Tell it to Steven Hawking. A person's physical stature does not limit his/her potential for work that does not rely on his/her physical stature (e.g., English teaching, as well as physics). The cultural attitude that those who are discriminated against because they do not fit the culturally desired norm should be outcast or should be provided for by special environments that can be sold as entertainment venues to those who will not deal with their own prejudices is a cultural attitude that perpetuates discrimination against all who are 'different'. The problem here, as elsewhere, is a matter of dehumanizing those who are 'different' - prejudicial culture that regiments anything that deviates from its standards, rather than dealing with the prejudice itself. Why not have a theme park within which 'foreigners', with all their funny habits, can be kept, so that they do not disturb the 'normality' of cultural prejudices? Actually, there could be many: one for 'black people', one for Tibetans, one for Japanese, one for gay people, one for Han Chinese people who have given up their 'traditional' clothing for 'western-style' clothing (e.g., the great majority of Chinese, over the past century or so) - in fact we could subdivide and subdivide until nothing was left but mutual nonrecognition. All these would help to maintain the narrow identities of 'normality' that can be relied upon to advance support the cultural attitudes that promote the continuing inability of people to recognize each other as human, and to celebrate and accept their differences - not as entertainment items, no matter how 'cute', but as full human beings. How different is all this from apartheid?
This effort to maintain prejudice can, of course, be profitable to those who invest in it, and convenient for social engineers and political elites who want to maintain an elite power status by reliance on it.
The place is an insult to our common humanity and a spotlight on cultural attitudes of exclusion. Those who find that they enjoy such displays should take a good look at the nature of the culture that has formed them so narrowly. Cultures change; cultures have always changed; cultures are presently changing and will continue to do so; there is nothing sacred about cultural attitudes. Our common humanity is an ongoing project, and those who imagine they are not part of such a project are simply contributing their own blindness to it, and limiting themselves in the process. It's not the 'dwarves' who are the problem, its the people who will not accept them as within the boundaries of 'us'.
New taxi placards target 'civility'
Posted byOcean, you may be right - I recently had similar trouble at the West bus station - as the traffic situation worsens, taxi practices are perhaps changing for the worse.
Chinese teens murder seven before arrests
Posted byJustice is an ideal, ultimately probably unattainable. Vengeance might be the best approximation of justice under some social conditions, but they are not the same thing. I find the knee-jerk identification of the two concepts in China (and in many other places) when considering murder to be unfortunate - a product of history, like everything else, and not some moral rule embedded in the structure of the universe. We don't have to pretend we're living in the woods, or under battlefield conditions.
New taxi placards target 'civility'
Posted byHowever, I have to admit that the worsening traffic situation has recently led to somewhat of a decline in cabbie-customer relations - waiting in traffic must surely hurt cabbies' incomes, and trying to pry a cab out of the machine rivers that once-pleasant streets have become - where cabbies have to work - certainly doesn't improve the attitude of either fare-payers or drivers.
New taxi placards target 'civility'
Posted byI have had better experiences with Kunming taxi drivers than with those anywhere else I've ever lived - a few times some driver has screwed up, but I've never been ripped off by a cabbie here, and I have learned a few things sitting in the front seat and chatting with them (have also been bored by the usual repetitive questions & comments concerning foreigners etc.) - I'm not in a position to say that everybody's experiences are good, but it could be you're doing something wrong.
However, taxis are just as damaging to the traffic situation as private cars are - hence the requiem for the period that ended just a few years ago, when buses, bicycles - and cabs when necessary - were more than sufficient to get everybody where they needed to go, reasonably dry, in reasonably good health, and with a reasonable degree of mutual social contact and cooperation.
Kunming reservoir levels rising, officials remain cautious
Posted byIf you've got a bathtub under your shower you can save the shower water to flush the toilet.