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Thread: Eating bitter in China

  1. #1
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    Eating bitter in China

    I never really understood this aphorism until I went to China. I was raised on corn-fed American beef which sweetens the taste of the meat considerably. You really don't know the difference until you taste it. In that spirit, I'm launching this thread for news items related to eating bitter in China.

    Hong Kong housing crisis puts poor in cages
    Associated Press
    Updated 10:41 pm, Thursday, February 7, 2013


    Cheng Man Wai calls a 16-square-foot cage home. Hong Kong's skyrocketing housing prices have forced about 100,000 people in the former British colony to live in squalid conditions. Photo: Vincent Yu, Associated Press

    Hong Kong --

    For many of the richest people in Hong Kong, one of Asia's wealthiest cities, home is a mansion with an expansive view from the heights of Victoria Peak. For some of the poorest, like Leung Cho-yin, home is a metal cage.

    The 67-year-old former butcher pays $167 a month for one of about a dozen wire mesh cages resembling rabbit hutches crammed into a dilapidated apartment in a gritty, working-class West Kowloon neighborhood.

    The cages, stacked on top of each other, measure 16 square feet. To keep bedbugs away, Leung and his roommates put thin pads, bamboo mats, even old linoleum on their cages' wooden planks instead of mattresses.

    "I've been bitten so much I'm used to it," said Leung, rolling up the sleeve of his oversize blue fleece jacket to reveal a red mark on his hand. "There's nothing you can do about it. I've got to live here. I've got to survive," he said as he let out a phlegmy cough.

    An estimated 100,000 people in the former British colony live in what's known as inadequate housing, according to the Society for Community Organization, a social welfare group. The category also includes apartments subdivided into tiny cubicles or filled with coffin-size wood and metal sleeping compartments, as well as rooftop shacks. They're a grim counterpoint to the southern Chinese city's renowned material affluence.

    Forced by skyrocketing housing prices to live in cramped, dirty and unsafe conditions, their plight also highlights one of the biggest headaches facing Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-backed leader: growing public rage over the city's housing crisis.

    Leung Chun-ying took office as Hong Kong's chief executive in July, pledging to provide more affordable housing in a bid to cool the anger. Home prices rose 23 percent in the first 10 months of 2012 and have doubled since bottoming out in 2008 during the global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said in a report last month. Rents have followed a similar trajectory.

    The soaring costs are putting decent homes out of reach of a large portion of the population while stoking resentment of the government, which controls all land for development, and a coterie of wealthy property developers. Housing costs have been fueled by easy credit, thanks to ultra-low interest rates that policymakers can't raise because the currency is pegged to the dollar. Money flooding in from mainland Chinese and foreign investors looking for higher returns has exacerbated the rise.

    Leung, the cage dweller, has little faith that the government could do anything to change the situation of people like him.

    "It's not whether I believe him or not, but they always talk this way. What hope is there?" said Leung, who has been living in cage homes since he stopped working at a market stall after losing part of a finger 20 years ago. With just a seventh-grade education, he is only able to find intermittent casual work.

    Many poor residents have applied for public housing but face years of waiting.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  2. #2
    Jesus that air quality.

  3. #3
    Yeah that smog is crazy. It's fucked up how I'm not even surprised that China keeps their poor in chicken coops. No, not even coops. Those are straight up stackable cages.

  4. #4
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    Social ills. We all got em to some degree.

    they start with a virus.

    It's called greed.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    I never really understood this aphorism until I went to China. I was raised on corn-fed American beef which sweetens the taste of the meat considerably. You really don't know the difference until you taste it. In that spirit, I'm launching this thread for news items related to eating bitter in China.
    ever since the Baby Yue Yue tragedy I've been obsessed with Chinese politics...I've always been obsessed with ghettoe **** like I can't get enough of the warlord peroid 1911 as its so different than like say the 80's on the west coast

    They are tearing up Vancouver which sucks for many reasons one I've been working on is like back in the day you'd go to the drive in burger shop and as a kid i remember using clean washrooms the a&w was ran by white christians in a majority white neighbourhood...now you go to that shop you could catch hepatitas from dirty overused washrooms and i notice its probably owned by an east indian or an iranian and then staffed by overworked philipinos patroned by white trash crackheads and hobo indians. that's like skidrow vancouver washrooms but if you go to ubc or even west van mcdonalds which is the beverly hills of bc they washrooms are nasty the poor old philipino grandmothers dont have time to clean and im guessing since her people are back in the philipines she isnt really caring about the ****ing mickey d's ****-spot lol and i feel bad for her but sometimes you gotta take a dump, right

    I thought you'd find this a bit interesting Gene I'm not sure if you've been to Vancouver but the politics stinks. you being from Cali I think you could relate to the issue. LAPD is all over the news because of dorner and what I've read about the ganglife during the bussing history of the unified california school district in LA during the 80s in city hall every race fought for power while the street got dirty like I read recently the brown gangs are killing the black gangs in compton which used to be majority black but city hall is all black and brown leaders are ****ed...meanwhile the compton mcdonalds washroom smells like **** I bet Its scary corruption in lapd is like a minor precursor to big city rat basement-dog cage hong kong dwelling. Im just mad they are putting ten towers near my favorite ubc vancouver beach in the next fifteen years as theyve already torn out four blocks of forest for a stripmall which is clean but Id bet a dollars to donuts the washroom will be ****e in ten years probably have hookers when it was a deer crossing street in 2006.


    its a big local issue since the brits handed over HK to the Mainland in 97 just type in Monster houses and Van if you're ever bored, like a decade worth of comments. old school Chinese are getting ****ed at commie Chinese.


    http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainf...ou-decide.html


    AnonymousFebruary 12, 2013 at 10:59 AM

    This speaks to so many issues right now–deception in the real estate market, the degradation of journalistic standards, the operatives of how real estate prices in Vancouver became so inflated, the issue of HAM and how true it is that HAM have inflated our prices or whether that was just a marketing gimmick.

    The perception (rightly or wrongly) that housing is unaffordable to local people due to HAM investors is causing a great deal of racial animosity in our society. It is undermining Trudeau’s vision of a multicultural society where different races live in harmony. So if it is true that condo marketers and the local media have been deliberately deceiving the public into thinking that HAM are the cause of high prices, then they are guilty of something far worse than just pumping up real estate. If they really did this, they would be guilty of creating social tensions and racism and undermining multiculturalism.

    And I say all of this with the words “IF THIS IS TRUE” underlined. So far everything is being alleged. I am not claiming there is definitive proof of any wrong doing. I wouldn’t want to be accused of slander.

  6. #6
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    Public restrooms are generally nasty places wherever you are. In California, many of the worst are around the beaches. However, having lived for many years in Taiwan, I can attest that some of the nastiest I've ever been in were over there. Those restrooms are no joke; most are bad enough to gag a maggot. One of the only truly clean and nice public restrooms I went into over there was (of course) at the Chiang Kai-Shek Int'l Airport. Of course, I left there 20 years ago, so who knows now, but I'm sure they'd keep the airport restrooms spotless.

  7. #7
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    Funny you should mention that, diego

    Quote Originally Posted by diego View Post
    I thought you'd find this a bit interesting Gene I'm not sure if you've been to Vancouver but the politics stinks.
    I just returned from Vancouver last night. I was at The Extraordinary Martial Artists of the World Lunar New Year Gala, but I only saw the River Rock Casino, which was fairly tame for a casino.
    Gene Ching
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  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    I just returned from Vancouver last night. I was at The Extraordinary Martial Artists of the World Lunar New Year Gala, but I only saw the River Rock Casino, which was fairly tame for a casino.
    Actually...that's Richmond. It's in the GVA, but (don't tell vancouverites) ... :-)
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    I just returned from Vancouver last night. I was at The Extraordinary Martial Artists of the World Lunar New Year Gala, but I only saw the River Rock Casino, which was fairly tame for a casino.
    Quote Originally Posted by David Jamieson View Post
    Actually...that's Richmond. It's in the GVA, but (don't tell vancouverites) ... :-)
    Yeah, I try to keep away from river rock in every way accept the odd time I go for a specific show.

    They are trying to bring in the supercasinos, but many don't want casinos at all.


    GVRD is not Vancouver though. There are 24(i think) separate municipalities within "metro Vancouver". And Vancouver isn't the biggest in acreage or population. But yeah, it's not very far away. Ten minute train ride, tops. Technically Richmond is it's own city. I don't go out there much. Not cause I dislike it, but just because it has nothing I can't get w/o crossing the Fraser. Huge Chinese pop though. The night market can be pretty cool if you like that stuff. Personally I prefer the one in Chinatown though. I find that the rows start getting repetitive in Richmonds version cause it's just so big. I mean how many cell phone accessory booths is enough, right?
    Last edited by Syn7; 02-19-2013 at 03:36 PM.

  10. #10
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    Ok, eh.

    When I say Richmond, no one knows wtf that is, 'cept maybe you Canadians. I must say, I was very amused that every time I turned on the TV there was Hockey and Curling on. I've started posting some pix of the event on facebook.
    Gene Ching
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  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    When I say Richmond, no one knows wtf that is, 'cept maybe you Canadians. I must say, I was very amused that every time I turned on the TV there was Hockey and Curling on. I've started posting some pix of the event on facebook.
    I actually like curling. I can see why it would be boring to watch for people who don't play, but that shit is hard man!


    "hurry hard! HURRY HARD!!!"

    Sweeping can be quite the workout.

  12. #12
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    Right....well, back on topic...

    If you've ever been to China, you've seen this (follow the link for more):
    Hilariously Overloaded Vehicles in China 【Photo Gallery】



    As proven by these photos, the Chinese are masters of making a ridiculous amount of luggage fit on an impossibly small vehicle. Bicycles, tractors, motorcycles and trucks are pushed to their limits, filled way past their breaking point with every day items and even people precariously perched on top.

    Some may call these overloaded vehicles a masterpiece. Others may think it’s safer and wiser to make multiple trips instead of taking the chance spilling the precious cargo. We can’t say for sure whether this packing technique is genius or folly, we just feel sorry for the poor sucker who gets stuck behind one of these things on a one-lane road.



    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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    That is way to funny in a sad over worked kind of way. If anything it's a testament to really hard working people and how well they build those little vehicles over there.

  14. #14
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    hey guys, i visit china new year but i didnt see any of this things, no dirty poor people, only many womans want to have the sexy intercourse with me, i am very scare, is this normal?

    Honorary African American
    grandmaster instructor of Wombat Combat The Lost Art of Anal Destruction™®LLC .
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by bawang View Post
    hey guys, i visit china new year but i didnt see any of this things, no dirty poor people, only many womans want to have the sexy intercourse with me, i am very scare, is this normal?
    If they wanted your money, then yes, it's normal.
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    This is 100% TCMA principle. It may be used in non-TCMA also. Since I did learn it from TCMA, I have to say it's TCMA principle.
    Quote Originally Posted by YouKnowWho View Post
    We should not use "TCMA is more than combat" as excuse for not "evolving".

    You can have Kung Fu in cooking, it really has nothing to do with fighting!

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