Yeah only 2 years. I must be such a bastard for discussing some of the things I found disagreeable. Maybe you'd like to hear about the time the police - yes, the police - locked my girlfriend up in a basement cell (with just one tiny window) over night, and threatened to break her legs if we didn't pay them around two thousand pounds. Her mom had to fly over from Korea to help us out with the payment. My girlfriend's original offence was just being drunk and disorderly, but they managed to twist it into a story in which she assaulted one of the police officers. I witnessed it all and she did no such thing. Or maybe you'd like to hear about the time I stopped a guy raping one of the female students in the college I worked at. We fought, he ran, but I eventually caught him up and restrained him. The school's principal told me not to inform the police since they wouldn't do anything about it. My instinct told me this was bollocks, and the girl victim even told me herself that the principal was just trying to save the school's reputation. So I pushed ahead with it and went to the police, and the guy went to prison for two and a half years, but not before his family started to call the victim's family trying to offer them money to drop the charges (the school gave the rapist's family the victim's phone number!). By the way, I was later told that this sort of thing - rape by male students (and male teachers) on their female colleagues - is very common in China. Perhaps I could tell you about the time I saw a man have all his legs, arms, and fingers broken by gangsters as he lay bloodied and unconscious outside their nightclub, while the paramedics and police just watched on, powerless to intervene. His crime was stealing a mobile phone from a jacket inside the club. I could tell you about the numerous times I saw western men jumped by gangs of Chinese and seriously beaten just for being white (these instances mostly all happened around the time that the Japanese and Chinese governments were disputing the ownership of the Diaoyu Islands. America supported the Japanese claim, hence the animosity being shown by the locals to anybody they thought to be American). I could go on mate, but if you just want to go and label me as being a 'racist' simply because I criticise a foreign culture, then go ahead. Or you could even do a bit of research yourself into the human trafficking, organ harvesting of prisoners, the slaughtering of babies (for being female) and so on. This **** is all over the internet for you to discover if you want. Even just a couple of days ago the BBC news ran a story wherein 8% of Chinese men admitted to having committed sexual assault in their lives. As I said before, I have a lot of dear friends and great memories from that country too, so it really pains me to be so critical. But unfortunately there is no other way for me to be. Go and visit there yourself sometime.
I can't really be bothered to get into this in depth. But making generalistations (unless you have proper data rather than just anecdotal perceptions) is rarely helpful and just tends to lead to stereotypes. Even more important if you're going to start 'judging' other cultures I think you need to take into account external factors. For example anyone who is going to criticise 'african culture' (btw africa is a continent made up of countless different countries, communities, faiths etc etc so talking about it as a monolith is problematic) without considering the impact of colonialism etc is a problem. I'm not even going to engage about what you've said about how other cultures treat women as tbh an internet forum just ins't the place.
I'm not saying there aren't problems there but my point is it's you've labelled a whole country with over a billion people based on your own (albeit obviosly distressing) experience. Those things you've highlighted are awful and I'm sorry you've had to go through that. But there are numerous examples of the exact same thing happening in this and other 'western' countries (stanford case). Also as a general point saying that someone said something which was probably a bit racist doesn't mean I'm saying you're the devil and part of the KKK. It just means that maybe you could phrase things a bit more carefully (maybe you dissagree ofc I can't tell you what to think). Everyone has said and thought things which were probably racist at some point or other, the important thing is to tyr and limit these times.
With out reading back through the pages ( because I simply can't be ****ed) how have we gone from saints takeover talks , to rape ,Korean police brutality and gang warfare?
A good way to judge a country is what is your right of redress. If a bad thing happens to you (as can happen anywhere), what treatment will you receive from the law and those in authority. Sadly, in many countries you might as well not bother. Someone I knew had his leg broken by a car in an Arab country (can't remember which one) and didn't complain because he was white European and the driver was an Arab...to complain would be to risk getting beaten up.
please log in to view this image More seriously, we need more information before we can say much about this at all. I'm sure the journos etc are digging around for whatever they can find.
Don't know whether this piece is included in anything posted elsewhere, but I wonder what can be inferred from their share suspension for major asset restructuring. 'The chairman of Lander, Gao Jisheng, is a former soldier who joined local government and then, like many others with good connections, entered the real estate industry in the 1990s, in time for the world’s largest property boom. His firm has recently expanded into entertainment and sports, in 2015 signing an agreement with Venetian Macau, a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands, to explore the sports event market. Lander, based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, did not respond to a request for comment from AFP. Its shares have been suspended from trading on the Shenzhen stock exchange since Monday at its own request, pending what it called a “major asset restructuring” in a statement to the exchange.'
Sorry, my bad! And on a match day too. From now I will just be channeling positive vibes, there's a game to be won!
Luckily no. He was as big as me though (which isn't saying much). The security guards who arrived on the scene were eyeing me up thinking I'd gone crazy for attacking a student. I think initially they wanted me to be the guilty one so they could drag me around a bit. But once they watched the security tapes they realised what had happened and they all came over to shake my hand etc. Thankfully I'd got there just in time to stop the rape, so no physical harm came to the girl other than a few bumps and bruises. So messed up though.
They are changing from being a total finance focused company to a more generel one. I wish Chinese people weren't so secretive. I want to know how much their net worth is.
Still liked hearing it though. I'd like to think that Katharina cares enough not to sell us to wolves just to make a profit....but I have often been disappointed with people, so I am certain about nothing. What makes me wary is that there have been a few buy outs that have turned out to be not what they seem...nearly happened to us, didn't it? Presumably Katharina isn't down to her last billion (I realise that would be tough ), so will take her time.
