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Posts: 7204

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Q: Money hungry or anything for a buck ?

Thanks to Stiggs for inspiration for this post.
After reading Diverdudes post on fake and Stiggs take on it , I remembered a high end restaurant cooking with gutter oil.
I argue that nobody is immune from the fake industry.
Is the mark up on fakes that lucrative or are people trying to save where they can ?.
Are they hungry for money or just trying to survive?
Interested in your thoughts

7 years 10 weeks ago in  Culture - China

 
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Shifu

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Hunger for money is typical among people who experienced serious chronic poverty for as long the Chinese did. The real difference between China and the rest is the lack of a moral ground that people in most other societies don't dare crossing.

 

In our Western societies, this morality is clearly defined by our Judeo-Christian heritage, "poisoning other people to turn more profit is immoral" comes from the codes of Christianity which has shaped society as we know it today even though most people are not fervent Christians no more. In other non-Christian societies, there are other sets of morals that are not so dissimilar to ours, they are defined by the local beliefs and religions.

 

In China, the moral ground that once existed under the teaching of Confucius and other scholars, as well as Buddhism, is no more from the 1960s onward. All the educated people with the knowledge of these morals fled to Taiwan or were slaughtered.

 

What's left in China is a void since every Chinese today come from a peasant background and their parents didn't have the knowledge to be aware of these morals. Add to that an 'all for profit' leadership and the people, devoid of their own beliefs' follow like blind sheep. The Chinese people are a reflection of their government.

cub:

random, kind of like the way america is slowly becoming have u noticed this?

7 years 9 weeks ago
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RandomGuy:

I don't know mate, I'm not American and I never lived there, can't pronounce myself on that topic. Still I believe that greed permeates Chinese society a lot deeper than America's, and that America has a much higher moral ground than China. I'm talking about the people here, not the government.

7 years 9 weeks ago
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7 years 10 weeks ago
 
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After having seen Ayis get into fights over things a few Jiao cheaper, and reading about how the "charity kitchens" in shanghai had to close down because they kept getting ransacked and raised by people...

 

 

cheap "starving peasant" mentality. Save money, even if it means lying, cheating, and stealing. 

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7 years 10 weeks ago
 
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Shifu

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Hunger for money is typical among people who experienced serious chronic poverty for as long the Chinese did. The real difference between China and the rest is the lack of a moral ground that people in most other societies don't dare crossing.

 

In our Western societies, this morality is clearly defined by our Judeo-Christian heritage, "poisoning other people to turn more profit is immoral" comes from the codes of Christianity which has shaped society as we know it today even though most people are not fervent Christians no more. In other non-Christian societies, there are other sets of morals that are not so dissimilar to ours, they are defined by the local beliefs and religions.

 

In China, the moral ground that once existed under the teaching of Confucius and other scholars, as well as Buddhism, is no more from the 1960s onward. All the educated people with the knowledge of these morals fled to Taiwan or were slaughtered.

 

What's left in China is a void since every Chinese today come from a peasant background and their parents didn't have the knowledge to be aware of these morals. Add to that an 'all for profit' leadership and the people, devoid of their own beliefs' follow like blind sheep. The Chinese people are a reflection of their government.

cub:

random, kind of like the way america is slowly becoming have u noticed this?

7 years 9 weeks ago
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RandomGuy:

I don't know mate, I'm not American and I never lived there, can't pronounce myself on that topic. Still I believe that greed permeates Chinese society a lot deeper than America's, and that America has a much higher moral ground than China. I'm talking about the people here, not the government.

7 years 9 weeks ago
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7 years 10 weeks ago
 
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"Hungry for money or just trying to survive?"

 

Both I think.

 

Places like small restaurants, where they're operating on a narrow profit margin I could see cutting costs wherever they can so they'd buy the cheaper oil - which happens to be recycled gutter oil - over the more expensive real stuff.

 

The people who make that oil are opportunists who would do anything for a buck. 

 

And, I think there's a third factor.

Cheating and scamming is often seen as being a legitimate way to do business.When you can fool people into buying your fake medicine or carcinogenic  'food' you aren't morally bankrupt, you're 'clever' and a great business person. Especially if you can buy a luxury car and a mistress to show off. It isn't important where the money came from, just what people see after you made it.

 

A lot of people even see it as their right to make money, regardless of how it's done. I read an article where a woman sentenced to death for kidnapping and selling children was saying she isn't a bad person, she just wanted to make money like so many others are doing and it wasn't fair that she gets killed for it. In her mind she did nothing wrong.

 

 

 

 

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7 years 9 weeks ago
 
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probably both. trying to survive mentality whether or not they are in actual danger of being broke.

name a few penny-pinching moves you have noticed -

 

 • sitting around in the dark, won't turn on lights because uses electricity

 • unplugging the cooler (refrigerator thing) in the restaurant

 • issuing students those knock-off, photocopy style textbooks, which I'm pretty sure equates to thievery from the author/publisher, 

 • and, I'll apologize for the grossness at this time, eating carp, which is already a dirty bottom-feeder fish, which comes from a fish-farm where they feed the carp the villages human-waste

 

any other funny ones you guys recall?

Shining_brow:

Other than your last, I don't see a great problem... students have been using photocopied books and PDFs for years! Much cheaper than the $200 for some books out there!!!

 

Sitting in the dark is fine - if that's what they like...

 

But what's NOT ok is driving around on their ebikes, or worse, in their cars, with the lights off to save a bit of money! (alternator, FFS!!!)

7 years 9 weeks ago
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7 years 9 weeks ago
 
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It is much easier to make money when you have no shame or consideration for others. 

 

Many people in China were brought up with the belief that money and the CCP are god. 

 

"To get rich is glorious..." 

 

Many could easily survive on less but that want the status... to be "glorious"

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