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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41274)	11/6/1999 11:17:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Agree that the Chinese seem above corruption, somehow. Not the same thing as having OUR best interests at heart, qv Loral. The Chinese people I know are frighteningly moral.

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41274)	11/7/1999 1:07:00 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<Remember when "Made in Japan" was a badge that defined the bottom of the manufacturing pyramid?> Gee... do you remember getting those little watercolour sets from Japan...the ones that came in a little stamped tin case...usually red on the outside with a white interior... but if you took the metal tray off... there would be some kind of picture from a tin can on the back...maybe a picture of some kind of fruit or veggies stamped on the "back" of the metal... That always seemed the like best and most mysterious thing about getting little tin toys from Japan... Tin cars were the same. My brothers and I used to like to take things apart to look at what was stamped on the reverse side of the metal... (actually not too sure why we found that so fascinating)... BTW, if you tell me that you don't remember any of this...well, then, that probably means that you're just some young whipper-snapper... but then, you remember red hot gum and stuff like that.... hmmmm.... When you mentioned the gum and other practical joke things, I started thinking about the ads that used to be in the back of comics... I haven't looked at a comic book in a long time, so maybe those ads are still there... Do you remember them... Some place used to sell mail-order sea monkeys and "x-ray glasses" and "bloodshot-eye glasses" and those magic crystal rocks that you put into water and watched them grow into colourful little stalagmites (or were they stalactites or something else???)... BTW, you must know this... What were those magic rocks made out of anyways??...they were rather neat things...

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41274)	11/7/1999 1:28:00 AM
From: Michael Sphar	Respond to of 71178

Was over in China the other day. Developed a few thoughts in and around this idea. Being that we landed in Beijing Oct 2nd around noon with nothing planned til the next day, we jumped on the hotel bus and quickly got lost in the downtown. Grabbing a taxi in our quest and walking a good bit we at long last came to a breach in the wall of the Forbidden City. Entering through this side gate kind of in reverse flow we made our way to the Gate of Heavenly Peace - the demarcation between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the spiritual center of the People's Republic. You'll know this place by the huge tarp portraying the bust of the late Chairman Mao. Now it happened that the Communists had a huge Party just there the day before (celebrating exactly 50 years since the founding of the PRC) and being the typically phobic heads of State of a vast empire they had been a bit restrictive as to whom could come to the party. So on this day as we passed through the Gate of Heavenly Peace out up onto one of the 5 small foot bridges crossing the moat, we were immediately confronted by a crowd of immense proportion. I'd estimate maybe 500,000 all proletariat, mainly from the country, Chinese tourists almost one and all. Due to the fact that my wife is Asia-Pacific Islander and has a certain undefinable character about her countenance, I suppose these people discounted her appearance as odd perhaps but not noticeably different - long straight blackish hair a bit of an oriental look to her face. I on the other hand stood out like a sore thumb, a sixth toe, the proverbial square peg in the round hole. Strangers were coming by and getting their pictures taken standing next to or near me. It was odd to say the least and fun! I felt a bit the anonymous celebrity, the first living caucasian that many of them had ever seen, I suppose. But my point is magnitude. There we were, two lost Americans adrift in a sea of Chinese people all milling about Tiananmen Square chests/breasts-to-back closeness half a million strong all milling aimlessly about, inching past each other in an endless procession without order whatsoever, generally crowding around the Provincial floats from the prior day's parade. Picture taking, smiling, walking, talking, maximum Chineseness. This was mind-bogglingly great for me! I loved the immersion. Monica, however being a head's height shorter complained of a soffocatingness and the rebreathing of others air. The point being driven home in spades was, there are one heck of a lot of Chinese in China! It is a nation of people power, emerging from the cataclysmic shroud of Communist politically suppressive governance. There were signs of capitalistic enrichment but there were tremendous reminders of the shear lack of economic wealth. The Wall and its endlessness, built on the backs of humans and not necessarily happy humans at that. Later on, as we traveled in-country we moved onwards and upwards to the Tibetan Autonomous Region and saw a country where the Yak is the primary motive force of the agarian aspect of that society. People/animal power, where cars, trucks and tractors are an almost unaffordable luxury. There were some, but not many. Later still, a dam being constructed. By hand. The Pick and Shovel Corps. As our local guide explained, these workers that we saw were men of the People's Liberation Army. There were no giant off-road vehicles present. Just manpower and a big project. The empire is big. The people countless, the lack of capital immense. Later still in our trip working our way back to the Western world, visiting a place called PearlWorld. Its a pretty famous tourist stop near Beijing. Freshwater pearls. Entering the shop we attended a quickie video intro, then onto a tank full of doomed oysters. A bilingual host asking us to guess how many pearls might be in an oyster of our choosing. We guessed 5, when they opened it there were at least 2 dozen little pearls! Evidently even the mollusks have adopted the trait of maximizing numbers. To call China an industrial society may be a bit of a stretch. Yes they have some industry and produce in a magnitude unfathomable already. But from what I saw they will still be an emerging nation 50 years from now. Not due to lack of vision or will, just that they are decades behind in capital formation. But they will get there no doubt. Every Chinese I've ever met or known revealed him/herself to be capitalist in his core. One brief postscript. Monica took an incredibly psychologically important picture of me, standing there beneath the Late Chairman's visage, with me holding the international symbol of capitalism in my hand - a can of Coka Cola (you guessed it, Made in China). We were both smiling, Mao and me.