12 ms·

An Expat Has Time to Reflect, Now That the Party’s Over

49 points by wallflower 10y ago

Numberwang 10y ago
Interesting read. Good to see the police making sure laws are followed.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  The article clearly talked of how they aren't. Though motorbike taxis are illegal, they are ubiquitous except for temporary crackdowns. Though the raves were against the rules, they were advertised publicly for four years before any action was taken and there will be more publicly advertised raves that police ignore next year.
  - Numberwang 10y ago
    I don't really understand your point. Not every speeder in the US are caught. Would you say the police doing temporary crackdowns is not a good thing? We should celebrate the police here for doing a good job trying to uphold law and order. Perhaps if they had more resources they could go after the other cases of lawbreaking mentioned, not as part of the main story, in the article.
    - gcb0 10y ago
      this is comparable to the police cracking down a club in the soho in ny then arresting everyone because of marijuana. not speeding tickets. the middle class expect exemption from rules that are normally applied to poor and minorities. see also how in the usa someone can be arrested and have money confiscated if they can't prove its origin to the officer searching the car. this is unthinkable for the middle class. but still the law. this is the right comparison. nobody in China that has the means to participate in those parties expect to be subject to laws against it.
      - calibraxis 10y ago
        Good point. And the middle class damages itself with their lack of solidarity with the poor and minorities. Because the condition of the poor is the threat which keeps the middle class in line.
    - mahranch 10y ago
      > I don't really understand your point. The point is the inconsistent enforcement of laws. And you can be assured that if someone was wealthy enough, the laws don't apply to them. I think that's what the author was talking about when he said 25 people who had tested positive for drugs were let go and not held. They were probably connected somehow, or paid a bribe. China is an incredibly corrupt country where bribes are standard practice. (Source: Bribes the Unspoken Rule in China: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-data-bribery-is-often-an-unspoken-rule-in-china/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-dat... and Corruption Index: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results ) Moreover, their inconsistent enforcement of the law is why they have such a shitty environmental record/problem. China has laws on the books regarding pollution and the environment comparable to that of the U.S believe it or not. But they do not enforce any of them. They don't have the equivalent of the EPA who's sole job it is to go after offenders. Some inspector shows up wanting to see your carbon scrubbers on your exhaust towers? "Oh, I must have forgot your birthday, here's a wad of cash. See you next year." I witnessed something shockingly similar to that happen on a plant tour in 2013. I was dumbfounded and speechless. The plant manager thought it was a big joke. I have nearly 2 dozen unique stamps in my passport over the last 15 years. China is the only stamp I will never have a duplicate of. I've been to some pretty bad areas and countries and China's wasn't "I fear for my safety bad", well, if I'm being honest it was a little, but I like that. It's exciting. No, it was "Holy crap this culture is complete backwards and toxic." People care very little about their fellow man/neighbor and I was disgusted by it. It seemed like everyone was trying to pull a scam on everyone else. I felt slimy watching it happen.
      - DelaneyM 10y ago
        > ...25 people who had tested positive for drugs were let go and not held. They were probably connected somehow, or paid a bribe. There are plenty of perfectly rational reasons why one might test positive for drugs but not be held. In the US, at least, your levels must be high enough that they are unambiguous when factoring in margin of measurement error, but any amount is enough to get a warrant or have just cause to search your person/vehicle. Alternatively, I take a prescription medication which causes me to test positive (hilariously high actually) on some drug tests. I carry my prescription and doctor's note on a prescription pad whenever I travel, and it's not that uncommon. Jumping straight to corruption is unfairly stereotyping China, which, though it may have a problem, has many more honest cops/prosecutors than dirty ones.
    - mwfunk 10y ago
      That's right, police doing temporary crackdowns on this scale, in this manner, and for this purpose is 100% not a good thing. This is not analogous to a speed trap or even DUI checkpoints. Are you saying that you literally can't think of a single way in which this may have been handled better by the police? If it's not even remotely understood to be illegal by the participants, why the heck would any police force in the world treat it like a honeypot, wait for everyone to assemble (like they apparently have been doing for years), then show up in riot gear and arrest everyone? That's crazy. By the way, it doesn't matter one bit if something analogous to this happens in the US sometimes, that doesn't make it any better. Not a bit. If this happened in the US people would be just as upset about it. I'm really confused why anyone would respond to something bad happening in China with, "but similar bad things happen in the US sometimes". That's really missing the point. That's like saying that human rights violations in the US somehow excuse human rights violations elsewhere. It's bad no matter where it happens and it doesn't do anyone any good to pretend otherwise.
      - Numberwang 10y ago
        But it was understood to be illegal. And what kind of an excuse is not knowing the law anyway? I don't understand all this hatred for police doing their job. Is this because of the recent shootings in the US that you respond in such an emotional way? My analogy contains a crime, just like the real situation. Your analogy somehow tries to make the police enforcing the law in what seems a very reasonable manner correspond to a human rights violation. There's plenty to criticise the Chinese for. Pick something better to drive your agenda.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Electric bicycle deliveries are also illegal in many cities, but are tolerated because the new economy would completely collapse without them. Ride sharing was illegal for a long time until recently, but allowed to flourish until the laws caught up (well, beyond some selective prosecution). The sex industry is huge in China and mostly tolerated, or even partially run, by local police forces, and only disappears temporarily during central gov mandated crackdowns.
compil3r 10y ago
The underground party scene in China (especially in Shenzhen) is getting bigger and bigger. The party isn't over and raids like that are not something that party goers are not used to.
golergka 10y ago
Why did the author assumed that the party was illegal? The fact that police raided it doesn't mean that it as illegal; it just means that police decided to treat it like illegal. Overall, this description feels like a very gentle slap on the wrist, compared to China's reputation; they probably got such a lax treatment — even given chairs to sit — exactly because all the expats. Nobody even got beaten by the police; I feel that a Chinese-only party would be treated much rougher.
tormeh 10y ago
Reminds me of Berlin parties in S-bahn stations or beneath bridges, usually around Warschauer. Those cannot possibly be legal, but nobody bothers to stop them.
- sneak 10y ago
  The police here are remarkably tolerant of most victimless crimes, thankfully.
  - pipio21 10y ago
    I would not consider some action that has no victims to be a crime, but just going against the law. The law could be wrong itself. For example, if you see a woman driving in Saudi Arabia, it goes against the law, but is not a crime. Another example, in the US having a kid drinking wine goes against the law. As a kid in Spain and France I drunk a glass of wine in all meals, like the rest of my family and it is very healthy. You get used to the rules in your country, but this does not mean that the laws are good. For instance a foreigner going into the US will probably consider barbaric the tradition of circumcising kids when they are born( I thought it myself), but locals rationalize and defend it(like locals in Saudi Arabia do with women driving). A kid can drive a car but not drink a glass of wine? Utter non sense, but real.
    - adhearn 10y ago
      Although it is usually wrong to argue by definition, in this case "goes against the law" means it is a crime by definition. Just because you don't like the law doesn't it make it less of a law. I think a lot of your examples are a little bit misguided, a case of not understanding the reasoning behind laws. Sometimes, things are illegible because we lack the correct perspective, not because they're fundamentally wrong. For example, at least in some parts of the United States (Texas is the one I'm familiar with, but others might exist), it is legal for minors to consume alcohol, even in restaurants, with parental supervision (https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?state=TX https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?...). The reason children can drive cars relatively young in the United States has several factors, but one of the big ones is the distance between places. I had a roommate who started driving to school when he was 14 or 15 because it was the only way for him to efficiently get to his school, which was still a 25 minute drive. There was some sort of special licensing in Iowa for children that young to drive to and from school unsupervised, because it wasn't efficient to try to bus everyone in. Now, you might still think this is a bad law, but it's not like they just made up a driving age for fun. The social, economic, and political reality of certain areas of the United States makes driving far more valuable than in many other places in the world, simply because practical transportation alternatives do not exist.
holdenc 10y ago
I'd say welcome to China, but let's be realistic. America offers plenty of opportunities to get locked up for 24 hours for breaking selectively enforced laws (protest anything lately?) and then perhaps even worse for resisting arrest.
- HairyGing3r 10y ago
  In Missouri you get fined for having mismatched blinds, and not having money to pay that fine will get you into court/ private prison.
  - kaybe 10y ago
    Is that enforced at all? Regularly?
    - Cacti 10y ago
      No
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - mac01021 10y ago
    It makes sense that the "show me" state would prefer not to have any blinds at all.
    - hga 10y ago
      Heh, but not true, speaking as a native of the state (born, raised, and retired to it). Nor is it a widespread law, certainly such a proposal wouldn't go down well here in the SW corner of it (especially in the very SW part I'm in that's culturally Southern), nor, outside of HOA procedural/contractual insanity can I see our Missouri Plan picked higher level judges approving of it.
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    How does anything like that ever become law? Or are you just winding us up?
Paul_S 10y ago
What is ambiguous about drugs being illegal in almost every country on the planet (with a handful of exceptions)? Just because the police doesn't catch all the murderers doesn't make murder legal. That's crazy logic.
- pyre 10y ago
  The ambiguous part is the "X is illegal, but everyone openly does X all of the time, and the police don't seem to care... until they do" way of doing things. This applies to everything from the "unlicensed gathering" to the drug use to the (seemingly) inconsistent punishment for the drug use.
  - richardwhiuk 10y ago
    Probably different drugs used - not necessarily inconsistent or arbitrary.
- elcct 10y ago
  You are comparing apples to oranges
- aianus 10y ago
  Possession of drugs is illegal in almost every country, but possessing various drug metabolites in your urine is only a crime in a few, extremist countries.
partycoder 10y ago
And how is this relevant in any way?
- chvid 10y ago
  If you just read the headline and not the article, then maybe the article is about the really bad recession that is going on in China right now (wellknown to all readers of HN). And how the expats caught there must "reflect" now that the party's over ...
  - partycoder 10y ago
    Can you explain how I can infer that by reading the article alone? It was about people being detained at an illegal party.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Relevant to what? Your specific interests? Here's how social bookmarking sites work, for those confused: people post stuff, and other people vote on them. If it gets lots of votes, it's put in the first page, and it's de facto relevant to the site member's interests...
hughperkins 10y ago
Im not sure i understand why this is a big deal. As the guy said, it was designed to send a message. As far as drugs, youd have to be insane to do drugs in china. The laws on drugs are really harsh. As for the reason, presumably the organizer hadnt paid the right bribes.
- ctvo 10y ago
  The issue is laws in China are arbitrarily enforced, making it easier to abuse power. Casual reading of this felt like the organizers were getting too successful and failed to pay the proper people. This was a message to them, not the partygoers. Next time pay us and we won't harass your guests.
  - jseliger 10y ago
    The US is obviously somewhat better at non-arbitrary enforcement than China, but Three Felonies a Day ought to be mandatory reading for Americans: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458663056&sr=8-1&keywords=three+felonies+a+day http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/.... Virtually everyone is guilty of something if someone wants to look hard enough.
eecc 10y ago
The bribe wasn't enough
keerthiko 10y ago
Am I the only one bothered by an American writer using the term "expat" to describe himself and other foreigners in a country, when the standard term used for the counterpart people in America is "immigrant" or "migrant worker"? American dialogue has been building a language of discrimination that I find extremely insulting as a non-US national in America, which spawns the whole anti-"immigrant" sentiment dominant in America.
- sakabaro 10y ago
  They will probably vote Clinton, so they think they are not racist.
- dhimes 10y ago
  I think it depends on your reference. With reference to your home country, you are an expat. Referring to your new home, you are an immigrant.
  - keerthiko 10y ago
    I don't think that's the usage here at all. The author is talking the entire time from within China and the perspective of culture within China, and refers to himself and his fellow foreigners as expats. By your description he should be using the term immigrant, since he isn't writing the article from the perspective of American/European soil.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    No, you're an emigrant with reference to your "home country". But I suppose that sounds too much like immigrant, which has become an epithet.
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      Expatriate is a synonym for emigrant. The word expatriate emphasizes the current status living outside the native country, while the word emigrant emphasizes the traveling process.
contingencies 10y ago
Local police often only act on request from Beijing, in the spirit of: "we have a new national crackdown on <subject X>; go arrest some people". We have a saying here 山高皇帝远 ("the mountains are high and the emperor is far").
- RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
  OT: I'd learned the idiom as 天高皇帝遠; didn't know there are variations.
cloudjacker 10y ago
So the 90s are just reaching Shenzhen?
hkon 10y ago
I don't get the point of this article. Chinas has police and they do a good job, is that it?
robocat 10y ago
An expat in British English generally means a British or similar professional person who is temporarily (estar) working in a country, but expects to return home (maybe their whole working life until retirement). It implies you identify yourself with your birth country. An immigrant is someone who has permanently (ser) moved - who now defines their identity as being from their new county. That said, there is a nice article on The Guardian (a socialist UK newspaper) which agrees with the racial bias: https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-de... An expat in American English can now mean someone who has moved to a country e.g. I heard a retired couple call their mostly American community "expats" in Mexico. It definitely has overtones of a white professional job. The meaning is obviously in the process of changing, and has country specific divergences (home country, and away country). It is a loaded term of group identity, so yes, it will exclude some people with bias.

49 points by wallflower 10y ago

Numberwang 10y ago

Interesting read. Good to see the police making sure laws are followed.

xiaoma 10y ago
The article clearly talked of how they aren't. Though motorbike taxis are illegal, they are ubiquitous except for temporary crackdowns. Though the raves were against the rules, they were advertised publicly for four years before any action was taken and there will be more publicly advertised raves that police ignore next year.
- Numberwang 10y ago
  I don't really understand your point. Not every speeder in the US are caught. Would you say the police doing temporary crackdowns is not a good thing? We should celebrate the police here for doing a good job trying to uphold law and order. Perhaps if they had more resources they could go after the other cases of lawbreaking mentioned, not as part of the main story, in the article.
  - gcb0 10y ago
    this is comparable to the police cracking down a club in the soho in ny then arresting everyone because of marijuana. not speeding tickets. the middle class expect exemption from rules that are normally applied to poor and minorities. see also how in the usa someone can be arrested and have money confiscated if they can't prove its origin to the officer searching the car. this is unthinkable for the middle class. but still the law. this is the right comparison. nobody in China that has the means to participate in those parties expect to be subject to laws against it.
    - calibraxis 10y ago
      Good point. And the middle class damages itself with their lack of solidarity with the poor and minorities. Because the condition of the poor is the threat which keeps the middle class in line.
  - mahranch 10y ago
    > I don't really understand your point. The point is the inconsistent enforcement of laws. And you can be assured that if someone was wealthy enough, the laws don't apply to them. I think that's what the author was talking about when he said 25 people who had tested positive for drugs were let go and not held. They were probably connected somehow, or paid a bribe. China is an incredibly corrupt country where bribes are standard practice. (Source: Bribes the Unspoken Rule in China: http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-data-bribery-is-often-an-unspoken-rule-in-china/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardlevick/2015/01/21/new-dat... and Corruption Index: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results ) Moreover, their inconsistent enforcement of the law is why they have such a shitty environmental record/problem. China has laws on the books regarding pollution and the environment comparable to that of the U.S believe it or not. But they do not enforce any of them. They don't have the equivalent of the EPA who's sole job it is to go after offenders. Some inspector shows up wanting to see your carbon scrubbers on your exhaust towers? "Oh, I must have forgot your birthday, here's a wad of cash. See you next year." I witnessed something shockingly similar to that happen on a plant tour in 2013. I was dumbfounded and speechless. The plant manager thought it was a big joke. I have nearly 2 dozen unique stamps in my passport over the last 15 years. China is the only stamp I will never have a duplicate of. I've been to some pretty bad areas and countries and China's wasn't "I fear for my safety bad", well, if I'm being honest it was a little, but I like that. It's exciting. No, it was "Holy crap this culture is complete backwards and toxic." People care very little about their fellow man/neighbor and I was disgusted by it. It seemed like everyone was trying to pull a scam on everyone else. I felt slimy watching it happen.
    - DelaneyM 10y ago
      > ...25 people who had tested positive for drugs were let go and not held. They were probably connected somehow, or paid a bribe. There are plenty of perfectly rational reasons why one might test positive for drugs but not be held. In the US, at least, your levels must be high enough that they are unambiguous when factoring in margin of measurement error, but any amount is enough to get a warrant or have just cause to search your person/vehicle. Alternatively, I take a prescription medication which causes me to test positive (hilariously high actually) on some drug tests. I carry my prescription and doctor's note on a prescription pad whenever I travel, and it's not that uncommon. Jumping straight to corruption is unfairly stereotyping China, which, though it may have a problem, has many more honest cops/prosecutors than dirty ones.
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    That's right, police doing temporary crackdowns on this scale, in this manner, and for this purpose is 100% not a good thing. This is not analogous to a speed trap or even DUI checkpoints. Are you saying that you literally can't think of a single way in which this may have been handled better by the police? If it's not even remotely understood to be illegal by the participants, why the heck would any police force in the world treat it like a honeypot, wait for everyone to assemble (like they apparently have been doing for years), then show up in riot gear and arrest everyone? That's crazy. By the way, it doesn't matter one bit if something analogous to this happens in the US sometimes, that doesn't make it any better. Not a bit. If this happened in the US people would be just as upset about it. I'm really confused why anyone would respond to something bad happening in China with, "but similar bad things happen in the US sometimes". That's really missing the point. That's like saying that human rights violations in the US somehow excuse human rights violations elsewhere. It's bad no matter where it happens and it doesn't do anyone any good to pretend otherwise.
    - Numberwang 10y ago
      But it was understood to be illegal. And what kind of an excuse is not knowing the law anyway? I don't understand all this hatred for police doing their job. Is this because of the recent shootings in the US that you respond in such an emotional way? My analogy contains a crime, just like the real situation. Your analogy somehow tries to make the police enforcing the law in what seems a very reasonable manner correspond to a human rights violation. There's plenty to criticise the Chinese for. Pick something better to drive your agenda.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Electric bicycle deliveries are also illegal in many cities, but are tolerated because the new economy would completely collapse without them. Ride sharing was illegal for a long time until recently, but allowed to flourish until the laws caught up (well, beyond some selective prosecution). The sex industry is huge in China and mostly tolerated, or even partially run, by local police forces, and only disappears temporarily during central gov mandated crackdowns.

compil3r 10y ago

The underground party scene in China (especially in Shenzhen) is getting bigger and bigger. The party isn't over and raids like that are not something that party goers are not used to.

golergka 10y ago

Why did the author assumed that the party was illegal? The fact that police raided it doesn't mean that it as illegal; it just means that police decided to treat it like illegal. Overall, this description feels like a very gentle slap on the wrist, compared to China's reputation; they probably got such a lax treatment — even given chairs to sit — exactly because all the expats. Nobody even got beaten by the police; I feel that a Chinese-only party would be treated much rougher.

tormeh 10y ago

Reminds me of Berlin parties in S-bahn stations or beneath bridges, usually around Warschauer. Those cannot possibly be legal, but nobody bothers to stop them.

sneak 10y ago
The police here are remarkably tolerant of most victimless crimes, thankfully.
- pipio21 10y ago
  I would not consider some action that has no victims to be a crime, but just going against the law. The law could be wrong itself. For example, if you see a woman driving in Saudi Arabia, it goes against the law, but is not a crime. Another example, in the US having a kid drinking wine goes against the law. As a kid in Spain and France I drunk a glass of wine in all meals, like the rest of my family and it is very healthy. You get used to the rules in your country, but this does not mean that the laws are good. For instance a foreigner going into the US will probably consider barbaric the tradition of circumcising kids when they are born( I thought it myself), but locals rationalize and defend it(like locals in Saudi Arabia do with women driving). A kid can drive a car but not drink a glass of wine? Utter non sense, but real.
  - adhearn 10y ago
    Although it is usually wrong to argue by definition, in this case "goes against the law" means it is a crime by definition. Just because you don't like the law doesn't it make it less of a law. I think a lot of your examples are a little bit misguided, a case of not understanding the reasoning behind laws. Sometimes, things are illegible because we lack the correct perspective, not because they're fundamentally wrong. For example, at least in some parts of the United States (Texas is the one I'm familiar with, but others might exist), it is legal for minors to consume alcohol, even in restaurants, with parental supervision (https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?state=TX https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/APIS_State_Profile.html?...). The reason children can drive cars relatively young in the United States has several factors, but one of the big ones is the distance between places. I had a roommate who started driving to school when he was 14 or 15 because it was the only way for him to efficiently get to his school, which was still a 25 minute drive. There was some sort of special licensing in Iowa for children that young to drive to and from school unsupervised, because it wasn't efficient to try to bus everyone in. Now, you might still think this is a bad law, but it's not like they just made up a driving age for fun. The social, economic, and political reality of certain areas of the United States makes driving far more valuable than in many other places in the world, simply because practical transportation alternatives do not exist.

holdenc 10y ago

I'd say welcome to China, but let's be realistic. America offers plenty of opportunities to get locked up for 24 hours for breaking selectively enforced laws (protest anything lately?) and then perhaps even worse for resisting arrest.

HairyGing3r 10y ago
In Missouri you get fined for having mismatched blinds, and not having money to pay that fine will get you into court/ private prison.
- kaybe 10y ago
  Is that enforced at all? Regularly?
  - Cacti 10y ago
    No
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- mac01021 10y ago
  It makes sense that the "show me" state would prefer not to have any blinds at all.
  - hga 10y ago
    Heh, but not true, speaking as a native of the state (born, raised, and retired to it). Nor is it a widespread law, certainly such a proposal wouldn't go down well here in the SW corner of it (especially in the very SW part I'm in that's culturally Southern), nor, outside of HOA procedural/contractual insanity can I see our Missouri Plan picked higher level judges approving of it.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  How does anything like that ever become law? Or are you just winding us up?

Paul_S 10y ago

What is ambiguous about drugs being illegal in almost every country on the planet (with a handful of exceptions)? Just because the police doesn't catch all the murderers doesn't make murder legal. That's crazy logic.

pyre 10y ago
The ambiguous part is the "X is illegal, but everyone openly does X all of the time, and the police don't seem to care... until they do" way of doing things. This applies to everything from the "unlicensed gathering" to the drug use to the (seemingly) inconsistent punishment for the drug use.
- richardwhiuk 10y ago
  Probably different drugs used - not necessarily inconsistent or arbitrary.
elcct 10y ago
You are comparing apples to oranges
aianus 10y ago
Possession of drugs is illegal in almost every country, but possessing various drug metabolites in your urine is only a crime in a few, extremist countries.

partycoder 10y ago

And how is this relevant in any way?

chvid 10y ago
If you just read the headline and not the article, then maybe the article is about the really bad recession that is going on in China right now (wellknown to all readers of HN). And how the expats caught there must "reflect" now that the party's over ...
- partycoder 10y ago
  Can you explain how I can infer that by reading the article alone? It was about people being detained at an illegal party.
coldtea 10y ago
Relevant to what? Your specific interests? Here's how social bookmarking sites work, for those confused: people post stuff, and other people vote on them. If it gets lots of votes, it's put in the first page, and it's de facto relevant to the site member's interests...

hughperkins 10y ago

Im not sure i understand why this is a big deal. As the guy said, it was designed to send a message. As far as drugs, youd have to be insane to do drugs in china. The laws on drugs are really harsh. As for the reason, presumably the organizer hadnt paid the right bribes.

ctvo 10y ago
The issue is laws in China are arbitrarily enforced, making it easier to abuse power. Casual reading of this felt like the organizers were getting too successful and failed to pay the proper people. This was a message to them, not the partygoers. Next time pay us and we won't harass your guests.
- jseliger 10y ago
  The US is obviously somewhat better at non-arbitrary enforcement than China, but Three Felonies a Day ought to be mandatory reading for Americans: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458663056&sr=8-1&keywords=three+felonies+a+day http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/.... Virtually everyone is guilty of something if someone wants to look hard enough.

eecc 10y ago

The bribe wasn't enough

keerthiko 10y ago

Am I the only one bothered by an American writer using the term "expat" to describe himself and other foreigners in a country, when the standard term used for the counterpart people in America is "immigrant" or "migrant worker"? American dialogue has been building a language of discrimination that I find extremely insulting as a non-US national in America, which spawns the whole anti-"immigrant" sentiment dominant in America.

sakabaro 10y ago
They will probably vote Clinton, so they think they are not racist.
dhimes 10y ago
I think it depends on your reference. With reference to your home country, you are an expat. Referring to your new home, you are an immigrant.
- keerthiko 10y ago
  I don't think that's the usage here at all. The author is talking the entire time from within China and the perspective of culture within China, and refers to himself and his fellow foreigners as expats. By your description he should be using the term immigrant, since he isn't writing the article from the perspective of American/European soil.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  No, you're an emigrant with reference to your "home country". But I suppose that sounds too much like immigrant, which has become an epithet.
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    Expatriate is a synonym for emigrant. The word expatriate emphasizes the current status living outside the native country, while the word emigrant emphasizes the traveling process.

contingencies 10y ago

Local police often only act on request from Beijing, in the spirit of: "we have a new national crackdown on <subject X>; go arrest some people". We have a saying here 山高皇帝远 ("the mountains are high and the emperor is far").

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 10y ago
OT: I'd learned the idiom as 天高皇帝遠; didn't know there are variations.

cloudjacker 10y ago

So the 90s are just reaching Shenzhen?

hkon 10y ago

I don't get the point of this article. Chinas has police and they do a good job, is that it?

robocat 10y ago

An expat in British English generally means a British or similar professional person who is temporarily (estar) working in a country, but expects to return home (maybe their whole working life until retirement). It implies you identify yourself with your birth country. An immigrant is someone who has permanently (ser) moved - who now defines their identity as being from their new county. That said, there is a nice article on The Guardian (a socialist UK newspaper) which agrees with the racial bias: https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-de... An expat in American English can now mean someone who has moved to a country e.g. I heard a retired couple call their mostly American community "expats" in Mexico. It definitely has overtones of a white professional job. The meaning is obviously in the process of changing, and has country specific divergences (home country, and away country). It is a loaded term of group identity, so yes, it will exclude some people with bias.