Appearance and Reality
Cities as imagined in the brochures of their property developers often have a mildly hallucinogenic quality—but Hong Kong lavishly so. Depending on what kind of homebuyer is targeted, the catalogs show either a sunbathed arcadia of wooded hills, sunsets and pristine water, or a blazing Gotham, its denizens clad in evening dress, devoting themselves to lives of romance and lolling about, champagne flutes in hand. From these implausible environments arises the rococo apartment block touted by the developer. To emphasize it, surrounding buildings that—in reality—would be there are often simply airbrushed away, leaving the potential buyer holding onto a sanitized fantasy of the one kind of building that hardly exists in Hong Kong: the solitary tower.
None of this is a surprise, but what is unexpected are the crafty liberties taken by the Hong Kong Government when it tries to sell its development plans to the Hong Kong public. This story in one local paper compared completed public projects to the artist's impressions prepared of them when their construction was first announced. It is a shoddy litany of cancelled green zones, shrunken parks, vanished plazas and no-show trees. The Architectural Services Department is the government department tasked with making the drawings, but “the artists' impressions were only artists' impressions,” its spokeswoman said. No one was meant to take them too seriously. The prognosis for Hong Kong harborfront development—an era-shifting project that will, according to its artists' impressions, terraform parts of Hong Kong Island's north shore into the kind of landscaped greenbelt Hong Kong so desperately needs—seems suddenly poor.
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1
Suddenly? Not so much. It's very likely we'll end up with vast, sterile areas of scraped cement, with no shade. It's the Hong Kong norm.
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2
Apparently, the Chinese government did not suggest to jointly control the Pacific Ocean with the US. I think this is the right move, because it should not be a joint control with US, but China to control all of the Pacific and Indian Oceans as the sole controlling power.
Chinese navy is now the strongest in the world, with dozens of aircraft carrier battle groups, a large fleet of cruisers and destroyers, not to mention the best and greatest fleet of nuclear missile submarines. China has the power and authority and legal right to control not only Pacific and Indian Oceans, but also Atlantic, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. It is China's responsibility and right to exercise that position as soon as possible, regardless of what other nations will say.
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3
Since the Americans are willing to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, you should not complaint about how business in China is done. China is a big and complicated country that defies any understanding from any non-Chinese. You only have your own naivety to blame. And, of course, Chinese killing, cheating, Chinese is all right. That is the norm. And you should just forget anything like that as ordered.
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4
A beautiful tribute to a national hero:
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5
Another lie from media:
I didn't see any dead bodies. No one here can name anyone of the so called dead persons in Hunan. Therefore, no one died. This is just a story made up by western media to smear the good name of China. We must have more balanced reporting, like more deaths in the US, etc.
The bridge collapsed because it was sabotaged by US spies, because Chinese building standards are very high and will not produce any bridge that would collapse, under any condition, including holes being drilled in it.
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6
Appearance ? Reality ?
http://tinyurl.com/qhgojz -
7
Chinese culture at its best:
http://v.blog.sohu.com/u/vw/2641038
OK, this is an everyday occurrence and no one should get too excited, or entertained.
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8
This guy made two hundred disaster rescue workers to listen to him for three hours while they can do more rescuing right after the quake ? What a guy !! The hold onto his audience was phenomenal. And the rescue workers really had their priority straight. Such moving story can only happen in China.
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9
Apparently, the forgetfulness is complete:
http://tinyurl.com/r9y5nn
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