6 ms·

Oddly a lot of positivity in this thread. Anecdotally, the kenyans I know are really not pleased with the Chinese invasion of their culture and food stocks. The

Oddly a lot of positivity in this thread. Anecdotally, the kenyans I know are really not pleased with the Chinese invasion of their culture and food stocks. There is fear of food fraud (fillers and ingredients sold as other things) for example from chinese imports.

devoply 8y ago
You lose nothing by learning other people's language or way of thinking. Knowledge as they say is power... even if those giving it to you don't have your best interests at heart.
- Scaevolus 8y ago
  It's not the language, it's everything that comes with it. The Congolese weren't happy to be learning French in 1900, either.
- learc83 8y ago
  >You lose nothing by learning other people's language That's not quite true. Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers (even though they have a larger total vocabulary across both languages). According to some studies monolingual speakers also have faster word retrieval and better verbal fluency overall. Of course this has to be weighed against the benefits of learning another language, but there are costs.
  - jean- 8y ago
    > Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers Do you have any citations to support this? From the research I have read (and my own anecdotal experience) this is not necessarily the case, especially when taking into account the bilingual speakers' dominant language. See e.g. Pearson et al. (1993). Lexical Development in Bilingual Infants and Toddlers: Comparison to Monolingual Norms. Allman (2005). Vocabulary Size and Accuracy of Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children. – although note the difference in English vs Spanish vocabulary scores for monolingual vs bilingual speakers.
    - learc83 8y ago
      That's not a controversial position. Neither of your links refute that bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies than monolinguals across each individual language. From your 2nd link: "However, on tests of vocabulary bilinguals frequently seem to perform at lower levels than monolinguals (Ben Zeev, 1977b; Doyle, Champagne, & Segalowitz, 1978). The reason for this seems to be that bilingual children have to learn two different labels for everything, which reduces the frequency of a particular word in either language" "These findings also support Bialystok’s (2001) suggestions that bilinguals have a greater Total Vocabulary than monolinguals..." The conclusion says nothing about vocabularies within individual languages, it's only talking about total vocabulary across languages. Here's another study: "The profile effects indicated comparable performance of bilingual and monolingual children in basic reading tasks, but lower vocabulary scores for the bilinguals in both languages." "The distributed characteristic of bilingual knowledge provides an explanation for the low standard scores that have often been reported in bilingual children on vocabulary tests in both the first language (L1) and the L2 (Ben Zeev, 1977a; Fernández et al., 1992; Pearson & Fernández, 1994; Umbel et al., 1992). The low scores do not indicate that bilingual children are poor vocabulary learners, but that some of the vocabulary possessed by bilingual children is encoded in the L1 but not the L2, and vice versa, the signature pattern of the distributed characteristic." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ If you want to read more you can follow up with the citations from that last paper.
- koonsolo 8y ago
  This is not always the case, as was shown in the history of Belgium and Brussels (and still is). If you learn the other people's language, you will communicate in their language. If you are inside a company with mixed languages, that company will be run in the language of the people that do not speak the other language. As you know, companies are highly political, and if you are missing all the nuances of a language because you are not a native speaker, your chances of taking a good position within that company will be lower. This is exactly what I saw in a company in Brussels when I worked there. All help-desk operators were Flemish, because they are bilingual in Dutch and French (and English of course). Management were all native French speaking, unable to communicate in Dutch. My direct manager, who was Flemish, had a hard time covering his own ass in this political environment, because of the foreign language nuances. So in effect, the ones who don't speak the other persons language have the benefit.
  - dingoegret 8y ago
    It's funny really. When countries like Iran ban English and clamp down on Western studies, it's oPpReSsIve. Western subversion? Why that's a conspiracy theory hurr. Mandarin taught in Kenya? Oh no muh takeover
nickles 8y ago
> There is fear of food fraud (fillers and ingredients sold as other things) for example from chinese imports. Apparently this fear exists within China as well, especially for baby formula. This stems from the 2008 milk scandal. That incident had 300k victims, hospitalized 54k babies, and killed 6. Four years prior 12 babies died from watered down milk [0]. In 2007, pet food produced in China killed ~3600 pets around the world after being contaminated. On further investigation, the FDA later determined that 2.5mm to 3mm Americans had consumed chickens who had been fed tainted vegetables imported from China [1]. In 2003, the State Food and Drug Administration was created to improve safety of the food supply. However, it seems that individual farmers may not be incentivized to make safety improvements, as produce from multiple farms is typically combined prior to being sold to distributors [2]. There have been several publicized incidents since 2003, often involving counterfeit or contaminated foods [3]. I'd argue it's entirely rational to have concerns about the safety of these goods, especially since Chinese companies (as recently as 2014) have demonstrated they are willing to export unsafe and expired goods internationally. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China
- FabHK 8y ago
  > the 2008 milk scandal. In the wake of that, so many Chinese came to Hong Kong to buy milk powder that a new law was introduced in HK restricting its export (to 1.8 kg per person), with violations punishable by 60,000 USD or 2 years prison :-) (promptly giving rise to baby formula smuggling rings, naturally...)
- beat 8y ago
  The USA used to have problems like that too (read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, and many other works). The public demanded change, and got it. The same thing will happen in China. It's all part of the process of modernization.
pastor_elm 8y ago
Colonizing Africa is a futile effort. The Chinese should look at South Africa to see how Africans will deal with unjust ownership.
- nostromo 8y ago
  Maybe... In most cases western colonialism didn't end because of resistance, but because the west decided it didn't like colonialism.
  - beat 8y ago
    More to the point, the West could no longer afford colonialism in the post-WWII era. Empires were impractical.
    - johan_larson 8y ago
      "If you keep getting in fights with your white buddies, you won't have the energy to push around brown people." Now there's a message for our time.
      - beat 8y ago
        Sad but true.
- wonderwonder 8y ago
  With due respect, South Africa returned to majority rule / democracy when the apartheid government willingly stepped down. If they had not decided too, it is very probable that they would still be in power today. The odds of a China with its multi decades long plans and wealth stepping away from territory they have taken under their wing is very slim. China is being smart about it, using wealth (loans) and technology to build an economic foothold instead of strength. Once they are in though I could see it transitioning to something else in the long term.
  - cf498 8y ago
coryrc 8y ago
Kenyans are poisoning other Kenyans by cooking things in PCB-laden oil. You know, a chemical that causes places to be labeled Superfund sites in the US. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-fry-kenya-power-grid-fast-food-2014122884728785480.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-f...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- homero 8y ago
  I bet the electric company could save money by just giving away cooking oil instead of having thieves drain their transformer oil.
- tivert 8y ago
  Wow! I never imagined there could be something worse than gutter oil.
- MattPearce 8y ago
  I'm surprised they haven't started adding bitterant to the oil, is there a reason that wouldn't work in this case?
porpoisely 8y ago
A country offering chinese as an elective to its students is an invasion?
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  I'm not saying this is the case, but if I wanted my country to take over another country, I would do it slowly and as peacefully as possible. Countries and cultures have been doing this all throughout history, and still do this today.
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    I guess that's possible. But history has shown that countries take over another through force. Not slowly and certainly not peacefully. Which country has taken over another "slowly and peacefully"? It's hyperbole at best to claim that kenya offering chinese as "an elective" ( not mandatory ) to its student is an "invasion". My high school offered spanish, french and japanese as language electives. Last I checked, we weren't invaded and conquered by spain, france or japan.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    I'm not saying this is the case, but if I wanted my country to take over another country, I would do it slowly and as peacefully as possible. I've read that children in Hong Kong now have to learn Mandarin in school instead of Cantonese. So using language as influence isn't foreign to the Chinese state.

devoply 8y ago

You lose nothing by learning other people's language or way of thinking. Knowledge as they say is power... even if those giving it to you don't have your best interests at heart.

Scaevolus 8y ago
It's not the language, it's everything that comes with it. The Congolese weren't happy to be learning French in 1900, either.
learc83 8y ago
>You lose nothing by learning other people's language That's not quite true. Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers (even though they have a larger total vocabulary across both languages). According to some studies monolingual speakers also have faster word retrieval and better verbal fluency overall. Of course this has to be weighed against the benefits of learning another language, but there are costs.
- jean- 8y ago
  > Bilingual speakers tend to have a smaller vocabularies in each individual language than monolingual speakers Do you have any citations to support this? From the research I have read (and my own anecdotal experience) this is not necessarily the case, especially when taking into account the bilingual speakers' dominant language. See e.g. Pearson et al. (1993). Lexical Development in Bilingual Infants and Toddlers: Comparison to Monolingual Norms. Allman (2005). Vocabulary Size and Accuracy of Monolingual and Bilingual Preschool Children. – although note the difference in English vs Spanish vocabulary scores for monolingual vs bilingual speakers.
  - learc83 8y ago
    That's not a controversial position. Neither of your links refute that bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies than monolinguals across each individual language. From your 2nd link: "However, on tests of vocabulary bilinguals frequently seem to perform at lower levels than monolinguals (Ben Zeev, 1977b; Doyle, Champagne, & Segalowitz, 1978). The reason for this seems to be that bilingual children have to learn two different labels for everything, which reduces the frequency of a particular word in either language" "These findings also support Bialystok’s (2001) suggestions that bilinguals have a greater Total Vocabulary than monolinguals..." The conclusion says nothing about vocabularies within individual languages, it's only talking about total vocabulary across languages. Here's another study: "The profile effects indicated comparable performance of bilingual and monolingual children in basic reading tasks, but lower vocabulary scores for the bilinguals in both languages." "The distributed characteristic of bilingual knowledge provides an explanation for the low standard scores that have often been reported in bilingual children on vocabulary tests in both the first language (L1) and the L2 (Ben Zeev, 1977a; Fernández et al., 1992; Pearson & Fernández, 1994; Umbel et al., 1992). The low scores do not indicate that bilingual children are poor vocabulary learners, but that some of the vocabulary possessed by bilingual children is encoded in the L1 but not the L2, and vice versa, the signature pattern of the distributed characteristic." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358777/ If you want to read more you can follow up with the citations from that last paper.
koonsolo 8y ago
This is not always the case, as was shown in the history of Belgium and Brussels (and still is). If you learn the other people's language, you will communicate in their language. If you are inside a company with mixed languages, that company will be run in the language of the people that do not speak the other language. As you know, companies are highly political, and if you are missing all the nuances of a language because you are not a native speaker, your chances of taking a good position within that company will be lower. This is exactly what I saw in a company in Brussels when I worked there. All help-desk operators were Flemish, because they are bilingual in Dutch and French (and English of course). Management were all native French speaking, unable to communicate in Dutch. My direct manager, who was Flemish, had a hard time covering his own ass in this political environment, because of the foreign language nuances. So in effect, the ones who don't speak the other persons language have the benefit.
- dingoegret 8y ago
  It's funny really. When countries like Iran ban English and clamp down on Western studies, it's oPpReSsIve. Western subversion? Why that's a conspiracy theory hurr. Mandarin taught in Kenya? Oh no muh takeover

nickles 8y ago

> There is fear of food fraud (fillers and ingredients sold as other things) for example from chinese imports. Apparently this fear exists within China as well, especially for baby formula. This stems from the 2008 milk scandal. That incident had 300k victims, hospitalized 54k babies, and killed 6. Four years prior 12 babies died from watered down milk [0]. In 2007, pet food produced in China killed ~3600 pets around the world after being contaminated. On further investigation, the FDA later determined that 2.5mm to 3mm Americans had consumed chickens who had been fed tainted vegetables imported from China [1]. In 2003, the State Food and Drug Administration was created to improve safety of the food supply. However, it seems that individual farmers may not be incentivized to make safety improvements, as produce from multiple farms is typically combined prior to being sold to distributors [2]. There have been several publicized incidents since 2003, often involving counterfeit or contaminated foods [3]. I'd argue it's entirely rational to have concerns about the safety of these goods, especially since Chinese companies (as recently as 2014) have demonstrated they are willing to export unsafe and expired goods internationally. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China

FabHK 8y ago
> the 2008 milk scandal. In the wake of that, so many Chinese came to Hong Kong to buy milk powder that a new law was introduced in HK restricting its export (to 1.8 kg per person), with violations punishable by 60,000 USD or 2 years prison :-) (promptly giving rise to baby formula smuggling rings, naturally...)
beat 8y ago
The USA used to have problems like that too (read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, and many other works). The public demanded change, and got it. The same thing will happen in China. It's all part of the process of modernization.

pastor_elm 8y ago

Colonizing Africa is a futile effort. The Chinese should look at South Africa to see how Africans will deal with unjust ownership.

nostromo 8y ago
Maybe... In most cases western colonialism didn't end because of resistance, but because the west decided it didn't like colonialism.
- beat 8y ago
  More to the point, the West could no longer afford colonialism in the post-WWII era. Empires were impractical.
  - johan_larson 8y ago
    "If you keep getting in fights with your white buddies, you won't have the energy to push around brown people." Now there's a message for our time.
    - beat 8y ago
      Sad but true.
wonderwonder 8y ago
With due respect, South Africa returned to majority rule / democracy when the apartheid government willingly stepped down. If they had not decided too, it is very probable that they would still be in power today. The odds of a China with its multi decades long plans and wealth stepping away from territory they have taken under their wing is very slim. China is being smart about it, using wealth (loans) and technology to build an economic foothold instead of strength. Once they are in though I could see it transitioning to something else in the long term.
- cf498 8y ago

coryrc 8y ago

Kenyans are poisoning other Kenyans by cooking things in PCB-laden oil. You know, a chemical that causes places to be labeled Superfund sites in the US. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-fry-kenya-power-grid-fast-food-2014122884728785480.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-f...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
homero 8y ago
I bet the electric company could save money by just giving away cooking oil instead of having thieves drain their transformer oil.
tivert 8y ago
Wow! I never imagined there could be something worse than gutter oil.
MattPearce 8y ago
I'm surprised they haven't started adding bitterant to the oil, is there a reason that wouldn't work in this case?

porpoisely 8y ago

A country offering chinese as an elective to its students is an invasion?

yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
I'm not saying this is the case, but if I wanted my country to take over another country, I would do it slowly and as peacefully as possible. Countries and cultures have been doing this all throughout history, and still do this today.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  I guess that's possible. But history has shown that countries take over another through force. Not slowly and certainly not peacefully. Which country has taken over another "slowly and peacefully"? It's hyperbole at best to claim that kenya offering chinese as "an elective" ( not mandatory ) to its student is an "invasion". My high school offered spanish, french and japanese as language electives. Last I checked, we weren't invaded and conquered by spain, france or japan.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I'm not saying this is the case, but if I wanted my country to take over another country, I would do it slowly and as peacefully as possible. I've read that children in Hong Kong now have to learn Mandarin in school instead of Cantonese. So using language as influence isn't foreign to the Chinese state.