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Q: Seriously after 5000 years of history this is the best you can do?
Often I have conversations with my Chinese friends they always revert back to the old adage.
I am polite smile outwardly seem impressed but inside I am drawing blood from biting my tongue am I missing something?
Maybe you could ask them what the Chinese were doing 5,000 years ago, at the beginning of their history. Would they even have an answer? Everybody wants to be proud of something. It's kind of like some people back home are proud of their freedom. To us it seems so silly to be nationalistic like that, but to them, I guess it's part of being Chinese.
but this is the chinese way. 10 people take 6 hours to do what one person could do in 6 minutes.
TedDBayer:
puck, you got that right, or it's I call my friend, like they do any thing, and nothing gets done.
If they've got a 5000 year history, why are they still a 'developing' country?? That fact doesn't add up?
(Oh? You want to blame the west because it invaded your country and destroyed it 100 years ago? Then - if China had a great 5000 year history, how did the west manage to just walk all over you 100 years ago???)
Facts are fun 
rasklnik:
facts are western imperialist drivel. Only we Chinese have the right to make facts. Our facts are better than your facts.
5,000 years simply means having the right to do something anyway you want to (even if it is wrong) and calling it right.
I've never had anyone tell me about 5000 year history, but on here I've posted about the 15,000 years of North American. the first immigrants arrived then, and they are still coming today. Thats history.
why does it take 5 people to help one person park a car it just makes me laugh
It's not like you could have done any better....so arrogant! Just take what they give you it's not like you have to live here you can move back to Canada if you want remember....for me I can go back to the U.S.A! It sucks to be you!
fish79:
.Wow that was a low blow! Speaking of low blows how's your mother. 
Well this can be a sensitive and controversial subject. 5,000 years old. This is a point of pride with China. They have an idea that the 'older the better' or that being the oldest civilization is 'the best' and this is really a 'national pride' issue.
Which is why its difficult to have a serious discussion about the meaning of this. 5000 years. Egypt has been there for 5000 years. So have Europeans been there for 5,000 years. So has everybody!
But the idea is 5000 years of uninterupted singular culture or 'nation'. And this is simply not the case. There wasn't a 'China' (one unified nation of a certain race and peoples) until Chin.
Yes, you have 'warring states' and you have many different nations (not called 'China') and this was true in Europe (there were Vikings here, Germanic there, Celts over there) and like (what is now China) China they were different nationalities 'countries' and different languages.
But Chin does unify them into what we can now start calling a single 'Chinese' nation. But now here comes something that Westerners will have problems with. The idea that civilization starts and then progresses onwards and upwards. This is wrong! It was made popular in Western academic history and it is simply not the case. Civilizations can go through periods of constantly improving and advancing and then crash and burn. Or go through 'waves' of advance and degenerations. This has, very obviously, happened in China (several times) and one of the biggest mysteries - yet to be fully understood) is what happens in China hundreds of years ago (long before westerners arrived). Something devastates China. So devastating that its difficult to actually find records of 'what it was'. And we might presume this is because it was so devastating that it even killed or silenced record-keepers. In fact, some experts are now looking at the same thing that nearly destroyed Europe - The Bubonic Plaque! But whatever it was - it sent China back to the 'stone ages' in a minute. This might explain something else - one of THE most significant events in world history actually. Around this same time, China (NOT Europe or anyone else) has the greatest naval fleet on Earth and it explores the world. (far ahead of Columbus btw). Then, the very records of its last expeditions are destroyed and the fleet burned to the ground (well, to the water). Done. That's it. China is FINISHED going overseas. It basically 'closes for business', locks down borders. What happened, what came back on those ships to essentially 'shut down China'?
Having said that, we later see China rebound. Then again is devasted or just 'stalled' by its own ongoing series of civil wars.
And in case any Westerners think this is something that can't happen to them? You better think again. It may BE happening right now. What do you think Greece is doing right now? Degenerating into a '3rd world country'. I'm not so sure the USA has really done anything of note in the last 30 years? It has the biggest bridges and tallest buildings from what.. .70 years ago? Is there a man on the moon anymore? What happened to all the game-changing inventions? Is it possible that, over the next 300 years North America might well degenerate into a kind of backwards 'once was' civilization?
Jnusb416:
Now that is interesting. I knew they had been exploring a long time ago but never thought about why they'd close off to the rest of the world. I thought it might be some internal affair, but I guess that doesn't quite make sense. If they indeed encountered the bubonic plague, that would be a good reason to stay home.
tomcatflyer:
Excellent answer. I read the book called 1421, about the global explorations by China. I never realised before how far ahead they were at that time and just how many Chinese settlements they established around the world at that time. In fact had they not closed the country down we would probably all be Chinese by now with a Chinese one world government.
Tapwater:
I think it has to do with Confucianism. If you notice, there are a lot of tombs and graves around everywhere that have big gardens.
jknox00:
One of the fascinating archeological sites we learned about in China was a small town uncovered. They found a kind of 'ghost town'. As if left abandoned. Even valuable items, money were simply left in place. No signs of war or struggles. As if everyone in that town simply 'disappeared' and absolutely nobody ever came back. Not even looters. The expert was saying this is one evidence there might have been some kind of devastating plaque at some time.
