Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination (2018)

Post by fastball » Sun, Feb 03, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

tlarkworthy wrote: post #71

fastball wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't hear about it because the majority of the West is too busy directing their moral outrage at the most ethnically diverse country on Earth, which, surprisingly, has problems with racism. My pet theory is that this is because Americans are one of the few groups of people who are willing to accept the fact that they have problems with racism. Every other country mostly just denies the existence of any racism t…

If you think that country is US you are hilariously mistaken https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-ethnically-diverse-... Africa and India are more diverse than US

Post by fastball » Sun, Feb 03, 2019, 10:24 PM UTC

tlarkworthy wrote: post #102

iguy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's going to depend on your definitions. By American categories, India is 100% asian, and almost every sub-saharan country is 100% black. Of course local definitions vary. But that aside, GP has a point that contemporary American culture spends a lot of energy worrying about this. The energy expended is a poor measure of the size of the problem.

Um, there was this thing called Apartheid in South Africa, and it wasn't between 100% black people. Yes, America has some terrific difficulties with race, but no, its not the only country with these issues. Saying America is the most diverse is ignorant.

  *almost* every

Post by tlarkworthy » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 12:05 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #112

deogeo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken, that study doesn't take into account how similar ethnic groups are. It would assign the same diversity index to a 50% Catalan, 50% Spanish country, as to a 50% Finnish, 50% Ugandan country.

Precisely. Measuring purely the number of technically different ethnicities is a silly way of calculating diversity. You need to look at the delta between the ethnicities if you want to talk about diversity that isn't purely on paper. I probably should've just said "racially", but oh well.

Post by spacehunt » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 3:24 AM UTC

PakG1 wrote: post #79

barry-cotter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandarin is 普通话, the common speech, standard Chinese. It is based to a very large extent on what the people of the Northern Plain speak, more specifically those of Beijing. The written form of it, which absolutely is also Mandarin is the form of Chinese which took over from Classical Chinese during the Republic of China. Traditional and Simplified Charcters are only barely relevant to this. The only spoken varieties…

It may be true that Mandarin is based to a very large extent on what the people of the Northern Plain speak, more specifically those of Beijing. I have no idea, but I've heard it said so many times that I'm willing to consider the possibility while waiting for an explanation to my question. My question is: if this is true, why the heck is the pronunciation for standard Mandarin so different from the standard Beijing…

Post by PakG1 » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

spacehunt wrote: post #117

PakG1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be true that Mandarin is based to a very large extent on what the people of the Northern Plain speak, more specifically those of Beijing. I have no idea, but I've heard it said so many times that I'm willing to consider the possibility while waiting for an explanation to my question. My question is: if this is true, why the heck is the pronunciation for standard Mandarin so different from the standard Beijing…

I think you should form your opinion after hearing what Cantonese (and other regional "dialects") sound like. Then you should be able to appreciate just how close the Northern speech is to Standard Chinese.