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Why Google in China Makes Sense
ctd writes "The BBC is carrying an interesting article about the positive outcomes from Google's censorship of its China site." From the article: "Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust, but I've just reinstated them as the default search for my Firefox toolbar, because I think it should be supported for its brave decision. Even if the primary motivation for going into China is that it makes commercial sense for the company - as indeed it must do, since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense. "
first post
1. The internet there is almost unusably bad. Many overseas sites simply aren't reachable and even the ones that are, are very, very slow. Must be their uber censorship router filtering everything coming into the country.
2. Horrible Mandarin. A properly educated mainland Chinese person speaks beautiful Mandarin, I have to admit. Unfortunately, most Chinese people aren't well educated and they speak horrendous Mandarin.
3. Simplified writing is an abomination. It's as if one day the American government decided that not enough people are literate so they decide to adopt text messaging shortcuts as the national written language "cuz it's EZer 2 Lern."
4. Chinese people have absolutely no concept of waiting in line. It's just one manifestation of the general lack of curtesy there. I've never met a population of people that exhibited such rudeness. It's all part of the lack of education that I mentioned before.
5. Pollution. And I include with this not only the horrible air pollution, but noise pollution as well. The constant honking on the streets slowly drives me insane as I walk around the city. I know this isn't just Chinese, it happens in many other places, but man, they love to honk there. Car horns. Bicycle horns. Police whistles. It's non-stop noise everywhere.
6. If the honking doesn't drive you mad, the cacaphony of people hocking up phlegm will do it. Maybe it's the horrible air quality, but why do Chinese people have so much phlegm???? And what's the deal with the nasty breath???
7. Chinese people love to yell. You'll usually find at least one or two people on every block angrily screaming at someone about something or other.
8. Food generally speaking is horrible there. The hygiene is low-to-non-existent and the culinary skills are seriously lacking as well. I wouldn't be caught dead eating anything from a street vendor in China. You can get food poisoning just by looking at them. Speaking of restaurants, the quality of service in China stinks as well. Due to the cheap labor, the ratio of the waiters to customers is frequently 2-to-1. Yet most Chinese wait staff have no idea how to properly wait a table.
9. Bad architecture and design. Chinese people's concept of good architecture is a building with a faux european renaissance look with a lot of gold trimming, hopefully with a fancy top. Driving around Shanghai, you'll notice that almost every building has some sort of "hat" on top.
10. Too many instances of dirty old men paired with hot young things. It's just disgusting and sad. I know there are sugar daddys all over the world, but it's literally all over the streets there. You can't turn around without seeing an old man with a pretty young girl.
Although Bill mentions his "Firefox Toolbar", the screenshot is of Internet Explorer, and they had to use AFP to get the picture!
In the entire of BBC News (About 4000 computers), there are 17 that have the latest Firefox available (1.0.7) and installed legitimatly. The BBC is painfully in bed with Microsoft and I'm sure they should have some form of anti-commercial policy.
(Anonymous poster as I work for the BBC)