It is obvious that SB’s claim to have a degree in Applied Linguistics is a lie. As far as I can tell, he made that claim for the first time several years ago on esltb in a board fight with a training center goon whose training center was reported because of its terrible business ethics. The training center goon tried his/her best to defame SB and others in return.

I myself have lied many times in my life in situations where I felt I needed to protect myself against people I owe nothing to but who wanted to attack me for one or the other reason.

Telling lies to people you owe something to - either morally (your trusted friends, for example) or as a responsible person (as a witness in court or as an employee, for example) is quite a different story. I can make the claim that I have mostly followed the path of in these two situations when I was owing truthfulness to my environment.

That said, I think that when SB told the training center goon a lie on an anonymous and faceless board, he did in a situation where he owed nothing to that person trying to defame him. Insofar, it was legitimate to protect himself. There is no legitimate need for self-protection and lying now; thus it is very unwise of SB to uphold his wrong claim with respect to his degree in Applied Linguistics. He truly doesn’t have any in that subject area, I am convinced of that. A legitimate degree in fashion and modelling is perfectly fine and acceptable if he has any degree in that area. But he should refrain from thinking other readers on here are stupid in this respect. No, we aren’t.

I will also state lying to a defaming training center goon for reasons of self-protection doesn’t necessarily make him a “bad” person.

With respect to his input on “stupid and greedy women in China” and his open racism towards the Chinese in general..- well, that’s another point.