Comments by "The Asian Jaywalker" (@theasianjaywalker4455) on "China Observer" channel.

  1. The food safety issue is huge now. As China's economy goes down so does food safety for the domestic products (and counterfeits too, fake foods etc). so that becomes far more important. Sams and Walmart are very very strict by Chinese standards. It's as close as guaranteed safe can get. This is a major reason, IF you have money to spend.
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  2. So far, these are my best explanations: - Population shrink is greater than anyone is letting on. There are, literally, physically less people. - Far far more grandparents and old aunties are dying off and many of those in their 60s. - At the same time, the vast overbuilding of GDP bloating communities has dispersed the populations too far away. - in 2025, its not just that younger people no longer like Spring Festival or have less aunties and grandparents to visit (or none to visit) or that there are far far more divorces making family reunions uncomfortable OR that many are uncomfortable returning somewhere to be humiliated by a lack of family, marriage, no children (this is a massive deep issue at Spring Festivals) but they are really in 'Survival Mode'. They have to go two full weeks, half a month without any earnings. They are actually in Beijing but they have set up two bowls of rice, don't use heaters, blanket up, keep any expense to full minimums, eat a little meat and just try and get through the financial darkness and hope to climb back out after its over. (then they are 2 weeks behind on basics). They are in an apartment trying to go without 2 weeks worth of income.
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  3. It almost seems like being given a massive rise by the USA and then biting that hand the minute you got $8 and smirking 'Now ME Captain!! USA so JEALOUS!!' was a bad take?
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  4. I've often thought China was 50 years behind in 'culture'. Even today, I hear many 60 year old building managers talk about who has the tallest buildings? How CHina has even more 50 floor buildings that the USA! Another was disappointed as he thought Europe was so advanced but when he visited there were only a few skyscrapers, so few, so poor!? but as this video shows us, in fact, high-rises and skyscrapers were a thing of New York (or other modern nations) in the 1970s era but by the time the Twin Towers were finishing - Americans were already complaining about them. more writers wrote articles on how socially unhealthy these 50 story buildings were. People who had money did NOT want to buy a 30th floor top apartment but (as noted in the video) would spent their money on a 'brownstone' 3 floor 'walkup' and renovate it. In fact, much of Europe has really 'banned' buildings past 20 or so floors. They found they block the sun and create a grand 'darkness' for everyone else living outside the 30+ floor giant monoliths. Yes, they look 'cool' and in the 1970s it was like a 'show of your national wealth' or some kind of fantasy of the 'tallest in the world' was some bragging rights. but China is still in this '1970s' phase where that's the highest number one thing! Its the 'highest money lifestyle!' thing. and its true that across North America and the UK you notice, these days, the highrises are for the poorer people, refugees, the poorer working class folks, not because they love it but that's sort of the lower rent living places. *mind you, New York still builds exclusive skyscrapers and their primary buyers? wealth Saudi Arabians and wealthy Chinese mainlanders! They are not actually that popular with native-born New Yorkers.
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  5. Everyone around the world really really needs to understand something: As a very strict rule among almost ALL nations; When you step foot in a foreign country you are 100% liable and accountable to their laws. Do NOT keep believing your Embassy somehow gets you out of this. The ONLY time an Embassy has ANYTHING to do with any kind of crimes, arrests, sentencing etc is IF the incident has some NATIONAL relevance. Arrested for 'spying' as an example. Arrested as a 'hostage' in negotiations. People really REALLY need to get this. Really start understanding how that works. in my experience, OLDER Americans can misbelieve that somehow they are a 'diplomat' or 'embassy property' and if the police (or whoever) wants to deal with them WELL let's phone the US embassy. NO. No, that is NOT how it works. Now, younger Chinese Mainlanders are the new 'worst' with this. They really do walk around in foreigner countries with the misbelief that actually the countries laws are NOT FOR THEM s they are like Diplomats. They are special envoys, as if having 'diplomatic immunity' and again that is NOT HOW IT WORKS.
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  6. As a seemingly rare foreigner in some of these places now (add Guangzhou Canton Fair and more) I'd really advise potential visitors to watch this and in particular the absolute LACK of working ATMS (so, you absolutely must bring cash, install Wechat then trade that cash for wechat digital money) and it doesn't matter becaues 90% of cafes or stores or services, money exchanges (if you can even find one) CLOSED. Closed, every other thing is closed. A massive airport full of shuttered shops and services is like a massive dystopian holding cell. 90% of doors, exits etc will be bicycle locked. Why even have a Trade Fair but then make every arrival come to a cold closed off empty holding cell then go to the next station where every other things is shut down, closed, metal gates locked up. It's depressing as hell.
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  7. This is largely a Chinese social phenom around their children. A battle of seeing who cares more about their little emperor more has mothers topping each other with the amount of times they can take the boy or princess to the hospital. it starts a kind of mass domino thing magnifying itself. In almost ALL cases, the kid would be just fine being sick in bed for a few days. Just like all children always did for thousands of years until yesterday.
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  8. Mind you, I don't think a lot of people outside China's mainland know this but failing to pay wages and especially taking the last issued salary is very very common practice in China. If I think of the English Teacher days, it was 'standard practice' they delay any final pay. So if the person was finished the contract and going home. They ALWAYS as a standard operation delay, delay and actually hope you leave the country and will keep your last month of salary and distribute it across the owners/managers. Always. standard. The only way you can stop it is to 1) they make it on YOU to intervene, 2.) IF you immediately report them to a government level then they may hand over half the money and hope you just conceded the other half. But this is standard stuff done constantly and throughout China and has been at least the 15 years I've been around it.
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  9. So, one of the most important changes to notice: Hong Kong is being included in 'The PRC' and that is due or even overdue. Hong Kong is now a wing of the Mainland 'PRC' and they've been using the different status for every last drop.
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  10. 15 years ago, a number of foreigners got massive with training centers. Some likened it to a 'lotto winning' because some were simple foreign English teachers who didn't expect to open 170 branches across China. names aside, around 5 years ago they were shut down and driven out of China. Soon training centers (any ownership) were shut down. but consider this: All those big foreigner owned franchises? NEVER ONCE did this happen. None of them did a 'close and run' AND consider this: When the government ordered them to close, sell, shut down, leave China? They made sure every parent was refunded and never charged past closing day. Just saying.
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  11. Something that isn't brought up enough but it's straight up demographics. The generation that supports the current regime, they are about 60-75 if they are alive today. They are disappearing at a very rapid pace these days. There were no less than 50 of them around 2018 outside blasting square dancing music and savaging any rubbish bins for recycling. That group, that demographic. a few years later there were just 40 of them. Now, I am almost convinced there is one less ever month. These ones are NOT living long and are dying before age 70. Plenty go in their 60s. It turns out hot water doesn't cure cancer and China's statistics that put their average life expectancy exactly 1 year higher than the next highest aren't accurate. They are passing away and very rapidly. This group could be called the Cultural Revolution group. They were brought up and students during that decade, 1960s zone. They are fading away fast. The old uncles who have, for a decade, been glued into a sofa watching War Channels (where the PLA beats the Japanese) these old uncles are passing away from heart failure FAST. This may have a LOT to do with the way things are going (or not going to go much longer)
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  12. It's true that a lot of foreign companies in China are actually the best jobs. McDonalds, Starbucks, they really had to follow rules and regulations same across the worlds franchises. A recent (actually current one) but the last 1500 employees of the closed Foxxconn here got relatively rich dismissal deals. They lived in the Foxxconn dorms so they had 1 year rental at some communties paid for and not insignificant lay-off money. (some said 50,000 rmb though another said it was only 5000). Vs a nearby domestic Chinese tire-factory closed and they 1. didn't tell anyone but instead said they needed to remove all their cars and belongings for Spring Festival. Then they did that, went home for Spring Festival and Surprise! Then a certain number had the govt assign them to communities and (i swear no joke) sent riot police type patrols to make sure they stayed where assigned. most are went back to their own villages while a few remain. and keep in mind, the Foxxconn people, mostly younger people, the last year there weren't even producing much of anything yet Foxconn still paid them to pretty much live in the factory with salary anyway.
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  13. An important observation in the summary is that of 'insulting the publics intelligence'. These kindergarten teachers and really all teachers know. For years now, they see a few less new kindergarteners signing up. the next year, a few less. They aren't going to different schools because these school teachers have broad networks and they all see it in every school. They are well aware of the kindergartens and play centers that close. due to lack of business. At a certain point you can't just convince everyone that a horse is really a deer. You can't fool all the people all the time.
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  14. I love antiques and for 15 years I've criss-crossed China finding all kinds of sales events, markets etc but here's the thing too many Chinese don't know (because they aren't allowed to know) but: - As the Republicans fled China they wisely took nearly every highly valuable artifacts they could load up. This was not simply 'looting' either because.. - When the Communists took power they denounced everything Chinese and vowed to destroy and disappear all the '4 Olds' and they did a damn good job of it too. So did looters and then the apprhension of looters booty. and then .. - Communist SOLD much of that to foreigners. Specifically, foreigners and on the condition that the antiques and books were to be taken OUT of China and never resold back into China. There remained (at least in 2014 to my memory) a very famous little antiques and book shop in Beijing. This was an exclusive shop for ONLY foreigner bidders and buyers. It was even featured in a movie and referenced in some books but I believe it's been closed since then. - Of the remaining antiques and many of these would be found in villages, MANY of those 'disappeared' and some have ended up found overseas. Suggestion: if you think evil British collectors snuck into the village at night to steal them I'd suggest your suspect is very very local. so, this is why China's mainland has almost NOTHING LEFT in proper authentic ancient books and ancient artifacts and while some have been dug up in all the massive construction of the last 30 years the CCP had to get very very strict on seizing those items. This after construction workers were happily helping themselves to items (seriously, this was an ongoing problem covered by China's state TV). All that said, i realy admire their counterfeiters. Yes, it will be some old dude in a village and they are just fantastic. They probably fool experts just because they really will make them straight-up old school, actually pouring pot-melted metals into dirt and clay moulds they hand-carved and really raw hand-made work. One guy told me that the easiest fastest way to articially age certain things? Tea. They just pack it in wet leftover tea leaves for a few weeks and that gives realistic aging effects.
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  15. Hi, sorry but you are so very very naive if you think China doesnt just look at whatever 'the west' reports in budgets then simply says a smaller number. Btw China doesnt even have such a distinct category as military vs infrastructure. 5 island bases are 'infrastructure' and again.. you have no idea what any actual budget there is because Chinas PRC isnt like these others who have mandatory open budgets. Whos 'bankrupting' their nation? Here again, China doesnt really have such a system as the PLA owns all things so 'filing bankruptcy' in the sense we use the term becomes fuzzy, HOWEVER, The answer to your question is.. China is. The others are not. Lets put this as people? My neighbor has accumulated wealth, a salary 8x the other neighbor and he had solid job security and lots of wealthy friends. He keeps spending around 3% of his income on some boat hes customizing. Ok? The neighbor is relatively poor, has just enough money to cover bills, food, maybe heat or AC and some snacks. Hes also spending 3% of his family income on an eBike he wants to customize. The latter, his name is Mr. Zhonguoren and he is the one bankrupting his family. His 3% cuts into their food anf medicine money. They cant drink tap water in their home so the custom eBike accessories are a bad bad idea. Thats who. China is your answer. Not the others who can afford to lose money.
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  16. Oh, in case you missed it, Vanke collapsed yesterday. The CEO was taken away by police (to make it fun i guess) and everything is seized.
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  17. My go to real life example: - In Canada my grandmother gave me a made-in-the-USA can-opener that had to be 20 years old already. I couldn't count the 100s of cans it opened for at least another decade. I don't even think it broke but just got lost in a move. $10 USD. - We bought one from 'Pinduoduo' in China $2 USD, and I am NOT joking with you: The handle collapsed the first can by me squeezing it. We laughed and bought a better #3 can-opener from China. I think it lasted 3 can openings before the little blade just popped off the rivet. We rolled our eyes and agreed to buy a $10 Chinese can-opener that appeared to be the same as my grandmas. same handles, etc. It actually failed to work. It didn't break at all. I mean, no matter how skillfully or powerfully you tried to manipulate the can opener it did nothing but 'score' a little dent along the lid of the can. our lesson: If you do some quick math you realize that the $10 Sears US-made can-opener was BY FAR the cheapest best-value money-saving can opener! the Pinduoduo ones were the most expensive and i want to say amounted to '$1 per can opening' after all.
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  18. it's worth noting that while China does have almost 1 Billion people it's also one of the largest land masses, about the same as USA or Canada in land and unlike Canada or Russia most of it's land is 'livable' for humans. When you do the math, the population density is not especially high. It's probably around 100th out of 200 countries. That said, yes if you consider the alleged population density of these city centers (which can be quite dense) this is definitely not good.
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  19. Can I suggest something I almost never hear suggested? Between Taiwan, Japan and all the Allies, they are no longer thinking in terms of 'how to defend Taiwan' but instead how to let the PRC give them an excuse to start a counter-offensive, invasion and conquering of China's PLA/CCP regime. Let me suggest something: Taiwan can, today, IF it really wanted to withstand the warfare, it can (with alliances of course) defeat the PLA at sea, land and take Hainan and even carry out a significant INLAND incursion. The consequences of this will have the Chinese Mainland people overthrow the CCP and The RoC will land in Tianjin and march as new (old) rulers of a unified China.
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  20. nope, it is not the same thing in America.
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  21. Please stop repeating this relentless story that Tariffs increase the cost of goods for consumers. this is NOT how it HAS and CURRENTLY works for MOST products. Listen closely to this: The Chinese Gizmo has a specific 'price point' at walmart and its 10 bucks USD. A 'tariff' is put on it. The Importer pays the Tariff (or not) but what REALLY HAPPENS is that the Chinese Gizmo company eats the diffence. The Importer paid China Gizmo 6 dollars a Gizmo. Now the Importer says I'm only buying those if they're 5 dollars cost to me. China Gizmo lowers the price to the importer by THE SAME AMOUNT AS THE TARRIF. Voila. This is why the China Gizmo was 9.99 at Walmart BEFORE the Tarrif and is 9.99 AFTER the Tarrif. And then you'r other made up thing as you bluff your way through this saying wrong things: "China could do it to us!' THEY HAVE BEEN FOR TWENTY EFFING YEARS ALREADY. Do you understand why all those Chinese exchange students are there at midnight in the USA buying iPhones in the USA? then get caught smuggling 100 of them back into China? Where iPhones are are made and available to sell anyway? its because CHINA ALREADY PUTS 'Taxes', Huge taxes sometimes dubbed 'Shelf Taxes' on American products making them 20% MORE EXPENSIVE to Chinese consumers in China. "there is such an imbalance anyway' YES BECAUSE CHINA HAS ALREADY BEEN DOING THIS FOR TWENTY YEARS AND MORE FFS. Why just go online and write fake shlt like that?
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  22. China does indeed use communist flag red and it does not have the same appeal as it does to their eyes. They made everything that color red in the 2008 Olympics and it literally caused so much dismay, 'feelings of danger or oppression or hell' from focus groups that the Olympics mandated all future color schemes must include blue and green. Besides the red, I don't know HOW they manage to do this but everything else looks so ugly. small lettering, the graphic and visual presentation looks like 'anti-intuition', dull, technical labels, bleak, I can't really explain it but they do this to everything so the presentation from colors to space to lettering looks so 'nothing, minimal, bleak, governmental'. Anyway there are other problems but seriously the entire look and feel of their section just says "don't bother coming to this unappealing zone of refrigerator box boring ugly graphics and colors.
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  23. Yes and when Foshan was seeing the peak of it's wealth they didn't think to themselves "Wow, manufacturing for the international world and these big western countries is making our lives better'. Instead, they said "Now CHINA is CAPTAIN NOW!!" and smirked about how America and Japan would 'bend their knees' and at the rate it was going would soon make American buyers grove and beg for China to help them and Japanese would be punished! etc. So maybe, that attitude wasn't really the one to have and now maybe they can rethink that angle?
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  24. One thing you should do is try and decide if what's being said is true, untrue, (partially true?) and if these things you see can stand or fall on their own.
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  25. Not as many as who left. The thing people don't seem to realize is that Shanghai IS the home of millions. They are Shanghaiese and their relatives would return to Shanghai.
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  26. I have been vlogging and traveling around SE Asia and China for almost a year now and i say this with no joy, taking no sides and no teams but keep in mind I have great old friends who have lost jobs at Foxconn Zhengzhou: This was obviously coming. Last year I was in Vietnam and it reminded me of China 2009. They cannot build factories fast enough. The dump trucks and crews are absolutely flying 24/7 day and night to get up factories, plow out new industrial areas, they cannot transport enough metal and machines fast enough. There are English training centers appearing and full because new international trade offices are being put up faster than they can fill them with staff. They are mobbing university campuses with recruitment booths for ever damn factory position or tech or whatever else positions. Vietnam is blowing up while yes, I'm sorry to say more Chinese factories close.
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  27. No, not always and not to these degrees. You have to keep in mind Beijing IS home for millions and those families would go home to Beijing. However, what's being seen here is the degrees of emptiness. 10 years ago, straight through Spring Festival you'd have seen massive numbers on the streets. This would also include a massive number of overseas Chinese who'd return to China via Beijing for Spring Festival.
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  28. These 'refugee runs' tend to be so very temporary and they always seem to collapse into a mini-disaster. 'Mastadon' gets rampaged and then they're gone. Then 'bluesky' but then that gets wrecked badly and forgotten etc. This one is weird because I don't think China's government foreign relations or Great Firewall people EVER expected this to happen and are surely freaked out and trying to figure out what to do besides selling some 'Americans confess China is superior and now grovel and beg to be taken in by China'. I dunno. On the upside, IF Red Note can grab this '15 minutes of fame' and do something then maybe they can translate it into some kind of a longer-lasting boost?
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  29. I will say this: It's another 'wacky China' thing when you are in a community that is maybe just 50% occupied and there is a small army of property management people. I haven't done an official count but I'd guess there are more guards, gardeners, office staff than actual residents.
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  30. It's so shockingly different that it can be called the exact opposites, the polar opposite.
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  31. Here is the one piece of advice and warning I can give anyone who might visit China's mainland: - You see a Grandpa in a 3 wheel cart? He can and WILL do any damn thing he wants, anytime, from stopping in the middle of traffic, to blocking intersections, driving down the wrong sides of the roads, ANYTHING and anything can and will happen. You've been warned.
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  32.  @nox5555  what about Chinese people?
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  33.  @MWH12085  The 'track record' is your grandfather was part of Maos higher circles and/or did very very bad bad things for Mao after he won power. Turned in family and neighbors, had people done away with etc. After that, the Fuer Dai don't really need to get to that stage as they are actually 'assigned to that stage' but I would say if they screw it up then yes they'll be replaced with newly assigned Fuer Dai.
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  34. Yes and a big part of this can be explained by the previous 2024 Spring Festival when a lot of factories and businesses figured out they could close or carry out staff reductions during the holiday while everyone was at their villages. So then what happened this year is a kind of belief (rightly or wrongly) but that whoever returns first might keep their jobs. those who come back last may then be told there is already enough staff so they aren't needed. This kind of belief spreads and as they said someone might think 'The smart thing to do is get back earlier than others to make sure i don't get left out. Then they saw many many other smart people with the same beliefs racing home.
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  35. 'In China' is a helluva broad and varied thing. Rental prices in downtown Shanghai remain crazy high and 10,000 for a 3-bedroom condo or more is normal. If you're going to be in some '2nd, 3rd tier' cities it will still vary a lot depending on what district but you may find that '2500 rmb' 3-bedroom condo yes. protip 2024: One thing you definitely can do this year (and in the past it was not this way) but you can now make offers. They ask 2500? Get back to them and say you're max budget is 2000. Do not be surprised if you soon receive a message saying they'll take it. Our landlady friend had a dozen apartments for 1000 a month rent (these are only for Chinese) and was pretty upset this year when they all told her they could only pay as low as 300. another offered 600. basically 'half' previous rental prices. She explained to us she has absolutely no option but to take it. There are hundreds of empty rentals all over the place. The days of 1000 a month were over. If one moved out the apartment will be empty for years making 'zero' per month. I negotiated from 1500 to 1000 AND they still wanted 2-months upfront but agreed to 'first and last month' not a 'damage deposit' that we rarely every get back. So, no matter what the asking price - now is the time to make offers and don't be afraid to walk away because there are probably 5 empty apartments in that same community.
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  36.  @_Tony.Montana  relative to the income and opportunities, choices and competition, taking in account the quality of taxpayer roads and food safety? Among the very very best in the world and why everyone from around the world continues trying to migrate to the USA.
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  37. please check your 'autospell' so 'border' (a perimeter) doesn't render as 'boarder' like 'snow boarder, a carpenter' thanks.
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  38. Sorry but this is something I find very annoying in China, a country who's governnor now 'Live for The West' and 'keeping up appearances' to the outside world and let me explain in this example: a few months ago, a series of videos and news reports went viral around and inside Mainland China about the surprisingly empty cinemas. Not only that but the bankruptcy (or impending ones). These caught on all over the outside-world internet and weren't some 'viral' story but it was a little news cycle/social media topic for a few days. oh oh. Here comes this stupid thing. Oh ya.. okay.. so you say China have SMALL Audience Thewest!? haha okay we show you! We make BIG AUDIENCES and make 48 hour news cycle show TheWest the POWER OF CHINA is the OPPOSITe of how they shamed us! We shame them! Its jussssst such a 1-D brain dullar move but here it goes. Yes indeed this is absolutely correct, to show us the 'power' they will control and make videos of crammed theaters, show Chinese overflowing cinemas! now we have 'punched back' even stronger than we were punched!!! Every student has to go to the cinema on some class field trip. Every corporation is instructed to do this as a company event, then some banners need to be involved. Ja yoe! add oil! see which company can out-do the other in enthusiasm and attendance! I can't stand these things. yes of course the numbers are bogus, have *asterisks and aren't what they seem. They never kickstart the cause either. 2 weeks later, cinema will be as empty as ever before. there is no natural need ro want to return to cinemas and they're still too expensive for a lot of struggling Chinese these days. I mean great that people enjoy the movie but just saying these things are often annoyingly contrived social 'keeping up appearances' after all. btw, on the ground I just don't see the 'mania' for this. Girls aren't wearing backpacks, they aren't going on about it, boys don't seem to care about this.
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  39. It's far more likely this has everything to do with a certain new US president having a convo with a certain new 'Mexican' president. and this is where she needs to start.
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  40. Coincidentally, and I mean just like 60 minutes ago I parked outside this convenience store that is apparently abandoned. As far as anyone can tell they just left one day. It just looks like someone took the electronic scanner things and what would have been more of the more expensive stuff but left all the chips, the lighters, the row of drinks, turned off the lights and left. I mean, like 7 months ago. it's just getting dusty inside. ya you see weird stuff like this in China now. They just leave, yes, I believe that lady that they sent everyone on a 2 hour lunch break and just bicycle locked the door and drove away.
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  41. Around 10 years ago China went full-entry on absolutely every high school grad they could lure onto a university campus. If you were breathing you were accepted and stuffed in a dorm room and most played video games for 3 and 4 years in a kind of break from life and 'come down' from the insane Gaokao exam pressures (though, by that point you didn't need a high score and you'd still go somewhere). The results have been an utterly astonishing number of landscape engineer diplomas, In the last 5 and 6 years, many who were finishing a typical 'bachelors' (whatever 3, 4 years diploma) realized there won't be any proper office jobs for them and so er-enrolled into Masters, Phd (so, really they are just sort of biding time, refuge, hoping that will do it) but its almost worse for them as 20 million doctors had the same idea. you have to figure this too: Now they are 27, 29... turning 30 years old. They do NOT know much about labor jobs, they aren't skilled 10-years veteran handimen, construction workers, carpenters AND besides they're turning 30. labor would hire a novice 18 years old full of dirt-digging vigor not a 30 years old college grad. But Wait... it gets worse. indeed, lots of these office jobs are deliberately firing 30+ years olds now. This is a 'face' idea in China where maybe a restaurant wants only tall, pale and pretty young people. They figured out 30+ year olds want 'job jobs' with some livable monthly salary and predicable hours etc. Fire them, hire some 19 year old who's just happy to be there for the most minimum of wages and work 80 hrs a week and do what you tell them to do. Its bad. now there are small armies of 32 year old delivery drivers with a masters degree and the delivery gig is no longer able to be considered "just a cash gig to get by.. until I can decide on where I'm going to work, TenCent or a government job". Oh no, they are now having to admit this IS their job for 9 more years until they're knees give out from climbing stairs 30 times a night and they'll be replaced by a 28 year old. If Chinas government ever needs to fear a particular civil uprising? Armies of these delivery drivers revolting will be utterly fierce, notthing to live for - not afraid to die. be afraid.
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  42. I found this kind of thing happens far too often in China. The idea 'create the problem then offer to solve it'. Recently I saw a great deal of talk in China about keeping foreign businesses from leaving China. after this TV presentation, the next was a scathing report on how foreign companies need to be punished and how China does not need them anymore. I imagine, next week another report will ask "How can China attract more foreign businesses?". In China, this 'Create the problem solve the problem' is very clumsy and yet it persists anyway.
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  43. for what it's worth, I took a quick video from inside the hospital and beside the pediatric ward of the local Chinese hospital: https://youtube.com/shorts/MUizCGYtSeU?feature=share (Jan 9th, 2025)
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  44. I've been through, beside, among and around these effing compound worlds for years now (see username) and I cannot overemphasize how these are evil dens of iniquity, these are sodoms and gomorrahs and if the 'UN' and the "WEF' and everyone else in the world would take 10 minutes off from 'saving the world from global warming' and actually carried out massive work on eliminating these 'Special Economic Zones'? The human suffering they'd alleviate, the evil they'd vanquish, the sorrows that we would relieve! Quite seriously, if you're a young person who wants to be some 'bleeding heart liberal' some 'social justice warrior' you take a break from the men in dresses and BLM for a hot minute and spent a few summers protesting these places. Golden Triangle Rights Now! or whatever clever slogan. You will have done more ACTUAL SOCIAL JUSTICE that will absolute save far more lives, misery, inequality, more than anything else you could social justice warfare against in the world. start now
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  45. Why would you pretend to be asking 'WTF???????' when it's obviously one of the single most popular fast foods on earth and has been for 30 years non-stop? Don't do that anymore okay? That is so petty, so childish sounding.
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  46.  @brentdallyn8459  Hey.. YOU took what i asked you and then turned it around to ASK ME. Wow, you'd make a great China propagandist but here's the problem: now I ask you to tell me what 'holes' and you don't know, do you Boomer phaggit? we are not in a 'two sides' debate. You and I arean't having a 'he said/she said'. There is not an 'argument'. where you hold your own and I my own. All that happened here is you wrote untrue things and I caught it out.
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  47. Burger King effing rules and is easily the best of the best in China. Let's hope they don't fade away over there.
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  48. wait.. why do you think it needs to drop down to 5 million?
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  49.  @portmoneul  that came out as AI babble. please do better, thanks.
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  50.  @mesimesi2313  There have been people sightseeing but it's significantly less than it was 5 years ago (not counting the brutal wuflu closures) and what we need to watch is the 'degree'. How many, how little. but its understandable because China is in the start of economic collapse so of course we see less than before. The bigger question is how much of the decline is actual population. That and aging population.
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