My China Kanfa.....China on My Mind

We are identified as numbers.  If you are a child, it is your college entrance score (SAT).  If you are a man, is your salary.  As my daughter prepares for her final year of high school, her entire life at the moment is defined by what that score will be. And if you are Chinese-it is worse.  We Americans brag about our sports scholarships to third rate universities.  Because it's free!  If the middle class here cannot even afford tuition at the local state school....then we are truly fucked as a middle class.  It becomes more of a pipe dream, thus making a family with a gifted arm or leg all the more grateful when a 2nd or third tier state school comes calling.  Another number is the amount of Chinese investment in America has dropped 90%.  To me that simply means there is a 90% less likelihood that China will buy an American company, and take its technology back to China to use against us.  I'm good with that. As long as t...

The other day in WeChat I received a post about yet ANOTHER diatribe from either some individual or a bunch of individuals regarding foreigners in China. The post was basically about how two faced us laowai are.  Our lips say "we love" China, but our actions tell a different story.  There were lots of pix, and they used as a reference many five year old posts from Reddit's infamous ccjerk thread(who's readers still visit this blog, and did so even this past week),  along with some South African dude made famous by his Youtube posts. First of all, the Reddit folks are old, old news.  May as well be last century.  The folks on the China thread were supposedly a bunch of "loser" American teachers in China.  I don't know.  And I will not judge.  But I did write a post many eons ago about my experience with  Reddit . While they do not represent the average American in China, they may very well represent the average young, bored, whit...

A major part of my job is to buy wooden products from China.   I buy all sorts of things, for both personal hygiene and outdoor use.  And as I "buy" from China,  one would naturally think the wood itself also is from China.  Alas, this is not the case.   All over the world, unless one thinks of bamboo, the wood comes from Russia.  This is an important distinction to make. I think the process of making wooden products such as furniture is quite cool, a bit sneaky, and a great environmental risk.  And I want to talk about it because it is greatly reflective of what every other importer of product to America from China has to think about.  Oh yeah, it’s also very reflective of how other wooden products in China are made.  Because these folks probably have the same supply chain that I have.  Don't think for moment their shit doesn't stink.  It does.  Just as bad as mine. Why is all this a big deal? Simpl...