Thanks for clarifying that for me.

 

Do the Chinese have genetically superior fingers for putting stuff together?

Maybe American's hands are too FAT for putting small stuff together (especially electronics).

The quote below is from that article you linked.

 

I can tell you in an INSTANT that Chinese girls do NOT have "long" fingers!!!
NO WAY, NO HOW!!!
Just the opposite... they all have tiny hands with short fingers as an aspect ratio of the hands of a westerner.
They are obsessed with my hands and long fingers. The girls in the office and at the hotel are constantly wanting us to "match palms" to see how big my hands are compared to theirs. I'd venture to say that 90% of the grown women (20 yrs or older) are about 5'0" - 5'4" tall, and their hands are no bigger than my 8-yr-old kid's - NO JOKE.

That doesn't mean they are not nimble or dexterous, but they are certainly not "long and thin" as the linked article claimed. I'll take some images next month when I'm there to show what I mean.

 

Is that what the kids are calling it these days? First it was the senoritas in Mexico, now the girls in China huh...

 

It sounds like Mr. Pony likes to outsource his women too.






Just joking, but the matching palms together thing is pretty funny.

 

"peeks over rose colored glasses"...seriously tho, you better wake up, with the new House Res. Bill, your kids will be drafted right out of school, then to Iraq, or....Iran, next.
So as not to hijack this thread I posted a thread in the Lounge on "Blood for Oil". check it out...one of several good articles on the subject, you decide.
Back to your regular scheduled program(ing)...

 

90rocz,

If you are going to use my thread to advertise yours, I'm going to have to charge you some big $$$$$ and donate the money to GM.

 

Back to the topic,
How are we defining "Protectionism",
a)sandbagging our position against the flood while outsiders drown?
b)protecting human rights by demanding a level playing field, policies on environmental and safety and fair wages?
(BTW, one reason the UAW is hated sooooo bad by Big Buisness, is they fight for human rights in other countries, as well as congress for policy.
While, I'd love to see us doing everything in (USA) house, globalization doesn't have to be the "devil". There's just to many devils, globalizing these days, is all.
When our country was "globalized" in the past, we (big buisness then) exploited just about everyone in the USA, during our early years. It'd be a shame not to have learned from our past, and repeat it in some other 3rd world country...and HERE!

 

HeHeHe! What happens in China stays in China!!! J/K!

Seriously, after a 12-14hr day, we go back to the hotel, get a shower, and typically head to C-31 (restaurant close by) or down to the Eagle Bar (a club that has AWESOME chicken-on-a-stick and wings). Tsingtao beer is about US$.80/16oz bottle (and it ain't bad either!).
But no matter where you go, the servers are all female... management positions are reserved for men only. So by defualt, you are going to interface with girls. Hotel staff, hostesses, waitresses, barmaids, you name it. The neat thing is that these girls (90% anyways) speak some level of english, and they are interested in talking with "foreigners" to experience what the "rest of the world" is like, and to practice their english on you, because the better their english is, the better thier jobs, and resulting tips are. English opens doors for them, and they know it.

They affectionaltely call us Westerners "long-nose". They are infatuated with us because of our physical differences. Many of us are over 6' tall. I have yet to cross paths with a guy in China 6" tall - I know there is one somewhere, but they are oddities. I have hazel eyes that go from green to brown - that just drives them nuts... green eyes in Asia are super-rare. They have tiny feet and hands, so they are constantly putting their feet beside yours, or wanting to match palms to see how big our hands are.

Quick funny story... I was eating in a restaurant one night with a buddy, and we noticed the guys at the table next to us kept staring - obviously - at us. After about 10 minutes, one of the guys stood up, straightened his suit and tie, stepped to our table and in his best english, said, "You are very big men, very strong... maybe you come to my gym... Total Fitness... we have very nice gym... we give you ecellent service!." Meanwhile he is handing me and Ronnie his business cards (they always hand you a card with 2 hands and a head-nod). As I stood up to accept his card, he couldn't help himself but to reach over and feel my bicep, and says, "Oh my goodness... very strong!" He did the same thing to Ronnie, told us to come by and visit him anytime, free of charge, then excused himself and went back to his table. It was all we could do to keep from snickering and laughing the whole time. We have a guy from East Germany there with us - Jens Bartsch - who actually lives in China now. He told Ronnie and I that if we went to this guys gym, we would be treated like royalty... we are both big, muscular guys (from farm work/physical labor) and it is very unusual to see such muscle mass in China. Jens said he suspects that the guy wanted us to come for free because we would actually draw a crowd for the guy's gym.

Honestly, their diets don't contain enough proteins to develop the way we westerners do. Fitness to them is cardio-vascular... like running or clalsthenics...not weightlifting. They are "lean", flexible, and durable, but NOT big.

To be fair, the girls there are absolutely stunning... especially since most we see are 18-35 yrs old, they are ALL trim and lean - no fat ones ANYWHERE, most have beautiful long black hair that is always done nicely, and they have that infamous porcelain complexion that is just beautiful. Throw in the fact that they all treat you so well, are courteous, and eager to be around you, and well, it's hard to behave sometimes. But I do behave... I don't want to burden a stranger and make their lives more complicated that it already is, that's hypocritical of me. And I also made a promise to my wife that I intend to keep, and I have a kid to think of too - not to mention I don't want my tool to rot off in a year from something I never heard of either!

Now if I were 23, unmarried, and found myself over there... well THAT would not be good for them at all!!!

Bottom line is - everywhere I go, I find that the PEOPLE are almost always warm and considerate. It's governments that wage wars and cite policies, not people. This is also why I don't begrude any person from any nation for wanting to better their position in life. They deserve a happy life as much as anyone else - me included. What I don't like is when their lifestyle improvements are coming at the expense of our domestic lifestyles. I want everyone to move UP, not some of us to have to move BACK DOWN.

 

I had to go home and download this image last night after this post...
This image was taken at 3:30 pm outside my office on a "clear" day, and yes, I aimed my digital straight at the sun. THIS is SMOG, not clouds.




Here is an image I took from the top of our emmissions stack looking northeast towards Kunshan about the same time of day...

(look close at the red sign in the center of the image... "Makita" has a huge facility that backs up to ours.)
You'll notice the visibility is about 1-2 miles max - again, SMOG. You can see the sun's reflection from the metal roof.
Smog is terrible... you can smell it, it gets in your sinuses, and burns your throat. All the Americans walk around sucking on mint hard candy or cough drops to keep our throats moist and soothed. It took a full week for my throat to clear after getting home.
The nastiest habit they have over there is all the (Chinese) guys walk around on the jobsite spitting lugies on the floor... almost every guy working there is constantly coughing and hacking and spitting green ones out.
I can't help but think what their healthcare system is going to be burdened with in the next 5-10 years.

It was like this 4 days out of 5. While I was there for over 3 weeks, I saw maybe 2 or 3 days that the sky was decently clear (days when the wind was blowing from the east/northeast bringing clean air from the ocean).

The water is just NASTY. I didn't take any images of the oil streaks across Shanghai harbor when I flew in, or the film on the canals around town.
I wouldn't get close to their natural water systems for anything.

My words in other posts regarding environmental preservation stem from this kind of exposure. Words (and even these few images) just can't describe it guys... it's BAD, on a HUGE level.

 

proudpony,

Moving all that manufacturing out the US appears to have one major benefit besides giving you a good paying job.


Less Pollution here in the US.<-------Where's Al Gore when we really need him...... Oh wait.. I forgot, he's making a documentary that comes out in few months that won't even mention China significantly. Sure the US still consumes more energy then anyone else but alot of that energy is used for making products that ship out of the country. The unfortunate benefit of our manufacturing base decreasing it that the amount of energy we use will decrease as well. No need to adopt for Kyoto treaty in it's current form if China and India aren't going to play ball as well.


The problem is that you discovered our top-secret motive for moving all manufacting to China- To kill all those Commies via environmental pollution and then have Haliburton take over their factories and then ship all of our illegal immigrants over there to make stuff and Dick Cheyne himself will run their entire energy infrastructure off oil from Iraq (and Iran after we conquer them in 2007) .

 

I guess your car runs on menthanol or?? To use an old analogy, "don't bitch about farmers with a full belly"....

You totally ignored the facts I presented....just what I expected.....

Sorry, to the rest of you, I guess 'everything is America's fault'.....I'll let it go on here....[walksoffshakingmyhead]

BTW, I remember the draft....ain't no new thing.....freedom ain't free.

 

I repect you Doug, you've shown a good head about a lot of things, especially cars, but I can tell your an 'Ole Millitary man by your comments hence your defensive stand on their actions...They are just puppets of "Farmers that don't want to work their own fields, so they go and take crops from someone else"
I read your articles, not new or different from the corporate propaganda we get smothered in every day. I always look at both sides, then ask important questions, challenge authority and make my own decisions. Ask all those sick soldiers that came back from Dessert Storm, I've see MANY interviews of sick and dying soldiers, practically desserted by their country when they returned home.
Did you read or consider my link on Blood for Oil, in the Lounge?

 

Proud- interesting pics of the air there. It is *exactly* how I pictured it would be. Of course, I was a little kid in a Western Maryland strip mining/paper mill valley with bad air circulation, and it pretty much looked the same back in the early 70s.
100% agreement with this. I have NO issue with trade with Japan, Germany, etc- other 1st world countries with regs similar to ours, but I've always objected to the exploitation of developing countries' peoples. I would not have the neighborhood kid cut my yard for $3 with a push mower, just because he agreed to it- it's just not the type of person I am.

It would seem our differences are in semantics. Your statement above shows me that you are pro-Free Trade. But, REAL Free Trade, where trading partners are operating on equal terms ethically, not this fallacy being hoisted on us now.

FWIW- I'm in semiconductor manufacturing, and when it's time for me to begin starting up plants in China, I'm done with the business.

 

100% Agree!

I do also think it at least a little ironic, ProudPony lamenting all the side effects of globalization, yet clearly in the middle of making his living from it. There's NOTHING WRONG with that, don't get me wrong. But it's still loaded with irony.

China's economic juggernaut will choke on its own wide-open throttle, accompanied by a racket of democratic uprisings to boot.

BTW Thanks for the pictures ProudPony. Can't say I'm surprised though... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...ic/1027824.stm