What will they think of next?

[Mr. Dan]

Well I was posting something in another forum when my wife calls me into the living to check out what she's watching on TV.

Now I'll admit I have a pretty low opinion of the way things are done in China. Living in Korea I see a lot of the **** they do that you guys miss because safety standards and food quality standards are much higher over there than they are here. The Chinese regularly dump poisoned products, bleached snakes (Don't ask) and fake baby formula on the Korean market. I'll spare the rest, there is really no end to it.

Now Korea is all about appearance too. It's not just the cars, it's everything. It's better to look good than be smart, and if something is shiny on the outside and rotten in the middle people will still line up to buy it.

However, the Chinese have them beat. Seems in China it is much better to be tall than smart or even qualified for that matter. If you want to get a good job you need to be tall. Funny, from a country where most of the population is three apples tall. In Korea Women are obsessed with being white, which is also funny, because they're not even close for the most part. Korean women get all kinds of cosmetic surgery to make their feature look more caucasian too, but I'm not here to complain about Korean cultural insecurity.

The Chinese have come up with ...(Drumroll) LEG EXTENSIONS! Maybe I've been living in the dark for the last little while, but this is the first I've heard of this craziness. Yes, you read right, they break your legs for you, above and below the knee. Then they bolt these bars to your legs with extensions that can be added on. Sort of like jacking yourself up. I'm not sure how long the process takes, but I imagine it's excrutiating. Forget ever playing soccer again. They had this one stupid ***** they were talking to, who was complaining that she got bad scaring and tissue necrosis after the surgery. She couldn't walk and was in constant pain BUT she was 9 cm taller, so I guess mission acomplished. Talk about having so self respect. I wouldn't let an American physician try that on me no matter how short I am, but a Chinese quack doctor? That's just insane. She got exactly what she deserved.

I expect the next episode will be about how competition among Chinese hookers has driven them to graft extra arms to their torsos so they can handle two customers at once (The other alternative was too vulgar, even for me. :) ). Or maybe they finally broke down and started tossing people into their coal plants instead of having to go through the time consuming step of actually mining it and then losing the workers AND the coal.

Hmmm While I'm at it, my neighbors are idiots too.

Ok, all done. :)

[kylemorg]

They do that leg extension surgery in the USA for dwarves and midgets so that they achieve something close to average height.

[evan938]

thats the funniest thing ive heard all day. now i know yao mings secret

[Keyan]

Mr. Dan, sorry to say I don't believe you.


It's called the movie GATACA.



rent it and watch it and tell me what you see.



:rolleyes:

[VTElantra]

They do that leg extension surgery in the USA for dwarves and midgets so that they achieve something close to average height.

yep I was gonna say that.

[KeWLKaT]

That's disgusting!!!

People must be hating themselves.

I mean... Plastic surgery... OK...But this? I don't know what to say.

[Mr. Dan]

Mr. Dan, sorry to say I don't believe you.


It's called the movie GATACA.



rent it and watch it and tell me what you see.



:rolleyes:

I've seen it, and I can't tell if you were being serious or not. I am.

I was not aware that they performed this surgery for dwarves or people with legitimate medical conditions. My criticism is the same, unless being born Chinese is now a medical condition. The way healthy looking Korean people steal the handicapped parking spots, I've come to accept many of them as mentally handicapped emotional cripples. Same flavour I guess, with just an extra hint of stupidity and desperation.

[SuperGLS]

I'm going to get arm extensions so that I can walk like a gorilla. Take that.

If you don't get that that was sarcasm, it was. People are stupid.

[kylemorg]

:abovelol:

Mr. Dan (Oops, I almost typed Mr. Damn...) -- I agree that Chinese people having the leg lengthening extensions is very silly.

Aren't the North Koreans generally much shorter than people from South Korea, too; something like 8 inches shorter on average -- 5'2" vs 5'10" for males?

[Seinster]

The Chinese aren't exactly new to the body modification scene, foot binding anybody? :D
Still I find it's very disturbing.
In Japanese culture, women (as a general blanket statement not intended to personify all Japanese women) are also 'obsessed with being white'.

[Mr. Dan]

Yes, the North Koreans are much shorter, but that is more due to malnutrition than genetics. The generations of South Koreans who lived through the Korean war and for a while after are also much shorter, for the same reason, food was really scarce for a long time after the war.

And as for being white, that goes back a way. I the old days, the cultural elite spent all their time inside screwing around and living on the backs of the poor, so they of course had lighter skin than the people who worked out in the sun all day. So the Koreans these days sort of equate dark skin with poor/ uneducated people. I have a few students who I can tell are just going to be drop dead gorgeous in a few years, but who are all sensitve and even get made fun of because they have dark skin. Luckily for them, there are no shortage of skin whitening creams and makeup to solve that problem. :) It's too bad really, I've always been a believer that a little color is good.

[kylemorg]

In American history they talk about the Latin America area and the mestizo (SP) people -- those of mixed Spanish / American Indian ancestry. Most of the (South) American indians (Aztec, etc) had darker skin than the Spanish. From what I've read, the same thing with skin color was important -- at least in colonial times, the lighter your skin color, the higer your "Caste." I don't know about how it is now, though.

I never thought of it from the higher caste people being inside more perspective instead of being out in the fields... interesting.

I don't understand people who judge others based on any aspect of their appearance or circumstances. It's the individual that matters, not their race, ethnicity, skin color, height, weight, age, language, nation of origin, social caste, etc.

[southpawboston]

i've heard the same things from my own relatives. i'm 1/4 lebanese, and when my daughter was born, one of my very old lebanese relatives asked if she was "fair-skinned". she was very relieved when i said she was white as a bone, lol...

aparrently the same holds true in some middle-eastern countries, where light skin is associated with aristocracy and social standing. and so the stereotypes continue, all around the world...

[SuperGLS]

White girls are poop. Haha, it's early, I'm tired, and acting stupid.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200509/200509260014.html

[Mr. Dan]

HAHAHA That article was hilarious, and unfortunately all true. I do my best to push my "It's better to be smart than pretty" agenda in class, but most of the girls aren't buying. Why bother studying when you can be a trophy wife? Silly teacher, what does he know about anything?

My co-workers are no better. Sweet girls, but oh man are some of them insecure. "Ahhhhh I'm 48kg!!!! I'm so fat!! And so short!!! And so dark!!!! Ahhhhh!!!"

Well that's a slight exageration, but I've heard them all at one time or another.

Not much to be done about it. No matter how qualified a woman is, in Korea, she's gonna have to get coffee and enjoy sexual harrasment from the boss. Many of my co-workers are overqualified for their jobs and came to the school to escape their old jobs. One was a translator at a big company, she speaks fluent English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Her boss made her get coffee for him and his boys, prepare fruit for them and said it was because "Fruit cut by a pretty young girl tastes better". I would have added a healthy dose of LSD to his fruit just before a big meeting if I was her. :)

[KeWLKaT]

i've heard the same things from my own relatives. i'm 1/4 lebanese, and when my daughter was born, one of my very old lebanese relatives asked if she was "fair-skinned". she was very relieved when i said she was white as a bone, lol...

aparrently the same holds true in some middle-eastern countries, where light skin is associated with aristocracy and social standing. and so the stereotypes continue, all around the world...

Are you serious? I'm also 1/4 lebanese, from Tripoli and it's surroundings. Haha, we are like cousins now :eek: :bowdown:

Yes, I am also part Armenian, and it is true. Darker skin is associated to Armenians that come from ghettos such as Bourdjhammoud in Lebanon, away from the nation. "True" people should be white in our country, for some reason. Blah, stereotypes suck. That's what divides our countries.

[tharptroy]

yep, in bangladesh, the whiter the better...I bet if my pasty self went over there, they'd make me king.

I personally dont like pasty white girls, as I dont want to have children plagued by the same white jokes and skin cancer tendencies as myself and my family.

tell those girls to hop on a boat to america =)