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For me, visiting mainland China cemented my belief that the rest of the world was underdeveloped, but not for the same reasons as you. China is just going way b

by fiblye 8y ago

For me, visiting mainland China cemented my belief that the rest of the world was underdeveloped, but not for the same reasons as you. China is just going way beyond the rest of the world with their development, and outside of tiny slices of a couple major metropolitan areas in America, the US feels like it's decades behind. China's a little grimy, but the progress and infrastructure growth there is unbelievable. And toilet hygiene here in Japan is one thing that ironically lags behind America. Sure, Japan has electric toilets and people wear separate shoes to the bathroom, but I've almost never seen locals wash their hands. What I typically see is guys tap their fingertips (and I do mean just around the nail area) in water and use it to help slick their hair back after a long session in the toilet. I've even seen restaurant staff do this and it drives me crazy.

chrischen 8y ago
I visited China a bit earlier than you, in the late 90s and through the 2000s. You have to realize merely in the 90s pretty much all of the skyscrapera in Shanghai’s bund sprang up. http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2010/06/shanghai-20-years-of-evolution.html?m=1 http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2010/06/shanghai-20-years-... I agree that certain parts of China have succeeded US standarss (mainly certain districts of large cities) but if you venture around their levels of development are completely uneven and there are still large swaths of China wih poor infrastructure. Tap water is still not drinkable. Re: washing hands in Japan. I’ve never observed that but maybe because they don’t have to stick their hands in their butt after using the toilet it has developed a cultural de-emphasis on hand washing? Regardless the food safety there is miles ahead of the US since you can actually eat meats raw there, including Chicken. In any case this is a perfect example of a cultural difference that masks their advancement. I don't think you can take a difference in hand washing practice and conclude that it's necessarily behind in some way. Same as how you can't conclude that their driving practices are backwards simply because they haven't advanced to the right side of the road.

by fiblye 8y ago

chrischen 8y ago

I visited China a bit earlier than you, in the late 90s and through the 2000s. You have to realize merely in the 90s pretty much all of the skyscrapera in Shanghai’s bund sprang up. http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2010/06/shanghai-20-years-of-evolution.html?m=1 http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2010/06/shanghai-20-years-... I agree that certain parts of China have succeeded US standarss (mainly certain districts of large cities) but if you venture around their levels of development are completely uneven and there are still large swaths of China wih poor infrastructure. Tap water is still not drinkable. Re: washing hands in Japan. I’ve never observed that but maybe because they don’t have to stick their hands in their butt after using the toilet it has developed a cultural de-emphasis on hand washing? Regardless the food safety there is miles ahead of the US since you can actually eat meats raw there, including Chicken. In any case this is a perfect example of a cultural difference that masks their advancement. I don't think you can take a difference in hand washing practice and conclude that it's necessarily behind in some way. Same as how you can't conclude that their driving practices are backwards simply because they haven't advanced to the right side of the road.