[MD] Commie Talk and USA bashing?

[Andre Broersen]

Woods, you have been busy these last few days and I am really enjoying the
topics and exchanges  with the various members...these are thought provoking
posts.

You asked about whether China still has a barter system.I can only tell you
a little but hopefully it gives you an impression of the way things go here
so bear with me.
 My first reaction when I arrived in China was that I had never seen so much
money exchange hands than here (being used to credit cards etc).
Chinese people love money, let there be no doubt about this, only they value
it a little differently than we do.

The ancient Chinese monetary system was a very unique one since it was
completely devoid of Western influence until the end of the 19th century,
with the earliest examples dating back 2,000 years.

Some of the earliest forms of currency in China were made of shell, animal
hide, jade, or satin, and were part of a barter economy built around the
exchange of goods. By the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100-771BC),
somewhere between 1000 and 400BC, a more standardized form of metal currency
was developed.

However, China is a big place. I live in the poorest area of China ( in the
south-west close to the Burmese border,that's why I am here) where there are
few industries (relatively clean air) and subsistance mainly relies
on agriculture i.e farmers and peasantry. Villagers, (there are many, many
remote villages) help eachother during the planting and harvesting seasons
and some of the produce is stored in the village for own consumption and
part of it is sold on the local markets/ businesses and the streets. It
is for many still a hand-to-mouth existence. I do not know of actual
bartering going on but 'unofficially' I would have no doubt. The sense of
'looking after eachother' is very strong and in fact one of the standard
greetings here is "Have you eaten yet?".

When buying goods ( I'm not talking about supermarket goods but things like
a computer, furniture, the bigger hardware things etc) and you want a
receipt you can expect to pay full price. If you do not want a receipt you
can bargain quite nicely. A receipt has to be declared and the business has
to pay sales tax, something they do not like. But, having been in bigger
cities this is much better regulated.

Actually, in some of the restaurants I have eaten (in the bigger cities) the
customer is encouraged to ask for a receipt (so that sales tax will be paid
by the business). The receipt is in the form of a scratch ticket(!) which
gives the customer the chance on a discount (maybe 2,3 or 5 yuan) this ,in
turn, representing a possible 20-50% reduction of your bill.

Small business people (and there a hundreds of thousands here) simply do not
like to pay taxes.

And this is a headache for the government.

On another level, we all know China's involvement in various countries in
Africa. Arms deliveries in exchange for technology for example. They claim
to be doing lots of 'development work'...building roads for example but this
is done with Chinese labour (convicts most likely...they don't cost much
,only the food they need to sustain themselves) in exchange for scrap metal,
oil and what have you. Of course all top secret.

But one thing Woods, when you talk about 'freely opting out' that isn't
really an issue here. For most it is plain biological necessity.

Hope this has clarified somethings for you Woods. Some things are not easy
to explain (it's the one culture communicating with another culture stuff).
You have to see it from the inside and what that boils down to is that
people will find all sorts of ways and means to stay alive, especially the
older generation. They have been through a hell of a lot these past 59
years!

Regards Andre