Reverse culture shock experiences

[coccinelle]

I just got back from 11 days in Jamaica and I walked back straight into the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand thing being all over the media. And - you know what? - it felt like I'd walked into a wall of pointless, decadent shite. After the refreshing reality of a country full of warm people but that clings on by its fingernails, I come back to shitty pointless nonsense. It made me want to go back!

 

[rachamim18]

I have never experienced that. I have been travelling widely since I was a tot, Israel, Rumania, America, and so on. this year has seen me in Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, US, Philippines (where I live and am now), and Malaysia. To me it is just ebb and flow.


The thing I find ironic is the Western's general penchant for materialism, and incessant whining but I do not see it as a culture shock per se.

 

[machine cat]

I have never experienced that. I have been travelling widely since I was a tot, Israel, Rumania, America, and so on. this year has seen me in Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, US, Philippines (where I live and am now), and Malaysia. To me it is just ebb and flow.


The thing I find ironic is the Western's general penchant for materialism, and incessant whining but I do not see it as a culture shock per se.

Because people in Hong Kong and Taiwan aren't materialist at all!

 

[machine cat]

The worst thing is finding out that there are just as many petty bureaucratic jobsworths here as in China. Like the people at the Housing Benefit office.

Yep. When I went through all the pointless bureacratic shit in China I just kept thinking to myself 'this would never happen in England'. Well, I was wrong. It's just as bad. And dont get me started on the benefits people...

 

[rachamim18]

DRCarnage: It is all relative. You really cannot compare the average Kowloon or Tapei dweller with the average NYer . Sure, Yuppies in just about every nation are into that but...put it like this...How do you compare the West where noone is starving unless they are dull or choose to, with places like HK and Taiwan where there is no real social welfare net?

Plenty of people in both places living in absolute shacks, and wishing they could eat a 3rd meal of white rice a day. Then you have America for example where food, medical care, and even shelter can be had free of charge. No comparison really, as I see it.

 

[Yossarian]

.How do you compare the West where noone is starving unless they are dull or choose to, with places like HK and Taiwan where there is no real social welfare net?

Plenty of people in both places living in absolute shacks, and wishing they could eat a 3rd meal of white rice a day.

When were you in Hong Kong, 100 years ago? There's a social welfare net, people are as materialist as anywhere else, and while life is certainly tough for many people, it's pushing it a little to describe them as starving shack-dwellers.

http://www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/

 

[Jessiedog]

.....places like HK and Taiwan.....
Plenty of people in both places living in absolute shacks, and wishing they could eat a 3rd meal of white rice a day. Then you have America for example where food, medical care, and even shelter can be had free of charge. No comparison really, as I see it.

I'm not going to comment on Taiwan, but as Yoss points out, things in Hong Kong are a little different than you suggest.

A higher per capita GDP than the UK (with a top-slice income-tax rate of 15% [60% of salary earners pay 0% income tax and a family of four would need to earn @ US$ 50,000 before hitting the lowest rate of 2%], no VAT, no capital gains, no inheritance tax, no dividend/investment/savings tax).

A first-class, public healthcare system that's free of charge to those who can't pay and charged at nominal rates for those that can (US 6:00 per GP visit, US$ 7:50 per specialist consultation and US$ 13:00 per night for hospital inpatient treatment - these charges include all drugs, materials, operations, ancilliary care, etc.

There's a region-wide, cheap, efficient public-transport network (bus, minibus, train, underground, light rail).

Half of the total population live in public housing with monthly rents running between @ US$ 80:00 (for a small one bed @ 350 - 400 sq ft) and US$ 200:00 (for a 3 bed @ 1,000 sq ft). Free of charge for those who can't pay.

There is not a "shack" in sight and the total number of homeless peeps is precisely zero.

Yes, we have problems with poverty and one of the highest Gini Coefficients in the world, but the last hillside "shack" in Kowloon was torn down by the late 1950's.


Times move on.




Woof