Chinese women over 40 think it is dirty and results in mouth cancer. Apparently there was an internet article warning Chinese women against fellatio because it can cause some form of mouth cancer.

Chinese women over 60 think [...]]]> Chinese Middle school and university students regularly practice Cunninglingus and Fellatio to avoid losing virginity and pregnancy.

Chinese women over 40 think it is dirty and results in mouth cancer. Apparently there was an internet article warning Chinese women against fellatio because it can cause some form of mouth cancer.

Chinese women over 60 think all sex is immoral.   They suffer from cultural pollution. There was a very recent time in China when a married couple had to register with the community CCP office to obtain permission to engage in marital sex. They were required to state the date, time and place of the proposed activity. Advance permission was mandatory. This registration requirement was eliminated when blanket permission was granted for every couple to have one child. Chinese people apreciate this opening up!

http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/SS/SS17_OralSex.pdf

Just over half of teens (aged 15-19) have had oral sex.

About one in four teens (aged 15-19) who have not had sexual intercourse report they have had oral sex. For older teens (aged 18-19) the proportion is even higher

Older teens (about seven in ten of those aged 18-19) are much more likely than younger teens (about four in ten of those aged 15-17) to have had oral sex.

Oral sex among teens (aged 15-19) is now more common than sexual intercourse.

Among teen boys (aged 15-19) who have not had sexual intercourse, the proportion of those who say they have had oral sex did not increase between 1995 and 2002. Among teen boys who have had sexual intercourse, the proportion of those who say they have had oral sex increased from 82% in 1995 to 88% in 2002.

http://www.slate.com/id/2234600

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Didn’t Learn Because You Grew Up in China)

Despite the one-child policy, millions of Chinese citizens don’t know how to have sex without getting pregnant.

By Michelle TsaiPosted Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009, at 1:47 PM ET

BEIJING—The first time Hu Jing tried to have sex with her college boyfriend, there was a technical difficulty. “We knew we had to use a condom,” she said. “But we didn’t know how.”

Faced with this conundrum, Hu and her boyfriend went looking for answers—he from his more experienced friends, she from the university library, where she combed through Dream of the Red Chamber, a literary classic from the Qing Dynasty.

The following week, they reconvened for a second try. This time, they managed to roll on the condom but then … well, where was the penis supposed to go? It took another week of research before they succeeded in doing the deed.

After three decades of the one-child policy, you’d expect people here to know how to have sex without getting pregnant. And you’d be wrong. In July, Chinese health officials said that 13 million abortions are performed in registered medical institutions each year, largely because people lack sex education. The number of unwanted pregnancies is even higher when you take into account abortions at unregistered medical clinics, not to mention the 10 million abortion-inducing pills sold each year.

I first met Hu over a cappuccino in Beijing’s Financial District, a section of town where gleaming towers and chain restaurants have replaced the old alleyways and courtyard homes where families had lived for generations. I had worried that Hu, like most Chinese people, would be uncomfortable talking about sex. But she turned out to be chatty and confident and laughed as she told me her story. When I opened the interview with softball questions, she interrupted and asked, “Don’t you want to hear about my experience with sex?”

Even though Chinese culture has become increasingly liberal, traditional values endure. As a result, there’s a gap between how open people are about sex and how informed they are, and stories like Hu’s are more common than you might expect.

In recent years, the taboo against premarital sex has largely faded among Chinese college students. It is now common for students in relationships to have sex, and attitudes are changing so quickly that my Chinese friends who are just 24 or 25 seem improbably ancient when they say things weren’t so liberal “back in their day.” Downstairs from my apartment in downtown Beijing, a convenience store that just opened sells condoms with English names like “007,” “Say Yes,” and “Newlywed.”

Still, the public understanding of safe sex hasn’t caught up with China’s newfound freedom in the bedroom. Many Chinese people, especially those in less-developed parts of the country, still rely on withdrawal or the rhythm method for contraception. (The birth control pill is unpopular, as many people believe it harms a woman’s body.)

“People born in the 1980s and ’90s are most in danger,” Hu said. “We’re liberal, but we didn’t have any sex education.”

In general, Chinese parents and teachers don’t talk to kids about sex, and government concern over “unhealthy” entertainment means that at the movies, you rarely see actors do anything more than kiss. This summer, the government decreed that only certain Web sites can provide information about sex and that computers used in schools, Internet cafes, and other public places must be loaded with Green Dam Youth Escort, a censoring software that screens out porn and anything related to homosexuality (not to mention “politically sensitive” content).

No wonder teens end up asking each other about sex—and getting a fair amount of misinformation. Some post their dilemmas on bulletin boards. Those who want to avoid the dubious wisdom of the crowd can e-mail questions to “Sister Siyu” at the popular portal QQ.com.

One teen writes, “I am 18 years old, and my girlfriend is 16. We held hands and kissed, so I am afraid that she will get pregnant. Will she?” Others ask Sister Siyu whether the rhythm method is safe, why boys have sex with you and then say they don’t like you, and what’s bad about oral sex.

Typical teen stuff, for the most part. But then you get a story like this one: “I am 20 years old, and I’ve had four abortions. Can I have a child when I get married in the future?” (Online confessions are a regular feature of Chinese bulletin boards.)

What’s striking is the way young Chinese people can progress from first kiss to multiple abortions in a relatively short time. Take Hu and her college roommates, who all arrived at school as virgins. Early on, one roommate from Guizhou—a poor, rural province in the south of China—asked Hu and the others how she was supposed to kiss: with or without tongue? But by the time they graduated, all four roommates were sleeping with boys, and the girl on the bunk below Hu had had three abortions in one year.

According to China Daily, the government’s English-language mouthpiece, a survey by a Shanghai hospital found that fewer than 30 percent of callers to a pregnancy hot line knew how to prevent pregnancy. It’s not just contraception that causes confusion. At a Beijing university, a peer educator told me classmates had asked her basic questions about menstruation and even about how often to change a maxi pad.

Officially, China’s Ministry of Education introduced sex education in schools back in 1988; it followed up with an HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum in 2003. But the existence of these guidelines would come as a surprise to most Chinese citizens.

Jerry Tseng, a friend who works in finance in Beijing, remembers his school’s sex-ed lesson well, but not for what he learned. That day, Tseng said, his teacher forced an assistant—who until then had not taught a single lesson—to lead the class. The younger instructor stood in front of the students red with embarrassment, unable to broach the subject. Eventually, the students were told to read the chapter themselves. This was the pedagogical method favored by many teachers; the dozen or so Chinese people I asked about this all had similar stories.

Today in Beijing, schools offer sex ed in junior high, but there’s no standard for what should be taught or how, and teachers have little incentive to emphasize the subject. After all, safe sex isn’t going to show up on the national university entrance exam that students spend years cramming for.

Broadly speaking, students learn about reproductive anatomy. They learn they’re not supposed to have sex, and that if they do, they must take precautions. And that’s that—no guidance about which precautions.

“There’s nothing from the schools about relationships. Nothing about pregnancy,” said Lily Liu, who heads the China operations of Marie Stopes International, an NGO that runs reproductive health clinics. Condoms? Liu laughed. “No condoms, of course,” she said.

People like Liu are trying to change the situation. But as with many things in China, new ideas battle traditional values, as I learned when I visited Zhang Meimei, a professor who runs the sex education research center at Capital Normal University.

Two years ago, Zhang launched a sex-ed camp for fifth- and sixth-graders. The kids played games and watched cartoons about puberty. The professor dug around in her office and pulled out two large posters; each featured a simple line drawing of a boy’s or girl’s body, with anatomy properly labeled. “The kids were very happy to learn,” said Zhang. “They weren’t embarrassed.”

A few minutes into our conversation, though, we were in very traditional territory. Zhang, who also trains instructors to teach sex ed, was telling me about junior high schoolers learning “how to be a man and how to be a woman” in sex ed classes. “Some girls want to wear boy’s clothing. And a lot of boys are too feminine,” said Zhang. I wondered whether she saw the contradiction between promoting traditional gender roles and teaching sex education. Would a girl who’s taught to be soft and quiet be able to demand that her boyfriend use a condom? Would a girl who insists on using birth control be perceived as a “proper” woman?

The following week, I took the subway to Wudaokou, which is akin to Harvard Square—cafes, hordes of bright students, opinionated homeless people, and, rare for China, street musicians.

At a popular McDonald’s, I sat down with Sisi Liu, a sophomore majoring in journalism at Tsinghua University, a school often referred to as China’s MIT. She had just come from a documentary about democracy in rural villages, and though it was pouring rain outside, she was dry in a yellow summer dress.

Before Liu arrived at Tsinghua—as she said, “before I knew anything”—she had intended to stay a virgin until marriage. In high school, she had been shocked when a friend announced her intention to have sex during her freshman year in college. These days, Liu’s attitude is a bit more Woodstock, a bit less Confucius. “We’re all adults,” she said. “If it happens, then it’s very natural.”

Liu told me that a lot of “love hotels” in the area cater to students, offering privacy for about $30 a night. Another person at the table expressed surprise—she hadn’t heard of them when she studied at Tsinghua just a few years earlier.

As a student at one of China’s best universities, Liu enjoys many advantages. One is that she attended a sex ed workshop during freshman orientation, where she practiced putting a condom on a banana.

Liu and her college friends watch Sex and the City, which continues to be enormously popular in China. “At first we liked Miranda,” she said. “But by the end, we liked Samantha the most. She controlled her life and showed that girls could be independent.”

As I walked downstairs to leave the McDonald’s, two university students caught my eye. They were in their own world, madly making out in their booth.

http://www.jailbeta.com/

It seems there is an epidemic of teachers having sex with their students. Every time you turn on the television or open a newspaper there are more [...]]]> IT IS A CRIME !!!    WATCH THE MOVIE “DISGRACE” IN THE AFRICA SECTION OF THE FREE CHOICE ENGLISH MOVIE LIBRARY

http://www.jailbeta.com/

Why Teachers Take Advantage of Their Students

PIRATES

When you hear the word “pirates” you either think of Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Johnny Depp or China. Blackbeard was a notorious pirate back in [...]]]> THE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS FOR YOU TO LEARN HOW CHINA IS CONTRIBUTING TO WORLD PEACE AND PROTECTION OF CHINESE PEOPLE GLOBALLY. YOU SHOULD BE VERY PROUD OF CHINA!

PIRATES

When you hear the word “pirates” you either think of Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Johnny Depp or China. Blackbeard was a notorious pirate back in the 1500’s and  Johnny Depp is a famous Hollywood movie star who plays Captain Jack, a pirate, in several famous movies. China is the most famous music and film pirate, stealing more than US$1 billion annually from the USA. (In fact India is the most notorious modern day pirate stealing US$2 billion in new pharmaceuticals from China annually.)

But there is a much more modern PIRATE story unfolding off the coast of Africa. Somali pirates in small skiffs, armed with surface to surface missiles and grenade launchers, attack and capture hugh bulk cargo ships including loaded oil tankers. They take the crews captive and hold the package for ransom. When an agreed release price is reached, the cash is air dropped onto the deck of the ship. The pirates then free the ship and crew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_attacked_by_Somali_pirates

These pirates are so well armed they dared to attack a US Navy ship.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-piracy_02int.ART.State.Edition1.4ccf990.html

They also fired on a French Navy ship.

http://www.aolnews.com/story/somali-pirates-attack-french-navy-ship/446496

Open sea piracy has become very big business.

Now, at this point, many are wondering why this thread, why this topic. You are thinking this has nothing to do with your life or your Country. You are the same people who responded to the thread “Can Asians Think” with a flippant “Of course we can.” Then you posted on many threads quoting what others have said on various web sites or simply restated the official Chinese Government propoganda, but did little or no creative thinking of your own, thus proving Asians can’t think.

Answer the following questions after researching the issue. Do your own thinking.

1. How many Chinese ships have been hijacked?
2. How many Chinese citizens have been held for ransom?
3. How many Chinese Navy ships joined the 15 Country multi-national task force to patrol waters off the Somali coast?
4. How many Chinese Navy personnel have put their lives at risk to stop the piracy?
5. What is the root cause of the piracy?
6. How can the piracy be stopped?
7. Should the pirates be killed on sight and their boats sunk?
8. Should preemptive strikes be made against the on-shore villages known to provide a safe harbor for the pirates?
9. Should all commercial ships be armed to fight off the pirates?

Pirate attacks on the ‘rise’ since March

By Wang Chenyan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-15 08:12

BEIJING – Attacks by pirates and the number of ship seizures have been on the rise since March, a senior Chinese naval commander has said.

In March alone, 20 ships were hijacked in as many as 51 pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, Zhang Wendan, senior colonel and deputy chief of staff of the South Sea Fleet, said.

Zhang, who is also the commander of China’s fifth escort flotilla sent to the Gulf of Aden, said pirates are using new tactics, as international organizations are making more efforts to ward off the threat from piracy, and commercial shippers have strengthened defenses.

The pirates’ reach has also increased, and their operations have extended to areas far from Somali waters.

Earlier, pirate activity was mainly contained to within 50 to 60 nautical miles.

However, the attackers have now expanded their reach to as far as southeastern Tanzania, the waters near Madagascar and almost the whole northwestern Indian Ocean.

The pirates have also diversified their targets. Most of their traditional targets were low-speed commercial ships. But now, they are choosing to attack small sailboats and fishing vessels, which are being seen as easy prey.

Large oil tankers, as well as bulk carriers, are also becoming more favored targets due to the high ransoms that they fetch, Zhang said.

The pirates have also got better at concealing their intentions.

Tripwires are used to trap the target ship’s propellers, giving the pirates a chance to get onboard.

Pirates also submerge their weapons, ladders and tools into the water to avoid detection by escort vessels, or use common fishing and smuggler boats as cover.

The pirates have also resorted to more violent tactics, Zhang said, adding China’s escort fleet is working hard to stay one step ahead of the pirates.

Zhang also proposed that counter-piracy information be shared with other countries’ escort fleets to help improve commercial ships’ defensive capability. CHINA DAILY

NEW YORK TIMES

Enriched by Record Ransom, Somali Pirates Free Tanker

By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM

Published: January 18, 2010

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali pirates off the eastern coast of Africa released a Greek oil tanker and its 28-member crew on Monday after receiving what they said was a $5.5 million ransom, believed to be the largest sum paid to free a hijacked ship.

The crew members — 16 Filipinos, 9 Greeks, 2 Ukrainians and a Romanian — were all unharmed, European naval officials said in a statement.

But disputes over the delivery of the ransom and how to divide it touched off fighting among pirates, according to the European Union Naval Force and spokesmen for the pirates. Skiffs carrying rival bands of marauders traded fire on Sunday, even prompting one of the pirate groups to radio naval ships for help.

“Of course, the European Union Naval Force would never intervene in a pirate fight,” said Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the naval force, which watched the gun battle from a safe distance. At least one pirate was reported killed in the exchange, but Commander Harbour said he could not confirm any deaths.

A pirate spokesman, Abdi Elmi, said that one pirate was shot dead Monday in the Xarardheere, a pirate haven, during a dispute over how to share the money, but he said that “it was friendly fire and accidental, and we buried him today.” Another pirate, who identified himself as Ahmed, said some of the hijackers had quarreled because they had been expecting a larger ransom than the sum that had been delivered by the owners of the tanker, the Maran Centaurus.

The owners, Maran Tankers Management, said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press that they were “delighted” that the ship had been released, but declined to provide any details about the negotiations that led to the ship and crew’s release.

The ship, carrying an estimated two million barrels of crude oil, was hijacked on Nov. 29 as it navigated past the coast of Somalia, a notorious hunting ground for pirates.

Enticed by the promise of lucrative ransoms from shipping companies, pirates have kept up their attacks on ships off the Horn of Africa, venturing hundreds of miles into the Indian Ocean in search of their quarry, despite an international deployment of warships and heightened security aboard cargo vessels.

Last year, pirates staged a record number of hijackings and attacks, according to the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau. The bureau said 214 vessels were attacked and 47 hijacked by Somalis, who have turned to piracy as a relatively lucrative way to make money in a country whose government barely functions and whose economy is in a shambles.

In February, the owners of a Ukrainian arms freighter that had been held for more than four months paid $3.2 million to free their ship.

Easter is a major western Christian holiday.

For the true story of Easter:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/easter.html

I SENT MY STUDENTS A “HAPPY QING MING JIE FESTIVAL”  MESSAGE. MANY STUDENTS  CRITICIZED ME BECAUSE THEY SAID IT IS NOT A HAPPY FESTIVAL BUT A SAD ONE. THE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS NOT TO ATTACK ANYONE BUT TO MERELY COMPARE CULTURES.

Why is this a morbid festival? Why is everyone [...]]]> QING MING JIE

I SENT MY STUDENTS A “HAPPY QING MING JIE FESTIVAL”  MESSAGE. MANY STUDENTS  CRITICIZED ME BECAUSE THEY SAID IT IS NOT A HAPPY FESTIVAL BUT A SAD ONE. THE PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD IS NOT TO ATTACK ANYONE BUT TO MERELY COMPARE CULTURES.

Why is this a morbid festival? Why is everyone so sad?

When your ancestors were alive they provided for you with a smile. Why can’t you be happy to now do something for them as simple as clean their tomb?

Why can’t you be happy honoring them and their prior contributions?

Why can’t you be happy for them that they are now free from the troubles of this world and are now in a much better place in the after life?

In the west a funeral is a happy time. Research an Irish Wake. Everyone gets drunk to celebrate the departed one’s new life. Death is not the end, it is a new beginning.

Easter is the largest funeral commemoration in the world. It is a happy time.

HAPPY QING MING JIE FESTIVAL!

What may have been unacceptable just 5 years ago now seems in vogue. But the question is: Is this a localized abboration or a national change in what is acceptable under the culture of the new China?

This is a story of two bridges on opposite sides of the world, one in China, one in California It is also a story of the difference between Chinese culture and American culture. [...]]]> WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS A CROSS-CULTURAL LESSON,
NOT AN ATTACK ON CHINESE CULTURE. READ CAREFULLY
TWO BRIDGES – TWO CULTURES

This is a story of two bridges on opposite sides of the world, one in China, one in California It is also a story of the difference between Chinese culture and American culture.
These two bridges are dissimilar in not only size, (one rather large, and the other one very small) and aesthetics; they also share no similarity in design or capacity. Even the distance from the bridge to the water below is radically different.

Although dissimilar in size, design, construction and capacity, they share more than the commonality of being bridges; they are both preferred by people who have decided to take their own lives through suicide. Mentally disturbed people, who have come to believe that the pain of living far outweighs the fear of dying, decide to climb the structures and jump to their deaths. With eight attempted suicides per month the Haizhu Bridge has earned the nickname “Suicide Bridge.”

HAIZHU  BRIDGE

(PICTURE CHANGED DUE TO STUDENTS’ COMMENTS)

Every time someone climbs the bridge to jump, it disrupts traffic because the lookie-loos, rubber-neckers and gawkers slow to observe the spectacle of death. Government officials have tried posting guards on the bridge and posting signs, both to no avail. As a last resort the bridge has been greased to inhibit climbing the superstructure. The language of the signs is very telling about the different cultural approaches to the identical problem found on opposite sides of the globe. The sign on Haizhu Bridge translates to DO NOT DISRUPT TRAFFIC. FIND SOMEPLACE ELSE TO KILL YOURSELF.

In 2009 a would be jumper received a helping hand from a senior citizen. The senior stated that he pushed the jumper over the edge because he was frustrated with the selfishness and attention seeking of the jumper. Two bridges, two cultures, one problem, similar solution with one major cultural difference – in San Francisco the primary cultural concern is on saving lives. In Gunagzhou, the primary cultural concern is on maintaining proper traffic flow. (If you have ever experienced rush hour in Guangzhou you may be able to appreciate this better.) A Guangzhou Government official was asked why the City did not provide psychological counseling to would be jumpers and to take other measures to prevent suicides. The answer was clear and simplistic. A person who has decided to commit suicide has already determined that their life is worthless so why should the Government invest any money in saving a worthless life? In San Francisco bridge workers risk their lives to save the life of a mentally ill person intent on ending their life. In Guangzhou it is preferred that you kill yourself in a less public location, at least one that will not disrupt traffic.

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

The Golden Gate Bridge is not only the most popular place to commit suicide in the United States but the most popular in the entire world. The deck is approximately 245 feet (75 m) above the water. After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at some 76 miles per hour (122 km/h). At such a speed, water has proven to take on properties similar to concrete. Because of this, most jumpers die on their immediate contact with the water. The few who survive the initial impact generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water.

An official suicide count was kept, sorted according to which of the bridge’s 128 lamp posts the jumper was nearest when he or she jumped. By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200 and new suicides were averaging one every two weeks. For comparison, the reported second-most-popular place to commit suicide in the world, Aokigahara Forest in Japan, has a record of 78 bodies, found within the forest in 2002, with an average of 30 a year.There were 34 bridge-jump suicides in 2006 whose bodies were recovered, in addition to four jumps that were witnessed but whose bodies were never recovered, and several bodies recovered suspected to be from bridge jumps. The California Highway Patrol removed 70 apparently suicidal people from the bridge that year.

There is no accurate figure on the number of suicides or successful jumps since 1937, because many were not witnessed. People have been known to travel to San Francisco specifically to jump off the bridge, and may take a bus or cab to the site; police sometimes find abandoned rental cars in the parking lot. Currents beneath the bridge are very strong, and some jumpers have undoubtedly been washed out to sea without ever being seen. The water may be as cold as 47 °F (8 °C).

The fatality rate of jumping is roughly 98%. As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump. Those who do survive strike the water feet-first and at a slight angle, although individuals may still sustain broken bones or internal injuries. One young man survived a jump in 1979, swam to shore, and drove himself to a hospital. The impact cracked several of his vertebrae.
Engineering professor Natalie Jeremijenko, as part of her Bureau of Inverse Technology art collective, created a “Despondency Index” by correlating the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the number of jumpers detected by “Suicide Boxes” containing motion-detecting cameras, which she claimed to have set up under the bridge. The boxes purportedly recorded 17 jumps in three months, far greater than the official count. The Whitney Museum, although questioning whether Jeremijenko’s suicide-detection technology actually existed, nevertheless included her project in its prestigious Whitney Biennial.

Various methods have been proposed and implemented to reduce the number of suicides. The bridge is fitted with suicide hotline telephones, and staff patrol the bridge in carts, looking for people who appear to be planning to jump. Iron workers on the bridge also volunteer their time to prevent suicides by talking or wrestling down suicidal people.The bridge is now closed to pedestrians at night. Cyclists are still permitted across at night, but must be buzzed in and out through the remotely controlled security gates.Attempts to introduce a suicide barrier had been thwarted by engineering difficulties, high costs, and public opposition. One recurring proposal had been to build a barrier to replace or augment the low railing, a component of the bridge’s original architectural design. New barriers have eliminated suicides at other landmarks around the world, but were opposed for the Golden Gate Bridge for reasons of cost, aesthetics, and safety (the load from a poorly designed barrier could significantly affect the bridge’s structural integrity during a strong windstorm).

Strong appeals for a suicide barrier, fence, or other preventive measures were raised once again by a well-organized vocal minority of psychiatry professionals, suicide barrier consultants, and families of jumpers after the release of the controversial 2006 documentary film The Bridge, in which filmmaker Eric Steel and his production crew spent one year (2004) filming the bridge from several vantage points, in order to film actual suicide jumps. The film caught 23 jumps, most notably that of Gene Sprague as well as a handful of thwarted attempts. The film also contained interviews with surviving family members of those who jumped; interviews with witnesses; and, in one segment, an interview with Kevin Hines who, as a 19-year-old in 2000, survived a suicide plunge from the span and is now a vocal advocate for some type of bridge barrier or net to prevent such incidents from occurring.

On October 10, 2008, the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors voted 14 to 1 to install a plastic-covered stainless-steel net below the bridge as a suicide deterrent. The net will extend 20 feet (6 m) on either side of the bridge and is expected to cost $40–50 million to complete. However, lack of funding could delay the net’s construction.

The above is quoted from Wikipedia

It’s True, Asians Can’t Think, by Sin-ming Shaw,.May, 31, 1999  Time magazine article

Until it abandons its twisted Confucianism, the region will trail the West.

Quoted:

Can Asians think?  That is not a racist slur.  [...]]]> EDITOR’S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS NOT WRITTEN  BY PROFESSOR MARTIN WOLFF AND THERE IS NO COMMENT BY HIM EITHER.

It’s True, Asians Can’t Think, by Sin-ming Shaw,.May, 31, 1999  Time magazine article

Until it abandons its twisted Confucianism, the region will trail the West.

Quoted:

Can Asians think?  That is not a racist slur.  It’s the title of a book by Singapore diplomat Kishore Mabbubani.  While he offers no answer, the question is excellent and long overdue.

The facts are not to dispute 1,000 years ago China under the Song Dynasty was the world’s most advanced nation.  Even 300 years ago, China under the Qing rulers was first among equals.  Yet in the past 100 years, the West’s superiority over Asia has widened exponentially over any advantage the East ever enjoyed.  No civilization with such a commanding lead, not even classical Greece, has declined more dramatically than China.  The issue is not about economic growth or engineering dexterity.  Asia’s record in those areas is indisputable.  It’s about originality of the mind and its resulting intelligence over how mankind shapes the world.

China may have mastered cutting-edge nuclear technology, by stealth or otherwise, and Japan may have the best engineered semiconductors.  But these developments are ultimately based on Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics, both purely Western paradigms. China justifies its political system by invoking Marx while trying to restructure its economy using the theories of Keynes and Friedman, even employing Goldman Sachs for financial advice.  Taiwan is a democracy more informed by classical Greek philosophers than by Chinese and Japanese leaders wear Western formal dress with tails for signing ceremonies.  And everybody loves an Ivy League degree.

Asia must not merely reflect on why Western thoughts shape the world we know, it must also ask why do many Asian minds flourish only after they have gone to the West.  For evidence, just look at the many Nobel Prizes won by Asians living and working in America.  Time and again, talented émigrés say they had to leave Asia because the intellectual atmosphere was stifling or because the established hierarchy respected seniority over brains.

Blaming Asian schools for focusing on memorization- as opposed to “thinking”- is too pat an excuse, as schools and universities reflect the basic values of a society.  It is ingrained in the Asian psyche that “correct” answers always exist and are to be founding books or from authorities.  Te4achers dispense truth, parents are always right and political leaders know what is best.  In executive led societies, such as China and Hong Kong, leaders act like philosopher Kings, often offering unchallenged banalities.  Senior officials sometimes resemble the powerful palace eunuchs of past dynasties: imperial, unaccountable, incompetent.  Questioning authority, especially in public, is disrespectful, un-Asian, and un-Confucian.

-2-

It is time to deconstruct Confucius.  He said many things.  Some emphasized order above all, on filial piety, never disobeys.  Others were democratic: without the trust of the people, no government can stand.  Past emperors manipulated his work to justify a static order while they themselves rarely abided by the same rules.  Japan became Asia’s most advanced nation largely because it dared to change its own values during the Meiji Restoration in 1868 (although it now needs a similar impetus to regain its creative energy.)

The conventional wisdom that Asians cherish learning is misleading.  IN the past, learning meant passing imperial exams that led to well paid jobs in the civil service.  It’s not altogether different in modern Asia.  Learning for its own sake is considered a luxury, if not a financial waste, unless it also leads to an attractive income stream.

The twisted Confucian philosophy passed on by generations has played a damnable role in denting Asian creative thinking.  U.S. trained physicist Woo Chia-wei, president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology believes the Confucian stress on order is a major obstacle on creative thinking that has sometimes affected even his own instincts.  All important advances to knowledge involve substantial revision or rejection of an existing framework.  Scientists call that a paradigm shift.  Order for the sake of order is the opposite of creative thinking.

Which Asian society, informed by home grown precepts, is most likely to nurture and keep at home a future generation able to write better software than Microsoft find a cure for cancer and to replace quantum mechanics with a theory of everything, now the Holy Grail of physics?  The odds are not good, but the best bet is Taiwan.  Alone among Asian societies it possesses the right combination of intuitions that allow talent to blossom.  Institutionalized disputes and respect for opposing viewpoints, publicly aired are not just about political democracy, they are fundamental to creative thinking.  They set as a filter so that a rare gem may be found among the intellectual garbage.  It takes only a few powerful ideas to change the world.

If Japan, China and the rest of Asia—perhaps even India—even manage to cast aside mind-numbing communist, Confucian and caste values, then the region’s talents could one day dominate the Nobel Prize lists, enriching the world through intellectual property, not property development.  And they will be doing their creative thinking right here in Asia.  Eventually, someone might even ask, “Can Westerners think?”

NOTE:  Sin-ming Shaw is a professional investor and and visiting fellow to Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge.  Google for his blog

CHINA DAILY

Can Asians think? They’ve started to

By Andrew Sheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-28 07:49

Editor’s note: Asia has been preparing to take an ideological lead in post-crisis economy instead of following the guide from the West.

My Singaporean friend, Prof Kishore Mahbubani, wrote a provoking essay in 1998, Can Asians think? I found the title rather offensive – of course we can think. But what he really meant was, “Can Asians think out of the Western intellectual box?” Most of us trained in or by the West used to think that the ideals of best practice were the wonderful theories, technologies and institutions that the West has brought to Asia.

But the global economic crisis has shocked us to the core. That the best of the West such as the iconic Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission of fraud is appalling for those who look up to them for standards of professionalism, innovation, intellectual brilliance and moral integrity. If this is what our teachers are we have to think for ourselves.

There are signs now that Asians are beginning to do so. In a new book, Nowhere to Hide: The Great Financial Crisis and Challenges for Asia, published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, authors Michael Lim Mah-Hui and Lim Chin argue that the global financial crisis should be examined from three different levels: Theory and ideology, financial industry practices, and structural imbalances in the international economy. (Michael Lim used to teach political science in the University of Malaya before becoming a banker and joining the Asian Development Bank. Lim Chin is a professor of economics at Singapore’s NUS Business School.)

Written from a multi-disciplinary point of view, the book examines the crisis from the angle of not only how the “efficient market hypothesis” took hold of Wall Street, but also how it transformed its business practices and flourished on the penchant for consumption and debt arising from the United States balance of payments deficits.

Just as Asians suffered from hubris during the years of the “Asian miracle”, so did the gods of Western economics and finance before the global economic crisis. In his address to the American Economic Association in 2003, Economics Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas proclaimed that “the central problem of depression-prevention has been solved for all practical purposes”.

In 2004, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke lauded for “rescuing” the financial markets with “whatever it takes”, said in his famous speech on the “Great Moderation” (years of low volatility growth and low inflation) that “improved monetary policy made an important contribution not only to the reduced volatility of inflation but (also) to the reduced volatility of output as well.”

Central bankers, patting themselves on the back, made no mention of the role of inexpensive goods and services provided by Asia in keeping inflation low. On the contrary, in his equally famous speech in 2005, Bernanke argued that the “significant increase in the global supply of saving – a global saving glut – helps to explain both the increase in the US current account deficit and the relatively low level of long-term real interest rates in the world today.”

I am puzzled by the logic of this argument, because this is like a banker blaming his problems on his depositors because they save too much. The question is where did their high savings come from? The answer: The depositors earned their income from the high-spending banker. And why do the bankers spend so much? Because the long-term real interest rates are too low!

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If Western intellectual thought and policy formulation appears to be incomplete or flawed, what are the challenges for Asia? Lim and Lim ask the right questions in their book, but do not answer them fully. You can actually find several answers in the foreword to the book by Venu Reddy, former governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Reddy was vilified by investment bankers for not being willing to open up India’s financial system fast enough when he was RBI governor. But after the crisis, it was clear that his steadfast and prudent approach shielded India from the worst shocks of the financial shenanigans and large capital flows.

Reddy has argued that post-crisis growth in Asia will remain strong. And along with the growing workforce, education and upgrading of skills would be major challenges. Asia can become a global financial hub because of its large pool of capital human skills, he has said, but a major challenge will be the question of leadership in thought and innovation.

Providing the environment for that leadership will require good governance. Reddy foresees growing intra-regional cooperation but warns that major shifts in world economic power take place over long periods and may not be smooth. Wise words indeed.

If Asia is to take its rightful place – equal to the West – in the world there has to be more original Asian thinking, not about parochial Asian values but about values and practices that apply universally. The book by Lim and Lim shed light in that direction.

The author is adjunct professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and the University of Malaya, Malaysia.

(China Daily 04/28/2010 page9)

In America everyone knows that Uncle Sam is a euphemism for the Government. It began more than 100 [...]]]> This thread was commenced on November 29, 2011 when it was discovered that a surprising number of Chinese teachers of English had no prior knowledge of “Uncle Sam” and could not understand the humor of “Uncle Roy”.

In America everyone knows that Uncle Sam is a euphemism for the Government. It began more than 100 years ago when the US military put out a recruiting poster that said UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU TO JOIN THE ARMY.

Over the past 100 years Uncle Sam has been used for many posters when the Government wants the people to do something. The Uncle Sam poster is now iconic.

China is known for adopting western things but with Chinese characteristics.

The Uncle Roy poster simply borrows the Uncle Sam poster and adds Chinese characteristics. Roy is the Chinese Uncle Sam. Roy is the English name of the Dean of the English Department of the School of Foreign Languages at Harbin Institute of Technology.  He is the authority figure (government) of the English Department.  The star on the hat of the original Uncle Sam is white because the stars on the US flag are white. Uncle Roy has yellow stars for the yellow stars on the Chinese flag.

The joke is that nothing is sacred, not even the iconic Uncle Sam poster. The Chinese can borrow anything and add Chinese characteristics and make it their own. The Uncle Roy poster should become a collector’s item in China.

Why is this poster a parody?

Why is this poster ironic humor?

Ironically, The November 30, 2011 China Daily  carried the following cartoon on page 8.

Unfortunately, although the China Daily is familiar with “Uncle Sam,”  to get the real underlying humor of this cartoon you need more knowledge of Disney Children’s Stories (Pinocchio) than Shakespeare or the classics.