Tag: chinese

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Asia

Is China the least sexist of the East Asian countries?

In general, yes China has better gender equality than Korea and Japan.

For example if you’re looking at the percentage of female CEOs (often a good measuring stick for breaking the glass ceiling) – China has the second highest proportion of female CEOs in the world List of female top executives – Wikipedia – this exceeds even the USA by quite a big margin. Compare this to Japan and Korea, where female CEOs only make up a mere 2% of the companies.

In general everyday life, Chinese women enjoy great career flexibility compared to Japanese and Korean women. There are a substantial portion of Chinese women who will say their dream career is to be an entrepreneur and starting their own business. In contrast, a large portion of Japanese and Korean women’s dream jobs is to be a flight attendant.

There are rarely pure housewives in China who stay home all day, whereas Korea and Japan have a substantial percentage of housewives who do nothing but stay home and take care of their babies.

I can’t speak for Japan on this but since I lived in Korea, I know that Koreans have traditional ceremonies on Lunar New Year and Chuseok (Thanksgiving) where the women have to traditionally prepare all the food for the guests and relatives. The men don’t have to do anything. I don’t think such a tradition still exists in China.

There are a lot of female-only occupations in Korea and Japan (for example most hairdressers are female, airline attendants are almost always female, etc) whereas in China, most jobs can be performed by both genders.

Women’s rights in China is far better than Korea as well. Abortion was only legalized last year in Korea, whereas abortion had been legal for over 3 decades in China. The punishment for sexual assault/rape in Korea is a mere few years in prison. The operator of the sex trafficking hub Soranet for example only got a few years and the 200k+ males who were in the Nth telegram scandal (Nth room case – Wikipedia) are not going to be punished at all. This is not even mentioning the spy camera epidemic in Korea (Hundreds of South Korean motel guests were secretly filmed and live-streamed online). In China, such crimes would have much more severe punishment.

In addition, women in China get significant other advantages over Korean/Japanese women. They are not under as much pressure to put on makeup or dress up as much. They don’t have as much financial burden – In Korea/Japan, the women will still have to pay for some costs of dating and marriage and buying a house, but in China the men bear almost 100% of those costs. There is a dowry in China where the men have to pay a substantial amount of money to marry, but it does not exist in Korea/Japan. These are more negatives for Chinese men then they are positives for Chinese women, but I feel like I should still mention them.

Also from what I’ve seen, meeting Chinese women, Korean women and Japanese women and traveling in their countries, Chinese women have much more freedom with regards to how they can express themselves. A tomboy in Korea or Japan (especially Korea), is not very welcomed by their society, but in China tomboys exist everywhere. This is related to what I said about them not being under as much pressure to dress or do makeup or behave a certain way, whereas especially in Korea you will find almost all women dress or do makeup in a feminine manner and are expected to behave in a ‘softer, gentler’ way.

Korean women are often shocked when they travel to China and see how strong Chinese women are there. For example, you will see women physically abusing men in China. This is unheard of in Korea and I have never seen it there. There is more pressure on Korean and Japanese women to be traditionally feminine in their society compared to Chinese women.

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Asia

Why are the Chinese a more materialistic people than that of the Western brethren?

Developing countries tend to be more materialistic than developed countries. This is because in a poorer society with a lot of population, there are very few ways to stand out and prove your worth.

One of the easiest ways to ‘prove’ that you are higher social status is to buy expensive clothes or electronics or a car/house – because those are hard to afford for most of the population. So being able to purchase those things is an indicator of wealth and status. And higher status means more benefits, access to better networks and connections to more powerful people etc.

In a developed society, the middle class is already wealthy enough to afford most of the things that a developing society would consider ‘status symbols’. Therefore even if you buy a fancy Lexus or Mercedes or expensive Chanel bag or iPhone it doesn’t really have as much as impact on your status as it would in a developing society. In a rich neighborhood, who cares if you own a Tesla or Lexus? So what? does it make you a better person?

In developed societies, increase in your social status comes almost purely from merit – you have to be really earn your higher status either through being an entrepeneur or getting a promotion or being able to network well with people. Just buying expensive stuff isn’t really going to get you anywhere in society.

This is also why in poorer communities in the US, especially black communities (because more blacks are impoverished on average), they tend to show off or brag more about the things they own. Whereas if you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet for example they don’t really care what they wear or what they own anymore. They wear $30 sweaters from Ross and Marshalls. At that level of wealth it doesn’t matter what you own anymore. This is also how you know that Donald Trump probably isn’t really all that rich – or he is really insecure – if he feels the need to show off or brag all the time.

So being materialistic is not really exclusive to China. Chinese people just seem the most prominent conspicuous consumers out there because there are so many of them. But I think its a sign their middle class isn’t fully developed yet to a point where most people would be able to afford these luxuries. Thus creating the demand for status symbols. India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Africa, Middle East etc in these places I would also presume buying expensive items to be an indicator of your social status.

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Politics

Why is China saying the US military brought coronavirus to Wuhan?

Probably to deflect any blame from themselves. Recently, China and Chinese people have taken a ‘whatever the US does we can do too’ approach where they accuse US / Americans of being hypocritical or arrogant or bullying other countries, then they do the exact same thing. That’s why you will never see China ever apologize for anything anymore – because the US never apologizes so why should China? So much for being better than other countries right? Just take your enemy and try to be exactly like them.

As for the conspiracy theory itself, there’s no basis, of course. There’s conspiracy theory articles floating around like this: COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US – Global Research

Here is the main part of the article that is the crux of the theory:

“It would seem the only possibility for origination is the US because only that country has the “tree trunk” of all the varieties. And it may therefore be true that the original source of the COVID-19 virus was the US military bio-warfare lab at Fort Detrick. “

Of course, there’s all so many things wrong with this statement.

  • Only the US has the ‘tree trunk’ of all the varieties of coronavirus? Coronaviruses originate from animals, which could be anywhere. In the case of China, because of the wild animal trade, that is why it is so likely that it originated there – because a wild animal stacked on top of another one in a tightly confined space in a market, then eaten by humans is a good way for a virus to mutate and transmit between carriers and eventually get to humans. It doesn’t just come from a place where a lot of other coronaviruses are. That’s not how viruses work. Why did SARS originate in China and MERS originate in the Middle East if supposedly, America is the source of every virus? Or were those failed CIA operations too?
  • Why the immediate jump to conclusion that it was the US and not any other Western country? Why wouldn’t American military basemen all be infected? Would that not have happened sometime in the past?
  • It makes no sense for American operatives to sneak the virus into China – first of all the virus doesn’t only target ‘Chinese genes’ (what is that anyways? We’re all genetically 99% similar anyways) and it clearly infects everyone. You think Americans biochemically engineered a virus with a 2.5% mortality rate, then snuck it into China, thinking it won’t eventually get out and kill Americans too? completely ridiculous
  • If Americans really wanted to sabotage their #1 biggest trading partner and shut down manufacturing of all their products (again – why would they do this??) – there’s better ways to do it – a virus that only kills the old and the weak and has great potential to spread worldwide is probably not the best way.
  • Chinese government (like Xi would have said this not some low level spokesperson tweet) would have officially said something about this if there was clear evidence that USA caused this. It would have caused irreparable damage to China-US relations. Instead, China is sending out masks to countries who are in need of it – again if America bio engineers were behind it China would have retaliated against the US by now. We know from experience that China quite easily retaliates (THAAD – South Korea, Huawei CFO imprisonment – Canada, Trade War – USA). China would have definitely retaliated by now.

That’s why this conspiracy theory is completely ridiculous – there’s no logical sense in there. It just raises more questions than answers – which is how you know a theory is a conspiracy theory

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