The Tool build shops over in China usually consist of two buildings, the Die Shop, and the Dorms where the employees live.
You musta been in a tiny company. Bigger places have the workshops, the office buildings, the hospital, a guest house, the dining hall, the rec hall, and in the north the whole heating system. Usually walled in, with gate guards, like a medieval city. Pretty cool. Was walking around at one of our friend's places and came up against a huge wall ... what's this ? Nanjing city wall. Extremely cool.
Maybe, maybe not. but you can cheat an American out of Chinese land.
My step mother is Chinese and she owned a house in China in an suburb area of a city that boomed. The land became very valuable as its value went up 40 times what she originally paid for it
She allowed her mother and brother to live there while she moved here after her and my father married. They lived at the house for about ten years
Two years ago she got the bad news her mother had passed. She decided to sell the house and told her brother he would have to move out. He refused. It got to the point she had to take him to court.
But when she flew over, the court told her basically that because she was an American citizen and her brother had lived there for ten years they would side with him, the Chinese citizen and basically gave her house and the land to her brother.
Left the whole quote for reference, I'm sure this is what she told you so she could save face but nope. Like in the US, she fucked up. I've lost twice in small claims, too, and it wasn't because I have green eyes (and a little blood dripping out the corner of the mouth), it was because the other guys were better prepared or had a better case.
Short reply is, she never owned any house. People do not own houses in China. You get a lease. It's more convenient to say "owned" but it is not accurate.
Second, they would never tell her "because you are an American citizen." First, because they would never say that and second, why would they even know ? If her hukou was from that city, no way to tell. They don't brand your forehead when you get US citizenship. Bazillions of Chinese people living overseas.
There are lots of regulations concerning property "ownership" and this sounds like a family argument. I've seen a couple of those up close. Was her name the
only one on the green real estate certificate ? Were there residence requirements she didn't fulfil ? You said it was "in the suburbs" but Chinese cities don't have suburbs the way you think of them. They are not individual houses on plots of land. They are shabby rundown apartment buildings that get knocked down and a new thirty-story building gets put up. People hang onto those because they know they'll make out when redevelopment comes but they aren't worth big money until that time happens. Was it redeveloped ? in that case, the people living there get the money and the new house, not some absentee landlord. Besides which, many cities now have regulations about how many houses a family can own - usually two, one for each spouse, sometimes only one.
There are a lot of rules about these things. A really lot. If you haven't coverd your ass, you're going to lose out to the person who has. Sounds like brother was smarter.
Agree the China people are great but the government sucks.
What the fuck do you know about it ? Seriously ? Do you know even ONE government person ? Have you ever done
anything to, with, or from any of the Chinese governments ? (I personally have a beef with one of the electricity department guys in Dongguan who cheated at cards, flat took my money and laughed about it. But later on after they got me totally drunk so I couldn't walk, the mayor left his best concubine to pat my back while I threw up all night. That's surprisingly comforting. And yeah, I recovered, but only once. If it was olde dayes she'da made it into the palace easy. Talk about a ten, damn. So all in all it worked out even, or in fact maybe in my favor. Yup, come to think of it, I'd let him cheat me again. It was worth it.)
As the topsoil becomes more depleted the problem will get worse.
Yeah, this can happen after the first 3,000 or 4,000 years of continuous agriculture. Wtf is between your ears ? In reality, as they have changed from night soil to nitrogen fertilizers, the topsoil condition has improved. Still not a great situation but if you used your brain for a change you'd say less silly stuff. Maybe.
Flooding good farmland is not that good.
Better tell the Egyptians, who depended on this for thousands of years. In fact "flooding good farmland" is what
makes it "good farmland".
That's how it is with everything. In any legal dispute a foreigner will ALWAYS lose to native Chinese. Even defending against an unprovoked physical attack can earn a prison sentence. China regularly practices the racism and xenophobia that critics like EG and his U.S. allies constantly accuse the USA of. We treat even illegal aliens better than China treats LEGAL foreign residents.
Oivay, another person who has never been within 10,000 miles of the place just has to Tell Us How It Is. Coming from someone who couldn't tell a bathroom attendant from a homicide policeman, this is pretty rich.
First off, statistically speaking, there are no unprovoked physical attacks. If you strangle a xinjiang separatist knifing kindergarteners, you're going to get a medal, not prison time. Physical attacks were pretty much restricted to foreigners in bar streets anyway, which is partly why nowadays bar streets are few and far between. Physical violence has been looked down upon since the Warring States period and is one of the reasons Chinese people are not fond of the late Qing warlords period. They've got a few thousand years of habit, going a different way.
About the other, if brains were dynamite I hope you don't catch cold. How many Chinese cops do you know ? (Generally conflicts don't go to court they are settled at the police station.)
Policemen and foreigners, lessee ...
There was the time ages ago when the local cop station in southwest Haerbin wanted to go fishing and borrow our j/v van ... our driver was sick so they took me. License ? We don' gotta show you no steenkin' license ! That was before many people knew how to drive, but they thought it was hilarious when we drove through the toll booths without stopping and the toll takers got this hey ! hey ! hey ! screaming attack seeing a foreigner blast through. Hey mon, I jus' following orders ... And even better when I didn't notice that Haerbin put the red lights in a weird place, so we ... umm, went through a couple, laughing all the way. And hoping they'd rescue me if there were an interdepartment conflict. No guarantees on that, they might have thought that was funny, too. Foreigner goes to prison, heh heh heh, hope he likes cold mealy rice soup
And when the Assist and I were riding a bicycle in the crosswalk under the green and some damn fool on a scooter not only ran the red but managed to come all the way across the intersection and still hit us ... Assist went to the hspital to get her scratch looked at which left her mom in a screaming match with a drunk bystander who thought Chinese girls riding behind foreigners on a bicycle was a disgrace, 10,000 spectators watching with interest, taking bets on who'd win I guess, meanwhile the perp was trying to escape so I had to hold the scooter with one hand and him with the other, good thing the cops did finally arrive. Next morning when he didn't show, the desk guy gave us his address and said to go collect him but better take a stick, lots of times those migrant workers hang out together and he might try to hit me ha ha ... luckily he showed, the upper-level negotiating officer was extremely astute and handled the whole thing better than any law enforcement I've ever known in the US.
Or the time the taxi driver tried to kill me so I knocked his mirror off. That got me a ride off to the station on the back of the cop motorcycle (they seem to be a little lax about these things, didn't even have to wear a helmet) and a four hour argument with the taxi driver before I got tired (it was 2:00 a.m. by then) so I gave in and paid him ten yuan ... probably should have stood my ground but they were all pushing for a face-saving solution and he wanted fifty so what the hell ...
Or running down the train platform with six year old Luo Pei in one hand and her grandma in the other with half a dozen vicious commnist thug policemen chasing us, "Stop that foreigner ! Stop that foreigner !" good thing they were lazy and gave up quick, I'm not a good runner.
Then just last year when I got kidnapped over a bottle of chocolate milk ... that was awkward because when I sneakily called 110 but didn't know the address of where I was ... but they did figure it out and finally came to rescue me, and they gave the perpetrator a stern warning about kidnapping foreigners. I think the cop actually paid for the chocolate milk personally, because I saw it in his hand later. Either that or he liked the same brand.
And oh yeah, the Assist's best friend collects cops, she's on her third or fourth one now, from talking to them I've learned quite a bit about how things work. To be honest, quite a bit more than Mr Scottl here who's never even
seen a Chinese policeman and, as I mentioned, couldn't tell one from a bathroom attendant.
Oh. To be totally impartial, one did speak rudely to me once about getting out of the road when the light's red, idiot. That was when the current thing of putting the left turn lane on the right-hand side of the road was new, so I fucked up. But still, he didn't have to call me bai chi
(The left-turn lane is now often in the middle, which is even stranger, but luckily I don't have to drive, can just watch the zoo from the passenger side.
Why so many here think the hallmark of success is having a car, jeeze. Not needing the damn thing is so much nicer.
And the whole bicycle thing has kinda fallen apart too, now there's mini-rent bikes, thousands of them everywhere, so no one rides their own anymore. If you have to go three blocks it's cool, pay a few fen from your phone and wahla, ride three blocks and hop off. It's great.)
Oh yeah, it's a terrible place, damn commnist government ... did I mention "bai chi" ? Looks like it's not just me.
