[Godstud]

Yes, but it's very rapidly happening in China. I was actually quite surprised at how negative he was about China, when I'd spoken with a Chinese Second Language school teacher months earlier, and gotten a quite different outlook(China has created EVERYTHING, and has written such things as "Hey Jude", which the Beatles stole, has the best wine in the world, etc. ), but then he HAS travelled a bit more than the CSL school teacher.

We don't see the problems on a daily basis, but he has, and even his views on the economy were mostly VERY gloomy, and he complained a lot about China owing the US hundreds of billions of dollars.

[Igor Antunov]

Such monologues are never a broader indicator of anything. I can give you plenty of examples of personal or family opinions.

and he complained a lot about China owing the US hundreds of billions of dollars.

Then he is ignorant of the broader account balance which puts the rest of his opinions in question. I saw how the poorest in China live, I sat and ate and talked with them. I saw how the relative upper class live. Sat and talked and ate with them. Here are some non-indicative, very focused opinions by select people. i.e they were only speaking for themselves and those at their table.

-All of them are HIGHLY critical of the government, but deem it a saviour at the same time for bringing China out of humiliation.

-All are bitter at the socio-economic divide and label anybody successfull as an automatic cheat, thief or despicable weasel with ties to corrupt officials. But at the same time flaunting your wealth or place of occupation or child's tertiary school is an asian trait and this is just sour grapes. I've seen it elsewhere in Asia. Japanese and South Korean kids commit suicide in their tens of thousands on the basis of not living up to lofty parental expectations.

-All of them promote 'Chinese democracy' - i.e 1 senior, wise, informed person decides everything at the table i.e authoritarianism

-All of them love their country, but would love to travel and open businesses abroad.

-All of them consider the US a rival that has to be surpassed and put in its place if China is to be taken seriously on the international stage.

-All of them greatly admire Japan as a culture, because they claim Japan is what China used to be-the manners, the public poise. But they LOATHE the Japanese puppet regime and consider Japan along with Korea and Vietnam an integral part of greater China. They feel they own these once isolated cultures which posses traits China has long lost, and have much of the old China to re-learn from them.

-All of them find life 'challenging or outright difficult' but claim jobs are easy to find, you just not gonna earn much. Nonetheless goals are attainable-the only expenditure is time and effort, it takes 10 years for the average Chinese to earn a car, 30 years and a marriage to earn a house. It has gotten much easier over the years. Before such things were impossible.

-There are two China's basically, north and south. The north considers the south a bastion of fat, rich little merchants who are more cultured and this is where you go to become economically successfull or to get useful things. Meek and weak but respectable for their enterprising nature. The south considers the north a bastion of uncouth pirate-accented barbarians who only know how to dictate and take. But this makes them respectable. Cruel but strong for their decisive nature. Neither divide disagrees with this analysis. Beijingers know they're takers and dicks. It is good to be a dick.

Going back to acquiring goodies, with work ethics like these, you know our welfare liberal arts kiddies here in the west are going to get steamrolled in the long run. Nobody here is prepared to sweat anymore.

[Rainbow Crow]

If China wrote off debts to its own people, the credibility of its state-run economy would be trashed in the eyes of the Chinese people. Not even a trumped up battle with Japan, India or a weaker Asian nation would save them in that case. No, China has serious future problems that still need to be dealt with.

[Igor Antunov]

It had far more serious past problems it has already dealt with. Like mass starvation, social upheaval, war, invasion, occupation, civil war, a huge illiterate population, etc. None of those hold true today and the biggest concerns are shifting to mundane 1st world problems.

[Godstud]

You're pretty quick to dismiss the opinions of an extremely educated and well-travelled Chinese person, in favour of what you encountered on your vacation, Igor... I'd tend to hold his opinion more highly than what you encountered while having a few dinners with Chinese people, who may, may not, have any sort of education/experience of worth. Just sayin...

Poverty is still a big problem, even if they are working to reduce it. Once you leave the cities it's pretty well still oxen and cart, too, according to my Chinese friend.

[Igor Antunov]

55% live in cities. i.e the majority. And the country-side is far more pleasant to my nose, eyes and ears. Old tractors, trucks, farm animals and modest buildings. Despite the buildings in outright villages being old, it was so clean. People are nicer and everybody with a farm plot is building really cute country homes.

There is far worse poverty in the public housing slums of cities because people who show up are focusing all their energy on accumulating money to buy an apartment and get a city permit, not focus on living. Those who fail tend to stick around and become destitute or worse.

The worst thing I saw in the country was a man wheeling his dying/sickly son around in a cart, screaming for help.
One of the best was the local buses being used as a free delivery service. People would put their bag of goods in the bus filled with strangers and then leave (these are villages with thousands of people) and then 4 stops later somebody would be at a stop, signal the bus, come in and take the bag. I assume they pre-arrange it via cell phone. Everything from groceries to electronics. I guess communal honesty of this kind dissipates with big city living.

[Ahovking]

you can't even count right? your own words give me right. China 2100 before christ, Japan 12.000 before christ.

Its funny you can't even count numbers.

Sorry i missed some zero's.......

China developed around between (21,000 BC to 16,000 BC) compared to japanese (12,000 BC to 14,000 BC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan

My point stands China is far older than Japan. Are you even taught history

And here is a timeline of civilisations that proves my point.

http://www.timemaps.com/history

[Rei Murasame]

Sorry i missed some zero's.......

You did not miss any zeros. You've just invented numbers, and then tried to correct your invented numbers and made it even worse.

The wiki article for China that you are referring to actually says this:

In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a center of Yangshao culture (5000 BC to 3000 BC), and the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of these was found at Banpo, Xi'an.[12] Later, Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture, which was also centered on the Yellow River from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC.

The wiki article for Japan that you are referring to actually says this:

The Jōmon period lasted from about 14,000 until 300 BC. The first signs of civilization and stable living patterns appeared around 14,000 BC with the Jōmon culture, characterized by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of wood stilt house and pit dwellings and a rudimentary form of agriculture.

[fuser]

Its funny, in a thread about which country is more modern, the discussion is raging on, which country is more ancient.

[unbalanced zealot]

This thread has seen a lot of complexity dismissed in favour of generic assertions.

Respected US economist Paul Krugman has been really highlighting of late China's pending problems consolidating its past gains

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/opinion/krugman-hitting-chinas-wall.html?_r=0

and others with good perspective positions have predicted a very hard landing for China as economic growth rates falter (mainly since May this year).

Is modern seen in terms of ubiquitous technology, economic and/or political maturity, enduring stability/universal prosperity engineered by ideological/philosophical preeminence or something else altogether - modern banking regulation? In most respects both China and Japan have perhaps been back and forth over history. And in the world today - Japanese investment helps finance China's economy, while China holds a US debt which assists to prop up its economy, while US military power protects Japan.

Right now - having been to both countries and also interacting with people from both on at least a weekly basis, I'd probably argue that Japan is more modern than China. My reasoning would be partly based upon the levels of disparity that exist within the two respective countries. The gap between Wan Chai or Pudong, and average China, in terms of modernisation is vast. Japan however has a quite fascinating bureaucratic system that has evolved to reduce economic disparity within their society and allow modernisation to be evenly spread (Japan's gini coefficient score reflects a more even society than both China and Korea - by far). China, especially since Jiang Zemin and his Standing Committee of engineering graduates, has run with a technocratic style of political/economic management, but they have yet to refine it to the extent that Japan has done IMO.

Somewhat like South Korea, but very different in nature, Japan has shaped a somewhat centrally planned economy (and society) though managed corporatism , something which China and its SOE's has failed to do well (see Krugman article above for what he believes is the pending result). Japan seems to have created a system where they use their bureaucracy to play the role that Wall Street plays in the US. This may be a good late 21st century template (ie. a modern system)? (an unstupid thread devoted discussing this would be of great interest to me).

[Rei Murasame]

There shall be a thread. Expect one to exist by the end of the day.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

i believe another big problem is their idiotic one child policy. They will have hundreds of millions of old people. That will end bad

Japan already has this problem.

Solving Japan's age-old problem
Soon there will be three pensioners for every child under 15.

Japan is ageing faster than any other nation. By the end of this decade, there will be three pensioners for every child under 15 and before long, one in six people will be over 80. Its population will soon be falling by nearly a million people every year and doomsters predict that, some time in the next century, the last Japanese person will die.

Other countries are encouraging immigration to solve their demographic woes. But not Japan, which is instead developing an extraordinary array of hi-tech products and services. Much of it looks as fanciful as a 1970s edition of BBC1's Tomorrow's World. But it's a fact that the elderly in Japan control half the country's wealth, and a new "old" economy – dominated by pharmaceuticals, nursing care and medical equipment – is being fashioned around them. What they do now is perhaps a glimpse of what consumer society may look like in Britain when our baby boomers hit their 70s and 80s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/japan-population-decline-youth-no-sex_n_1242014.html
Japan Population Decline: Third Of Nation's Youth Have 'No Interest' In Sex

A startling number of Japanese youths have turned their backs on sex and relationships, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had "no interest" in or even "despised" sex. That's almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.

If that's not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.

The survey paints a bleak picture for Japan's aging population. The Associated Press reports that the national population of 128 million will have shrunk by one-third by 2060 and seniors will account for 40 percent of people, placing a greater burden on the work force population to support the country's social security and tax systems.

What the hell, what's wrong with the damn youth of Japan?

[Godstud]

found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had "no interest" in or even "despised" sex.

No interest, or despise, sex?? WTF???

What the hell, what's wrong with the damn youth of Japan?

My sentiments exactly!! Too many video games??

[Akuma]

What you don't realize is, thats a normal process in Japan that evry high developed nation faces. Here it happens gradually and naturally. In China not. In China it will be a one day break from the very moment that senseless law started. And China can not counter that in any way.

[Godstud]

I fully understand that there will be a reduction in the birth rate in first world countries(Canada as well would have a negative birth rate without immigration), but "despising sex", or having "no interest in sex", is indeed bizarre, particularly for teenagers. It's downright strange!

[jessupjonesjnr87]

What you don't realize is, thats a normal process in Japan that evry high developed nation faces. Here it happens gradually and naturally. In China not. In China it will be a one day break from the very moment that senseless law started. And China can not counter that in any way.

Forget about China for a second Akuma and just answer me this, what the hells wrong with the damn youth of Japan?

[Akuma]

It is simply hard to have a girl in that age. We have virtually the entire day school and almost no freetime. I have a girlfriend and we take our time. We can share time because we are good at school. If you are not you have a problem in japan. You go school, then at evening home to eat, then evening school, then homework till late night. Most start to have time for a partner after university.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

That truly sounds like a slice of hell on earth.

[Yellowscientist]

It is simply hard to have a girl in that age. We have virtually the entire day school and almost no freetime. I have a girlfriend and we take our time. We can share time because we are good at school. If you are not you have a problem in japan. You go school, then at evening home to eat, then evening school, then homework till late night. Most start to have time for a partner after university.

Japan and Korea are practically the same when it comes to intense education, but 30% answering that they despise sex?! I've always known that many aspects of Japan will be the same in Korea after about ten years, but I find it hard to believe a youth uninterested in sex will be coming. What the hell's wrong with them?

[Akuma]

you should also see that most say what they say because they say what is expected from them. No one want to be seen as slut. There are many things that are not so easy in japan. traditional things.