Here come the Chinese!

[video=youtube;202o_JS7E04]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=202o_JS7E04[/video]

More Pica Pollos and cabanas turisticas

China has over a billion people, Taiwan has around 23 million. That makes China a better trading partner. The difficulty is that the world has accepted that Taiwan is part of China politically, which is clearly not the case. Both Taipei and Beijing claim to be the legitimate government of China, but the Chinese people have never been allowed to chose their government, though there are democratic governments in Taiwan.

Taiwan is politically independent for all practical purposes. It will not declare its independence because the Kuomintang (Han Chinese party) gets more votes than the Green (native Taiwanese party), and the KMT insists that Taiwan is a province of China. China has made it clear that a vote for independence would force China to do something rash, and the Taiwanese are deeply invested in all sorts of mainland companies. The Chinese are eminently pragmatic and prefer to live with the fiction of a one-China reality rather than upsetting the ideological applecart.

I have a good friend who is half Taiwanese and half mainlander (his father was a KMT officer) and he insists that Taiwan will eventually be part of China, but only when the mainland economy catches up with the economy of Taiwan, which will surely take a long, long time, if it ever happens. He used to be pro Green Party, but recently he has been pro KMT. Nearly all native Taiwanese grow up speaking the local language, but everyone has to learn Mandarin in school.

Actually there are three groups: the descendents of the original inhabitants of Taiwan (ethnically related to some Filipinos), the descendents of the people who migrated across the straits from Fujian Province, who speak a language different from both Mandarin and Cantonese, and the descendents of those who came across from the Mainland with Chiang Kai Sheck in 1950. And there is a pretty heavy Japanese influence on social customs, notably organization, perfectionism and cleanliness that can be attributed to Taiwan being ruled by Japan for a couple of generations.

The RD gets some neat perks from Taiwan: hospitals, educational infrastructure, loans, some assembly industries. There are advantages to recognizing the R of C and other advantages to recognizing the PRC. I doubt that all the facts are even publicly available. What is very likely is that most Dominicans do not care which is the official China for any political reasons, only for how each would benefit them, which makes sense.

It would make great sense to promote Dominican products (coffee and chocolate come to mind) as premium products in China with a massive Grey Poupon-type ad campaign. It would require a standardization and quality control program to assure uniformity of quality and taste and some very slick advertising. Something like what the Swiss do with watches.

Don't trust the Chinese.

I can agree with that.

You can trust the Chinese to do what will benefit them.
I do not think that most countries trading policies can be fully trusted.

The Evil Dr Fu Manchu and Perfidious Albion are simply two sides of the same coin.

Some Chinese seem to excel at tasty Pica Pollo, for sure. However, one cannot always be 100% sure that what was pica'ed is actually pollo.And there, as they say, is the rub.

More business with China means more Chinese in the country.
Panama for example has a large Chinese community, close to 10% of the population. They have done a lot of good to the country. The DR could use some of them

Chineses still need visa to come to Domincan Republic, only can come with not Dominican visa who has a valid visa from USA, Canada, Schengen or British.

Xavier_Onassis said:

I can agree with that.

You can trust the Chinese to do what will benefit them.
I do not think that most countries trading policies can be fully trusted.

The Evil Dr Fu Manchu and Perfidious Albion are simply two sides of the same coin.

Some Chinese seem to excel at tasty Pica Pollo, for sure. However, one cannot always be 100% sure that what was pica'ed is actually pollo.And there, as they say, is the rub.

Click to expand...

talking about rubs; if you eat at 100 chinese pica pollo joints, the meat tastes exactly the same at every one. there is a strange chemical they use, which i don't think any of us can identify, and, because of that reason, i no longer eat that stuff. they have been known to process rat meat into chicken fillet, and pork into beef loin. i'll pass.

The entire 3rd world is now looking to the Chinese as potential trading partners in the hopes that they will bring prosperity.

What they will bring is 55 gal. drums of Monosodium Glutamate and tons of bean curd.

In maybe two generations we will stop referring to them as "The Chinese" and recognize them as "The Borg". Look at the bright side....that much less silverware to wash.

a quick look at this will explain some of the thinking going on in China

Krell KSA5 Class A 8W 8W Amplifier in Case 220V or 110V | eBay

a genuine copy of this device will set you back 3000 dollars. the Chinese have copied the externals, to make the junk they manufacture appear exactly like the real thing. unsuspecting buyers snatch them up, thinking they are getting a class a product, meanwhile they are buying rubbish. by the time any lawsuit for copyright infringement hits a courtroom, they will have sold bazillions, and disappeared, to clone something else.

the gorgon said:

a quick look at this will explain some of the thinking going on in China

Krell KSA5 Class A 8W 8W Amplifier in Case 220V or 110V | eBay

a genuine copy of this device will set you back 3000 dollars. the Chinese have copied the externals, to make the junk they manufacture appear exactly like the real thing. unsuspecting buyers snatch them up, thinking they are getting a class a product, meanwhile they are buying rubbish. by the time any lawsuit for copyright infringement hits a courtroom, they will have sold bazillions, and disappeared, to clone something else.

Click to expand...

IP theft is $300,000,000 a year, with a huge chunk from China.

Who is going to enforce it?

cobraboy said:

IP theft is $300,000,000 a year, with a huge chunk from China.

Who is going to enforce it?

Click to expand...

that is the issue. who can enforce anything? if you buy a product like the one i listed from a guy in Canada, or the USA, you can almost guarantee that it will work when you get it. if it does not, the manufacturer will bend over backwards to make it right. with the Chinese, they sell everything 'assembled and tested", meanwhile half of them are DOA. if you did not buy through something like Paypal, you are out of luck, because it is not worth the time and effort trying to get a good product, or your money back. not to mention that they will sell you something for 100 dollars, and charge 75 dollars for shipping. if the device fails, they want a second shipping fee. a pox on their houses.

the gorgon said:

talking about rubs; if you eat at 100 chinese pica pollo joints, the meat tastes exactly the same at every one. there is a strange chemical they use, which i don't think any of us can identify, and, because of that reason, i no longer eat that stuff. they have been known to process rat meat into chicken fillet, and pork into beef loin. i'll pass.

Click to expand...

========================================
It is not a strange chemical, it is almost certainly five spice powder: star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Szechuan pepper and fennel seeds.

Rat meat is not white. Chickens are easier to raise than rats, and the supply is more dependable. To serve rat, you would need a supply network that would have to operate in complete confidentiality.

Of course, there is always the possibility that a shortage of chicken and trapping a few rats might cause the odd substitution.

I used to carpool with a guy who said he never ate at a Chinese restaurant, when I asked "why?" he asked "Have you ever seen a Chinese funeral?"

"No", I replied.
"There's your answer", he said.

The Chinese generally prefer pork to beef: that is a more likely substitution.

I can't say I truly trust any restaurant. I am pretty sure that Chicken McNuggets are not the breast meat people think they are. The texture is all wrong.

The Borg- that is really funny. Now the only question is can a Dominicana be brought home to China?