I was only living in China. Where else do they do that?

greece, cyprus, turkey

Oh lol

don't get me wrong, it's filthy, but i don't think it's entirely cultural

It’s one of many odd things I saw out there. Like some poor bloke walking I. The middle of the road in literally rags while flashy cars drove around him, people spitting every 5 seconds and people smoking in hospitals (everywhere in fact). Drying out food on the floor, being extremely rude. Was a very cool experience that’s for sure lol

they didn't have the same industrialisation process there over time

their change has been rapid

and extremely uneven

Too rapid.

yes, that's why these weird anomolies still exist

in a perfect world you'd want them to develop gradually thus retain the character of the culture but modernising and dropping the stupid stuff

but we don't live in a perfect world, it is how it si

I came back home and then went back 2 years later and they had literally built a new part of the city

there are allegedly new cities mostly empty

I’ve heard that! These were not though

think it's overcapacity due to their modernisation method

and since it's central govmt controlled, they have to keep the accelerator down even if it means overproducing

i'm guessing thats why, alongside the strategic element, they're building across africa too

with little prospect of recouping, financially

"what can we do with this overcapcity that could be useful to us"

Zhaoqing was a pretty bustling place tbh

would be, you've injecting some of the elements of capitalism on a society that can really use it

in an underdeveloped society

so there's a use and a thirst for it

Yeah you can see that when you’re being looked at like an alien lol

that's because western phases of this part of development are beyond living memory now

I dunno it wasn’t that long ago. Gen x would have remembered the grey suits and bicycles

A lot of people forget that for a great many people, the notion of moving to a town for steady low paid work would afford them the security and living standards barely dreamed of before

But I think you are right that they’re memories of that time has probably been erased for many

Was interesting people’s opinions of you would change depending on the politics of the day! Some would lose interest in you if you were not as well off as they assumed etc...

I don’t think I will go back, despite many friends still living there.

for many in a time of agrarian subsistence, you were one moderately bad bit of luck, or one fairly modest disaster away from starving to death

it's a time when competence and trust were highly valued, and why you ended up with fierce loyalties, such as clans, barons etc

Yeah not much of that now. Was introduced to a few officials who were dedicated and ran hotels for the local visiting government types. It was always a parade of “look at all these expensive things we have” almost like “this is what our blind devotion gets us”

There was a time when all hotels serving foreigners were like that, pretty much anywhere

Back in a time of respect and reputation

Right have a 4 year old insisting I put my phone down and look at his alphabet words lol

https://twitter.com/BrianPocock3/status/1246868282264760327?s=20

a little unkind

A devastating blow... for the Tories...
https://twitter.com/LBCNews/status/1247097777882050560?s=20

More children than GCSEs? the fuck