Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[delphonso]

China resident here -

The reaction seems appropriate in light of two things: SARS was underestimated and had a 10% lethality rate and was also a coronavirus. Second, the virus was around last month and was largely ignored until it spread with everyone travelling for Spring Festival. Honestly, they should have shut down Wuhan before the holiday where everyone travels.

It seems to me that things are under control. I'm wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, and holding back on bat soup. Lethality is low, currently, and everyone is aware of the disease.

Also, the quarantine is only public transit. People are still going in and out of Hubei which is probably a real health risk.

[JoshuaFH]

How's life in China? I really only know a little bit. Is it really densely populated, or is that just for a few cities? Is the healthcare good? I've watched some movies about Taiwanese schools being really oppressive in their expectations on the students, I'm assuming it's similar in China?

[delphonso]

Asian School systems are brutal in general. I worked in Japan previously, and suicide among students there is higher than it ever should be. It's a mix of bullying from students and bullying from teachers that pushes kids over. From my friends in Taiwan, their system is closer to Japan in that regard. It's an issue in mainland China, but a bit different. Chinese schools are overpopulated, and that's the core issue. Most classrooms have 60 students or so. Homework takes hours and is just quantity over quality. I feel bad for the little buggers - if you want to play games, you do it at 2 in the morning or so and catch up on sleep in your lessons. Expectations are high, but the grueling busy work is what students complain about here.

Healthcare is awesome here. Rarely, but not never, doctors just shuffle you along because they couldn't be arsed to do the work if you come in with something odd. Allergies being the usual culprit. Other than that, I can get a full physical, a consultation session and also some dental work every year and rack up less than 100 USD in costs.

There are a lot of people in China, and they don't mind being close to each other in the way others do. US places (except big cities like Chicago and NY) feel underpopulated to me. I also stand way too close to people when I'm in the US, since personal space is smaller here. Where I live, the population density isn't very high, but it can feel that way sometimes. Supermarkets right before holidays, train stations at rush hour, these places you really stand shoulder to shoulder at times. I've lived in Shenzhen before, and that was much worse. Either way, the small towns and villages are pretty empty and it's usually only a two hour drive or so to reach some sort of seclusion. Maybe Beijing and Guangzhou excluded - since they're sprawling megacities.

Overall, I really love it here. Life's easy, safe, and transit is exceptional. Easy to travel and try new things.

[Reelya]

One thing though, people think Japan is the highest in teen suicide mainly because it's a topic that the Japanese media report on quite frequently.

The suicide rate for Korea overall is almost double that of Japan, yet nobody ever mentions Korea. the reason is that it's a media panic in Japan, but not in Korea.

Here are some raw figures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Note that Japan at 14.3 / 100,000 isn't much ahead of the USA at 13.7 / 100,000. These are 2016 figures, all ages. Also Note Belgium at 15.7. Also note that if you sort by gender, American males are more likely to kill themselves than Japanese males, while Japanese females are more likely to kill themselves than American females. It pretty much comes out as a wash.

Also worth noting: elderly Japanese are much more likely to commit suicide than young Japanese. Leading to this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414751/

These are youth suicide rates for 2000. Note that Japan was at 6.4 and USA was at 8.0. The Japanese media just uses it as a hot-button issue to sell papers more than America does. The rates aren't necessarily any worse. Blame the media. They just pick up overseas news stories and print them verbatim, without doing any analysis of whether the local media they're getting the stories from might have some biases or pre-occupations. Hence, the stories in the western press blaming anime-fans for the decline in the birth rate in Japan. That's a result of just blindly reprinting bullshit stories from the Japanese equivalents of Fox News, the type of stories that blame 'national decline' on whatever the kids are into at the moment, rather than taking a harder look at the system itself. Nobody in Japan can get a decent job, so they're not getting married and therefore they're not having kids. Oh no, can't blame the corporate culture, it much be those newfangled cartoons the kids are watching which are making their testicles shrink. To put that in perspective, it's like claiming the marriage rate in America is falling because Fortnite is popular.

[scriver]

To be fair though sho would marry a fortnight player

[delphonso]

Thanks, Reelya, didn't realize that. I recall hearing youth suicide rates being on the rise, but I can't confirm that. I've also heard Japan drums it up because suicides tend to be public - tossing yourself in front of a train was common enough that I was delayed by it twice.

A good point though, I never hear about suicide in the US or China for that matter.

[scriver]

Also reelya you're old, old man:

[Naturegirl1999]

It makes sense, DND allows for far more variety in the stories one can participate in

[Kagus]

It makes sense, DND allows for far more variety in the stories one can participate in

Much like Flappy Bird

[LordBaal]

So no zombie apocalypse del?

[JoshuaFH]

Asian School systems are brutal in general. I worked in Japan previously, and suicide among students there is higher than it ever should be. It's a mix of bullying from students and bullying from teachers that pushes kids over. From my friends in Taiwan, their system is closer to Japan in that regard. It's an issue in mainland China, but a bit different. Chinese schools are overpopulated, and that's the core issue. Most classrooms have 60 students or so. Homework takes hours and is just quantity over quality. I feel bad for the little buggers - if you want to play games, you do it at 2 in the morning or so and catch up on sleep in your lessons. Expectations are high, but the grueling busy work is what students complain about here.

Healthcare is awesome here. Rarely, but not never, doctors just shuffle you along because they couldn't be arsed to do the work if you come in with something odd. Allergies being the usual culprit. Other than that, I can get a full physical, a consultation session and also some dental work every year and rack up less than 100 USD in costs.

There are a lot of people in China, and they don't mind being close to each other in the way others do. US places (except big cities like Chicago and NY) feel underpopulated to me. I also stand way too close to people when I'm in the US, since personal space is smaller here. Where I live, the population density isn't very high, but it can feel that way sometimes. Supermarkets right before holidays, train stations at rush hour, these places you really stand shoulder to shoulder at times. I've lived in Shenzhen before, and that was much worse. Either way, the small towns and villages are pretty empty and it's usually only a two hour drive or so to reach some sort of seclusion. Maybe Beijing and Guangzhou excluded - since they're sprawling megacities.

Overall, I really love it here. Life's easy, safe, and transit is exceptional. Easy to travel and try new things.

I really appreciate the response. I'd have thought it be more of a capitalist hell than America is. and I'd have thought that the One Child policy has just been leaving people miserable for decades now.

[delphonso]

No zombies yet. Some scray videos of terrified people - probably traumatized by SARS which was pretty bad. Right now, the coronavirus has a lethality of about 3%. If it mutates and turns more lethal, then all hell will probably break loose.

No problem. Capitalism found a natural home here, for sure - but the bottom isn't unsupported totally. One Child Policy was blown out of proportions, from what I can tell. Everyone I know has siblings, except some Beijingers. The usual punishment was fines for having two kids.

Back on topic, we set off paozhu today - a string of a couple hundred firecrackers. The fuze went off like a shot and the whole thing started to pop when I was basically holding it. Ran off and was hit with a spinning, exploding firecracker blown from the mess. The whole thing popped in about 2 seconds. Normally it's fast, but not like that.

They exploded with such frequency to lift the whole string off the ground like some sort of snake being peppered by gunshots.

[Naturegirl1999]

No zombies yet. Some scray videos of terrified people - probably traumatized by SARS which was pretty bad. Right now, the coronavirus has a lethality of about 3%. If it mutates and turns more lethal, then all hell will probably break loose.

No problem. Capitalism found a natural home here, for sure - but the bottom isn't unsupported totally. One Child Policy was blown out of proportions, from what I can tell. Everyone I know has siblings, except some Beijingers. The usual punishment was fines for having two kids.

Back on topic, we set off paozhu today - a string of a couple hundred firecrackers. The fuze went off like a shot and the whole thing started to pop when I was basically holding it. Ran off and was hit with a spinning, exploding firecracker blown from the mess. The whole thing popped in about 2 seconds. Normally it's fast, but not like that.

They exploded with such frequency to lift the whole string off the ground like some sort of snake being peppered by gunshots.

Reading this made me wonder if firecrackers are hot enough to denature the coronaviruses in the air

[JoshuaFH]

Yes, the way to fighting the epidemic is more explosions.

[Eschar]

Yes, the way to fighting the epidemic is more explosions.

Dwarven science intensifies