what could the US learn from a huge country

[izus]

you know i was thinking how long will it take the big cities in US to begin to follow big city china protocol.

 

the average american joe does not realize how far advanced china as a country they really are.

they laugh at all the bikes and some of their silly laws, eating with chopsticks and cutting beef with scissors.

 

but as we continue to grow in the US it would only be smart to watch them and learn.

 

too many cars not enough cops

in china they have a ticket system that if you break a law driving even if a cop didnt see you, youll end up getting a ticket, cause somewhere a camera caught it. they end up sending you a ticket in the mail 3 weeks later.

 

gamers

how long will it take for us to realize our countries children have a online gaming problem. in china they have halfway houses for gamers, no different then drug addicts.

 

medicinal

lets not even begin to compare our medicines, when will we realize that maybe they have been around a little longer then we have that maybe we should follow their lead with some things.

[tonado]

The US should definitely learn about population problems in China.

[JimandSarha]

I don't consider increased police surveillance to be a good thing.

 

Gamers, ok.

 

Medicinal is touchy. Yes, I think they have some secrets we don't know. But I've asked people in the countryside if they know that chewing the bark of the willow will give them an effective pain killer (aspirine). They've heard nothing about this. Neither has my brother-in-law who's in his third year of med school.

 

My wife's realtives ask for me to buy non-prescription US medicine's for them all the time as much of the Chinese stuff is fake, inconsistent in dosage and often contaminated.

 

We can definitely learn to eat a high vegetable low fat diet from them though. Wouldn't it be nice if 90% of American women were 55 kilos or less?

[Rakkasan]

I am not a big fan of increased government surveillance on the citizen of the US and do not consider this to be a plus. The costs involved in such a system including the monitoring, tracking of violators and ticketing would be prohibitive. Even if the money was available to pay for something of this nature, wouldn't the money be better spent on something like border security.

 

As far as gamers, in China most of the gamers are in computer cafes and the kids are skipping school to play games. How about in the US the childrens parents turn the damn thing off and tell the kid to go outside and take not of the sunshine.

 

China may have some medicines that have been around for 1000's of years, but they also have a health care system that is for the most part archaic and unsanitary. What I have learned from observing hospitals in China is to not get sick there.

[jim_julian]

Bill, you're a great guy but you're on the wrong side of the fence here. Chinese medical care is abysmal ... an IV for a common cold! Sanitation is unbelievably poor. Pollution is awful.

 

The one good point I can think of at the societal level is the closeness of extended families.

[jasal]

America has many issues and problems... the main one is obesity. Americans are too damn fat and lazy. We are fast going the way of ancient Rome wherein we think we are the best... and we've become too relaxed in our way of life, too sensitive about everyone's "rights" and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Hogwash!! Everyone needs to get a good spanking if they do something wrong. Kids playing inside on computers instead of outside is the parent's fault. Kick their fat butts outside and make them play outside and actually interact with the other kids in the neighborhood. As for Chinese technology.. do you mean all the things they copied from us, stole from us...?? American medicene isn't perfect but neither are herbal remedies. China is fast becoming the number one polluter on the entire planet. Do they care? Nope. They want what they want and they want it now and aren't willing to pay for immission control, at least not until the government can make a dollar from it. Right now funneling American and European money into their confers is much more important than human rights or pollution control. Given all the facts, right or wrong in how Americans perceive Chinese people, do you want to live in China or America?

[izus]

wow great posts from the folks in the "middle" of everything, all the crap that china is as a place to live you could never tell by the chinese that live there.

 

their positive attitudes turned up a notch about their country mixed with a little bit of whats left of their honor is all i hear from SO's friends and family, an amazing place

 

i dont understand, is it beijing that is so far advanced from the rest of the country? i cant see SO being that far off track.

Edited July 2, 2007 by izus (see edit history)

[bosco]

wow great posts from the folks in the "middle" of everything, all the crap that china is as a place to live you could never tell by the chinese that live there.

 

their positive attitudes turned up a notch about their country mixed with a little bit of whats left of their honor is all i hear from SO's friends and family, an amazing place

 

i dont understand, is it beijing that is so far advanced from the rest of the country? i cant see SO being that far off track.

 

 

Many people have difficulty seeing anything but the worst of "other" and the best of "us". What they report is usually significantly true but simultaneously highly exaggerated.

[IllinoisDave]

i dont understand, is it beijing that is so far advanced from the rest of the country? i cant see SO being that far off track.

 

No, I wouldn't say Beijing is so far ahead of everywhere else. My SO grew up in Shanghai and now works and lives in Shenzhen. I think in both of those cities the attitude is shared with your SO's. At least from my limited experience.

 

I also think your question could be divided into two sections.

1-What can the US government learn from the Chinese government or vice versa.

2-What can US citizens learn from Chinese citizens or vice versa.

 

There are programs/procedures that each government does that should or shouldn't be copied by the other.

 

And likewise there are cultural and societal habits/beliefs that could or shouldn't be shared between the respective citizenries.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to alter your question. I just think that the two are not always in lock-step with each other and what our government or their government does doesn't always reflect the attitudes or habits of the regular folk. Or the way we view each other in the two countries.

 

I don't know if any of that made sense but it's just my opinion.

[david_dawei]

China is fast becoming the number one polluter on the entire planet. Do they care? Nope. They want what they want and they want it now and aren't willing to pay for immission control, at least not until the government can make a dollar from it.

I was agreeing with you till this point.

 

China is what.. 4-5 times more people than the US?

 

If someone were 4-5 times my weight, I would think they would eat more than me... the really distrubing thing should be if I ate more than this person... which the US does...

 

- China is #1 in developing hydroelectric power.

- Has year 2020 targets for nuclear power (sounds like long term plans). Forgot to mention the nuclear fusion efforts with france.

- Passed the Reproducible Energy Law of 2006

- Build internationally recognized 'green structures' in BJ (or SH)

- Has introduced fuel-cell scooters

- BJ doesn't allow cars over a certain age in the city

- My wife's hometown (very small in china terms) just banned those motorcycled three-wheeled taxis.

- presented the idea of a "Frugal Society" to help educate business and people to reduce usage.. ( Most US stores I go into during summer is frickin' freezing... My wife's home town rarely has a business blasting an air conditioner.)

 

 

 

Industry in China accounts for 75% of their energy use... coal dependency is a big problem... yes, they have a far ways to go and it may not really do much due to their Big Mac sized country... but to say they don't care or are not doing anything is a hard western myth to overcome..

Edited July 2, 2007 by DavidZixuan (see edit history)

[david_dawei]

an IV for a common cold!

I once thought this silly too... but started to think about how much water do they really drink (since it has to be cooked) and how much alcohol (diuretic, and if the water is tea) do they piss...

 

it may not be too far fetched on some level..

[izus]

i knew i could count on you David for laying out on the line...

 

thanks

 

i think this is huge BJ doesn't allow cars over a certain age in the city, when you have so many cars on the road...

 

does anyone know the age limit?

[mchina34]

you know i was thinking how long will it take the big cities in US to begin to follow big city china protocol.

 

the average american joe does not realize how far advanced china as a country they really are.

they laugh at all the bikes and some of their silly laws, eating with chopsticks and cutting beef with scissors.

 

but as we continue to grow in the US it would only be smart to watch them and learn.

 

too many cars not enough cops

in china they have a ticket system that if you break a law driving even if a cop didnt see you, youll end up getting a ticket, cause somewhere a camera caught it. they end up sending you a ticket in the mail 3 weeks later.

 

gamers

how long will it take for us to realize our countries children have a online gaming problem. in china they have halfway houses for gamers, no different then drug addicts.

 

medicinal

lets not even begin to compare our medicines, when will we realize that maybe they have been around a little longer then we have that maybe we should follow their lead with some things.

 

 

They have social ills of their own, like high suicide rates among teens and young adults. Prostitution is rampant, and so is corruption in the government. Education access is not as wide-spread like it is in the USA either. Banking system is not as generous as well (also one of my good points below ;-)

 

 

-What they have that I like is discipline. Those people are like soldiers of society...walk straight, stand straight, sit straight. Not slackers like in the USA.

 

-They have mandatory military training in school...like 2-3 times throughout their education. Hey, it's not heavy training, but it prepares its citizens for basics to hold arms in case of enemy invasion.

 

-Much better math/science in their education system. The levels that is. I can't tell you how many Americans don't know what 1/8 is, but i suspect it's high from personal experiences.

 

- Banking system that often times wants the recipients to have 40% or more of the loan, often times up to 60-70%. How's that good? Just ask millions of people across America if they wish they stayed in an apartment longer and saved for a realistic down payment instead of filing bankruptcy or foreclosing on their home loan, or having their car repossessed by the bank because when they bought their Lexus they put a weenie 2k dollars down. All this brings us to the typical American who owns nothing, but owes everything, while the banksters are lining their pockets with our interest payments. And can you believe in public GWB(I'm a 4 more years voter btw) asked the Chinese to get out and spend more, to stop saving their money. Disgusting.

 

-mass transit system.. Every single country in the world is probably better than the US in this sense, except Antartica, but they aren't a country. We're destroying our country so fast it's unreal...NYC is a great example of how mass transit can work for us.

 

- Sense of national pride that's not looked down upon by other Chinese that are less prideful, which is often the case in the US. No flag burners there!!!

 

Those are things i like...and wish the US would learn from. Also, the USA is a huge country. 3rd largest population in the world, which nearly double of the 4th largest. And the 3rd (or is it second?) largest land mass./

 

 

[edit:]

 

Signed,

 

Machiavelli

Edited July 4, 2007 by mchina34 (see edit history)

[Feathers268]

I think we as a people can learn how to improve and use public transit much better here. As for other things I think we would need to look before we leap.

LA is consistently rated as the worst in America when it comes to pollution. That doesn't even come close to what I saw in Bejing. pollution in the US doesn't even come close. Here in California, they are finding a percentage of our pollution is actually coming from China on the jet stream. How is that for a Chinese import.

I did a search, and most results looked like this. Top polluting cities

As for hydro-electric, the main reason is the Three gorges dam which is flooding such a large area that entire villages are being destroyed along with thousands of years worth of history.

Also, China need to learn how to regulate their industry much better. Over 150 diferent businesses have been found having indusrial chemicals getting into everything from pet food to toothpaste to food.

And finally, as screwed up as our government might seem sometimes, I much prefer ours to the PRC.

Don't get me wrong, I love China and will find an excuse to visit when ever I can, but I would look to China as amodel of how to improve the US.