The China Thread

[Michael]

Baby stroller. Escalator. China. No fatalities, no visible blood, unlike last summer when people were getting etten by escalators daily.

http://www.miaopai.com/show/coc-r9RH5bQzacAdUpvRyg__.htm

[Trick]

Now it's the tigers

[gzregorz]

Baby stroller. Escalator. China. No fatalities, no visible blood, unlike last summer when people were getting etten by escalators daily.

F*** escalators and elevators!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLKCQlik05U

[onebir]

I caught a heel in a London Ｕnderground escalator years back. Popped a panel out of the step, leaving a hole big enough to take a leg. It was rush hour & an attendant - probably stationed there because they knew that one wasn't quite right - hit the emergency stop in about a second.

However someone was killed (crushed in the doors) in a lift in a high-end gym in London not so long ago, so it's not a purely Chinese problem.

[Michael]

However someone was killed (crushed in the doors) in a lift in a high-end gym in London not so long ago, so it's not a purely Chinese problem.

Yeah, it happens all over, but last summer seemed like there was an escalator incident every few days over here.

[Michael]

Two young local women cut in line and a foreigner asks them politely to wait in line, first in Mandarin, so the local gal replies in the local dialect, unexpectedly the foreigner responds in the same local dialect, so the woman then speaks in some Northeast dialect, to which the foreigner has no problem replying in as well, so she finally pulls her friend away with her.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-xncKdUr-o

An article about it.

[Michael]

This advertisement might provide context to additional loss of face for the culprits in the previous line cutting video.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UykyiKczbw

[Steve James]

Two young local women cut in line and a foreigner asks them politely to wait in line, first in Mandarin, so the local gal replies in the local dialect, unexpectedly the foreigner responds in the same local dialect, so the woman then speaks in some Northeast dialect, to which the foreigner has no problem replying in as well, so she finally pulls her friend away with her.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-xncKdUr-o

An article about it.

Ah f..k, who is the guy? There must be a great back story.

[Michael]

As far as I know, he is just a random dude and was never identified online. A Chinese media outlet of course identified him as a black foreigner (黑人老外), and people tend to self-identify a lot in China as "American Joe in China" or "Irish Collin in China", so being a black foreigner in China is a thing for some people. This multi-lingual man probably has better things to do than maintain an online presence in the sea of foreigners telling their same-samey China story, so I don't expect to ever find out what he was doing in Wuhan or where he's from. If I had to guess, he's not American.

One of the better known of those is Randy Flagg of China Ratchet, out of Chicago. He's got one of those rambling youtube channels called Loser Laowai* in China, but if you can parse it you find his typical back story, he's recently married a local and had a child, etc. He's just published an ebook called the American Nightmare and also has a video about the 10 reasons he prefers China to the USA, which is a long list of inaccuracies of his perspective ("There's no drugs in China" lol), but whatever, he tells it as he sees it.

*Laowai 老外 is a colloquial Chinese term for foreigner that's quite common. It sits in the middle ground of Chinese epithets for non-Chinese, a bit nicer than white/black devil 白/黑 鬼 bai gui or hei gui , not as polite as foreign person 外国人 wai guo ren, and less friendly than foreign friend 外国朋友 waiguo pengyou, which is what I say to kids when I hear them call me laowai or gweilo, the Cantonese version of foreign devil.

[grzegorz]

It's probably Vadaga.

[Michael]

In the past few days a video was published in Miaopai and The Daily Mail, which showed a black man on the subway slapping a Chinese and the audio had him scolding the young man for something he said, then threatening to take him to the police, which made no sense. The article with the vid was full of incorrect speculation about the reason for the slap. It said the Chinese had called the foreigner a black devil. At a time of heightened nationalist tensions, it seemed really odd that a foreigner would do something like that and not get grabbed by locals and held for the police, which would be likely to have also been captured on video, along with tons of vids over the years of foreigners blowing their cool on public transport.

A day or two later, the less edited version of showed up where you can see the foreigner recover his phone and it turned out he slapped the guy because he tried to steal his phone and had nothing to do with racial slurs. It's likely the reason for the local guy to show so much pain at being slapped is in order to appear pitiful so he wouldn't get jumped by a mob.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyYKsa90HP0

[Michael]

It's probably Vadaga.

[Bao]

In a country that is mentioned here, there's a very special combination of using cheap materials together with workers who don't think and take no responsibility because there's always someone higher up who should think and take responsibility but doesn't because there's someone even higher up that should but don't.

Experts have come to the conclusion that all new buildings as apartments built now and for the last ten, fifteen years will in general last for about 30 years. Then they will be unhabitable, unusable, useless. The incredible bad quality is one main reason why many people have stopped buying apartments.

[vadaga]

*Laowai 老外 is a colloquial Chinese term for foreigner that's quite common. It sits in the middle ground of Chinese epithets for non-Chinese, a bit nicer than white/black devil 白/黑 鬼 bai gui or hei gui , not as polite as foreign person 外国人 wai guo ren, and less friendly than foreign friend 外国朋友 waiguo pengyou, which is what I say to kids when I hear them call me laowai or gweilo, the Cantonese version of foreign devil.

I actually prefer gwailo to laowai... hate the latter as 1) it pays lip service to politeness but the way people say it... doesn't seem polite to me... there's always a submerged adjective hovering just out of reach whether it's 死 or 笨 or 蠢 or what have you... but call people out on it its like nonono the 'lao' is for respect, um thanks but no thanks I didnt fall off the tomato truck yesterday 2)moreover the phenomenon of hearing it in places other than China...it's like nonono we're in [country other than China] now. It's like if I went to France and called all the French people foreigners... where is the sense...

here by request of gzregorz

[grzegorz]

This advertisement might provide context to additional loss of face for the culprits in the previous line cutting video.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UykyiKczbw

Holy Cannoli!