01/24/24 - Even with all that money, they’ve never built a high speed rail.

[I somehow managed to get lucky enough that I think I ended up covering most of the major news happening in China with my daily posts. I don’t really quite have enough material for a weekly round up, so it’ll just be a normal post today.]

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Under the hashtag #Why don’t American-Born Chinese look like Chinese people? Someone asked, “Why do ABCs look so different from Chinese people?

I also feel this way. Every time I look at those deliberately raised eyebrows, the fake wide smiles that show eight teeth, I always feel like these Chinese people look like they were bullied growing up.

How can I put it? No matter how “happy” they look, I always feel like they’re not confident, not relaxed, not free, like they’re conscious of being a display item in a museum.

They’re racially Chinese. There’s no difference in our genes or features. Just a generation or two can’t really change your appearance. The biggest difference is in makeup and expressions.

For example, ABC women like to deliberately put on makeup that show off their “Asian-ness”, like a super arched brow, or long thin eyeliner, or toning their skin to be yellow like a street lamp.

Honestly, Chinese women don’t look like this at all. Some people have thicker brows, some people have thinner brows. Some people have longer brows, some people have shorter brows. But very few people have super highly arched brows. Some people have big eyes, some have small eyes, some have double lids and some monolids, but no one has thin and long squinty eyes.

Most men don’t wear makeup, and they don’t look that different from us when it comes to facial features. The biggest difference is expression, especially their eyes and their mouth.

This isn’t actually an Asian idea of beauty at all, but what white people tend to pursue in their idea of “exoticism”, and it’s a part of their “tolerance and respect” towards ethnic minorities. So Asians tend to fit in with these stereotypical ideas of beauty, like, “However white people think I should look, I should look like that.”

No matter what race, what ethnicity, people all have their unique characteristics. There’s no objective beauty, so there’s no need to try to fit in with someone else’s ideas. Even if a black person dyed themselves white, they can’t become a white person. And Asians deliberately emphasising their characteristics won’t make anyone think they’re more beautiful or more “exotic”.

Not to mention, none of this looks good anyways.”

Comments say, “If you talk to a Chinese person who’s stayed in America a long time, they’ll have this wide ass smile plastered on their face the whole time. It’s creepy.”

“They all look so ghastly. No wonder we used to call white people “ghosts” [鬼子, not really technically ghosts, more like a derogatory name for something malicious and lowly]. It’s like everyone who goes over there becomes not quite human too.”

“Although Asians try to please white people with their makeup, but they’ll still be Asian at the end of the day. It’s in their bones. I don’t get how some Asians can kiss up to white people so much without feeling any sense of shame. Is it because this is the only way they can fit into white society and they feel helpless about it too?”

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A question, “Why do Koreans say that Chinese food is bad?”

Two replies here. The first one is, “I can answer this one! I’ve eaten out with both Koreans and Japanese people.

Japanese people tend to praise the food as they eat. Chinese food is great! They stuff themselves full until they can’t eat another bite.

And Koreans tend to brag as they eat, that Korean food is even better. And they’ll also stuff themselves full until they can’t eat another bite.

But Koreans will pack up their leftovers.”

The second one is, “I think Koreans are simply don’t have any manners.

Honestly, a lot of foreigners don’t really like Chinese food. But I’ve never seen anyone say it outright like Koreans do.

My company works with Korea, France, India, Japan, and Korea to one extent or another, and Chinese people have a tradition of building connections at the dinner table. I’ve taken out probably 80 foreigners out to dinner, if not 100. And I’ve discovered this phenomenon mentioned by OP too—Koreans are so aggressive.

Objectively speaking, most foreigners don’t take to truly authentic Chinese food. After all, someone’s tastes are built from childhood. Make someone who eats steak every day go eat Buddha’s Leap, no matter how hard you worked on the dish, they just simply won’t be used to it. But at least while they’re eating it, they’ll still praise it out of pure politeness, to express their respect for their host.

Just like when I went to Germany. Honestly, I couldn’t stand any of the food except the sprats and pork feet. The slightly sour whole wheat bread, cheesy potatoes, underseasoned chicken, I hated all of that too. But all I would say was that it was amazing, wonderful. I would never say that this all tastes like shit. Even if I couldn’t stomach it at all, I’d just get something else to eat later on my own. That’s just basic manners to me.

One time, I took out a visiting expert from Japan. I asked him beforehand what preferences he had, and he said that he would eat anything. Considering that Japanese people don’t tend to like spicy food, I took him to eat Huaiyang food, mostly fugu and shrimp and other freshwater fish. At the restaurant, he thanked me for my hospitality and said he adored all the food. But the next day, just before lunch, he came over with the translator and repeatedly apologised as he told me that he really wasn’t used to eating freshwater fish, and hoped that he could just figure out food on his own. He repeatedly emphasised among his apologies that he’s very grateful for our hospitality, and it’s his own problem that he’s not used to the food, and he hopes we won’t take it the wrong way.

This is the sort of manners that’s universal around the world, but Koreans are different. They really will tell you to your face that this food sucks, that it has too much oil or too little, that it’s over or under seasoned, that these two foods shouldn’t go together. They’ll even tell you to your face that when you go to Korea, they’ll take you to wherever, where they cook with these same ingredients, but it’s a lot better than this.

Personally, I feel like this behaviour is…well, sheltered, if you’re putting it politely. Just plain rude if you’re being blunt.”

Comments say, “They say it tastes bad, sure, but they’re already claiming Sichuan-style mala hotpot is a Korean invention.”

“Wild boars aren’t used to good feed. They’re just jealous.”

“Why should I care what this tiny, backwaters nation thinks about Chinese food? Chinese people like it just fine.”

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“The typical characteristic of a girl marrying up is that there’s no bride price, or at least very little bride price, and she doesn’t get her name added to any real estate.

A lot of girls fantasise about marrying up, and they imagine a guy giving them a fortune in bride price, and adding their name to the house, or maybe buy a house only under their name.

Honestly, that only happens in TV and movies.

In reality, when girls are marrying up, they don’t have any leverage in the negotiation at all. At most, they’re pregnant already and have a kid in their stomach. Aside from this, they’ve got no leverage at all.

And marriage has always been a contest.

Even if the trustfund brat is retarded and wants to give money to you, his parents, the actual brilliant entrepreneur businessmen, aren’t going to be retarded.

They’re already mad about their son taking in a charity case. If you dare to bring up bride price now, they’ll only be more against the marriage. Worse case scenario, they’ll just let you have the kid on your own and be a single mom, and they won’t even acknowledge the kid as theirs.

Any girl who gets a bride price higher than market value gets it by marrying down. Like a uni grad girl from the rural countryside marrying a rural guy with no house. When she brings up a high bride price, the guy’s side is likely to agree.

Aside from marrying down, even marrying your own class means you’ll have a hard time getting a high bride price.”

Comments say, “Nah, my wife married her own class, and I didn’t give any bride price or house.”

“Dude, you need to know your audience. Any girls following a real estate blogger is from a middle-class family who’s willing to buy them their own house. Girls looking to marry up don’t bother to follow real estate bloggers.”

“You lose if you marry at all. The only way to win is to not play the game.”

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From an IP in America: “I heard from two separate sources that you can get a white card for old people going vacationing in California.

A white card is just a colloquial name. It’s a type of free healthcare card. I haven’t got one, so I don’t know for sure. But I hear it works wonders. It’s a lot better than our expensive-ass medical insurance.

Your out-of-pocket costs are almost zero. You can even get an ambulance for free. And it’s a famous meme in America that even if you’re dying, you drive yourself to the hospital, because you’ll go bankrupt if you call an ambulance. (It’s not that bad in actuality, of course.)

When my husband heard, he was like, “If they’re spending taxes like this in California, how long can it really last?”

And I was like, “For a pretty long time, I think. I hear the Californian government is super rich.”

How rich is California? Supposedly, if it was its own country, it’d be the fifth largest economy in the world.

But then again, even with all that money, they’ve never built a high speed rail.”

Comments say, “How old do you have to be before you count for this? Let’s see if I qualify.” from an IP in Canada.

“Who said developed countries are shitty to poor people?”

“My grandpa got a white card, and he got diagnosed with aesophagal cancer last year. Got chemo and electro-therapy for two months and didn’t have to spend a cent. He never even got a bill. Now the doctors say they can’t see a tumour anymore. He’s applied for in-home care, also for completely free. It’s all taken care of by the white card.”

“The reason they have money is because they never built high speed rail.”

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“Mortgage interest rates need to be below 1% in order to steady this market.

If mortgage interest rates are above 1%, then real estate is trash assets. Don’t even look at them.

With these prices, and more than 1% interest, if you buy any, you’ve bought yourself a liability that’ll endlessly suck up your cashflow.”

Comments say, “Interest rates are fundamentally GDP growth. If interest rates are 1%, then savings returns and GDP growth are both gonna be 0%. Would you even buy a house then?”

“So what if it’s 1%? It’s all floating interest rate in China. In a couple of months, they’ll raise it to 15%, and what then?”

“Better if it’s 0% interest rate, but the banks will never do that. We’ve got the Japanese disease but not the Japanese luck. It’s all up to fate now.”