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I can find any software, Steam account content, sound banks, libraries, ebooks, any tutorial for under $5 in China.

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I am watching this video on marketing. People like grey scale gorilla have made a killing on tutorials and special offer content, I admire them, I actually bought about $500 worth of content from him because through his site I get huge discounts plus free tutorials, high-quality exclusive libraries, and podcasts on 3D animation. Theirs many youtube guys like him who link to selling fitness regiments and products offer discounts or exclusive content. May sound designers sell their sound banks and things of the sort. Capitalism, innovation, marketing. Western approach. If I sold grey scale gorilla content/library I get from my subscription on amazon I’d be in a world of trouble and it would be looked down upon… intellectual property etc etc Of course people can torrent it, but that’s free, secret and piracy, much different than actually SELLING IT IN THE OPEN ON A POPULAR WEBSITE FOR PROFIT.

China: No intellectual property. What they do here is they buy all the legit content, buy unlimited licenses, libraries, even things like photoshop (under the guise of a school or something) any content from legit websites and then sell them on taobao (their version of amazon) for super cheap and the population size makes up for it being sold so low. They’re making a killing. On top of that you know about the bootleg stuff, some bootlegs are serious quality almost identical to the real thing if the counterfeiter is skilled.

Now with that, this hinders chinese innovation. No one here is making anything when they can just get it from the western world and flood the chinese market with bootlegs, you have hundreds of people doing this, competing to get the western made shit out to the masses. And then you have the copy cat of the copy cat, this person is undercutting and making the content EVEN CHEAPER LOL almost as cheap as a dollar!!!!! People making money off the things made in the western world with zero moral or looking back and then other people making money off that person introducing it to the chinese market and cloning off him, essentially being a clone of a clone, I mean this is some straight bottom feeding beyond the lobster, they’re the algae.

My thing, how will this affect china in the future? How can a society be first world without intellectual property? copyright? Piracy is one thing, but people making money off it,…… I can’t wrap my mind around how this can be, and how can thousands of people be doing this. This is so lawless and crazy. I know that this is a direct result of china being communist “property” is a hard concept for them to swallow, but eventually, they’re going to have to address this virtual wild wild west, eventually they are going to have an intellectual class that is not under the control of the party. How will China look in the future if they keep this up? What will they evolve into?

Chinese drivers forced to stare at full beam headlights for 1 minute in an eye for an eye punishment, implemented by the govt.

/ knox / 1 Comment

You know it’s bad when the govt has to treat you like a child and punish you not  with fines, but with an eye for an eye punishment. I have seen these drivers I know them well, about 50% of drivers on the road put them on while driving at night, because these idiots are blind and are using what is intended for heavy fog, on a clear evening. I sometimes wonder if the lack of  night vision is because of the indoor homes having these terrible blue fluorescent lights that make your house look like you’re in a surgery room, or if its because chinese pedestrians are notorious for jumping in front of cars to get hit and sue for cash in a get rich quick scheme. All in all I not only find this funny, I sort of support it, even though I can only imagine the type of accidents that will occur AFTER the driver is allowed to peel away after having just stared at a high beam for 1 solid min. OOOPPPPSSS.  Welcome to China.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-drivers-forced-to-stare-at-full-beam-headlights-in-eye-for-an-eye-punishment-for-those-who-9659736.html

Three day weekend? Not in China.

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There’s a lot of holidays in China, some traditional, some national. The traditional ones tend to be the most important, I would rank Chinese New Years the most important, it typically lasts about a week. Other holidays are much shorter such as Autumn Festival (think Thanksgiving) which is usually 3 days. The shorter holidays will start on Thursday, but unlike the U.S., you don’t come into work on Monday, but rather, you have to come into work on Sunday to make up the day you missed due to the holiday. OUCH. That sucks. Be thankful for your 3 day holiday this thanksgiving.

edit: National Holiday is 7 days, the same as Chinese New Years.

On a different note, this Autumn Festival Claire and I took a tour around Qingdao and some small villages on the outskirts of the city, Qingdao is really a beautiful city no wonder I’ve been living here so long. It was nice to see the villages with favela like mountain views of the ocean, it was very green and tranquil in those parts but I couldn’t help but notice that in between there was a lot of construction and big buildings being built in between. What once lied in that area? Will the villages clinging to the cliffs be next? Who knows. I got a chance to record and take some nice video of the tour, I’ll start editing them tomorrow and hopefully have a vlog up later this week it’s been a year since I’ve made a video, even made a couple of sound tracks for it. Let’s see how it goes.

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I haven’t written a blog in months, lets talk about taking a taxi as a black person.

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I was going through my timeline and realized my front page looked like a soundcloud. I should probably stop doing that or at least mix it up a bit more. This is, after all, a blog about china.

Today’s topic will be about taking a taxi as a black person. Now I really don’t like getting into china and ‘racism’ because I don’t like to call what they do here racism. Its ignorance. They just don’t know and are afraid of the unknown. They go by stereotypes they see on tv and make vast assumptions, its not their fault, its a country with 1.4 billion people and they’re all yellow, even the internet is chinese *cough cough*.

Uber has been god sent, I no longer have to deal with this but about a week ago I was reminded of what I had to go through when I first moved here. If you’re waiting for a taxi, especially during rush hour or near a chinese person, the odds are you will be passed up. I don’t know why this is, it’s not like they don’t pick you up at night (shouldn’t they be more afraid at night?), it’s not like if you’re alone during the day and on an empty small street they don’t pick you up, they do, in fact its much easier to catch a cab when it would be the most dangerous time to pick up a threat lol, but a busy street next to a chinese person, especially a girl, forget about it you will be passed up  8 out of 10 times. I’ve learned to adapt however, typically I tell the chinese person I’m next too I have next dibs, so when they  inevitably drive past me and to said person 3 yards away, that person knows I have next and they just allow me to get in, some will even open the door for you :). Problem solved. Anyways, I no longer have to do this, uber to save the day, Murica coming in and regulating without even knowing it. 🙂

I got Claire to do a hook for me. lol.

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She always asks, but I can’t be bothered especially if there’s a room full of people and we’re trying to do our thing. However in the middle of making this track I heard a melody and some chinese vocals in my mind so I called her over and figured I’d give her a shot. I was impressed. Fit the vibe perfectly.

 

I also did a quick remix of a track I heard on the show Ballers which caught my ear. It’s by Connie Constance. Amazing singer out of London.