The China Thread

[Eddie Teach]

My experience with cheap roadside motels is that each room always has its own bathroom. 

[Monoriu]

My experience with cheap roadside motels is that each room always has its own bathroom. 

North American hotels are usually ok on this.  European ones are not.  Independently operated B&Bs are not.   

[Eddie Teach]

WTF Europe? 

[Monoriu]

WTF Europe? 

Yeah a lot of rooms in Europe don't have their own toilets.  Some of the ones that have them are added as an afterthought, so they tend to be small and smelly (ventilation isn't good enough as the toilet is just too small). 

Japanese hotel rooms tend to be equipped with their own toilets, but they are prefabricated ones.  The entire toilet is a plastic box made in a factory, then installed in the hotels.  I am ok with those, but the wife isn't.  The only real drawbacks are that they are small and slippery (because everything has plastic surfaces). 

[Admiral Yi]

The next time your wife is sliding around on a Japanese prefab bathroom floor, videotape it and post it here.

[CountDeMoney]

Or if she takes a dump in the bidet.

[Barrister]

Pass on both requests.

[Syt]

WTF Europe? 

Yeah a lot of rooms in Europe don't have their own toilets.  Some of the ones that have them are added as an afterthought, so they tend to be small and smelly (ventilation isn't good enough as the toilet is just too small). 

What kind of 1 star hellholes are you staying at?

[Razgovory]

Pass on both requests.

Wow.  I didn't think you would really pass those requests on to your wife.

[Josquius]

Presumably those diplomats can stay in other hotels?

Would you?

Only if they have 5 stars. #Monoisrich

My experience is that stars mean nothing.  5 stars just mean they have (probably) fulfilled a checklist of requirements, like having a pool, each room has its own toilet, etc.  Doesn't say if the room is nice or big or modern.  Doesn't say if the food or staff are good.  A lot of 5 star places are crappy, and a lot places with fewer stars are much better. 

Yeah, the stars rules are pretty misleading. Pretty much just a ticklist of does the hotel have conference facilities, rooms have minibars, etc...

[Tonitrus]

Meanwhile, outside of HK....

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-land-dispute-china-20141015-story.html

8 killed, 18 injured in China land dispute
By TIMES STAFF
OCTOBER 15, 2014, 4:08 AM | REPORTING FROM BEIJING

During World War II, Gao Shangpei fought Japanese soldiers invading his hometown.
This week, the 85-year-old said he found himself taking up arms again as men wielding
steel pipes and knives invaded his village over a land dispute, sparking clashes that left
eight people dead and 18 others injured.
The incident in southwest Yunnan province appears to be one of the bloodiest confrontations in
recent years between property developers and local villagers.
------------
FOR THE RECORD
9:57 a.m.: An earlier version of this post indicated that the confrontation occurred on Monday. It
occurred on Tuesday. It also stated that the local government issued a statement on the incident on
Tuesday. The statement was issued on Wednesday.
------------
In a statement Wednesday, the local government said eight people were killed in Fuyou village
when staff from a local project developer clashed with villagers. But locals said "thugs" hired by the
developer stormed the village and tried to beat up residents who had vowed to protect their land
till death.

"Around 2:30 p.m. [Tuesday], a group of over 1,000 thugs hired by the developer came to our
village carrying steel pipes and long knives," Gao said in a phone interview. "When we tried to stop
them, they started to beat local villagers, including women and old people, indiscriminately."
According to Gao, more than 2,000 of his fellow residents joined in the fray. After two villagers
were killed, locals got so angry that they captured and killed some of the attackers, he said.
Pictures circulated on Chinese social media site Weibo showed burned bodies of several men in
blue uniforms whose hands and legs were bound. The photos showed some were carrying shields
with the word "police" on them, and a portable tear gas launcher was visible in one picture. The
authenticity of the pictures could not be independently verified and local police only arrived at the
scene after the deadly clash took place.

The Chinese publication Caixin identified the two deceased villagers as Shu Huanzhang and Zhang
Shun but gave no further details. The local government's statement said six people from the
developer's side were killed and a total of 18 people were injured from both sides.
The land in question was designated for the construction of a new logistics center, part of the
government's plan to relocate wholesale markets to the area from the provincial capital, Kunming,
20 miles away.

Many locals opposed the construction plan as soon as the government announced it in 2012. A
total of 12 villages have been affected by the construction plan, according to a petitioning letter
supposedly written by representatives of those villages on popular Chinese forum KDnet.net. The
letter accuses local officials of confiscating their land illegally and taking bribes from the project's
developers.

After trying to petition and failing to get the local government to address their grievances, locals
decided to take matters in their own hands and established teams to patrol the village.
"I went to Beijing three times in 2012 and tried to hand in our material to different government
departments. But we didn't hear back from anyone afterward," Gao said.

When the armed men surrounded his village, Gao said, he didn't bother to call the local police.
"They breathe through the same nose with the developers. They're useless," he said. "The local
party secretary, Chen Haiyan, is not a good person. The local hospital even refused to treat injured
villagers yesterday; we had to send them to Kunming for treatment."
Beijing-based lawyer Li Xiongbing has represented a number of clients in land-confiscation
disputes with local governments. In most cases, he said, there was not much he could do to help
the villagers.

"Under the current system in China, sometimes it's inevitable for the villagers to come down to
using their body and life to defend their home," Li said in an interview. "The local judicial system,
including the court and the police, are all controlled by the local government. It's impossible for the
villagers to seek justice through a local court."

In China's legal system, cases can only be appealed once to a higher court, which means most such
land cases go no further than a city-level court. If cases could advance as far as the Supreme Court
in Beijing, Li believes, they could be adjudicated more strictly in accordance with Chinese law.
As with many other similar land-confiscation disputes, the violent turn in Fuyou village has
catalyzed intervention by higher-level government authorities. After Tuesday's deadly clash, the
local government in Kunming said provincial officials had been dispatched to the scene.

"Why only through violent clashes and people getting killed can those problems get resolved?"
wrote Beijing-based property market columnist Ma Yuecheng in a post on Weibo.

Tommy Yang in the Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

And another report on the same incident with seemingly different details (e.g. dead "construction workers" instead of "armed thugs").

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/report-chinese-villagers-burned-workers-death-26233275

[Monoriu]

Common occurance.

[Valmy]

Common occurance.

What a country!

[garbon]

Common occurance.

What a country!

A very different world.

[Jacob]

Yeah, from what I understand those kinds of "mass incidents" number in the thousands every year.