<Ms. Chen didn't respond to requests for comment via email and Facebook.>
This reads as a tongue in cheek reminder that Facebook is blocked in China.
< He applied for a permit to tear down the century-old mansion and to build a new villa...>
The seemingly prevalent distaste for old things continues to frustrate me. So much history and tradition cast aside.
I'm disappointed the article dwelled almost entirely on Bo GuaGua after an opening that suggested a more diverse article. While the hypocrisy is particularly striking in China (due to it's stated values and recent history), I think the privilege of children belonging to wealthy and powerful families is well known to be a worldwide phenomenon.
That said, the separation of rich and poor is painfully visible in China. Glowing shopping centers with carefully planned architecture and spotless windows stand directly across from tattered shops with merchants huddled amongst piles of cheap goods and street vendors selling stir fried noodles for less than 1 USD.
While I know this isn't the biggest case, sometimes the building are torn down because they can't be fixed. I've watched more than one where I used to live in NC be unable to be fixed for any reasonable amount of cost. Some of them on the order of 100 years old costing 400k+ to fix (while keeping the house historically intact) because of rotting beams and other termite damage.
Now even given that, I really doubt that this was the case with him.
>>The seemingly prevalent distaste for old things continues to frustrate me
Sigh, I need to say this about old buildings...
Sweden kept out of both world wars and that was an economic miracle for a previously very poor country.
But despite not getting the cities destroyed by bombing (or street-to-street fighting), lots of old building and whole city centers were torn down in the 1950s and 1960s, to build new buildings.
The whole country has sorely regretted it since then. Surviving old stone houses are generally really expensive.
Please learn from other's stupidity, instead of repeating it; that is partly why our brains evolved to be big.
Edit: Ah, that mansion wasn't even in China. Sorry for bothering.. :-)
"Mr. Bo went to Oxford University... The current cost of that is about £26,000 a
year. His current studies at Harvard's Kennedy School cost about $70,000 a year... A question raised by this prestigious overseas education... is how it was paid for."
I agree with the article's sentiment. That said, would the Wall Street Journal express similar outrage at the son of an American senator attending Oxford? What about the daughter of a German finance minister? Is it really surprising that a wealthy, well-connected Chinese kid went to school at Oxford? I have to wonder just how unbiased the author is.
The issue isn't about whether it's surprising that a wealthy, well-connected Chinese kid goes to a school like Harvard or Oxford. The question is, how did a leader within the Chinese Communist Party get wealthy to begin with?
But the American senator or German finance ministers aren't supposed communists who should only be earning around $22,000 per year from their positions. This is all what this article is about.
[+] [-] MengYuanLong|14 years ago|reply
This reads as a tongue in cheek reminder that Facebook is blocked in China.
< He applied for a permit to tear down the century-old mansion and to build a new villa...>
The seemingly prevalent distaste for old things continues to frustrate me. So much history and tradition cast aside.
I'm disappointed the article dwelled almost entirely on Bo GuaGua after an opening that suggested a more diverse article. While the hypocrisy is particularly striking in China (due to it's stated values and recent history), I think the privilege of children belonging to wealthy and powerful families is well known to be a worldwide phenomenon.
That said, the separation of rich and poor is painfully visible in China. Glowing shopping centers with carefully planned architecture and spotless windows stand directly across from tattered shops with merchants huddled amongst piles of cheap goods and street vendors selling stir fried noodles for less than 1 USD.
[+] [-] simcop2387|14 years ago|reply
Now even given that, I really doubt that this was the case with him.
[+] [-] berntb|14 years ago|reply
Sigh, I need to say this about old buildings...
Sweden kept out of both world wars and that was an economic miracle for a previously very poor country.
But despite not getting the cities destroyed by bombing (or street-to-street fighting), lots of old building and whole city centers were torn down in the 1950s and 1960s, to build new buildings.
The whole country has sorely regretted it since then. Surviving old stone houses are generally really expensive.
Please learn from other's stupidity, instead of repeating it; that is partly why our brains evolved to be big.
Edit: Ah, that mansion wasn't even in China. Sorry for bothering.. :-)
[+] [-] translocation|14 years ago|reply
I agree with the article's sentiment. That said, would the Wall Street Journal express similar outrage at the son of an American senator attending Oxford? What about the daughter of a German finance minister? Is it really surprising that a wealthy, well-connected Chinese kid went to school at Oxford? I have to wonder just how unbiased the author is.
[+] [-] nhebb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danmaz74|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balsam|14 years ago|reply
8:27 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZMWoR4oIc8
Just give us another 100 years, you'll see. :)
[+] [-] briandear|14 years ago|reply