Tag: china

Learning to Speak Lingerie

Valentine’s Day is one of the few times of the year when most China Star customers are male. Usually, it’s only women in the shop, and often they buy the lightweight, form-fitting dresses that Chinese dealers refer to as suiyi, or “casual clothes.” No Upper Egyptian woman would wear such garments in public, but it’s acceptable at home. This is one reason that the market for clothing is so profitable: Egyptian women need 2 separate wardrobes, for their public and their private lives. Usually, they also acquire a 3rd line of clothing, which is designed to be sexy. The 2 women in niqabs quickly found 2 items that the sheikh approved of: matching sets of thongs and skimpy, transparent nightgowns, 1 in red and the other in blue. The sheikh began to bargain with Chen Yaying, who runs the shop with her husband, Liu Jun. In Egypt, they go by the names Kiki and John, and both are tiny—Kiki barely reached the sheikh’s chest. She’s 24 years old but could pass for a bookish teen-ager; she wears rectangular glasses and a loose ponytail. “This is Chinese!” she said, in heavily accented Arabic, holding up the garments. “Good quality!” She dropped the total price to 160 pounds, a little more than $20, but the sheikh offered 150.

US Human Rights Record

this is trolling on the level of the putin editorial in the NYT. it’s effective because they have a point:

in 2014, the US, a self-proclaimed human rights defender, saw no improvements in its existent human rights issues, but reported numerous new problems. While its own human rights situation was increasingly grave, the US violated human rights in other countries in a more brazen manner, and was given more “red cards” in the international human rights field.

Light-emitting paper

researchers developed a thin, clear nanocellulose paper made from wood flour and infused it with biocompatible quantum dots — tiny semiconducting crystals — made out of zinc and selenium. The paper glowed at room temperature and could be rolled and unrolled without cracking. The researchers are currently developing papers that emit other colors than blue.

Bioethics will kill us all

We have ideological biases that say, “we shouldn’t be meddling with nature” In China, 95% of an audience would say, “Obviously you should make babies genetically healthier, happier, and brighter!” There’s a big cultural difference

As of 2021-07-01, things are even worse:

Probably the biggest mistake was not intentionally infecting vaccinated volunteers. This could be done in 1 month, vs 6.5 months for the ecological trials that the entire world did out of misguided PR ethics. (2.5 is probably more realistic given signups, approvals, and big pharma’s slow data analysis and reporting. That’s still 100K of lives.)

1DaySooner wrote a letter. The world’s foremost consequentialist signed. The world’s foremost deontologist signed. 2 of the most prominent bioethicists in the world signed. 15 Nobelists signed. 10s of philosophers who otherwise agree on extremely little signed. But they’re unethical.

Rarely do I so strongly feel the boot of others on my neck, and humanity’s neck.

The one distinctively courageous thing about the UK – the human challenge trials which got 40K volunteers – actually eventually started!.. In January 2021, with n=90.

Travels with My Censor

Very interesting essay on the media landscape for books in China. It’s rare that you get insights like this.

The issue that once concerned me—the blunt portrayal of poverty—no longer seemed sensitive, because China had changed so quickly. “With the distance of time,” Emily wrote me, in 2011, “everything in the book turns out to be charming, even the dirty, tired flowers.” On the recent book tour, reporters often mentioned nostalgia, and the relentless pace of life in China made it hard to document details. “Sometimes in China you have this feeling of suffocation, and it’s hard to notice all these things”. Maybe because you’re a foreigner, you can be a little separate. Maybe it’s easier to be still. We have a phrase, yi bubian ying wanbian”—you cope with change by staying the same. “If you don’t move, then you notice everything moving around you.”

Censorship Theme Song

China has just released a tremendous rousing tribute to its clean, clear and incorruptible internet. The song is performed by the Cyberspace Administration of China choral group. Called Cyberspace Spirit, the tune features a large mixed choir and 4 solo singers who regale an audience while informing them that they are also keeping a close eye on everything they view and type. “Keeping faithful watch under this sky, the Sun and the Moon,” they sing. “Creating, embracing everyday clarity and brightness; Like a beam of incorruptible sunlight, touching our hearts.” The chorus exclaims: “Internet power! The web is where glorious dreams are; Internet power! From the distant cosmos to the home we long for.”

Foreign pageant queens

I was hired to cruise around in a fake gold Mercedes golf cart with 5 other girls for 3 days, to lure investors for a miniature replica of Versailles. Pageants serve as infomercials: “Visit Ordos, or Dunhuang, or Dalian, or Chengdu: wealthy enough to import foreign pageant queens!”

in a fully globalized economy, you are now exotic.

China GMO Progress

China is building a storehouse of genetically modified crop strains for future use. Large-scale field trials are going on all over the country, but public data is scant. A number of test fields of wheat have recently been harvested. Work includes planting drought-resistant varieties of wheat. Other institutions are making similar progress on drought-resistant corn. But the scientists feel that they must hide the locations of the trials. (They have reason to worry. 3 years ago Australian Greenpeace activists destroyed a field of GM wheat plants; last year, activists in the Philippines destroyed a test plot of golden rice.) While there is no central public repository of field trial data, it is safe to assume that the plantings are widespread—and productive.