36 Dirty Tricks From Ancient China

First video is an account from a male victim sold to an organisation in Myanmar. The second video is an account from a female victim from Taiwan sold to Cambodia. Many different types of illegal businesses and organisations form a closed loop in these countries. Most victims start off working in online scams. Victims are sold to another business when they are no longer useful. The final destination could be the operating table where organs are harvested.

Like they said, there are only things that you can’t imagine. There’s nothing that they can’t do. Having said that, some of the “successful” victims may end up as partners and recruit other victims.

Chen Qiu Shi was the first runner up winner in China’s public speaking competition. He was “disappeared” during Covid lockdown for posting videos of disturbing scenes at the hospitals. He is unable to say what happened to him then. His Chinese social media accounts have all been suspended. He is only able to post on YouTube. You will never get all this information from authorised Chinese tour guides.

Below is his vlog on a territory in NE China that was once Manchuria. He gives a very succinct account of the history and politics that led to the present situation. Casual tourists will only see the glitz and the glamour. How many of the mesmerised tourists realise that there are people who have paid up for their properties but never got the keys?

The Chinese referee in this soccer match was assaulted by one of the players. This happened in YouTuber Edgar Lu’s home country Australia.

The offender is also ethnic Chinese. This Chinese-sponsored team, called Dragon Warriors, was made up of only 2 Chinese players and 9 Afghan players. The other team comprised Italian players and it was supposed to be a “friendly match”. Not long after the start of the match, the referee noticed that the two teams were more interested in fighting than in playing soccer.

20 mins into the match, the referee called a time out and asked the captains of both teams whether they wanted to continue the game in a more orderly manner. The Italian captain assured the referee that he would ask his team members to behave. The Chinese captain from the other team did not give him a definite reply.

30 mins into the game, one of the players from the Chinese captain’s team started verbally abusing the supporters on the other side. The referee then decided to call an end to the game. A Chinese fan watching the game shouted at the referee, questioning if he was Chinese and calling him names for not supporting the Chinese team. The Chinese team’s captain even came up to him and threatened him.

Those who understand Chinese can watch what the rest of the video yourselves. These hooligans really disgust me.

This is a small town in Weining County, Guizhou Province.

Those of you who have only been to tourist attractions in China will never get to see the more “mundane” aspects of this very diverse country. Weining County is dominated by the Yi minority. China boasts of having 56 ethnic groups living together in perfect harmony but move a bit outside the tourism belt and you’ll see the real China. Fights like this at the marketplace, train and bus stations are daily affairs. They fight for the most petty reasons. Yes, I’ve witnessed these fights. This is the real China.

Robert Tsao was an entrepreneur and very successful businessman in mainland China. He took up Singapore citizenship but gave it up when he saw China backpedalling and Taiwan in trouble. He has now distanced himself from China and regained his Taiwanese citizenship.

Watch this very interesting Q&A session he had with young people in Taiwan.

For those who understand Chinese but don’t read Chinese or understand some of the terminology. PUA stands for “pick up artist” but Chinese people have used the term like a verb for decades. For example, “I’ve been PUAed” means “I’ve been cheated by my lover”. What about CPU?

The origin of “CPU” is believed to be an interview with veteran actress Xu Di 许娣 (1958-?). In that interview, she meant to say PUAed but ended up saying CPUed instead. Since then, PUAed has been replaced by CPUed. And as if that’s not enough, ICUed, KTVed and even KFCed have been used to mean cheated by lover.

To be honest, girls like the one above were strutting their stuff as far back as 30 years. Don’t get all the wrong ideas about China. It’s an extremely diverse society.

Writers who saw what was coming and escaped from China and those who didn’t see it. China produced 4 very prominent female writers in the 1940s.

Is beauty really skin deep? Do your clothes say nothing about you? Chinese author Zhang Ai Ling who wrote 色戒 once said that she decided to leave China because they wouldn’t allow her to wear the cheongsam or 旗袍. Of course, that’s just a mime to sum up her abhorrence for the lack of freedom in a Shanghai that the communists took over recently. While border controls were not tightened, she left for Hong Kong.

Unlike Zhang Ai Ling, Pan Liu Dai was born in a poor family. A competitor on the literary scene, the two never quite got along. Pan saw what was coming even before Zhang Ai Ling did; as early as 1950 when Shanghai was still an “autonomous” city. She not only left China and went to Hong Kong, she left Hong Kong and migrated to Australia the very moment Deng Xiao Ping met up with Margaret Thatcher and inked the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Su Qing and Guan Lu were the other two female writers who didn’t follow Zhang Ai Ling and Pan Liu Dai. Among the 4 of them, Su Qing was probably the most successful. Although she was rather obedient and wrote many plays and essays supportive of the communist party, she was maligned by competitors and imprisoned in 1955. Even though her prison term was only 2 years, her life went irreversibly downhill after that. She could only wish for an early death.

Guan Lu was pro communist from the very start. She even acted as a spy infiltrating the KMT but after the CCP took over in 1949, she had no medals or awards. Instead, she was arrested and branded a traitor. Guan Lu committed suicide in 1982 after writing her memoir.

Of course when we talk about writers who escaped China, we can’t omit the legendary Ni Kuang.

Before the typhoon hit, 台湾表妹 and other “patriots” like her prayed that typhoon Doksuri, one of the most devastating typhoons in recent history, would avoid China and hit Japan. Their curse didn’t work.

Doksuri hurtled into the southeastern coastal province of Fujian late last week, weakening as it carved its way north but bringing huge amounts of rain to at least five northern Chinese provinces since Saturday.

Xinhua reported two deaths from the storm in Beijing as of 31 July 2023, while another two fatalities were recorded in northeastern Liaoning province, according to CCTV. At this time of writing, China only reported 34 deaths. This is the actual situation on the ground.

Chinese leaders told the people that they have been attacked by some American meteorological weapon. Fortunately, most people were not that stupid. You can hear from the video 北京泄洪. The people know that some cities have been sacrificed to save others as dams were selectively open and shut to divert water to the “less important” areas. 涿州 is one of the worst hit.

The next typhoon, Khanun, has hit Okinawa in Japan.

Do you like black tofu made with black sesame seeds? Quite popular as a healthier (lower carb) form of tofu in recent years, black sesame tofu is made from sesame seeds, starch and dashi is a umami – a rich alternative to white tofu with a delicate, custard-pudding like texture.

As usual, there is a cheap “Chinese” version that is available. Well, there is a secret ingredient for every economic miracle. There is a trade secret for turning white tofu black. Not to discourage anyone rom eating black tofu, but do make sure that the black tofu you’re enjoying is not the 黑心豆腐 made in the following way.

I must say that their chemistry is very good. I’m impressed. Iron II sulphate plus sodium sulphide gives sodium sulphate and iron II sulphide (precipitate).

FeSO₄ + Na₂S = Na₂SO₄ + FeS

Yes, you’re eating iron II sulphide which is black in colour. Once it enters your stomach, the following happens:

FeS + 2HCl = FeCl₂ + H₂S

Iron II sulphide reacts with hydrochloric acid in the stomach to give iron chloride and H₂S which is hydrogen sulphide (gas). It’s toxic and smells like rotten eggs coming out of your mouth.

It’s quite common to have students plagiarizing academic papers to pass off as their own. But what about teachers plagiarizing a student’s work? A professor from NTU National Technological University (Singapore) has allegedly copied a former student’s research paper and tried to pass it off as his own.

According to the Straits Times, Professor Qu Jingyi’s 2018 research paper titled Escape As A Mode Of Existence: On Ruan Ji’s Escapism Complex and Mr Wang Yueming’s 2014 project titled Escapism In The Literary Works Of Ruan Ji 论阮籍诗文中的逃避主义.

Prof Qu is the head of Chinese at the School of Humanities at NTU and deputy director of its Centre for Chinese Language and Culture. He was also Mr Wang’s final-year project supervisor in 2014.

Prof Qu’s 2018 paper is written in English, while Mr Wang’s is in Chinese. Prof Qu’s paper, which was accessible on Academia.edu, an open repository of academic articles, has since been taken down.

Checks by The Straits Times found that more than 50 per cent of Prof Qu’s paper looked like a direct translation of Mr Wang’s 2014 paper, with no attribution to the latter. These sections include analyses of poems and inferences made on related research papers.

Somebody remarked: 怎么尊师重道? And that’s a very interesting remark. 尊师重道 is supposed to be a Chinese virtue, but respecting copyright ownership has never been a Chinese virtue. It has happened numerous times in Chinese academia in the past but it’s only with easy access to electronic media evidence and Weibo that the culprits are finally taken to task. And when Western companies profit from such deceptions, they don’t really care if their products are “ghosted”.

This one is for the Born Again Chinese (BAC). Why are China’s high tech products so cheap? It’s not that they are locally produced at low cost and they don’t rip us off unlike the the greedy and evil West. The key components from these high tech devices are actually produced outside China and disguised as Chinese products by polishing off the original label and inscribing “Made in China” over them. The Chinese companies can sell them cheap because the whole masquerade is subsidised by the Chinese government and companies in the West still laugh their way to the bank.

Throughout Chinese history, monumental achievements by unknown inventors have been wrongly and deliberately attributed to famous people. These are not exceptions. They are habits and patterns. Attributing one’s own work to one’s teacher is an act of 尊师重道! If we condemn it, then we are all too “Westernised”.