own him money but he never gave him any money. So my uncle is in prison for 11 years the cops says if he confess that he did it they will cut the sentence in half but he said he didn't do it because he is a very honest man.

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well, it is a horrible thing that your uncle been throught! i am sorry to hear that.
i think your nucle's enemy probably bribed the cops, but one thing i am confused is,11 yrs imprisonment for own money, how is it possible??
i mean, yes, lots of CCP officals are corrupted, it is possible that they send your uncle to prison although he is clearly innocent.
but what i do not understand is: even maximal penalty that the judge could possibily issue for that kind of offense is far from 11 yrs imprisonment by the law! it is the law, and even cops or judge(doesn't matter who they bribe)could deny it in public! (i think, at least they have play by the rule in court?! right? the judge has to tell the public which law the criminal break and what's kind of penalty they get, according to the law.),
so i just wonder, how is possible? did you nuclear ever been trialed? or was it happen sometime around culturial revolution?

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Roger604 said:

The one thing that really irks me about China is the squat-toilets. I've been to some nice places in ML China, but as soon as I visit the washroom, I'm frustrated. Sure it's clean, but it's a squat-toilet. I just can't deal with those things. It hurts my knees and I can't balance. I know people in ML China are more used to the squat and often prefer it. But I think this custom has to change. Eventually China has to make a massive shift from squats to sit down toilets.

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well, it's just different culture really, you see the reason we are using squat-toilet in the public is simply because the idea of siting on some strangers's ass-print freak people out! and some people believe that this could cause cross infection of some kind of diseases, something like VD i guess.well, i don't know if this theory really has scientific evidence.but they do think so.
i think you would be surprised,if you find out that actually no one is using squat-toilet back home. in ML, 'family only bathroom' is always sit-down model .


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Aerodriver said:

Roger604... I hear you and 100% agree, squat toilet are a complete pain in the ass.......actually a pain in the calf muscle, and knee area. I won't even start to talk about the smell in public toilets!!! I don't know how many times have i gone to McDonnalds just to use the toilet. Now squat toilets are something worth protesting about even in the Heavenly Gate Square!!!
P.S.Have you tried using a squat on the train(???) and the bar they provide you to hold on is always wet, which always makes me think it has piss on it!!

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y know what, it probably does have piss on it! always, always! keep a pack of tissues in your bag, and wipe everything you could possibiliy touch in a public bathroom!!

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curse said:

I'm a highschool student in the US, lots of questions. I hear alot of people talk trash about China in school alot, I tend to defend it and Communism everytime just because noone else is.

One thing they say is "The Government kills babies" and crap, now I know the population is high and all, but I doubt this is true. I know you all heard this one time or another. So what does the government actually do about population control and family planning?

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chinese government is filled with bastards! but come on, they are still human! why a country's offical government want kill its own citizen's baby? what will the people do if the government kill their babies? i think it's just a pathetic rumor. but there maybe a reason:
one-child policy has been imposed for more than 20 yrs, in the begining,well even now, it's very hard for people to accept the idea(especially chinese farmers who still believe they must have a boy to pass on the family line),
so, around that time, it was probably ture that there had been some events of forced-abortion by the local government in some remote regions, and ends up, some officals who conduct such awful crime, were murdered by the people they hurt.
anyway, that was something happen in 80s. nowadays, one-child policy is much more 'loose' than it use to, certainly groups could legally have two children(if a couple are both only-child.or some ethnic minorities, etc...) and if you break the policy, you punishment will be no more than a fine, so the rich people are no longer care about this policy anymore, besides, chinese big-city girls, they don't want to have baby at all!

curse said:

And how is life in communist China in general? Have you lived in any other countries to compare it to, particulary capitalist ran countries?

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communism ideal, is just the biggest joke in 20th century china. nowadays, china is no different form the west on ideology, its economy is pure capitalism. and its politic is kinda of a combination of limited democracy and partly dictatorship. we even barely hear the word 'communism' in china anymore. instead , china was westernlized a lot in the past two decades, apart form different culture and custom, chinese city now, is no different form the western city.
just look at somes numbers,
by last years, there are 296 Mcdonalds in beijing's city area alone!
wal-mart has opened its 50th stores in the country, wal-mart's chinese branch currently hired over 25,000 staffs.
well, you got my point.
the life in communism china is simply those days, ---- it is all about money! my friend.:china:

Aerodriver is from Europe and live in china, you can ask him about how things are different in communism china form a western point of view.


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Aerodriver said:

Babies.
If you want a second baby you can pay a fine, if you know the right person, (like a judge), and get a "birth permission" you then need to pay money each month until the child is 18. (not everyone even if they can afford it can get this permission) Sometimes again if you are the right person or know the right person you can move to an area the government is encouraging people to settle and then the money per month is cancelled.
As PiSigma said, if your from an ethnic minority or some places in the country you can have two babies, especially if the first is a girl- also i heared if you parents are both single parents you can have two children or some strange rule. If they want to get round the family planning laws it they can marry a non-chinese national.
If you can not get birth permission the government will "persuade" you to visit the hospital for a termination, people do not generally refuse this "persuasion". I do not want to write anti government things so make your own conclusions about persuading people.
Water
DO NOT DRINK unless boiled. I can not remember the exact figure but its quite high (like 70%) of water is below international health (world health organisation) standards, hence why you boil it.

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most of the part is right, but you sure make government 'persuade' sounds terrified. my mother was a staff in a state-run university, and she works in the labour union, in charge of the 'one-child policy' and female staff's affair. as you said, if you got the money you will pay the fine(which is not really alot those days, 10,000-20,000 rmb i think), and those who don't have the money, they will just run. have the baby in another city, after few monthes, they come back with a 'extra' baby, and that's over, no one will mention their 'crime' ever again. for 10 yrs my mom works in the labour union, not a single case of 'breaking the policy'.
the idea of only have one-child is more a concept than a rule in today's china. well, of course, in the rural area , it might be quite different, but one thing i can say is, there is no forced abortion anymore, not since late-80s when people could live anywhere they like in the country.

I smell a corruption scandal.

vincelee said:

I smell a corruption scandal.

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To be brutally honest, there's always a corruption scandal of some sort going on in the PRC. As a fellow airplane traveller (PRC) once said to me, "that's China". The somewhat demoralising thing was that she seemed to accept it without giving the impression she thought it was bad/could ever be improved.

MIGleader said:

Chinese water is not fine. In the fuacet water of my grandparents apartment, the water had soem kind of visible powder in it...thats why i drank only bottled water.

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yea, if you are outside, just drink bottled water, if you live in china, get one of those water machine deal, and buying mineral water form the water company, that's what most chinese people do those days.


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curse said:

does the prc plan on fixing the treatment of the water?

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not really, it's basically becasue of the industrialization, this going to carry on for qutie a while, i think,



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SampanViking said:

Thank you Silverpike

I enjoyed your commentory and look forward to the next installment. You have hit the nail squarly on the head, with the kind of thing I am interested to hearing about. Please do not be shy at sharing your personal feelings about these changes and whether these are similar or different from your friends and contemporaries.

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well, thanks, i will always follow this thread, and i am trying my best.

now where are we, westernlization and 90s...

in the middle 90s, the corruption is getting worse, it was already an issue in tiananmen square event, but it was around 94-96s, corruption became something common and people seems to be callous, what i see is, people start to spend tons of money (taxpayer's money) on food, liquor or else... there is no way to do business without bribe the government or your client-company's manager. of course, my father has to do that to get the factory runing as well.
hundreds of resturant suddenly appeared in the city, and all filled with crowd, all things are decide on dinner table while everyone are drank. you see CCP officals, business man going in and out all the time, there was once my father has to attend 5 dinner party in one night, ends up got so drank and throw up till the morning. that was crazy time, i think it is still the same now.

at that time, although all the factories is still state-own, but the government is no longer their baby-sitter, they stop investing the money and stop paying the worker, all companies have to earn its own living. it was just matter of time for the government to give the state-own business up.

also, around that time, more forgien investments cames, and they merge with local companies, suddenly, nothing is 'chinese product' anymore.

i start to care about politic and military in the middle school, so are my classmates, i remeber, we got really excited when we heard that PLAAF is going to phurcase SU-27 form Russia for the frist time. and we repeatly ask a same question- 'can su-27 beat f-16' because we all use to think taiwan's f-16 is unbeatable!

in 1995 or 1996 i think, china start its 'housing ownship reformation' , bascially means, people can by their apartment from the government at very cheap price, and for the frist time, have their own private property. my family bought the apartment we were living in, it was quite small, but i do miss the place, i spent my entire childhood there.


the city start to change as well, more tall and good looking buiding appear in the city, road was expanded, since there were more and more cars everyday, around 96, Qingdao city government has done some 'heroic' in the country! they sell Qingdao's city hall to a Japanese firm. and because the city-hall was in the central area of the city, so they made tons of money, and they build a new one in remote part of the city,where still more like a viliage,then very soon,around the new city-hall a whole modern district was developed in about 5-7 yrs! the Qingdao government's success was made a model for the whole county, suddenly all the cities were trying to sell their city-hall

money was never an important thing in china during mao's time, but by the time i grew up,the whole country is in a 'money grabing fever',

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bd popeye said:

There is much to comment on in this thread but I will decline to post about anything that may be political. I just want to thank silverpike for his very honest answers.

He made an eariler comment about porn and mentioned that Chinese parents generally do not discuss sex with their kids. In my opinion this would be a bad thing. Silverpike is there "Sex Education" in school in China?..Is this problem about teaching kids about sex a cultural thing? I know there are many parents worldwide(US also) that let the schools teach the kids about S-E-X....simply because they do not want to discuss it. Afterall somebody in China must know something about sex there are 1,300,000,000 Chinese! They all did not get there by magic!

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no, i don't think we have sex education in chinese school, and we certainly do not have the school for sex education, one of my friend got his girlfriend pregnant becasue he does know how to use a condom right.
and yes, it is a cultural and traditional thing that sex is not open for discussion for any instance, it is consider a embarrass matter, especially in the family.
well, now there are educational websites(not pron) and hot-line they could call, but, only few people are actually using them.
well, yea, they all get there at the end maybe, but like my friend's case, people do make mistakes before they get there. so i think they do need such education.


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Gollevainen said:

Well may i ask you Popeye, did your parents tell you about sex?
I think the sex issue is mostly down the quite conservative general athmosphere in china (or at least i assume so) The free discussion about sex is more of western liberal ways adopted only few decades ago. Back in the beginning of 20th century and earlyer, sex was propaply as big tabu as it is nowdays still in china....but magicaly we are here so i'm guessing that nature finds it's ways

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it is defintely getting better in the china, nowadays, people could have easy-access to many valueable stuff. but in the chinese villiage, it is a whole different story.

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Baibar of Jalat said:

I simply think undrinkable water is not unique to China. In Britain during industrial revolution up until after ww2 (i think)

People used to drink more beer then water due to beer was safer and cheaper to drink. Britain still is a nation of drunks, highest alcohol death rate in the EU. Just an interesting facts.

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exactly, i guess pollution is something every country have to deal with in industrial revolution.

A few quick notes:

1) On religion and Church:
The right to worship by yourself in your own home is almost never violated. However if you want to organize a Church, then that falls under government regulation. The PRC does have restrictive rules on Church registration and activity. To make a simple comparison, in the US, Jehova's Witness or Mormons can come knock on your doors like door-to-door salesperson. In China that is not allowed:


2) One child per family policy:
The rules and regulations to the One Child Per Family Policy varies from location to location. In some places parents are allowed to have 2 children. In other places you're allowed to have 2nd child after 3-4 years. Having additional children may result in fines ("fees"). Non-Han minorities (i.e. Koreans) are usually allowed to have 2 children without penalty, while Tibetans can have 3.

3) Beer:
It wasn't until the 20th century that drinking water was made "safe" in most places. Prior to then even state-run orphanages were allocated funds to buy beer for children, because it was safer to drink beer than the water.

In some parts of the world, beer & ale was considered "food" rather than "alcoholic drink".

no sex ed... huge population... wonder if there is a connection?

Hi Silverpike

What is China's national ideology? To be more percise U said it is not Communism/ Maoism anymore and i know Mao severly curtailed Cafuciasm ideology.

In ur opinion what is the real ideology that is followed or recognised as important by the masses of China inc young and old.

Baibar of Jalat said:

Hi Silverpike

What is China's national ideology? To be more percise U said it is not Communism/ Maoism anymore and i know Mao severly curtailed Cafuciasm ideology.

In ur opinion what is the real ideology that is followed or recognised as important by the masses of China inc young and old.

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I think I can answer this. Apart from a few of the very old people who lived through the revolution times, most people's ideology today is Money or Capitalism. People are judged by their earnings and poessions rather than their revolutionary ideals. I think that is a pretty good indication. :china:

Gollevainen, wanted to know if my parents told me about sex. Well yes they did. My dad talked to me and gave me a book and answered my questions.

Origionally posted by jwangyue
Capitalism. People are judged by their earnings and poessions

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Hi

But it that the same with every community, similiar to the pakistan community in britain. However for us their are other cultural influences like religion and language etc.

Sorry i know the question is a bit vague and i respect ur response.

for example can u and others explain traditions such as the chinese new year, why and how it is celebrated? from a chinese propective rather then a western one.