Tom
- 2011-03-11
Without digressing, with regard to China, I clearly wasn't saying that all Chinese education or recruitment companies were corrupt, if you read my previous posts on Expertise I was saying they are not corrupt, so clearly I wasn't saying they all were.
I don't know, I don't feel we should cherry-pick when it comes to deciding what's part of a countries culture. I have this curious notion that most Chinese educational establishments and recruitment agents have enough corruption within for us to say this bad behaviour is part of their culture. It might well be part of other countries culture as well- American culture is shared to a large extent with English culture or British culture.
Tell you one thing that is definitely part of Chinese culture, flobbing (spitting) all over the shop. I had a brief liaison with a 'Yangtze River Female' who liked nothing better than starting her day flobbing over the flower bed. I told her to sling her hook after a week-I don't feel I was being racist but in theory I spose I could have been...if that's her culture.
I don't care what working man's noodle bar you frequent, there's always a local who will position himself in the corner in order to spit on the floor= but you could say that's good manners culture cos he's respecting all the other customers enough to keep all the snot contained in one corner.
Sinologist
- 2011-03-11
I repeat once again, the name Sinologist is just a nick name, and not to be taken too seriously.
For your information my area of study was international relations, I don't speak Chinese beyond basics, I have spent over a year in China, and Sinologist is my name of choice, and in case you didn't grasp me the second time, it is not to be taken too literally.
I am well aware that corruption is not unique to China, I have read about people being unable to pass through customs in various African countries without getting relieved of vast ammounts of money due to it being undeclared, taxed etc.
For example read Wikileaks's report on Russia, which claims it is technically a criminal state. This comes as no surprise to me, I have both read and heard reports about how corrupt the police are in Russia.
Without digressing, with regard to China, I clearly wasn't saying that all Chinese education or recruitment companies were corrupt, if you read my previous posts on Expertise I was saying they are not corrupt, so clearly I wasn't saying they all were.
In my previous writings I have said that the worst manipulative and dishonest behavior I encountered in Beijing came from fellow expats who had their own language teaching business.
In fact, some of the lying and corruption in China I favor, such as that what is necessary to get round the bureaucracy, red tape, and excessive government. According to Milton Friedman, its the latter, excessive government, that is the true corruption.
However, there is another form of corruption I loathe, namely the exploitative corruption I encounter, the misleading, and screwing people over.
Just to iterate again, as I notice the politically correct love to use labels like bigotry and racism, I am well aware that this is not exclusive to China.
This is why I practice equal opportunity hatred, I hate manipulative and exploitative behavior wherever I encounter it, whether it is China, Korea, the Middle East, or Europe.
However, I particularly loathe this countries evisceration of the truth, and its sickening propagation of the myth of Mao, and other lies it force feeds its own people. But I loathe it equally when I encounter such deception in other countries.
I think I have spelled out that I dislike phenomena like this equally, and do not consider it exclusive to China.
In fact, responses like Bigotry and Racism are very much cheap shots, and writing this detailed response is in many ways according such charges more respectability than they deserve.