Blue is Me

Tag: opinion

  • What is an unpopular opinion you hold?

    I think I tend to follow what the data presents because I’m very data driven and focused. For me, stats are the objective truth and that’s what you need to present as evidence before you claim something.

    I have a friend that’s the exact opposite; he holds whatever he personally experiences as the objective truth and nothing can sway him – even though what he’s experiencing is by definition, subjective to his preferences and experiences – and he uses his (oftentimes very biased) experiences and knowledge to make massive overgeneralizations about a subject that annoy me sometimes. I also think he’s kind of snobbish, very high brow and a contrarian at times, although he explicitly would deny this.

    -He says that German made products are shoddy, overrated and engineered to fail – and the evidence he gives are the fact that his BMW breaks down all the time, his Montblanc pen ink runs dry without him using it and his Sennheiser HD800 headphone pads deteriorated by themselves within a couple years.

    -He thinks most modern Hollywood movies suck because there’s too much focus on CGI, fancy explosions and action instead of writing and plot. He prefers movies that are pre-1990s.

    -He says most Hollywood action movies like Terminator 2, Die Hard, Rambo, etc are overrated because there’s not really much action in them and it’s just somebody holding a gun and praises 80s Hong Kong action films because they are far superior in terms of action and depth

    -He says most 1990s horror movies suck because they focus too much on slasher films and not enough on traditional horror like Fright Night and Dawn of the Dead and don’t have the depth of those movies. He says Blair Witch Project is one of the most overrated movies ever.

    -He says post 1980s Disney animation is too mainstream and predictable and prefers the older Disney films like Sword in the Stone

    -He says post 1980s Japanese anime is too polished and mainstream and prefers the experimental nature of 1970s and 1980s Japanese anime like Lupin the 3rd and Maison Ikkoku.

    -His favorite Ghibli films are NOT the popular ones like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke; he prefers Takahata films like Only Yesterday and My Neighbor Yamadas

    -He says Quentin Tarantino is the most overrated director ever because he just rips off other films frame by frame (Reservoir Dogs a ripoff of City on Fire, Kill Bill ripoff of Lady Snowblood etc)

    -He says JK Rowling is an overrated author because Urusula Le Guin is much better. Also, Ernest Hemingway is overrated too.

    -He says modern video games have too much hand holding and older retro games from the 80s and 90s were the best because of their higher difficulty

    -He is a HUGE arcade and Street Fighter 2 fan and believes that was the golden age of gaming and that no game could ever top Street Fighter 2. He didn’t like Street Fighter 3 because of the parry mechanic and Street Fighter 4 relied too much on spamming attacks. He did like Street Fighter 5 but then didn’t like Street Fighter 6 because the drive gauge is too easy to pull off.

    -He thinks Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Bros are for casuals (probably because he’s biased to SF2)

    -He thinks beat em ups are the ‘evolution’ to platformers because of the extra movement plane they added to move up and down and he says this is what everyone his age thought at the time in arcades

    -He thinks arcade games were the gold standard in video games back then because of their difficulty and graphics compared to home consoles back then

    -He judges a video game based solely on the combat and it’s difficulty level. If it’s too easy and/or isn’t well balanced in difficulty, then the game sucks. His gold standard for video games are Dynasty Warriors 3, Street Fighter 2, Dungeons & Dragons Shadows over Mystara and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8. He uses these games as the bar for which all other video games are judged. They have to meet the criteria of having challenging yet balanced combat, depth and complexity in gameplay and high replay ability value.

    -He says dpads are superior to analog sticks because of the faster response times of a dpad – even in 3D games. Because he said he can play Dynasty Warriors 3 well using a dpad and if that game is good enough for a dpad then every 3D game is good enough for a dpad (his logic).

    -He judges headphones and speakers based solely on how much detail it resolves and how much soundstage it has – hence why he prefers the Hifiman HE1000 Unveiled and Sennheiser HD800 (the original 800 not the 800s version because the 800s has ‘a touch less’ soundstage) out of all headphones cause that’s the headphone with the most detail and soundstage he’s heard.

    -He judges DACs based solely on if it’s flagship level or not – and it has to be desktop level flagship. A ‘mobile’ flagship ES9038Q2M will be dismissed by him because the ES9038Pro is available and better. But that said, he generally prefers AKM chips to Sabre chips because he says Sabre chips are ‘too harsh sounding’.

    -He judges amplifiers solely on their power output – in RMS. He raves about Emotiva because they are the only amplifiers that output a large amount of power for relatively affordable cost. He claims the Emotiva preamps are the only ones with sufficient voltage and power to properly drive his high end esoteric ASW tower speakers. Other amplifiers that output lower amount of power that costs more are scams to him.

    -All things Japanese are the best to him. The Japanese can do no wrong. Everything they make are the most reliable, best quality, best value, best craftsmanship etc he even goes so far as to say that Japanese fruits and candy (Japanese fruits taste like candy and Japanese candy taste like fruit) and potato chips (the Hokkaido potato chips in particular) are superior to Western fruits and snacks.

    -Most modern music sucks to him because he says it’s overproduced and the artists aren’t writing the music themselves. He only listens to music from before the 1990s when artists all wrote their own music.

    -He finds Queen, Nirvana and AC/DC overrated. Queen because the Bohemian Rhapsody movie caused everyone to overrate and talk about them, Nirvana because they have just one style (the depressing grunge kind) and AC/DC because they are just ‘one style of Led Zeppelin repeated’.

    -The 1980s were the best decade to him (probably because he grew up in that decade…) music, movies, toys, cartoons to him were at their peak in the 1980s.

    -He says the only good things about the 1990s were the drama movies (like Shawshank Redemption), sitcoms (like Friends and Seinfeld) and video games (fighting games especially). He laments the decline in non drama movies, pop music, and children’s cartoons (he says 80s children’s cartoons were much grittier and darker).

    -He prefers Friends over Seinfeld (because Seinfeld is just situational comedy and carried by George and Kramer while Friends has equal talent spread out amongst the cast and has more variety in comedy and drama)

    -He thinks Penny Hardaway before injuries was just as good as Magic Johnson

    -He thinks Brandon Roy before injuries was just as good as Kobe. He also thinks Devin Booker and many modern stars are better than Kobe was.

    -He thinks Wilt is overrated because he wasn’t good in the post and didn’t take good shots with his fadeaways and his only good points came from dunks and finger rolls and Kareem was far superior to him

    -He thinks KG is overrated because he relied too much on turnaround fadeaways similar to Wilt and that Duncan was far superior to him

    -He thinks Kobe is overrated because he was a shot chucker that was far inferior to Jordan in every way and that most modern NBA guards are better than Kobe just on the basis on being more efficient

    -He says Mario Lemieux is the GOAT of hockey, not Wayne Gretzky because Gretzky played with a stacked team in the 80s and Lemieux achieved more with less and was more skilled and unique.

    -He says that Korean movies are overrated and have simple twists (like Parasite) and Korean dramas are just ripoffs of other shows (Squid Games ripoff of Battle Royale, Itaewon class ripoff of a Hong Kong drama etc)

    -Korean electronics like LG and Samsung have failed for him in the past whereas Japanese electronics like Panasonic have never failed thus Japanese electronics are superior and Korean electronics over-rely on marketing useless features (like peak brightness on TVs which he says doesn’t reflect the typical usage) or claim that Samsung and LG would intentionally deceive consumers with their HDR optimizer feature which ‘purposely dims the entire display to get more detail on the brightest parts which makes the whole picture less accurate’

    -He doesn’t trust game reviewers because he says they are casuals who only play the game on easiest difficulty which isn’t ‘truly’ experiencing the game

    -He doesn’t trust movie reviewers because they haven’t watched as many international films as he did and thus doesn’t have the full perspective on films

    -He doesn’t trust basketball analysts because he says they are for entertainment and don’t know as much basketball as he does

    -He doesn’t trust audio reviewers because he says that they use the Harman curve as reference even though it’s not a neutral reference or flat reference curve and his ears are better than other people’s anyways

    Needless to say, we have some disagreements about some of these points, but he remains adamant in thinking that whatever he thinks is the objective truth and if others disagree then that’s because they didn’t truly experience something as deeply as he did and/or they don’t have enough knowledge as him. He basically makes massive generalizations about something based on his personal experience and acts condescending to most people who don’t agree with him.

    But I do find his takes interesting as he always tries his best to come up with some logical explanation for all of them. He does have a vast knowledge of many different topics including history, hockey, basketball, arcade games, movies, music, books etc

    To give some examples of the type of person he is…

    -He has a massive book collection (he owns limited edition bound reproductions of old books). He especially is a big fan of the Chinese novelist Jin Yong who wrote a lot of wuxia books – and he claims Jin Yong is ‘the perfect blend of Charles Dickens and JRR Tolkien’.

    -He has a massive movie collection (he owns multiple copies of movies if they are different editions because the transfers, audio mix, coloring etc could be different). He claims to have watched movies like The Godfather and Citizen Kane when he was just 6 years old. And he regularly stocks up on 70s and 80s HK movies released from boutique labels and releases from independent foreign filmmakers. He says he regularly attends film festivals and has watched more movies than even Tarantino.

    -He has massive toy figure collection (he keeps them the box of course)

    -He claims he has watched every Jordan, Kobe and Lebron game – along with many old NBA games pre-1990s because he had ESPN Hardwood Classics available as a kid.

    -He also claims to have played almost every SNES and PS1 game because he had this accessory called the ‘Disc Doctor’ that let him play Japanese SFC games on his SNES and his PS1 was modded to play pirated discs. He says that he knew some Japanese as a kid and he and his childhood friends who knew kanji would piece together the untranslated Japanese text to play those games back then

    -he claimed to have more knowledge about Jordan sneakers (he owns a collection of that too) than authenticators so he doesn’t trust independent authenticators to authenticate shoes; he will buy the shoe and verify it himself to see if it’s real or fake. He also claims to be able to distinguish real and fake shoes in youtube videos

    -he travels to Japan every year, and on his latest travel he went to this underground arcade where he claimed to have fought the best Street Fighter 2 Ken player in Japan to a standstill and the player was so impressed with him that he bought my friend a gift (lol)

    -he claims to have been the world #2 in Street Fighter 2 at one point and good enough to challenge Daigo. He claims to have beaten the top North American player at the time (AfroLegends) with a shitty Xbox controller dpad

    -he claims to have been making ‘impossible shots’ like Efren Reyes in pool because he used a snooker cue (which have smaller tips) in pool to create large amounts of spin that wouldn’t normally have been possible on a regular pool cue

    -he claims to have been good enough in basketball (before his knee injuries) to play Olympic level players at the local gyms around Vancouver

    -he claims he needs a wooden baseball bat to play baseball because ‘someday he might enter the minor leagues where metal bats are not allowed’ and apparently he throws pitches with such speed it injured his catcher’s shoulder when he caught it (lol)

    -he claimed that he could immediately tell the difference between when his buddy’s home theater setup was using compressed Dolby Digital and not lossless Dolby TrueHD

    -he could immediately tell the music files that he was playing on my DAP were ‘only’ CD quality but not high res FLACs

    -he could immediately tell the TV we watched movies on were using ‘game mode’ vs ‘cinema mode’ because the colors were off

    -he claimed his Nintendo Switch had a ‘hidden’ revision (which of course is the one that he had) that produced better and more accurate colors even superior to the OLED version

    -he ‘needs’ the UAC2 function in dac dongles to be supported ‘in case’ he needs to play the Nintendo Switch in bed wearing his Sennheiser HD800 headphones

    So I think in his head, he has such a vast wealth of knowledge that he rarely ever trusts reviewers online and he basically only trusts himself as the only source for truth. He literally is the embodiment of ‘I don’t care if everyone else disagrees, I am right’.

  • What are your most controversial or unpopular opinions?

    Oh I have many, this has caused many of my friends to avoid talking to me about certain issues, here are just a few controversial opinions that I have:

    1. I think men and woman are fundamentally different and I don’t think traditional gender roles are a bad thing. I think that just like with other animals, human males and females were designed to perform different tasks. Males performing the more labor intensive and hands on work and females performing more service oriented work. I don’t think that we should force some ‘diversity’ quota onto some industries to force men and women to do what they are not good at naturally doing.
    2. Playboys are not misogynists. The definition of misogyny means the hatred of women. Playboys are quite the opposite – they love women, they don’t hate them. I don’t like it when so many people misuse the word ‘misogynist/misogyny’ like ‘that guy goes to clubs every night to bang women! he’s a misogynist!’ that’s not the right way to use that word. A misogynist would be for example a serial killer or rapist that specifically targets women because he blamed women for all of his life’s troubles. That’s a misogynist. James Bond or Casanova? not misogynists. Hope people can understand this difference.
    3. Also, diversity quotas / affirmative action are a form of discrimination. There I said it for what it is.
    4. Western people’s lives do not matter more than others. But, we treat it as if it does matter more. It’s true. Tragic events like 9/11 or the Paris ISIS attack get TONS of news coverage – because they happened in the West. Nobody cares about suicide bombings in the Middle East, Earthquakes in China or famine in Africa that kill an order of magnitude more because those people do not matter as much as Westerners. And you might be saying ‘but that’s because you live in a Western country that’s why you see more news coverage of Western incidents’ no that’s not really true, even in non Western countries, Western incidents get more coverage, sometimes even more than domestic events. People around the world know when a terrorist attack or a mass shooting occurs in the US or other Western country. The reverse is not true. When that happens in Asia/Africa/Middle East it gets pretty much no coverage in Western countries.
    5. I think every state should have Romeo and Juliet laws. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a college student having sex with a high school student. The age gap is not that big. Most people think of a 21 year old having sex with a 17 year old and think that’s pedophilia or that he’s sexually ‘preying’ on her, just because she’s under 18 and he’s over 18. That’s ridiculous. It’s a 4 year gap. He could have been dating her as a senior when she was a freshman. A 50 year old dating a 25 year old is way more creepy and that’s legally allowed. Pedophilia is when a 50 year old preys on a 10 year old. That’s pedophilia. but a college student dating a high school student is the same kind of monster? It’s not the same. Also, the argument that 16 or 17 year olds aren’t ‘mature’ enough to have sex is ridiculous, they already seen tons of sex in movies and tv, that’s the age they just passed puberty and are sexually curious, and already can drive cars and in some states handle handguns. And then when they turn 18 they are magically mature enough to have sex now? a 1–2 year difference? That’s just silly.
    6. There’s nothing wrong with sex in video games and movies. I honestly think it’s ridiculous how Americans censor sex in so many forms of media and entertainment but they have so much violence in those same media. What’s more normal, killing someone, chopping someone’s head off – or having sex? Now which scenes are the ones to get censored? Japanese hentai games? All censored in the West. Porn? Yeah we don’t talk about that. But we have movies like SAW which are insanely violent and games like Last of Us 2 which have us murdering everyone we come across in long drawn out death sequences. Sex is a normal thing that all human beings do. I don’t understand why it’s considered so taboo in society.
    7. Women who abandon their babies are not necessarily monsters. You got to hear me out on this one. Women are allowed to get abortion in most developed countries in the world now. Are they cold blooded killers? But let’s say you are not able to get an abortion for whatever reason, maybe it’s still illegal in their country, and you know many irresponsible men in the world do not use protection, so when a woman gets pregnant what can she really do? If abortion is illegal and she was too young or struggling financially? What can she do at that point? She has to give birth and then what can she do with the baby? If she has no money? I may be a guy but I can’t imagine being put in that situation ,which is all too common. There’s many many instances where some asshole accidentally impregnates a girl and then runs away from that responsibility and leaves the woman to deal with it herself. There’s little the woman can do at that point.
    8. The majority of people are tribal and think in black and white, as if everyone belongs on either one side or the other. I’ve debated a lot of people on Quora and on social media, Facebook, Twitter etc. This is what thing I’ve noticed, that most people are very tribal and will always take one side or the other and assume that if you aren’t on their side then you must be on the other one, which comes along with a whole bunch of other assumptions. They don’t believe in gray areas.

      -For example, in American politics, they think that if you don’t like Trump then you must be a socialist liberal gun hating Democrat, and if you don’t like Obama then you must be the opposite – a conservative gun loving Republican.

      -In basketball, people believe that if you are a fan of Michael Jordan then you cannot be a fan of Lebron James. You have to be either a Jordan fan or a Lebron fan but you cannot be both. And both sides are dedicated to making ‘hate’ posts trying to convince the other side about who is better.

      -talking with mainland Chinese people, they believe that if you don’t support the CCP and China / support HK protestors / support Taiwanese independence then that automatically means you must love the USA, love democracy, was brainwashed by Western media, must support Trump and US policies, and (in my case because I’m of Chinese ethnicity) that I’m a traitor because I didn’t support the country where my blood comes from. Also that every Western country = same as USA. And on the other side, if you like China and the CCP then that means you automatically hate US, hate democracy, think Taiwan is a part of China etc

      see where I am going with this? a large portion of people love generalizing and assuming things about others merely based on a single viewpoint and extrapolate that to a whole array of assumptions. This is not how the world works. The real world is a lot more gray than this. You can’t just assume so many things based on one piece of information.

      I am neither a Democrat or a Republican. I’m neither liberal or conservative. I like both Jordan and Lebron. I don’t love the USA and I don’t love China. I’m an example of a person who’s firmly ‘gray’ in many many areas but people love to assume things about me depending on my viewpoint. Case in point is an answer I wrote about ‘things I dislike about Korea’ caused some commenters to mention bad things about China – as if saying negative things about Korea meant that I was somehow a CCP supporter, then in another topic where I said I preferred to live in Korea compared to Japan and China, commenters called me a ‘koreaboo’ and in a lot of my answers in the China topic where I talked about you can’t generalize HK protestors to be all terrorists or about Taiwan being ruled by a separate government, I was viciously attacked by Chinese commenters who told me I was a traitor to my country, that I was brainwashed by Western media, must have experienced racism when I was young (because we all know that everyone who has actually gone to China loves it there right? You can’t possibly have negative opinions of China unless Americans brainwashed you to) and that I ‘loved’ the USA or Trump. I had never said a single thing about America! and they assumed all these things about me.

  • Who hates China more ABCs or HKers?

    None of us hate mainland Chinese, we just don’t like it when there’s people like the question asker who make ridiculous generalizations about either us or Western people based on false assumptions.

    For example:
    -All Westerners hate China – not true
    -All ABC/HKers hate China – not true
    -All HKers are protestors = terrorists = not true
    -ABC/HKers are conditioned/brainwashed by the Western media to hate China – not true
    -ABCs or HKers are required to support China because they are ethnically Chinese and if they don’t it means they are brainwashed by Westerners – not true, they are free human beings, can make their own judgments and can identify with whoever they choose

    Where do these assumptions come from? Usually when I see these assumptions, its a result of some mainland Chinese who used VPNs or came abroad, then went to Western social media sites, saw some examples of racism or criticism against them on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/Quora/etc and then extrapolates and generalizes that they all must hate Chinese based on a few examples they saw.

    Here’s some facts I can give you:
    -I was raised in Canada – I’m not exactly a CBC but I definitely consider myself more Canadian than Chinese
    -I studied Chinese in university and visited/traveled China multiple times, I have many Chinese friends
    -I lived in Asia (Korea) for 2 years and go back every year. Visited Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong as well
    -I have many ABC friends that went to work in China (Shanghai/Beijing)
    -I have many ABC friends that married Chinese women
    -I have many HK friends that side with China, not the protestors
    -I don’t have any ABC friends that have a positive impression of Trump

    based on these facts, I can at least say that around my circle at least, there’s no HKers/ABC “brainwashed” or “conditioned” by Western media to hate China.
    Furthermore if you go to China, or even look on the Quora China topic, I think you’ll find many Westerners that live in China, married Chinese or are very supportive of China. So much for all Westerners hating China eh?

    I don’t have a problem with Chinese, what I do have a problem is, is when they accuse Westerners/Americans of spreading false or generalized misinformation about China (which I agree that Western media is biased), but then turn around and spread false or generalized beliefs about Westerners as well. Or using America as an example for why China is allowed to boycott/ban/bully etc That’s just hypocrisy. Why does China want to be like America if America is the example they always cite as a bad example/influence on the world?

  • What’s your opinion about South Korea?

    A great country for social conservatives, for men, young people and a great country for nightlife. For liberals/feminists/vegans, workers and for women – not so much.

    They work really hard, they study really hard and they play really hard. They probably work amongst the most hours in the OECD and they also drink probably the most alcohol in the OECD. They also have the highest suicide rate in the OECD. They also drink the most coffee out of anyone in Asia I think. They also probably have the most cosmetic stores and plastic surgery clinics per capita out of any country in Asia.

    But, despite all that, I love Korea. It’s a really conservative Confucian country, which being a social conservative, I like a lot. The guys are masculine, the women are feminine, there’s a strict gender conformity which I love (seriously screw SJWs and their 23 genders). The people are nice and polite and friendly. 40% of Koreans are Christians and a lot of them are quite devoted Christians. Along with Japan, Korea is the only country where women dress up regularly. In every other place I been to – Europe, China, USA, Canada – the women dress too casually. This is the only place where women seem to wear dresses/miniskirts more often than pants, even in the winter. (This is good for guys).

    There is not as much to see and do compared to Japan or China, but Korea has a unique charm about it. And it’s not like they are arrogant either. Koreans seem to have an inferiority complex about themselves. They will have pride in their country but I’ve never heard them say their country was the best. Korean women in particular have really low self esteem especially given how much they care about their appearance. They all have low self confidence about their English too, even though they speak English on average better than Koreans/Japanese. They have a cookie cutter lifestyle where you study for 14 hours a day as a high school student, then after you graduate you work for 14 hours a day for minimal pay. You aren’t allowed to go against your boss or speak out against them. If they make you go to a drinking dinner you have to go. In this sense, Korea has a very strict work culture.

    The nightlife there is 24/7, at least in Seoul. Lots of places open at 5pm and don’t close until 6am. Lots of places are 24 hour. The clubs there go until 6am. The nightlife is among the best in Asia and in the world.

    In my opinion Korea is a great place to live and party but not to work – that’s why I choose to work abroad but come back every year for playing, haha.

  • What is your opinion about China and Chinese people?

    I guess I come from the unique perspective of having been to all the East Asian countries (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea) and my feelings about China has changed because of this. Roughly 30% of my friends are Chinese and 40% Korean.

    Before I lived in Korea, I was in China for a few months, visiting such places as Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou.

    My impressions are that North China has really bad air.. and although Beijing has lots of history, it just wasn’t as interesting to me as Central and South China were. In contrast, Shanghai was probably the most modern city in China, and Suzhou and Hangzhou had some of the most beautiful natural scenery I’ve experienced.

    I had lots of (mainland) Chinese friends in university, and also met Chinese people in China of course.

    I feel that my feelings for Chinese people changed a lot after I met Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese after I graduated university and started working and traveling to other Asian countries.

    After having visited Japan and Taiwan and living in Korea for 2 years, here’s my observations:

    -China is a great place for traveling and still has some of the most naturally beautiful places in the world.

    -China is a massively diverse country full of different races and cultures

    -Chinese food is very different from American Chinese food

    -Chinese people are very blunt; For example they do not hesitate to mince words on anything really. Korea/Taiwan/Japan tend to soften their words in order not to offend people too much, but Chinese just straight up say whatever is on their mind. This is often taken as ‘harshness’ or ‘rude’ by other countries but I think this is just their culture.

    -China has way better gender equality than any of its surrounding countries. And the women act very different from Korean/Japanese/Taiwanese women. They are less traditionally feminine, more assertive, more ambitious, and in a lot of cases can actually be more dominant than the men. It’s almost a role reversal compared to other countries, lol. It’s better in China to be a girl. Everything is paid for by the guys. The guys are pretty subservient to their gfs. The groom’s family pays for the wedding, not the bride. And because of the skewed gender ratio, girls have the pick of the litter. Pretty big contrast to Korea/Japan where its pretty much the opposite. Heres a nice graphic that is based on the stereotypes:

    -Chinese people are very prideful about their country, and more uniquely is how prideful they are about the specific region where they are from. A lot of times I would hear not’ Chinese ___ is the best’ but rather ‘Sichuan ___ is the best’ or ‘Beijing ___ is the best’ or ‘Shanghai __ is the best’. They like to boast a lot, and its not hard to see that they are biased in favor of China and their region on a lot of issues. It’s not so different from USA where Americans boast about their country too, but it is different from Taiwan/Japan/Korea where I don’t really hear them boasting about their country that often. Chinese people are not really aware of the culture differences between their country and Japan/Korea/Taiwan either, but that’s a forgivable point I suppose considering most Chinese have not been outside their country before.

    -Chinese people seem to put a lot of faith into their government. I’ve seen them use extreme cases to justify certain questionable government decisions. For example, banning foreign websites: Foreigners think its extremely limiting to freedom but Chinese people think its a good thing because it protects their domestic industry. censoring sex/violence in entertainment: Foreigners think its extreme, Chinese people think that having sex/violence in entertainment will lead to people becoming depraved criminals. censoring social media: Foreigners think it limits freedom, Chinese people think having a free social media is too crazy and chaotic and unstable. The government makes them wear ugly track outfits for school. Foreigners think Korean/Japanese school uniforms look better. Chinese people think its distracts them from studying and looks too sexy. Chinese people seem to place a premium on stability and harmony over freedom and flexibility, I think.

    -Japan is Tang Chinese culture, Korea is Ming Chinese culture, Taiwan is ROC culture, and China is its own culture. I find China the most westernized in culture out of all of them. For example, China is the least traditionally Confucist out of those countries, they have mostly done away with traditional ceremonies, religion, outfits (Chinese rarely wear Qipao compared to Japan’s Kimono or Korea’s Hanbok), and their fashion style is more similar to Westerners (i.e casual style) than to Koreans or Japanese. Perhaps this isn’t surprising since China underwent massive revolutions compared to those other countries.

    -Most Chinese are clean, nice and polite, but perhaps not to the same extent as Taiwan, Korea or Japan. My ranking of cleanliness / politeness in general is Japanese (TOO polite to a fault) > Taiwan > Korea > China.

    -Censorship. This is more of a problem for foreigners than native residents, but just be aware that unlike Japan/Korea/Taiwan, you need to use a VPN to use most sites in China, and they censor violent/sexual content. Too much so, IMO.

    -Cost of living. Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo are in the top tier of expensive cities to live in the world. In smaller Chinese cities, it is much cheaper. Seoul is a tier cheaper than those cities, and Taipei has the lowest cost of living amongst all the major capitals.

    -China has the most job opportunities, and the best place to start a company, by far. Shenzhen and Beijing are economic powerhouses for IT. Korea’s job market is too competitive (there’s a reason why they have #1 suicide rate), Japan’s economy is stagnant and Taiwan’s economy is also stagnant. If you are looking for work as a foreigner, China is the best.

    – Safety wise, all East Asian countries are safer than America. No comparison really. Very few mass shootings and gun murders if at all. In China you do have to be more careful of scams and thieves but its still relatively safe. In terms of safety I rank like this: Japan (zero gun deaths a year. seriously.) > Korea/Taiwan > China

    -Technology. Again, ALL of these countries have great technology. Japan is famous for its tech companies, robots and micro electronics (Sony, Canon, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Panasonic, Nintendo, etc too many to list). Taiwan is the #1 maker of computer hardware with such names as Asus, Acer, HTC, Gigabyte, MSI etc. Korea is home to electronic giants Samsung and LG. China doesn’t have the brand cache of those other companies but they are improving! Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, ZTE are some of the companies that are rapidly catching up to Japan and Korea!

    -Religion wise, because of China’s communist past, religion is pretty much banned, most Chinese are atheist. Taiwan and Japan are mostly Buddhist. Korea is uniquely a Christian country, perhaps relating to how socially conservative they are.

    In general I think it really depends what you want but China has its pros and cons. I did a comparison between China and other East Asian countries because I feel that this is a unique perspective I can contribute to, if others are interested. I would say work opportunity, diversity and natural beauty China is #1. Japan for the super polite / clean culture with a unique flavor. Korea is a mix of Japan and China but is also the most socially conservative and traditionally Confucist out of all them. Taiwan is much smaller than any of those countries but is a mix of Japanese and Chinese culture. I almost want to say they are Chinese people but with the manners of Japanese people.

    Let me know in the comments if I am missing any comparison.

    Edit: I have a lot of mainlanders commenting about the status of Taiwan. Taiwan is not controlled by the PRC. I don’t care if you think its a province or not or it belongs to China it is NOT controlled by PRC. The government of Taiwan is the ROC. Whether the UN recognizes it as a country or not doesn’t matter here. Xi Jinping is not Taiwan’s leader. Taiwanese elect their government and receive different education from mainland. These are facts and NOT up for debate. I do not tolerate ignorance and misinformation so I disabled the comments.

  • Response to recent Google employee’s memo..

    As many people on the internet know, a few days ago a Google employee’s internal memo was leaked out.. and there has been a big fuss about it.
    Not only was there so much hate on that guy, claiming that he was ‘misogynist’ and ‘male chauvinist’ but his name and picture were actually leaked by the press as well! If this wasn’t character assassination and defamation I don’t know what is.

    So, I’ve actually read the memo, and while I disagree with portions of it, for the most part I agree with him. My opinion is not a popular one in the liberal majority Silicon Valley. But I can assure you there is nothing that sexist / misogynist about what he wrote. First off, people should stop using that term so frequently because it literally means someone who hates women. This memo does not come off to me as someone who hates women. The main point he was getting across is that 1. conservatives are discriminated against in the tech industry and 2. Women’s biological differences with men are the reason why there aren’t as many women in the tech industry

    His first point is actually true, since Google promptly fired him after that memo leaked. As a private company they have all the right to do that, but it goes to show what happens when you have an unpopular conservative opinion in a sea of liberal opinions. Yes he had freedom of speech, but in the end if he violated Google’s code of conduct they had every right to fire him. I just don’t think it was fair since his opinion was actually quite valid.

    Secondly, as an Engineer I am usually very skeptical of claims unless they are backed by science. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories like area 51 / aliens or chemtrails or 9/11 theories or moon landing hoax theories or stuff like that. I don’t believe in superstitions like Feng Shui or chinese medicine (pseudoscience) or go to tarot readers or astrologists since I don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t believe in ghosts or monsters. I DO believe in global warming, because that’s backed up by science.
    Now, while this is very hard to prove by science, it is actually common sense to everyone that men and women are not the same. Our bodies are built very differently. Our brains are wired very differently. There is a gender difference in humans just like there is in every other animal. That is quite easy to accept. So I don’t understand what is so misogynist or hard to understand that differences in the way each gender thinks is the reason why certain genders perform certain roles?? Being different is good. There’s nothing wrong with being different. If people really want a society where men and women are treated exactly the same, I would recommend those people to move to a communist society. Perfect gender equality there.

    Men usually perform roles with physical labor like construction or mining, or roles that involve analytical thinking like mathematics, science or engineering. That is not to say women can’t do those roles, but definitely men have a dominant advantage in those roles. Women on the other hand, are much better at serving and caring for people. That’s why women tend to be clerks, cashiers, customer service reps, broadcasters, receptionists, nurses, etc. They are better suited for those positions than men. There is nothing misogynist or women-hating about this train of thought, this is the way that I feel after looking at other animal species and interacting with humans. Male lions don’t ask female lions to do the same task, they each have their own responsibilities. So why is it so unacceptable for humans to be the same? Even in engineer crazy India and China, there are more males than females in engineering. They have no reason to discriminate against women there (Asians are notorious for pushing that field onto all their children), yet there are still more males. Why? because men and women’s brains are different, that’s why. Its not hard to understand why. Anyone who’s been in a relationship before can tell you that women’s minds are way more emotionally complex than a man’s mind.

    Because people like to be social justice warriors. They like to think that taking the stance that women are the victims of social constructs, that women can do anything men can do, and somehow that will make others think of them as better people and supporting gender equality more. Its total nonsense, just like third-wave feminism. I support equal pay for equal work and gender equality, but I do so while acknowledging that men and women have different roles in society. People are just fooling themselves, they are denying science and biology because ironically, they are the victims of the liberal social construct, the very social constructs that they fight against. Do they also believe that social constructs are the reason why men can run faster and jump higher than women can? The liberal echo chamber of the Bay Area puts pressure on people to care or think about minorities, disabled, women, etc to help anyone who’s “oppressed” historically, even if it goes against science or what they actually believe. This is unfortunate, and the firing of this man for his memo (which is personal btw it wasn’t meant to be leaked), just goes to show that if you do not reflect this liberal echo chamber, then you will be punished for it in America. Those are just my 2 cents on this issue.

    tldr; I’m not a misogynist, I’m for gender equality, but I also believe men and women are biologically different and that makes them better at certain positions for each gender. This is backed by science and I support it.