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Posts: 402

Shifu

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Q: Is China's obsession with building skyscrapers just about face?

I read the article about China building most of the world's skyscraper. I'm curious as to whether they are doing this for practical reasons or whether it's all about face and showing off to the world. Thoughts?

10 years 32 weeks ago in  Business & Jobs - China

 
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Posts: 5732

Emperor

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the quality of the buildings is the real story.

in shenzhen they got caught using sea sand with corrosive salt to make some of these tall buildings that will come tumbling down.

the concrete has no vapor barrier so your walls except in august always feel wet and you cant get a good brand paint of any kind to stick more than 3 years.

instead of using a good quality slick finish oil paint on the outside of buildings they use a chalky emulsifier paint and the building looks 40 years old in 5 years and of course they dont have the water to pressure wash and keep anything looking good.

 

i was once teaching part time at an architectural school and i asked my oral english class students a question and got the famous blank stare.

i said this school teaches you to make buildings and it looks very nice on the exterior, but the cracks in the walls here are bigger than my index finger and the metal faucets in the restrooms are all rusted and the building is 6 years old. anybody want to tell me why i would not hire you to make a building for me and maybe this school is not setting a good example on what a building should be built like.

on the east side of jinan you can go to a propery management school and get a certificate, the kids maintain the landscape and the buildings, but when they painted the school, the back of the school was not painted because the parents never see that.

perhaps the back of the school has never been painted.

the empire state builing has been around a long time, however im not sure we will say the same for the buildings in china.

 

Scandinavian:

In Europe you have houses that are hundreds of years old, still being used for human habitats. During my last trip there I stayed at a friends place for some days, the building is from 1906, it looks better than most buildings here. 

The house I grew up in is now 30+ years old. Looks better today than anything newly built in China. 

 

What did your students answer ? 

10 years 32 weeks ago
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nicholasba:

Mao anyone??....You know how many historical buildings, Sihe Yuan have been destroyed? Modern buildings also in Europe are crap when compared with the old one. Our last longer for sure, but the quality has changed also in Europe and I'd say that this  applies to old furniture or even home appliance and everything sold. Old stuff works longer. In the past things were manufactured with in mind quality, now is just profit and China learned this very well, maybe the only lesson they took...

 

i got an old coffee machine made in 1960 and it works still fine, even better than those u can buy now....

10 years 32 weeks ago
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ambivalentmace:

the blank stare, no one had ever told them what to say for an answer to memorize.

10 years 32 weeks ago
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Nessquick:

my grandparents house was build in 1871, ( wooden one, and later extended with brick part)

I enjoyed my childhood there and last month , my wife visited that place and can no believe, it is in much better condition, than the house her brother 10 years ago made for himself in Anhui ...

10 years 32 weeks ago
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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1330

Shifu

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I'd say showing off. Anyone can update me about the sanlitun village and what stands in front of it? Still empty?

Back in 2008 the village, as far as i am able to recall, use to have the second and third floor almost empty, ridiculously high rent basically....Then they start to build in front of it another complex...now, back to the topic of this thread, I think that all this skyscrapers stuff is just about face...

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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China is building tall while it can, once the economy starts tumbling it will be a long time before anything tall will be built

 

http://gizmodo.com/could-chinas-new-skyscrapers-really-predict-an-economi-1092416908

 

 

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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Emperor

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I would say Compensating indecision

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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Its about breaking records I read that somewhere.....I believe it to be true..

10 years 32 weeks ago
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10 years 32 weeks ago

There are cookies, bookies and too many rookies for me to sit here trying to be a hooky! Looky Looky don't call me a wooky. Touchy Touchy Feely Feely Spicy Spicy Nicey Nicey & that's what the doctor Ordered!!

 
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No the more tall buildings the better. Remember every time a tall building goes up it increases the chances that Sparkey will be pushed or jump from one.

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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Like Phil, i could make the obvious analogy about men who feel they need big cars......

Scandinavian:

Actually, some of us need a big car because we are tall. I litterally cannot fit behind the controls of many of the smaller cars for sale here in China. I've nicknamed my car ' the bus'

10 years 32 weeks ago
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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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They seem to believe that tall buildings are a symbol of how successful the country is, while the vast majority of the country live in absolute poverty, the country destroys itself with pollution and the economy continues to crumble.

 

They don't have anything of quality in China to compare to, so they don't realise how incredibly shoddy everything actually is.

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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Governor

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About the skyscrapers, I think in terms of Freud. Pretty obvious. They aren't alone with that here, the Petronas Towers in KL were erected as a monument to their politician Mahathir (funded primarily by Chinese tax dollars incidentally), I'm sure the same holds true around the world. Don't forget the practical function though, if you've ever been to Seoul, that's an impressive city, the people are in skyscrapers that continue for dozens of km outside of the city, but surrounding the skyscrapers and suburbia are beautiful untouched forested hills. I guess here, people don't seem to live in skyscrapers so much. The ones here seem higher rent and more upscale, everything else is pretty short.

 

Also the above post about older things being higher quality holds true across many things I know from back home in Farangistan. My late 70's Volvo was cheap and easy to repair; my 1996 US car with the computer inside requires the registered mechanic since they have the computer checker. (cha-ching $$$$$$$).

 

My microwave is from around 1970, I've fixed it multiple times by hitting it (loose wires?), try that with this modern crap. Doesn't basically everything come with built-in obsoleteness?

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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So, it means that Americans have now lost their top spot and became the 2nd country with the smallest penises around the world.

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
Posts: 458

Shifu

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It's probably not ALL about face...they have a giant population, that is rapidly becoming more urban than previous generations. Building up is the obvious answer to squeezing as many people as possible into one place.

Face (or another anatomical feature) probably still has more to do with it, though. It does seem to be a part of China's larger need to craft the biggest/tallest/flashiest vanity project, when so many of the population is destitute.

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10 years 32 weeks ago
 
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