China vs. America

This was played at the Sundance Film Festival. As tempting as it is to make fun of America, I find this more interesting as a commentary on China's rising status.

I'm also curious as the reception this thing got at Sundance.

See for yourself.

Now as much as I dislike the current American leadership and will take most any opportunity to laugh at their misfortunes, I didn't think much of this movie. A lot of the logic the film maker used throughout seemed... well... flawed. It seemed to come down to:

"We have more people, so we are better."

"We exported to America more then we imported, so we are better."

"We have cheap labour, so we get more contracts, so we are better."

"We don't respect you enough to translate for you, so we don't have to communicate intelligently."

The only one of those points I would agree with is number #2. A nation of consumers is not going to last that long, given the rate at which we are using up the world's resources.

However, as the movie pointed out, China has some 4-5 times as many people. Now I could believe that the average north American has say... twice as much drain on the world's resources as the average person in China, but on the whole that would still leave China chewing up most of the worlds production pretty damn fast. (Please note: the values used in the previous sentence were just random guesses. I don't know what the heck I'm really talking about.) Given the planet's finite resources, I can't tell who is going to get screwed over first. It will probably be all of us together. Wheeeee....

And the film maker just came off as mean. Really... not very nice or sympathetic.

Anyway, I don't think that the Bush administration is looking at the big picture, neither do I think that this film maker has either. It could be that the film was designed to be biased and one-sided to get some point across, but if that is the case, that point went right over my head.

Yes, it is a crude way to express how China is changing. I'm not sure the creator is even Chinese, so it may be more of a dig at America than an attempt to potray China in an accurate manner. It could also be a dig at China's overconfidence in itself in some way.

You're right about the whole resources thing, although their newfound love of material things will certainly cause even more problems. Basically, if the Chinese start eating as much beef as we do, everyone dies, based on the math. Every acre of farmland in North America would be needed just to grow all the grain for those cows. That wouldn't happen but it's a pretty good way to understand the impact a rapidly changing lifestyle for 1.2 billion people has on the world. I am aware that it's not fair to say that they can't and we can.

There was a great 2-part documentary on CBC the last 2 weeks called China Rises. Some things that the document may have added to that film are:

- China is losing the ability to feed itself. Over 100 million people have moved from the country to the city in the last decade in the largest mass migration in human history. City consumption levels have risen, but the available farmland has dropped substantially due to urbanization and desertification and the lack of workers.

- Much of China's growth can be attributed to extremely lax labour and environmental laws. There is not much recourse for people who are injured. The government is not really willing to enforce any environmental laws, as they get in the way. As a result some rivers are so polluted, especially in the rural areas, that some people have passed out from getting to close to them.

It's a really interesting documentary if you can somehow get ahold of it.

More then anything, I think my problem with the movie was just the fact it was like watching an international version of Nelson from the Simpsons give his nasal "Ha ha" for 15 minutes straight.

I'll keep an eye out for that documentary.

lol, and to think i might move there to work.

"ha ha" at me.

OR IS IT

America or China?

oh, China.

What's all this about then? What will you be doing there?

teaching english, ostensibly, which i think is essentially the only job a white person can have there anyhow. though i mainly choise china as i thought it was impossible to go to japan without a degree, but i took a TEFL course where they explained how you can do it without one and it's basically pretty simple. they also pay more in japan, and in china it's notoriously difficult to get money out of hte country which is the whole reason i'd do it anyways, so im reconsidering. probably won't be for another year and a bit anyways though so whatev. maybe by then china will own north america anyways and save me the trouble in moving money around.