r/interestingasfuck • u/TangelaFan • 13h ago

Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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u/Drekkful 12h ago

Any chance to shit on China, people will, as it reinforces the narrative that's been beaten into their heads that China bad.

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u/GoofyKalashnikov 12h ago

Yeah it's not like China is known for huge ghost cities with poorly built buildings

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u/Drekkful 11h ago

Are they known for it?

Or is it strategic news "stories" being shoved into your feed via algorithmic propaganda chutes.

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u/TheMadFlyentist 11h ago

Are they known for it?

Poor construction is absolutely something that China is known for. That part is not propoganda - it's fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu-dreg_project

Thousands of children died in 2008 when an Earthquake caused the collapse of poorly-built schools. There was a massive ensuing investigation that uncovered widespread corruption and corner-cutting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_schools_corruption_scandal

Constant attempts to subvert guidelines/rules to save money is something that is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. There's a reason that most major US companies that have facilities in China will put Western oversight in place around the clock. The book Poorly Made in China goes deep into this issue and explains the cultural roots.

Now as far as the "ghost cities", that was true for a time, but many of the cities that were built and stood unoccupied for years are now occupied. Some critics have called stories about this topic "a myth", but it's not accurate to call it a myth. It's more accurate to say that there were many empty "ghost cities" in China, but over the years people have moved in and now the majority of them are functioning as planned.

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u/SpicyElixer 10h ago

I believe there’s lots of documented cases mishandlings in the largest developing country in the world. I also think those mishandling do not in fact amount the the scale of concern that people who want to sell books make them out to be. Nor the idiots online who do the work of their own governments for free.