6 ms·

A typical response I see on HN (and on other forums) in response to failings in other countries (e.g. acts of terrorism, corruption, failure of government suppo

by kaptain 14y ago

A typical response I see on HN (and on other forums) in response to failings in other countries (e.g. acts of terrorism, corruption, failure of government support, etc) is to find some sarcastic analogy to compare it to in the US. The Chinese government has gotten on the bandwagon with its own publication of the US's human rights violations (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_131611391.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113...). I found this humorous. It would be naïve to think that the USA (I'm picking on the USA because I am an American citizen) is the perfect country. I haven't lived in other countries long enough to be able to compare, but I /can/ compare the experience between China and the US and it makes me grateful to be a US citizen. The truth is, there is no real comparison between China and the US: I get questions about corruption in the US all the time and I always answer that there /is/ corruption in the US but not in the endemic/pervasive way that we see it in China. The media is more open than in China, the government process is more transparent. My business partner and I are in the middle of doing a training/internship (simple LAMP application development) for students at a local university. This isn't a top tier university: it's a third-tier university in the capital of one of the poorest regions in the country. There's a lot of potential here but when we asked people if they had any aspirations to entrepreneurship, we mostly get a 'no'. The lack of mobility for the common person is evident here. No matter what the US's failures are what it has that the Chinese system (note that I didn't say government, because some of the issues here are cultural) doesn't have is "opportunity". There's a lot of unrealistic optimism here amongst college-age students (i.e. "I can do it if I try.") but there is a dark understanding that this is severely limited by what is available to them after they graduate. It's actually really sad: people here are in love with pieces of paper that 'qualify' you for a job. But with an overabundance of college graduates (in a system where cheating is normal), the value of a college degree is lessened. So you have a huge population of mid-20's that paid large sums of money for degrees that are largely worthless (i.e. the degrees didn't fulfill the better life that they promised). China has aspirations to be the world's best, but it won't be until it can find a way to empower its own people.

kwanbis 14y ago
Kinda off topic, but if you are from USA, you are a United States citizen, american is anybody who is born on the continental america (north, central and south).
- LargeWu 14y ago
  I have never heard anybody, anywhere, ever, refer to somebody from the North or South American continents, who is not a US citizen as an "American". "The Americas" commonly refers to both continents, but I've never heard anybody call a non US-citizen "American". Where is this a common usage?
  - mitchty 14y ago
    From what I've found its really only from predominantly Spanish speaking university students in South America. It also ignores most colloquial usage of the terms America and American in English. While technically correct, it is unlikely to occur. Americans are citizens of the United States of America. Just as Mexicans are citizens of Estados Unidos Mexicanos. But we shorten them to Mexicans as well. Its more useful in either case to just list your nationality in either case. Unless people seem to want to identify with an Italian name for both continents I don't see where getting all up in arms over Americans referring to a citizen of the US. USian is an alternative, but lets be honest, it rolls off the tongue horridly and is unlikely to catch on.
  - ubernostrum 14y ago
    This mostly tends to come from people who have nationalistic quibbles, and who want to propose alternate "I will force a name onto you that expresses my attitude toward your country" schemes. Also, it's an unsolvable problem, because there is no part of "United States of America" that is technically unique. It's not the only nation on the American continents, and it's not the only nation whose official name includes "United States" (Mexico does as well).
- corin_ 14y ago
  Technically correct, but I guess it depends on context, both cultural and conversational. In the UK for example, "America" and "American" always refer to US not the continent, unless there's specific context surrounding it to suggest otherwise. I believe that's generally the case in the US as well, and I suspect (but could be wrong) in most countries?
cheshirecat 14y ago
Try asking about it in a better Chinese university. 5000+ startups listed on 17startup.com and growing everyday. Besides, http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/eurobarometer/ http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-an... Entrepreneurial attitudes in Europe compared to the US and Asia // Chinese people have the strongest preference for self-employment (71%), Japanese people the weakest (39%). Similarly, Chinese think it is quite possible to become one’s own boss (49%). In Japan only 12% consider this career option possible. // A higher ratio of Chinese (40%) than Americans (38%) declare that they have first-hand experiences in starting a business. In Europe and Japan these figures are rather low (22% and 20%), even lower than in South Korea (31%). In the US, entrepreneurs enjoy a good reputation. 73% of US citizens questioned in this survey said that they have a favourable image of entrepreneurs. In Europe, at least about half of the population (49%) has a favourable image of entrepreneurs. In China the ratio is only 40%, in Japan (32%) and Korea (30%) even lower. The richest person in China did get sent to prison: 14 years for stock market manipulation (cant imagine how many hedge fund PMs will be there if people enforce this in every country. personally I think the punishment is severe). Nothing to brag about, but he went there himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Guangyu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Guangyu The "body double"-stuff is rare and can likely happen in those poor undeveloped regions in China, where money can buy you anything. In better developed regions, the officers won't risk it, unless you are exceptionally "connected" I guess. Medias and Internet are quite good at revealing such scandals in China nowadays, which is why the Chinese government is so afraid of them.
- kaptain 14y ago
  Thanks for the links. They were interesting. Two comments: 1) The survey was taken amongst urban inhabitants: "...this sample covered 115,000,000 of the 615,000,000 urban inhabitants..." Which of course leaves the roughly 704 million rural residents unsampled. I don't fault the survey process; it's clear what they're after and they were transparent with the process. But it's difficult for me to say that this is representative of a whole country when clearly the sample was taken of the urban side only. (Of course, urbanization is expanding in China but my point still stands). Also, note that the actual survey has a question asking about locality (metro/urban/rural)). I'm assuming this was skipped for the Chinese respondents. Rural respondents might have been even more enthusiastic in their response to these questions, but I doubt it; most folks that I meet from rural areas don't have that kind of mentality. 2) "Trying asking about it in a better Chinese university." This underlines my point. Many well known (i.e. "successful") startups in the US are founded by people that have went to Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, etc. but this isn't a pre-req for being a tech entrepreneur (or any type of entrepreneur for that matter). There's a number of notable entrepreneurs that didn't go to college or finish that have found success. Why should it matter that I go to a better Chinese university? Further, the better the Chinese university the less representative that individual is of the overall population; those individuals are highly selected based on their Gaokao test scores (and possibly their family connections). I was overly optimistic with the assessment of my university (Ningda). It's not even in the third tier according to this standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_985 (Edited for grammar.)
Pinckney 14y ago
The Chinese government has gotten on the bandwagon with its own publication of the US's human rights violations (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113... http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113...). I found this humorous. I'm reminded of the Soviet counterpart to this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)
- mlvljr 14y ago
  (speaking from Russia) at the time of that argument, our propaganda guys did have a point: the poverty was defeated here, everyone had a job guarantee, an opportunity to get (free) world-class higher education, choose a career in science, military, or industry, etc. Speaking of China, they do have their problems (of course), but to have a moral right to criticize, other fellow countries should at least stop their oil-for-bombs and occupation-based-on-rumors politics (and we will see, how that will change the quality of life and corruption level). But the resemblance is there, yeah ;)
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Are you implying that in the 1960s there was literally no one living in poverty in the soviet union? Seems to be some evidence against that, such as: http://books.google.com/books/about/Poverty_in_the_Soviet_Union.html?id=hHJeZ2-iA6sC http://books.google.com/books/about/Poverty_in_the_Soviet_Un...
    - m0skit0 14y ago
      Poverty in the USSR didn't impeach you from having free health care, free education and almost free basic food and transport. Compare with poors in the USA.
    - mlvljr 14y ago
      Yes, I'm speaking exactly of the golden era of USSR (1961 -- 1979, roughly), and the evidence of my family, relatives and friends clearly states, that poverty was _literally_ defeated by that time -- you plain could not be starving from hunger or be homeless (unless you prefered to, but that was against the law, and everyone was guaranteed to have a roof above his head). Speaking short and plain, everyone had at least enough to live a healthy life, and quite many had somewhat more.
huoju 14y ago
Yes, There is corruption in the US, But an american can't really understand how serious the corruption in China. The situation is so bad that you can find the corrupt CHINA officials every where, not only in China. They had migrated to every where, from US to African.

by kaptain 14y ago

kwanbis 14y ago

Kinda off topic, but if you are from USA, you are a United States citizen, american is anybody who is born on the continental america (north, central and south).

LargeWu 14y ago
I have never heard anybody, anywhere, ever, refer to somebody from the North or South American continents, who is not a US citizen as an "American". "The Americas" commonly refers to both continents, but I've never heard anybody call a non US-citizen "American". Where is this a common usage?
- mitchty 14y ago
  From what I've found its really only from predominantly Spanish speaking university students in South America. It also ignores most colloquial usage of the terms America and American in English. While technically correct, it is unlikely to occur. Americans are citizens of the United States of America. Just as Mexicans are citizens of Estados Unidos Mexicanos. But we shorten them to Mexicans as well. Its more useful in either case to just list your nationality in either case. Unless people seem to want to identify with an Italian name for both continents I don't see where getting all up in arms over Americans referring to a citizen of the US. USian is an alternative, but lets be honest, it rolls off the tongue horridly and is unlikely to catch on.
- ubernostrum 14y ago
  This mostly tends to come from people who have nationalistic quibbles, and who want to propose alternate "I will force a name onto you that expresses my attitude toward your country" schemes. Also, it's an unsolvable problem, because there is no part of "United States of America" that is technically unique. It's not the only nation on the American continents, and it's not the only nation whose official name includes "United States" (Mexico does as well).
corin_ 14y ago
Technically correct, but I guess it depends on context, both cultural and conversational. In the UK for example, "America" and "American" always refer to US not the continent, unless there's specific context surrounding it to suggest otherwise. I believe that's generally the case in the US as well, and I suspect (but could be wrong) in most countries?

cheshirecat 14y ago

Try asking about it in a better Chinese university. 5000+ startups listed on 17startup.com and growing everyday. Besides, http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-analysis/eurobarometer/ http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-figures-an... Entrepreneurial attitudes in Europe compared to the US and Asia // Chinese people have the strongest preference for self-employment (71%), Japanese people the weakest (39%). Similarly, Chinese think it is quite possible to become one’s own boss (49%). In Japan only 12% consider this career option possible. // A higher ratio of Chinese (40%) than Americans (38%) declare that they have first-hand experiences in starting a business. In Europe and Japan these figures are rather low (22% and 20%), even lower than in South Korea (31%). In the US, entrepreneurs enjoy a good reputation. 73% of US citizens questioned in this survey said that they have a favourable image of entrepreneurs. In Europe, at least about half of the population (49%) has a favourable image of entrepreneurs. In China the ratio is only 40%, in Japan (32%) and Korea (30%) even lower. The richest person in China did get sent to prison: 14 years for stock market manipulation (cant imagine how many hedge fund PMs will be there if people enforce this in every country. personally I think the punishment is severe). Nothing to brag about, but he went there himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Guangyu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Guangyu The "body double"-stuff is rare and can likely happen in those poor undeveloped regions in China, where money can buy you anything. In better developed regions, the officers won't risk it, unless you are exceptionally "connected" I guess. Medias and Internet are quite good at revealing such scandals in China nowadays, which is why the Chinese government is so afraid of them.

kaptain 14y ago
Thanks for the links. They were interesting. Two comments: 1) The survey was taken amongst urban inhabitants: "...this sample covered 115,000,000 of the 615,000,000 urban inhabitants..." Which of course leaves the roughly 704 million rural residents unsampled. I don't fault the survey process; it's clear what they're after and they were transparent with the process. But it's difficult for me to say that this is representative of a whole country when clearly the sample was taken of the urban side only. (Of course, urbanization is expanding in China but my point still stands). Also, note that the actual survey has a question asking about locality (metro/urban/rural)). I'm assuming this was skipped for the Chinese respondents. Rural respondents might have been even more enthusiastic in their response to these questions, but I doubt it; most folks that I meet from rural areas don't have that kind of mentality. 2) "Trying asking about it in a better Chinese university." This underlines my point. Many well known (i.e. "successful") startups in the US are founded by people that have went to Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, etc. but this isn't a pre-req for being a tech entrepreneur (or any type of entrepreneur for that matter). There's a number of notable entrepreneurs that didn't go to college or finish that have found success. Why should it matter that I go to a better Chinese university? Further, the better the Chinese university the less representative that individual is of the overall population; those individuals are highly selected based on their Gaokao test scores (and possibly their family connections). I was overly optimistic with the assessment of my university (Ningda). It's not even in the third tier according to this standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_985 (Edited for grammar.)

Pinckney 14y ago

The Chinese government has gotten on the bandwagon with its own publication of the US's human rights violations (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113... http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-05/25/c_1316113...). I found this humorous. I'm reminded of the Soviet counterpart to this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)

mlvljr 14y ago
(speaking from Russia) at the time of that argument, our propaganda guys did have a point: the poverty was defeated here, everyone had a job guarantee, an opportunity to get (free) world-class higher education, choose a career in science, military, or industry, etc. Speaking of China, they do have their problems (of course), but to have a moral right to criticize, other fellow countries should at least stop their oil-for-bombs and occupation-based-on-rumors politics (and we will see, how that will change the quality of life and corruption level). But the resemblance is there, yeah ;)
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Are you implying that in the 1960s there was literally no one living in poverty in the soviet union? Seems to be some evidence against that, such as: http://books.google.com/books/about/Poverty_in_the_Soviet_Union.html?id=hHJeZ2-iA6sC http://books.google.com/books/about/Poverty_in_the_Soviet_Un...
  - m0skit0 14y ago
    Poverty in the USSR didn't impeach you from having free health care, free education and almost free basic food and transport. Compare with poors in the USA.
  - mlvljr 14y ago
    Yes, I'm speaking exactly of the golden era of USSR (1961 -- 1979, roughly), and the evidence of my family, relatives and friends clearly states, that poverty was _literally_ defeated by that time -- you plain could not be starving from hunger or be homeless (unless you prefered to, but that was against the law, and everyone was guaranteed to have a roof above his head). Speaking short and plain, everyone had at least enough to live a healthy life, and quite many had somewhat more.

huoju 14y ago

Yes, There is corruption in the US, But an american can't really understand how serious the corruption in China. The situation is so bad that you can find the corrupt CHINA officials every where, not only in China. They had migrated to every where, from US to African.