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

It was dangerous being a Communist in China circa late 20's and early 30's.  No question about it. China's congress actually had to meet and convene in Russia one year!  It was too dangerous to convene in China. China was dominated by warlords.  And CKS was still obsessed with uniting and ruling China.  During this time the Comintern continued to send Russians to China.  First Borodin, then Mif. Borodin died out of favor with Stalin.  Mif was lost in the Great Purge.  Another nameless victim, cursed with being born in Mother Russia at the wrong time in history.  The civil war between the Chinese Communists and Crazy Chiang Kai Shek was in full swing.  Indeed during this time many of Zhou EnLai's most trusted confidants fell victim to the CKS's penchant for torture and murder. One must spend time to reflect if but for a moment. If Zhou had been the leader of the CCP, would the Communists had lost to CKS?   I thi...

Story 1 A few days ago I looked up the DHL number my potential supplier was sending me. I noticed the departure point.  Then not believing what I was seeing I looked again. About a month or so ago I started talking to this potential supplier about samples.  The company is located in Zhengzhou, Henan. A big enough city, with lots of folks moving to Shenzhen to work.  Maybe someday I'll even go there. So finally I get the pricing I want.   I start the process of buying product.  I ask for an FOB price.  I'm given Qingdao and Shanghai.  Then the supplier finally decides on Shanghai.   The price automatically jumps 30% WTF? I map out the distance from Zhengzhou to Shanghai.  587 miles.  Wow. I ask the supplier for her factory address.  I will quote this ex works.  That is I will pick the product up myself and ship it to America.  However, it's just a quote I want for now.  Nothing e...

Now comes the hard part: How do I explain to readers how Zhou EnLai became allied with Chiang Kai Shek?  They were enemies right?  Eventually yes.  Indeed, the KMT tried to have Zhou killed more than a few times.  And on one occasion it is believed Zhou even knowingly sent some people to their deaths in order to allow CKS to believe he was himself dead.  To be blunt, the direction of  pre Liberation China was neither in the control of Mao, CKS, Zhou or any other Chinese.  Not in the least.  Rather, the direction of China was in the control of a bunch of white men.  Men that had never been to China, much less Asia.  Men that could not speak Chinese.  Men that knew nothing of China's special "condition".     These men knew nothing of China's Qing Dynasty.  They didn't know Kangxi, or Qianlong.  Like my boss of a decade ago who with a straight face pointed to that huge billboard in Shenzhen of ...

(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...

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...