Finally I beat OpenTal, BUT...

[Ovyron]

Wow Brendan! Your summary of China is an eye opener. One reads about the great Firewall of China, and thinks all the population there are robotic slaves forced to work for today's food, suppressed by the government, but reality looks very different, and China is not Cuba.

My friend turbojuice1122 met the love of his life in China, though I think they moved to the US.

Another anectote I read one day was about a man that didn't have a girlfriend for the first 30 years of his life in a western culture, because the whole date system is messed up and relationships are rotten. He went to visit China, and found a stable girlfriend in the first 10 days spent there! So his recommendation for lonely men was to just move to China...

[BrendanJNorman]

Great resume Brendan.
I tend to think every where world is going to that model where a caste of politicians ans technicians handle things and let people enjoy his lives as they wish, provided they do not agitate the waters.

Thanks Fern, let's hope so.

[BrendanJNorman]

Wow Brendan! Your summary of China is an eye opener. One reads about the great Firewall of China, and thinks all the population there are robotic slaves forced to work for today's food, suppressed by the government, but reality looks very different, and China is not Cuba.

Precisely. China is nothing like what our media tells us. The western world is full of China experts who have never been there nor read anything beyond biased media and wikipedia nonsense. Reality is indeed different from 90% of this, which focuses only on cherry-picking the negatives of a former ideological enemy.

My friend turbojuice1122 met the love of his life in China, though I think they moved to the US.

Another anectote I read one day was about a man that didn't have a girlfriend for the first 30 years of his life in a western culture, because the whole date system is messed up and relationships are rotten. He went to visit China, and found a stable girlfriend in the first 10 days spent there! So his recommendation for lonely men was to just move to China...

Indeed there are lots of opportunities to find love here (for men and women).

People tend to be attracted to what which is exotic and exciting - and Chinese are no different.

To do so though, you need at least a tiny bit of cultural understanding and some skill at reading people though, because some people might have hidden intentions for getting close to somebody.

See my notes about being a "low trust society"...

There's a reason for this.