beating swords into ploughshares
 

more interesting stuff out of China

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/09/asia/quake.php

QINGLIAN, China: Chinese soldiers used antitank weapons to blast away rocks and mud holding back waters in an earthquake-formed lake that threatens more than one million people living downstream with flooding.

The Tangjiashan "quake lake," formed when a landslide set off by the May 12 earthquake blocked the flow of the Tongkou River, has continued swelling despite the hasty digging of a diversion canal to ease pressure on the barrier.

The government was working to head off a new catastrophe at the same time as it cared for the five million people left homeless by the quake, which killed nearly 70,000 people. More than 1.3 million people live downriver from Tangjiashan.

About 120 troops of the People's Liberation Army were sent Monday to the lake to continue the draining operation, which included deepening the diversion channel and digging a second spillway.

Troops were carving a third drainage channel into the unstable dam, the state media reported Monday.

Soldiers fired weapons at debris Sunday, according to reports on television and official Web sites. The operation successfully dislodged debris to speed the drainage, though the level of the lake continued to rise as water flowed in along the blocked river behind the dam, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported.

If they don't act quickly they'll have nobody to work in the sweatshops under slave-labor conditions.

The Chinese are xenophobes.

I don't see the Chinese as the be all, end all of culture and philosophy. I don't need to embrace their dysfunctionality to replace my own dysfunctionality. I am quiet happy working in my own backyard, and don't look anywhere else as a panacea.

As a matter of fact the rebuking of your own dysfunctionality for a supposed ideal philisophy is quiet dysfuncitonal all by itself. It is called escapism, or running away with the circus. Best to stick with your own pile of manure and come to terms with those realities....grass hopper.

my my my. Someone is certainly reading a lot into this thread. I believe the term is "projecting."

I'm quite happily dysfunctional all by my lonesome, thank you...there is no be-all or end-all anything. Well, except for your pushing people down the stairs. That is rather epic.

Yep. Our pal Todd has cast a wide net in his search for a virtuous humanity. I'm fairly certain our Eastern brothers will ultimately disappoint him as well.

Serenity perhaps...peace of mind...where the mind doesn't run a million miles a second covering every angle imaginable.

I know you think that is quiet sublime...

Nostatus U also know that I hold you in very high regard.

It's not what you find at the end, but rather the journey that you take.

damn, I'm my own fortune cookie

I know. That's why I stay away from stairs. Acratabraphobia.

Having been in China a number of times (heh), I know how screwed up they are. In some ways, humans distill down to their essence, which has both good and bad (yin and yang). I find it fascinating to watch the longest lived culture in the world morph before our very eyes. And the more things change, the more they stay the same...

Mother and Daddy are always fighting with each other to prove who is right. They hold oposing points of view. What I came to realize is that they are both a little right and right from their own perspective, and from that I can form my own opinion. U might call it the middle ground.

why would they be any different than anyone else?

China is called 'Zhongguo' (中國 or 中国) in Chinese. The character zhōng means "middle" or central, the latter, guo', means land, or kingdom.

you're Chinese and didn't even realize SmileWavy

Oh, like the Tibetans?

Or the Taiwanese?

Yea, they're all Chinese. According to China anyway.

Oh, like the Tibetans?

Or the Taiwanese?

Yea, they're all Chinese. According to China anyway.

Then I must be Chinese

Well... they're all walking around upside down for starters.

However grasshopper you have to find YOUR OWN middle kingdom and can not rely on someone elsses definition of middle kingdom to apply to an oxidental like yourself.

I can give you all a spoon so you all can start digging...your way to China