Deleting
I see what you’re getting at cornflakes2 but I think you go a little far.
And some, I assume, are good people, right?
Firstly, let me agree about the number of highly skilled, highly educated immigrants: if you visit the Apple or Google or Jet Propulsion Lab in California you will see some of the most ethnically diverse workforces in the US; being the beneficiary of a brain drain is a big part of America’s continued success. And not just in terms of workers, but entrepreneurs too.
But secondly and more importantly “third world” immigrants are not a drain. Many industries rely on cheap illegal labor, and such immigrants are not eligible for most benefits.
Disagree. I live in Shanghai, which has as many Bladerunner-esque skyscapers with video screens on their whole exterior as anywhere.
But turn a corner and there’s a street where you have to duck under clothes lines and dodge around a basin of crabs. And watch crowds of people playing mahjong or doing taichi. And while many expats never bother to see this world, most of the Shanghai streets have hardly changed since the 80s; the glamorous parts while big, are still a minority of the city by area.
Let alone visiting more rural parts where many people live much as their parents and grandparents did.
On edit: OK, you may not be including China among “advanced” Asian nations. But anyway, I am skeptical that wealthy countries don’t have ghettos and blue collar lifestyles.
This is wildly, comically wrong. Yes, there are districts here and there with a very sterilized and futuristic vibe, but if you think it’s all like that, you’ve clearly only seen the view from a packaged tour bus.
Of course there are still a lot of dingy old neighborhoods, houses, streets, and I actually like that! I hate the sterility of all these clean neighborhoods with sterile box stores all cookie-cutter and housing so sterile too like we are slaves and they just neatly pack us into these convenient sterile apartments. I miss the unique character of each street, building, store, even right down to random things like seeing a chair outside or a pole slightly slanted, or some old folks selling produce on the sidewalk…
But the younger generation…it is ABSOLUTELY STERILE. They are freaks. They go paranoid over the tiniest things like you wouldn’t imagine. The fact that we have speed bumps every 2 km you drive is ridiculous…i know they want to keep traffic safe but we don’t need speed bumps every single street in random places where nothing is even around and even on uphills! More cctv cameras than there are people. How paranoid can they get. It’s going to get worse. With covid19, now the paranoia has gone to whole other level!
I love the families that just let their kids play outside, ride bikes, etc…like I did as a kid…now most of them are locked in, each have their own smartphones to play on, etc.
What you are talking about are the remnants of the old passing away. That’s going to be gone soon once those people all pass away too. The new norm is what I was describing and it’s here already and it’s coming in bigger waves. It actually sickens me. More technology is NOT A GOOD thing.
Again, obviously I know about the old world still in existence…it’s not like Korea or China just at a snap of a finger becomes this futuristic sterile world. It takes a long transition phase.
What you are referring to are the last remnants of the old world. It’s sad but that will all disappear as the people of that generation also disappear. Where I live, in just 10 years I’ve seen half of all the “old world” things disappear and everything new that is coming in is the sterile future I’m talking about.
There’s literally no difference with these kinds of stores, neighborhoods etc. from country to country once they all start looking like this. My convenience store is a 7/11 which looks EXACTLY the same as your 7/11. Where is the uniqueness of being in one country to another?
It’s like going to an apple store in China or USA or India or Nigeria…no effin difference…it’s an Apple store…you are in Apple country regardless of what physical country you are in. Corporations are the future countries and countries will be abolished.
If you say you prefer those things, then fine, YMMV.
But you were implying that those kind of streets are already gone, that all of the advanced Asian countries are entirely sterile.
What I am saying is, even in a city as modern as Shanghai, most of the streets by area are the “old world”, as you put it. So I cannot relate to, or agree with, the idea that it has all become sterile.
Are you still talking about the “advanced asian nations” or just your street? Do you know what a generalization is?
No, that would be very naive to assume that I was implying China or Korea was 100% completely futuristic and sterile nations right now.
Of course there are tons of the old world laying around.
But have you not see any of the tv commercials? I can’t explain all of it to you but study the differences between Korean ads and American ads. You’ll see what I mean by sterile. It’s frightening where East Asia is going right now but the culture and mindset is perfectly suited for this…the cookie-cutter manufactured appearances and standards literally looking like clones is being peddled off as the gold standard? Scary shit. That’s why I love Better Call Saul. Korea would never have a guy like Bob Odenkirk or a show like Better Call Saul be one of the best shows of all time.
Well your actual words were “Not so in the advanced Asian nations. It’s so sterile now, it’s all just digital living.”. There’s nothing naive about responding to your words.
Ok, now you’ve identified something I can relate to.
In China at least, the TV seems to be following the same course as TV did in my native UK.
So TV adverts seem to me very basic: just “Look at these young, good looking people enjoying KFC!”. You can’t really do that kind of advert in my native UK; it’s too cliche. It needs to be funny, or subversive or surprising.
But a generation ago you could get away with banal ads on UK TV, and Chinese ads are starting to use humor more, so I think it’s just a matter of them catching up, it’s not that they have a sterile culture.
Or think of it this way: before you can have subversive adverts you have to have tropes to subvert first. China is still in the process of laying down the basic tropes that will later be built upon.
Similarly, Chinese dramas are often so simple you can tell who the good and bad guys are at a glance and guess very well what’s ultimately going to happen.
But once you could have had a similar complaint about a lot of Western TV (and movies). The golden age of TV in the West is a recent thing, and even now many of the most popular shows are dross like the various singing competitions.
I’m sure Asia will produce many good dramas in time. Incidentally, is that not already the case in S Korea? Lots of my friends say that there are a number of very good Korean TV series but I haven’t watched any personally.
Yes, there are but I don’t watch them myself. What I hate so much about Korean ads and commercials these days, even dramas, is exactly what I’m talking about. Everyone looks the same. It is praised, it is encouraged…it’s scary! I’ve seen what it has done to South east asians and koreaphiles. It’s absolutely scary. They have this idea that all koreans look like this and that korean life is like that. They are so deluded by k drama and kpop it reminds me when I was younger and thought that way of America and Holllywood. When I visited America, I’d think I was in a movie. I’d believe that life was just like it was in the movies and when I visited Los Angeles and Hollywood, that I was instantly going to be a celebrity or be noticed by a director who would want to cast me.
These people that come to Korea do the korean things they see in the dramas probably feel the same way…like they are precariously living out their fantasies because they are now in the very city or location where they saw their favorite movies or dramas.
Every freaking celebrity has the same appearance…the same face pounded with layers and layers of foundation, even the talk is the same and the gestures and attitude…like geezuz, can they not have a regular looking person on tv for once? Even the old people on tv / commercials all look so manufactured and plastic. It’s sooooo sterile. Again, I go back to the Better Call Saul analogy. Something like that, very raw, very real would never fly in Korea. I mean it should, but they won’t allow it. It’s got to be manufactured…air brushed…it’s just soooo… I don’t know how to put it but the gap between what is real and what is on tv is so big compared to american tv where the gap is closer to reality.
There’s so much fakery and superficiality and that’s what I mean by sterile. There is no genuine authentic raw ugly everyday realness. It’s horrifying. But people love this and they are eating it up… now they do have programming that is more like everyday documentary shows and that is more like it. I love seeing those kinds of programs where you see real people and real families, real situations and stories all in its ugliness and imperfections.
But what you see in commercials…it’s so ridiculous and they peddle it off like everyone is like that or living like that…but more than that, I fear it’s also sort of propaganda and manipulation to make everyone go in that direction, like conditioning their minds to go there and attain that kind of appearance and life.
I’d have to write forever to flesh out everything but in just one short word I have to sum this up and it’s ‘transhumanism’. East Asia is going to lead in this pursuit because we are that crazy enough. In other words, we are going towards something that makes us less and less human to the point one day we will be completely unrecognizable. I haven’t even gotten into what is going to happen with the human genome project and gene manipulation, shopping catalogues, and you bet East Asia will be the first to break this wide open because they just don’t give a ****. Make me look more like an anime character is the goal.