Okay, as the title suggests, this is really *cheap* (kinda ties in with the 88 cheapskate Chinese habits thread actually). Most people would have done this before but it's the thought of cheating someone (or in this case, something) that really gives you a thrill. Anyway, I was feeling too lazy to get quarters for my laundry so I started searching around for similar-sized coins. I've seen my friends use Canadian coins to feed the parking meter so I thought, hmmm... why not? Saves me the trouble of going to BK for change. So I took all my leftover 10 pence and 100 won coins from earlier trips to the UK and Korea and used them for laundry and hey! It actually worked! I felt really happy for at least 5 minutes coz it saves me time and effort having to get quarters, plus I know what to do with all my foreign loose change of the correct size now. But I must say it works better on machines where you lay the quarters flat instead of standing up. Also, Hungarian forints are of the right size but the wrong thickness so the coin slot cannot go in if you place them standing. That was cheap alright.
- When you refer yourself as Chinese origin there are regional variants. SEA Chinese are mostly from Fujian or Gungzhou,descendants of peasants ,traders etc, not scholars. Add to that poverty of ancestors and thrift habits passed down and you get some strange behaviour. I'm sure in your travels you find Chinese are not 100 % homogenous. Very similar to say comparing Australians/Americans with British etc Australians are mainly descendants of POW and different from the polshed stock in Europe. Of course lives have improved for immigrants but some old habits die hard. The best eg. of regional variants is food, only the food in Guangdong is palatable, in the rest of China the food is not really that good. Most Chinese eat a lot of rice (Fan tong) and this could be because of poverty of ancestors, you will notice that Affluent Japanese eat very little rice. If you tour China all they feed you on tours is white cabbage boiled in oil,lots of it. i hope i dont offend anyone, all I'm saying that there are some variants in behaviour because of history and region. Korean people are also born of hardy ancestore, you can see them in thier food choice. I realise all these when Koreans say you eat like a beggar.
Nope, it makes plenty of sense. Nothing offensive. When I went to Shanghai two years ago, my family did not eat any rice during meals - just plenty of what we would have called "side dishes" in the past, both hot and cold. Actually we had something like 8 cold dishes (appetizers) and 8 warm dishes (main course?) and no rice at all for one entire week. The guy taking us around said that in more affluent places in China, they don't eat as much rice as they used to. Actually I'm not in the least thrifty (ancestors would be ashamed of me). I spend tonnes of money on food and clothes - but am just too lazy and cheap to get quarters for my laundry.
Northerners in China don't eat rice whilst southerners do. The Japanese do eat rice, yes even the rich ones, although Japan has the most evenly distributed income in the world. The reason is simply one of supply. Rice is grown in the south of China and in Japan, but not in northern China where wheat is grown. The same applies to India, where northerners eat chappati, naan, roti and paratta, which are made from wheat grown locally, whereas the southerners eat rice because that is the only cereal grown there.
- True , True but the USA is one of the world's biggest cultivators of rice, but they dont eat much of it. Supply not equal demand?
Yes, the U.S.'s rice exports is a case of the intricacies of supply and demand. Countries that consume rice in quantities in excess of their local production (local supply) will have to import; so demand = local production + imports (collectively known as supply). However, countries that produce more than they consume, i.e. Thailand, export their excess after satisfying their domestic rice consumption (demand) with their domestic share of their total production (supply). The same law of supply/demand applies to the AT800 racquets, where the demand in Hong Kong right now is great but the supply is limited. So the law of supply and demand brings this disparity in supply and demand to an equilibrium, where the high price of HK$1,500 for the AT800 (the AT700 sells for HK$890) reduces it's demand to equal the the limited supply. Even our daily lives are influenced by supply and demand, like when a girl meets a boy, boy then marries girl. They may not know it, but their union is a product of supply and demand.
- In the case of uSA conditions are very healthy for production of rice and probably soya beans. I doubt if they use much rice, maybe some soya but the target is to sell it in rice consuming or soya consuming countires. In fact because of the high output and productivity of US conditions and farms they can usually underprice domestic rice growers.
Our home in UK takes 1 GBP coins for the meter for electicity. We found By desparation of not having any pound coins change left, that 1RMB (0.07GBP) works. Now we half cut our electricity bill to a fraction.
The U.S. has relatively more arable land and a smaller population than India and China. By the laws of comparative advantage it is not in China's and India's advantage to produce all of their food to feed their people. If China were to produce all of her food and sell to the people at competitive market prices, which are also affected by unrestrained imports, then China will end up being a backward country, simply because it will cost China maybe 10 times more to produce 100% of it's food. A crude saying for going against the law of comparative advantage is 'money down the drain'. Now, if China were to import food which can save them a bundle of money vs producing it locally, it can divert it's resources to do what it is best at : the world's production base, exporting goods and products and spreading wealth in the process, because exports require huge imports of materials and other services. It is also not to the U.S.'s comparative advantage to produce low tech goods, like textile, steel, etc. By restricting steel imports at one time recently, the U.S. might have saved 10,000 steel workers jobs but lost maybe 50,000 other jobs in other industries hit by the restriction. The figures may be off, but the message is very clear.
- Hey here's a funny story between Bushed and Koizoom : Bushed : Now lookee hyea KOI,Ah hearsay yer rice farmers are paid subsidies to produce rice and you are trying to stop us fron selling in J our cheap rice. Hyeah in U us cowboys call it "Cronyism", not letting best win. Yer better stop paying farmers to grow rice and buy all rice from us cowboys else we're goona stop yer from selling yer Yonex stuff in Cowboy land. Koz; Hai, Hai, boss, wakarimasta, desu, tomorrow we stop growing rice and buy all from you.We sell Yonex in yr counntry, Desu?Domo. The next month Koz and Bushed fall out, Bushed and cronies stops all exports of rice to J and J starves to death.
