ravinj Posted October 17, 2010 Share #301 Posted October 17, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) I'm sure if we knew where you came from we'd be able to make similar snide comments about your country. Nowhere is perfect, but if I don't think many Europeans would be prepared to give up their hard fought for rights and live in an Asian totalitarian country. Looks like I touched a raw nerve here. It is ok to criticize the Chinese, but Europeans get very upset when someone puts a mirror in front of them. Message to Europeans: stop criticizing other countries (China in this thread) or be prepared hear some truth about your own countries. Consider your own country bashed. I am sure there are things happening there every righteous person must be ashamed of, wherever that might be. Keep bashing. I don't think you even got the point of the last few posts. Did you? It is time to stop generalizing about China and the Chinese workers and also time to stop heaping praise on German workers and working conditions in Europe. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 17, 2010 Posted October 17, 2010 Hi ravinj, Take a look here Where is X1 made?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
stunsworth Posted October 17, 2010 Share #302 Posted October 17, 2010 Looks like I touched a raw nerve here. It is ok to criticize the Chinese, but Europeans get very upset when someone puts a mirror in front of them. No raw nerve at all, or mirror for that matter. As I said no country is perfect, but some are less perfect than others. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinj Posted October 17, 2010 Share #303 Posted October 17, 2010 No raw nerve at all, or mirror for that matter. As I said no country is perfect, but some are less perfect than others. Actually that is not correct. Europeans have their own beliefs about what is perfect and what is not. These beliefs are not necessarily the same as in Asia. Asians' view of a perfect society is very different than those of the Europeans. So don't start judging again and making implicit statements about some countries being less perfect than others. Germany and other European countries keep harping about free speech and go to great length defending cartoons offending a large group of people BUT jail people who deny holocaust. Since no one is perfect, lets us focus on the X1 and its merits and leave the debate of raising the standards in China and elsewhere to greater minds. My point in my last few posts was this: when I see someone harping about great their country and how bad things are in other countries (the goodness of Germans and Europeans and the evil Chinese making their workers slog, earlier in this thread, for example), it is time for them to face the truth about their own home. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted October 17, 2010 Share #304 Posted October 17, 2010 I don't have problems in accepting Spain is a complete disaster (The European Union will hear from us next year :D). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted October 17, 2010 Share #305 Posted October 17, 2010 ... it is time for them to face the truth about their own home. Truth seems to be in the eye of the beholder. In any event, the assertions you made about Germany are not, in themselves, true. Before you get any more ideas: I am not German and I do not live there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinj Posted October 17, 2010 Share #306 Posted October 17, 2010 Truth seems to be in the eye of the beholder. In any event, the assertions you made about Germany are not, in themselves, true. Before you get any more ideas: I am not German and I do not live there. I didn't make any assertions - they were facts. And I don't really care if you are German or from Timbuktu or live in Archipiélago de Colón. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eros-luciferchilde Posted October 18, 2010 Share #307 Posted October 18, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) It's getting to be quite an East vs. West rhetoric here in this thread, whereas it's much more complex than that. China's industrialisation is aided afterall by the Western & American quest to produce cheaper goods for bigger margin, nevermind the fact that China was... [pause]... hell, IS a one-party red state. So yes, corporations based in the west have made China the world's factory. I'm sure if we knew where you came from we'd be able to make similar snide comments about your country. Nowhere is perfect, but if I don't think many Europeans would be prepared to give up their hard fought for rights and live in an Asian totalitarian country. So let's not go into the whole totalitarianism thing as though people in Western & other developed economies really care for that. They just care for the end result - be it for profit or consumption. We have all been too happy to profit or buy cheaper Chinese goods. On the other hand, trade restrictions with a totalitarian Myanmar/Burma (whichever name you support) doesn't raise the average standard of living. So does the free movement of trade and labour, or an embargo, disempower a regime? Or empowers them? Which one? I still don't get US trade embargo with Cuba, for example. But it's ok with China - because there's profit to be made (?) Are MNCs from first world democracies (including Japan/Korea) helping and aiding totalitarism or is unbridled capitalism (in pursuit of the almighty profit) inadvertently generates wealth for the society at large that in turns create a better educated population that will lead to a democratic society, but the outcome of a Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo means there's still a winding Silk Road and a slower democratic boat into China. It's too early to tell really. And I'm typing run-on sentences (!) Wealthy as China is now, there's a hefty percentage still living in poverty. So at present, I would agree that China's labour on average, with emphasis on man on the street, wage-worker average, doesn't match German or Japanese. To say so is to ignore that the educational infrastructure in the latter countries have sprinted ahead just as China is jumping off the starting line. But it's not all linear, upward trajectory. There's renaissance and there's decay. I know, perhaps, as Asians, ravinj (I assume you're Indian, of ethnicity or citizenry) and phancj might get defensive about generalised comments from Western Europeans/Americans. But I can also appreciate any European's jitteriness towards oppression, fascism and dictatorships. If it happens in your father's / grandfather's era, it is recent history. But for the Chinese, at least the ones I spoke to, too much political freedom now in their eyes = chaos and I have met many Chinese who thinks that the Cultural Revolution was a good thing - average joe-schmoes like you and me. When I was stopped by customs officers at Beijing airport for the copies of Mao propaganda posters I bought at a Hangzhou street market, they inspected to see if these were genuine, and the beamed with pride when I ambiguously said that I was "fascinated" with them and will be framing some for my own friends. One depicted a fountain pen skewing through a bunch of intellectuals, artists and writers like they were beef kebabs. I mean, if I was born in the era, that could've been me. And as a Creative, outside of Shanghai, I had a hard time getting commercial photographers to translate abstract concepts into end images. Gritty industrial techno meant having to tear out some grainy fashion spread and images of fluorescent strobing lights and say, Now, combine the two. And insisted that the bushes in the neighbourhood park did not give me the feel of an enchanted forest; I don't care if it's a popular spot for wedding photos. Literally spoon-feeding photographers instead of collaborating with them. So is the average Chinese workforce up to scratch, at least in the industry I'm in? It's more an exception than the rule to a point where I'm genuinely surprised by initiatives; not because I think I'm above them but I'm so used to directing than feeding, and spoon-feeding is micro-managing and is mentally exhausting. But I am sympathetic given their education system and the communist society they evolved from. But give it time, they will catch up. And as much as the West purports social justice and freedom - maybe I am getting cynical as I'm getting older - money trumps everything. But Europe is busting its budgets and there's industrial malaise in America and labour unions won't budge to a point you wonder... it takes capitalistic industries and a strong employed middle class (and both their taxes) to maintain democratic stability and support socialists programs. Though industries need not be so rampantly capitalistic and middle class need not be antagonistically unionist. (In a perfect world, maybe). So whatever happened to iconic Levi's Made in the US of A and Made in UK Bowers & Wilkins? No, my headphones were made in China. Because it's 2010. And the era where Western societies grew and flourished at the back of its industry has gone. Or has it? Or is it just that globalisation means we are all intricately intertwined now. The rise of my country's economy from the West "exploiting" our cheap labour means that in 1 generation - I am able to buy European - be it a Leica, or Chanel in the case of my sister. Whereas that's just too much money for things too frivilous in my dad's generation. And we're working middle class. My Canon DSLR toting teenage cousin is admiring my X1. It's a matter of time when he works in the ad industry... But I'm also living in a time of cheaper labours meets lax laws minus minimum wage, and the service sector is filled with China or Filipino workers who can work for much, much less. So what was built on (the stability of the middle-class) can easily be squandered. But there is a general sense from Western Europe and America that East is undercutting the West, and to the East, the West is sitting on their collective bums. But take heed in the fact that Vietnam has already undercut China - at least in the apparel industry. No, I'm not west bashing or east bashing. Because my work takes me to Chinese factories and offices and I meet with holders of European and American brands eager to capture the dollars off emerging Asian markets (including China). I'm a fence-sitter if anything but these are my €0,02 or ¥2 based on my observations on the ground. ---- Back to the X1! I bought one cause it's a good camera with its own merit and I was not looking for an m4/3. See, I was this close to getting a NEX but SteveHuff's blog swayed me to splurge. Not because it was Made in Germany instead of Japan or China. Nor do I have romantic notions of industrious, engineering Germans making me the bestest camera ever!, while the Chinese sweat in labour. (Ja! Zees camera is so gut and sharp, only your eyes vill bokeh after 3 litres auf Paulaner! -vs- Hey you, young man! Why you no buy Asian Reica?! We bleathe in grue to make you this!) I mean, give me Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons or even Made in China MUJI goods, than anything a German brand like Joop or MCM (yuck!) puts out. And Hugo Boss is at best, blah. Though I do love Jil Sander but she's Italian now and Jil Sander isn't working at Jil Sander. Damn you Prada! Ok, I think I will lurk back after my 1st post. I talk too much. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
h00ligan Posted October 18, 2010 Share #308 Posted October 18, 2010 Oh please can this be /thread ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted October 18, 2010 Share #309 Posted October 18, 2010 Germany and other European countries keep harping about free speech and go to great length defending cartoons offending a large group of people BUT jail people who deny holocaust. Oh my … not enough that we’ve murdered six million Jews, not to mention an even greater number of Russians and others that were killed by Germans during WWII, and now we’ve got the nerve to put people on trial denying that any of this ever happened? Surely that weakens our stance on human rights in China or elsewhere, yes? Sorry for being off topic (in an already derailed thread I might add to my defence), but consider yourself added to my ignore list. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsrockit Posted October 18, 2010 Share #310 Posted October 18, 2010 Ok, I got confirmation this weekend that the X1 is made in Haiti. Case closed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jorismichielsen Posted October 18, 2010 Share #311 Posted October 18, 2010 Wrong information, jsrockit. I make them in my back yard together with a Chinese, Indian, German, Jew, Gipsy, Haitian, Japanese, American, South-African, Congolese, Spaniard, Palestinian, Russian and a bunch of seven dwarfs. Snow white is serving coffee and tea! VN, VS and EU have sent teams of observers to check quality and human rights. BTW: wondering if the TS is still following the discussing and has found any plausible answer? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
phancj Posted October 18, 2010 Share #312 Posted October 18, 2010 Wrong information, jsrockit. I make them in my back yard together with a Chinese, Indian, German, Jew, Gipsy, Haitian, Japanese, American, South-African, Congolese, Spaniard, Palestinian, Russian and a bunch of seven dwarfs. Snow white is serving coffee and tea! VN, VS and EU have sent teams of observers to check quality and human rights. BTW: wondering if the TS is still following the discussing and has found any plausible answer? Please dont tell me your're building the M9 there as well, gosh! Too many cooks spoil the broth, could explain some quality issues in some cases. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelb Posted October 18, 2010 Share #313 Posted October 18, 2010 BTW: wondering if the TS is still following the discussing and has found any plausible answer? There is no plausible answer to be found here - just highly opinionated nonsense. Time this thread was allowed to die. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Dareios Posted October 18, 2010 Share #314 Posted October 18, 2010 strange thread just a few words: China is a sovereign country with wonderful people. China does not need paternalism from the decadent western. This days are long gone!!! I wrote this post with my Apple mac btw: all Apple products are Made in China Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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