Above, Shenzhen

I slipped 3 or 4 times, one time down some marble steps and that spill was pretty serious. I was bruised up and couldn’t move my body for an entire day.
I asked my friend Yan about PaShi and if she’s ever fallen down, and if she was helped:

Yan: I also fell down one time in front of a market.it’s good was night
I felt imbarassed

My Red China:
how did you fall down?
did many people see you?

Yan: it’s night and have a slope I didn’t saw it
not many

MRC: did you stay on the ground for awhile
or pop back up fast

Yan: I remember it was bachelors day

MRC: did anyone help you?

Yan: not so fast,coz hurt.hurt my ass and arm
no
if anyone help me will make me feel more imbarasse

Another time I was on 中兴路 (ZhongXingLu) in Shenzhen with Gabi and Sara and this young guy on a McDonald’s delivery bike gently bumped this 混蛋 of about 40 years of age. The older guy proceeded to cause a huge scene like a drama queen, demanding to call the kid’s boss, wanting to take his bike, wanting money for the injury (there was none). A giant crowd formed. This guy just kept going and going. The kid kept silent and said sorry and nobody said anything. Not even like “Ok it was an accident, he’s sorry.” Nothing. Finally a city worker dressed in the blue outfit and a rice hat (pic below) stood up and tried to intervene and this old bastard pretended like he was going to slap him. He did so like “this lowly city worker”. However, one thing about PaShi is that if I went over there and pulled this guy’s hand off the kid i’d probably be beaten by a mob of angry 中国人。

Someone explain that for me.

3.5 cents for your thoughts

Don’t waste your time arguing with these shills, you’re just making sure they are paid more. Down vote them and move on.

If you see anyone talking about how the CCP/KMT is so great because they have brought prosperity, made china strong, etc you know that these are WuMao. Call them WuMao and move along.

You can find them in this story here, often posting under english names.

Above, Shenzhen circa 1970.

And Below, Shenzhen today (2010).

It’s almost impossible to mention China in a conversation now without hearing about them owning a large portion of our debt.  Based on my own unscientific and anecdotal perception (I asked a bunch of people), most would answer that China owns “most” or “close to half” of our debt, and I’m commonly asked “when I think that Mao Zedong will be on the hundred dollar bill.”

Before we begin, I’d like to make clear that I am a fiscal conservative.  I believe the US should not routinely run a deficit, particularly a large one.  I live in a state (Florida) with a balanced budget provision in our constitution and even though it’s ignored from time to time, I think it would be a good thing to have nationally, and I believe it to be extremely unwise to routinely run deficit spending.

One of the best resources for understanding the national debt is, unsurprisingly, the US Treasury.  You can read up to date reports on outstanding debt and its holders here.  Wikipedia has a slightly outdated but directionally graphical correct representation of this data here.  From this, we can see that somewhere around 30% of all US Treasuries are held by foreign and international interests.  The rest are held by insurance companies, other investors, pension funds, mutual funds, and the government itself (mostly the Social Security trust fund).

Already, this is probably not the picture you expected.  Less than a third of all US debt held by foreigners.  The treasury helpfully breaks this down further here, listing each country by holdings and the dates of the holdings.  Of that debt, China is indeed the leading holder at roughly 20.8% (as of July 2010), but Japan is right behind at 20.2%, then the United Kingdom at 9.2%, then oil exporters (5.5%), Brazil (4.0%), Hong Kong (3.3%), Russia (3.2%), and Republic of China or Taiwan at 3.2%.

After just a few minutes of basic research, we’ve learned that China has roughly 6% of our national debt under its ownership, and of the rest of the countries on that list, Japan, the UK, Taiwan, and Brazil would be counted in the friendly-to-America column, or at least in the “choose America over China” column.  It can be argued that Hong Kong is essentially China, but it still doesn’t change the general picture at all.

China, along with other countries, just doesn’t own that much of America’s national debt.  In fact, I’d say in light of all the political rhetoric, 6% is a shockingly small amount.

Still, lets say that the nightmare scenario happens, things went sour with China, and they wanted to begin flexing their muscle, using our debt against us as a weapon.  What would their options be?

• They could sell their holdings.  This would immediately depress the value of treasuries and probably cause some amount of alarm.  However, were China to begin selling their nearly 800 billion in treasury bills, the market for these bills would rapidly cause their existing holdings to plunge in value.  In other words, by selling, they’d screw themselves fairly quickly, and they’d be forced to take that money and place it somewhere else.  Where?  The EU has proven recently to be a less than stellar investment.  Their own domestic market wouldn’t be able to absorb a nearly trillion dollar capital injection without being inflationary.  Not to mention that the Fed could simply step in like they did with TARP and buy up the 800 billion dollars that China would sell, at rock bottom prices.  Our allies could also mobilize considerable buying pressure so that their own holdings wouldn’t devalue.  At the end of it all, China would probably lose the most from this maneuver.
• They could unpeg their currency to the US Dollar. China today artificially keeps their currency pegged at an unfavorable exchange rate (to them) in order for their products to remain cheaper for Americans.  Unbelievably, most of the current US diplomatic effort on economic issues is centered around trying to get China to remove this peg, thus making things more expensive for Americans.  Derogatory terms like “dumping” are used to describe China’s gift of subsidized products to millions of Americans.  By demanding that China unpeg its currency, we’re basically saying “remove your artificial subsidy on goods that middle and lower class Americans predominantly buy, and that will help us.”  Smarter people than I have written on this elsewhere numerous times.
• Are there other options here? I’m trying to think of them, but the reality is this – Chinese businesses are flush with dollars.  There’s a reason almost all of the countries that are major holders of US debt are manufacturing or commodities export driven (China, Taiwan, Brazil, Oil Nations, and Japan).  They receive dollars for their products, and need to buy materials to make their products.  These materials can and do often come from other economies, so it’s advantageous to use the world’s reserve currency to procure these materials.  Notice how India is absent from the list – they’re a knowledge exporter (mostly services and knowledge work like software), and therefore most of their income is paid in wages to individuals who then spend the cash within their own economy, not paid to other economies to procure raw materials.

If you were to obtain a large sum of money (in the billions or trillions of dollars), you’re going to need to make decisions regarding the investment of that money using long term, macro-level criterion.  Government stability comes into play, geopolitics becomes important, and all of a sudden in addition to a rate of return, you’re faced with the difficult decision of who do you trust with your money – but on a national scale.  If you’re China and you’re looking around the world to invest your US dollars, you can choose Europe, a handful of economies in SouthEast Asia that are just as invested in the US as you and are competitors to yourself, Africa, or South America.  The world just got a whole lot smaller.  In that context, the US is by far the most stable recipient for your investment, and its markets are also the driver for your current economic success.

Deng Xiaoping, the former leader of China and the architect of China’s reforms that shifted the country to free-market capitalism, is famous for his quote that China should stick to its economic policies for one hundred years.  China is thirty years in and has already taken enormously expensive steps (subsidizing exports by pegging to the US dollars for example) to ensure stability and continued growth.  Reasons for this are also steeped in history, as we’ll in see future posts.

Sure, China is investing more in Europe, as the recent debt offerings from Spain and Portugal illustrate, but the broader context here is that a global economic downturn hurts China just as much or more than any other economy.  Their domestic markets aren’t big enough or sophisticated enough to sop up the spare manufacturing capacity that would be created by a global downturn.  China’s economic interests are driven by political and historical goals that go unseen by Western economic analysts.

The analogy to this situation is simple:  as a construction company, you build a house, then rent it to a tenant who can also beat you up.  You sell furnishings to him too.  You’ve invested a lot in the home that you build, and all of a sudden, your tenant starts having trouble paying you back.  Unfortunately, the house is so big and lavish that there’s nobody else who can afford it, or if they were to buy it, you’d have to sell at a steep or near-total loss.  What do you do?  You follow the wisdom that banks who own their own mortgages follow: you do what you can to work out a payment plan and look to keep the tenant in the house, while not humiliating him in the process.  This way, both of you make it through hard times, and you can sell him a nicer house when he’s back on his feet in a few years and is looking to upgrade.

China is not about to jeopardize its future by focusing on short term issues and America needs to stop wringing its hands over non-issues.  The problem isn’t China’s holdings (or any other foreign entity’s holdings) of our national debt, the problem is the national debt: it’s us.  It feels a lot better to fear monger, but at the end of the day, we’re the problem.

Originally posted at http://www.peebs.org/2011/01/china-vs-america-national-debt/

20 years. Wow.

For example, there is a sex shop on most blocks in China, but you never see any customers. Yet, they stay in business. I asked my friend one night how that worked. He pointed out that there was a telephone number and it said 交货 (delivery) next to it.

The Chinese are very Swedish when it comes to sex: Don’t make a big deal of it, it’s just something that people do.

Anyhow, I was on ShenzhenStuff and I saw this ad for a lesbian bar event in Shenzhen:

http://www.shenzhenstuff.com/events/luvstep-at-the-lez-bar

With this picture attached:

The greatest part is the no frills name: Lez Bar.

同性恋酒吧

Baby, I'll count the stars and because you are not so smart, you count the moon

But some of it makes sense and is actually easier than writing an entire word for example:

中 means middle, see the line in the middle of the box? (pinyin Zhong or say like zhjong)

人 means man, sorta looks like a man.  (Ren or  sayWren)

大 means big, like a man showing how big the fish he caught is.  (say Da)

小 means small, compare to 大. (xiao or scheiao)

山 means mountain, sort of looks like peaks. (Shan or Shawn)

出 means to go or travel, notice sorta like two mountains. (Chu or Choo)

国 means country or land, it looks like a mouse stuck in a maze, which is pretty accurate for most countries. (Guo or Gwah)

哈哈 literally is the sound of laughing, ha ha. (ha ha)

好 means good. (Hao or How)

我 means I or Me. (wo or kind like whoa with less A sound at the end)

If someone asks you how you are, you would say 我好. I’m good.

了 is a word particle that is added for for emphasis or feeling, generally a kind of sweet feeling, like “how are you la”  (Le or La). Chinese people use this so much that they use it when speaking english, such as “how are you la?”

啊 is similar to 了(A or Ar) and is used the same, to add feeling, but more of a cheer up or “it’s ok” type of way. Also used by chinese when speaking or writing in english “it’s ok ar”.

口 means mouth or entrance. (kou or Coe)

出口 means exit (go out mouth).

口交 means blow job (kou jiao2 or Coe Jow, the second word rhyming with cow)

谢谢 means thank you (xie xie or she-eh she-uh), it’s a rather complicated character for something so simple.

不 means No. (Bu or Boo)

来 means coming or come. (lai or lie) If you asked someone if they were coming you’d say “你来了吗?” (ni lai le ma or nee lie luh mah)

Oh yeah, 吗 means a question, and instead of using inflections or context to signify a question chinese use the word 吗 (Ma or Mah)

美国 means America (mei guo or may gwuah)

中国 means China (literally Middle Kingdom).

太 sort of looks like a man with a penis, (tai or tie) but it just means Very.  Too bad right?

I’ll have my freind Adam make an intermediate and advanced one if this is helpful to anyone.

1. 7-11 delivers. You know when you’re hanging out with some friends and suddenly you realize that you need more beer, snacks, or cigarettes or some idiot girl is like “You know what would be really good right now? Ice cream!” and then all the other girls are like “yeah!”. Well in these cases, it’s simple: you pick up the phone and call 7-11. Very few minutes later a boy is at your door with a reusable bag and your order. If your Chinese isn’t so good don’t expect everything to be exactly right, for example they often bring me the New Tsingtao when I ask for the Classic Tsingtao (the new one is about 20 cents more per bottle.. ouch)  or if you ask for juice be lucky if you get something that came from a piece of fruit. Oh yeah, pretty much everywhere else delivers too.
2. Anything is possible with a little bit of money. Want fried noodles at 430am? No problem.  Need to move to a new apartment at 5 and its 4 now? Relax. Want to eat _____ (insert any animal there)? Eat away. Need a repairman on a Sunday night to fix pretty much anything? He might take 30 mins if he’s slow.
3. Things happen fast. I’ve been amazed at how quickly I can do things that are a pain in the ass in the US. For example when I moved recently I could’ve taken the apartment and moved in the same day I looked at it. Minutes after even. No credit checks, no waiting, nothing. Need cable or internet? There’s a cable rep downstairs in your building (or in a very nearby building). Bills are all paid to the management office in your building. Nothing is in your name really, you just go pay every month. Cash. There’s pretty much anyone available at any time to help you with whatever you might need.
4. Hot Pot. Hot pot is so great. I can’t even explain why, I just love it. And it’s spicy so it makes you drink more Tsingtao which is never a bad thing. Also most cities have about 10 different kinds of hot pot. I think Sichuan style is the best.
5. Massage. I’ve always liked getting massages but they’re really expensive back home and if you ask your girlfriend to give you one its like this quid pro quo situation in a sum zero game. If you massage her after she massages you then you feel tired and stressed again. If you massage her first, she’ll give you some crap massage and be like “sorry my hands hurt”.
6. Places in the US where normally you get shafted, they don’t shaft you in China. For example in the US convenience stores rip you off. In China there’s not really a price differential between something at a convenience store and something at the supermarket or a specialty store. Another example is the airport. The airports in China and Hong Kong are more or less the same price as a similar place outside of the airport. I think this is because the Chinese are so aware of being cheated that they would just refuse to pay the high prices and the gouging stores have learned this the hard way.
7. You’ll learn good habits. Like not putting your shoes on the bed or wearing flip flops inside. It took me some time but now I always wear flip flops or sandles inside. They call them “slippers”. If you’ve seen those things that suck all the bad stuff out of your body via your feet (I think they are bullshit but still) you’d not want to basically sponge up everything off the ground with your feet. Also, the reason Asian people in general take off their shoes when they go indoors is for one to keep it clean, but also because the streets in most asian countries are pretty foul and why would you want to track all that shit into your house. Walk through a wet market or seafood street and you’ll start taking your shoes off too.
8. People mind their own business. Mostly. This goes to extremes like if you walk down to a bar street and see some guy beating the shit out of his girlfriend in the front of the bar (rather common) or if you see someone getting beat up or otherwise bothered but for the most part Chinese just don’t give a crap what you’re doing and would rather you stay out of their business too.
9. Things are cheap. The reason for this I think is less because it’s a developing country and more because things are produced here and people know what it costs to make stuff. I think that in the US pricing models are a little bit messed up. For example, lets say you need a fan for your room or a keyboard. Well you probably know it takes about 50-75 cents to make but you’re willing to pay $10 for it—probably even pleased with the price you paid if you got it for 10. Why? Who knows. Chinese don’t put up with that crap. Shipping from the pearl river or Hong Kong harbor to the US isn’t that expensive, definitely not worth a 10X markup. A similar fan or keyboard would cost you about $2-4. Not peanuts cheap but more right-priced.
10. People aren’t ashamed to serve. Serving  others is a good thing. I’ll admit I’d rather not be a foot massager or bus boy but if you are there’s no shame in it and Chinese people aren’t ashamed of it. There is no weirdness between you two unless you create it. On a personal level, Chinese are very willing to serve you a drink, food or light your cigarette. Massaging someone else is not gay or romantic, just helping them feel better.

They call America MeiGuo which means “Beautiful Kingdom” or “Beautiful Country”.  What about France you ask? Fag’guo. Not even joking.

2. Most people in China are pretty friendly to foreigners but say “HALLO” to you all the time which gets a little annoying after 8 months. I’ve noted that when i’m dressing sharp or snappy I get more HALLOs then when i’m not.

3. Sprite is called Xue Bi ( Schway Bee) and Coke is called K’o K’ou K’o Le which means, roughly “let your mouth be happy” and also sounds like, well Coca Cola. 7-Up is qi qi (chi chi) and means 77. Beer is piujiu (pee-gee-oh), but usually you can just order Tsingtao (Ching Dow) as it’s really the finest beer around.

4. Breakfast options in China are limited. You have stuff that they eat for other meals (noodle soup, rice, etc) and then you have like bing bread– some bing bread is good, some is awful– depends on what’s inside. I’d say its sort of like a flat, dry exteriored piroshki, but more chewy. Ask whats inside before committing. They will run you about 1 yuan each (15 cents). You can also get dumplings, buns, etc. Many people eat hardboiled eggs too.

5.  Add Oil. If you’re feeling beaten down or depressed people will you to Ka-Yow (cantonese) or Jyah Yo (mandarin).  This means to add oil or gasoline. As far as Facebook in Hong Kong goes its probably the most often used comment. 加油! Add oil la! Oh yeah, they say “la” and “ah” and “ar” a lot too. Basically its a word particle that means nothing on its own but when added to something it sounds nice. For example “how are you la?”, or “I miss you la”, or “what you doing ar?”. You get the idea.

6. Generally, Chinese people don’t like ice or cold drinks. I know some who drink Tsingtao warm. Water is usually hot, sometimes warm, almost never cold. If you’re in a restaurant and you request ice water (baizah bing kuai shui, is how I say it, prob a better way) chinese people will look at you. Look at him, he loves that cold drink in his mouth. As such, finding like a bag of ice isn’t easy. If you need some for cocktails or something go to a restaurant, be sure to have a Chinese person tell them you want ice for drinks, otherwise it may be contaminated.

7. Chinese People Cover Their Mouths When They Use A Toothpick. This is sort of an asia-wide thing and is widely reported but when you consider that Chinese are pretty ok with most other personal grooming (or lack thereof) it’s a bit discordant. There’s spitting out a bad taste from your mouth and then there’s an old chinese guy hawking up a loogie from deep inside his soul that probably has particulates from the Qing Dynasty.

8. Don’t Drink The Water. Well duh. Andy your tips are getting pretty lame here. Hey asshole, I wasn’t finished… even some bottled water is not ok to drink. The amazing thing about the human body, if you’re sensitive to your own body, is that you’ll know almost immediately that it’s not good. There’s one that comes in a fancy bottle called Watson’s that is regularly contaminated. I drink a sip of this and immediately my stomach turns over.

9. That’s fuckin’ teamwork. Chinese girls will often share the load by carrying a plastic shopping bag down the street with each one holding a handle. See the photo below for reference. It’s cute and I tried it once and it does make it easier but sometimes creates awkward confrontations with oncoming pedestrians.

10. Chinese girls also hold hands. They’re not lesbians. Chinese guys sometimes walk around with their arms around each others neck, and are also not gay. It’s possible that some of them are gay and are taking advantage of this being culturally okay but there’s really no way to even quantify or investigate that, but certainly it does happen.

11. Chinese “Great Wall” Brand Wine is foul. Really.  Probably some of the vilest stuff i’ve had since this one time I went camping, left the ice chest with a few beers outside for 3 afternoons, came home at night and saw the chest, removed the beers, refrigerated and drank it later that night. Great Wall wine tastes like how windex smells.

12. People in China love the number 8. The reason is that eight is pronounced Bah, which sounds like Fa, which means Wealth or Prosperity. Also they love 88 because it resembles this character: 囍, which means Double Joy or Double Happiness, which is a kind of happiness that is only possible at a wedding. To add to this, it’s also the name of a popular brand of cigarettes. A pack of Shuang Xi’s (囍) vary in price depending on which variety you want. My friend Felix smokes the 6 元 per pack (84 cents) ones, but if you’re feeling fancy you can spend up to 30元 per pack. I spoke about developing a Quadruple Happiness brand (囍囍!!!!!)  that will practically make your head pop off with happiness to Felix and he didn’t think the idea was funny at all.

13. Chinese People Like or Don’t Really Get This Blog. But they are never angered by it or offended, and I don’t aim to be offensive but sometimes I joke around. Most Chinese people I know who’ve read this blog are just like “Why write about China? What’s the big deal?” . They think, oddly, that I’d write about America since I know more about that.

14. Workers often wear sportscoats and slacks to dig holes. I don’t understand it really. Also, the bike taxi guys wear similar outfits. So do beggars– if not that outfit they wear the Mao jacket with matching pants. Mafia guys wear athletic warm-up clothing or sorta 1980’s gay clothing. Office girls dress like prostitutes. Prostitutes dress like office girls. Hong Kong business guys dress like American yuppie casual (The North Face, Eddie Bauer, etc). Girls in front of massage parlors wear furry jackets and traditional dresses. The girls at the bowling alley wear track suits. All girls wear what would be described in the coastal US as “Granny Panties”. Guys wear briefs or gross underwear-in-a-tube type things. The other day I saw this old white guy wearing a fancy, ornate Mao jacket with his Chinese wife/girlfriend inside of a KFC. I had a series of wtf moments like… gone native.. posterboy for old gross foreigner..poser… pervert… KFC??

12. Most office buildings have hotels built into them. Oh cool, for visiting businessmen. Yeah but they rent them in 3 hour blocks.. oh cool, in case someone wants to stretch out a little, rest their eyes a little... Yeah, something like that. There’s one in my office building and I see nervous couples and unbothered hooker and customer duos all the time. Last Thursday this kind looking old Chinese guy was heading up with a 21 year old and a bag of snacks– like fish crackers and stuff.

13. Time Passes Strangely. 3 months in China for me felt like 6 or 9 months— in a very neutral way; not good or bad. The best way I can describe time passing slow here is just that your life is more dense. You learn a lot. You get mad a lot. You are happy a lot. You’re confused a lot. Now that i’ve been here for 7  months I feel like i’ve been here a year. I think living in such a foreign place just wakes you up. You pay closer attention to everything. Back home I was so familiar with everything that I just slept through life most of the time.

14. Chinese Culture is hard to define. “How’s China?”, people ask me.  It’s, uh, China I say. American culture is  also hard to define, until you’re not inside of it. Then it’s easy. Don’t mind what those snot nosed, scarf wearing, suburbanite tramps say after returning from Europe— Americans do have a culture.   If you don’t think America has a rich, positive culture you’re just not apart of it or don’t understand what the word culture means. You probably think it means old buildings,  exclusionary behavior or dressing like an asshole.