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Showing posts from December, 2018

Why Japanese is harder than Chinese....reader request

(A reader has asked for my take on the above.  He had a duplicate comment however, and as I tried to erase the duplicate it seems by default their both now gone...hope he doesn't think I just deleted everything on purpose...sorry about that.)  Yep, I said it.  Japanese without question in my view is more difficult than Chinese.  Indeed, several languages are.  And I should know because I've studied several of them.   Russian for example.  Easy enough to read and write.  Good luck speaking it grammatically correct.  Spanish.  Noted as the fastest language in the world.  Another language easy enough to pick up on reading, but crazy to speak.   I won't bring up Korean and French, two tongues "I've heard" are similar in grammar to the others above. I am even fond of honestly telling Chinese(who never believe me), that even English is harder than Chinese. So why is Chinese looked upon as being so damn hard? I think it's because those folks saying that j

Edit Update....A Country with Vast Designs

I've already seen a few of these since my post on China's increasingly interrelated relationship with Latin America. However, this time around I managed to save what I had read.  If I find more, I may continue with the update.... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/world/americas/ecuador-china-dam.html On November 3, 1903, the territory of Panama declared independence from Columbia.    The Columbian gunboat Bogota responded by lobbing shells into Panama City.    Only a few shells were fired, mind you.    And a donkey was killed.    However there was one fatal human casualty.    A Chinese shopkeeper was killed in his sleep. And with that I begin the tale of the slow domination of China over Latin America.    If one simply thinks about it, calmly for a moment, one will see the logic of it all.    Ever since the natural abilities and entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese has been unleashed since the 1990’s, the Chinese have been able to find their natural calling; busi

The Rise of Zhou En Lai. Part One....my take

( I had a post all set to write, more of a personal one.  But it's xmas....no need to read such things for now.  Still my indecisiveness has delayed this next post at least a week. ) I will first say that Zhou En Lai had more in common with Jiang Qing than Mao himself ever did.  More on that later. I will also say that without Zhou China, so the narrative goes, would surely have slid into chaos.  Well, if the Cultural Revolution wasn't chaos than I'm flummoxed to understand what the word "chaos" means. This is another post I've been thinking about for awhile now.  This will be Part One. Zhou was overrated in so many, many ways.  If only because he failed to yield his influence when it was most needed.  When the country was literally at stake.  Indeed, its future up for grabs.  Yet he was the glue that kept China perhaps from falling into civil war.  But that's Part 2. The story of the Rise of Zhou is the most interesting part of his

Poor Canada. Always being accused of being someone's bitch

The rivers move at their own current, creating their own path.  We cannot hurry them along.  Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.  So it is with Justice in America. Nobody knows where this story is going with the arrest of Chinese Royalty up in Canada. Especially if easily giving in to America's request opens it up to accusations of being America's bitch. Yet if this arrest had taken place under the Rule of Obama, the Chinese probably wouldn't be as suspicious.  Knowing how self righteous Mr. O was.  Yet, as it happened under the morally challenged Trump, the Chinese think the Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is being made a pawn in a game.  And as it happened while Trump was meeting Xi, it simply makes the Chinese look as if they've been played. Which sucks if you happen to be Mr. Xi. And as usual, when it comes to this sort of thing, at first glance, America holds most of  the cards. But if you ask me, the issue here reflects the Great Divide the Chinese living abroad h

A very quick word on China's Best Friend

As you all know, George Bush passed away a few days ago. I've written alot of him, here and there, deep in the archives. When it came to friends, China had them in high places. China in 1989 needed George Bush in power.  Because of him they were eventually granted MFN status(look it up). Because of him, when times were tough, real tough, real "ugly bad" , he looked the other way.  He once even sent envoys to China to "drink champagne" while the entire West was screaming for blood.  George Bush was China's great "explainer".   He looked the other way on so many things, explained away so many things, all with the great belief that China would someday change and "be like us". I wrote a brief post about him on WeChat.  I even posted his picture. Several people asked me who he was.  One asked me if he was my dad! The rise of China has been blessed with very, very good timing.  George while president actual hinted he would be his o