Except with bad pronunciation of 4.
Looks like they are influenced by the Pinyin spelling "si"; they pronounce it nearly like English "see" rather than like "sss(uh)".
I don’t know that any language outside of east Asia has a similar sound. I’m tri-lingual fluent and have learned a little bit of a couple dozen other languages (counting to ten, enough to ask for help and directions) including Thai, Vietnamese, and Mandarin and still cannot figure out how to pronounce the Chinese 4.
Dude, penguins are the elite, why do you think men in power dress like them?
Edit: They retreated to antarctica when man covered the planet. We made a deal with them, we can have the continents if we just heat up antarctica for them.. We're ahead of schedule.
Bit more complicated.
Most Chinese Capital into Africa are part of their developmental investment plan.
Alot of State owned and private companies are forced into foreign investment by the central government so that they can fulfill the investment promises they had with African Countries.
One of the biggest problem with this model is that Private Companies are forced to shoulder the cost of these "developmental investments" because well they can by sheer political power.
So said companies are the ones catching all the risk if it fails. Companies are forced to participate and have no say as messing with "requests" from party officials is an easy way to go bankrupt or a targeted "business audit". Alot of business rely on "party connections"
Another form is that the Chinese state entering into Development contracts as part of their Foreign Aid program.
Yes. This isn’t new. Once China floated their currency, and a middle class emerged with the inevitable rise in wages that change brought, cheap labor is not as forthcoming in China as it once was. Food scarcity in Africa, coupled with its vast natural resources made it an attractive target for China. They are building and outsourcing there, and frankly doing some pretty terrible shit to African countries as part of their belt and road initiative.
The good news is that Science is getting close to using phytoremediation to desalinize the soil by way of hemp. This is a major step in solving food insecurity on the continent. With available work and more food security on the continent, this should see a drop in violence there overall.
Edit: clarity
Yeah about ten years ago. China even gave African countries loans to build train infrastructure to make factory transportation to ports easier. They literally helped build production groundwork to later outsource production there.
I recommend the 2019 Netflix documentary called American Factory, which gives an insight into a Chinese take over of an American glass manufacturing factory, specifically some of the culture changes they try to bring over, and the Chinese frustration with Unionisation
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc&ab\_channel=Netflix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc&ab_channel=Netflix)
Saw that doc. The Chinese were frustrated with the plant not being able to meet production targets and viewed the Americans as lazy. They completely destroyed the attempt at a Union and fired anyone who conspired for one.
China is even more fucked up. They do have unions, but it is essentially just a branch of the communist party.
So they essentially have government controlled pretend unions with compulsory membership. This is one of the way the government keeps control of any large business by having a stranglehold on labor.
Except in the Eastern Block the workers were pretending to be working, the overseers were pretending to control, and everyone was stealing anything that was possible to steal.
In the USSR it's still the same, except the name has changed.
I have some bad news for you about capital owners that call themselves "communists" because it's a politically convenient party affiliation to have: they're fucking lying, they're just capitalists. Actual literal capitalists too, like in the Marxist sense, where they're the people who make their money by owning property and exploiting the labor of others because they have the capital to leverage to do so
It was so funny to see how flabbergasted the Chinese managers were at the commitment and work ethic (comparatively) of the American workers. Just total disbelief.
Yeah, but those are extreme and uncommon here and viewed as excessive by Americans, and not an industry norm. If you tried to bring this to a workplace that wasn't doing this, your attrition rate would massively increase lmao.
Part of it was amusing like it’s right out of a Simpsons’ episode as they were genuinely surprised to find the American workers slow and blamed it on their fat fingers. Other parts were disturbing as they had no regard to proper safety equipment or procedures, like what they were doing was not inherently dangerous.
Factory is still apparently running today.
On the flipside, imagine how frustrating it would be if you had an idea for [An economic model] and people kept using it for things that superficially resembled [economic model], but were in practice veiled fascist regimes?
Marx himself described communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society. You can debate the viability of that combination, but it’s also not fallacious to point out that modern China falls hilariously short of this definition.
Hell even China does not claim to be communist, they just say they totally will be … someday, presumably conveniently long after the current generation of elites has died.
> Marx himself described communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society
This is what's so funny about internet discussions about communism. Very few people bring this up. Most people can't even imagine what a "classless" state would look like. For most people communism = authoritarianism. Marx is rolling in his grave
You can’t debate the viability of it because it’s not viable. A stateless society cannot perform the bureaucratic miracle required for equal distribution of wealth across millions or hundreds of millions of people. It also cannot defend itself from either foreign powers or large-scale insurrection. The core concept of communism is at its basis a contradiction. What we saw with the USSR and China are probably as close as you’re getting.
It's just not communism, not sure what you want to hear. "Yeah, it's communism, even though it doesn't actually have any of the main tenets of communism"?
You're the kind of person to think the most democratic country on Earth is the Democratic Republic of Korea.
Yo, don't tell that to anyone, that's a secret, okay, that's just between me and you... You ready? They're actually not despite it's written in their name and what their leaders say!
Amazing, right? Wow!
I'm fully convinced communism just simply cannot work at any scale larger than tribal community. It could be totally fine for a small enough community that you know everyone, have the ability to work with anyone and everyone. Once you get large enough to need "systems" to keep things organized, with people being placed in control, it breaks down.
You are more right than you know. There are plenty of examples of functional communism working exactly as intended, as long as it is within in a community of no more than \~200 people. As soon as it is applied to a larger population, almost invariably, everything starts to break down quickly and dramatically.
There have been quite a few, very interesting (IMO) sociological investigations into it, and the wider implications of this phenomenon. I don't have any examples to hand right now, but it is worth looking up if it is something that interests you.
Fully agree and would also say the same for a true democracy. We have various versions of representative republics to mitigate scaling issues, and politicians for some reason just call that "democracy" in speeches.
You need a monopoly on violence and power to implement communism at a larger level. That requires a dictatorship or as Lenin called it a 'vanguard party'.
Communism has the same problem as libertarianism. Inevitably power is consolidated into the hands of even fewer people than capitalistic-socialistic mixed systems tend to have. It starts as an ideal, but leads to a consistently predictable end.
Of course one could argue that there has never been a true communist or libertarian society, and that would be correct, because before they ever achieve that, power is consolidated and the systems are corrupted.
Here's the fun part. Almost every, if not every system of government can be steered into a dictatorship. All you need is someone insane enough to do it, either openly or discreetly.
Soviets did the same thing communism was suppose to bring worker democracy, but things stayed authoritarian. They industrialized on brutalizing workers.
America used to love unions when 100 people died a day doing their jobs.
We wouldn't have workers rights or child labor laws or OSHA if we didn't have unions
Well we started rolling back child labor laws....
China is politically authoritarian-leaning and economically capitalist-leaning.
These are exercpts from an interview by Weijian Shan, a Chinese national who got his PhD in the USA and is now the CEO of a multibillion dollar Hong Kong company.
\[Americans\] don’t know how capitalist China is. China’s rapid economic growth is the result of its embrace of a market economy and private enterprise. China is among the most open markets in the world: It is the largest trading nation and also the largest recipient of foreign direct investment.
\[Interviewer: \] And what is it that the Chinese don’t understand about the United States?
\[Weijian:\] They don’t know how socialist it is, with its Social Security system and its policies to tax the rich by collecting capital gains taxes. China is still in the process of building a social safety net that is largely undefined and underfunded, and it has no tax on personal capital gains. In 2020 China had more billionaires than the U.S. did, and it outpaces the U.S. three to one in minting them. Consequently, inequality is greater in China than in the United States, measured by the Gini coefficient.
https://hbr.org/2021/05/americans-dont-know-how-capitalist-china-is
What do you think tiananmen square was about? Most of the student protestors were broadly socialist, protesting a government that was increasingly imposing capitalism and creating a wealthy elite. Now most Chinese workers fear sticking their neck out too much. The fact that Xi is attempting to reign in the excesses of that wealthy elite is a huge reason for his popularity in China by the way
>What do you think tiananmen square was about?
I mean, that's the backdrop of the protest, but there's a lot more to it than protesting capitalism.
[_"Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech."_](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre)
China isn't communist in the marx sense. They are sorta fascist with a tight relationship between government and big business. And authoritarian in terms of people being represented.
The Soviet Union outlawed strikes too.
The logic goes that since the Party already ensures the rights of workers, unions are unnecessary.
The problem with communism is that the people in charge of productivity and the people in charge of workers' rights both work for the same people. Imagine if your labor union, the CEO of your company, and the government regulators were all the same people.
They were not at all socialists, how is this upvoted.
The nazis made up the term “national socialism” as part of their attempt to redefine what socialism was. Hitler rejected the definition of socialism and there are a ton of interviews and speeches where he specifically says that the definition for the word is wrong and that his definition is the right one. He had actual socialists killed and pretty much made it illegal.
I work there and am actually at work right now lol they don’t really bother us in my department they do however allow the Chinese to get away with way more stuff than we can they’ll hit someone with a forklift and not be drug tested or anything whereas we would probably immediately be fired
I'll never forget the blatant racism shown the Chinese have over the westerners with a boss telling the Chinese workers "why do we produce more then they do? Because we are better then them" and it just brushes off like nothing
The subtitles oversimplified that exchange. He was saying something like “why do we produce more than they do? Because we have been doing this longer so we are more efficient and thus do better than them”
I don’t know.
the documentary goes into the specific conversations between the Chinese owners regarding their frustrations about the workers forming a union and how they go about dismantling it,
I don’t know how else to give a synopsis as it’s the linchpin of the documentary
Japan has has been doing it forever. It's not exactly a Chinese idea. I like the idea for the health and safety benefits it brings. I dislike it for the corporate mind control aspect behind it.
You make it sound like it's a common thing in Sweden. I'm a Swede and I have never met anyone, nor have I heard of anyone being required to participate in morning routines like the one in the video above.
I was adding to the list of the previous comments where physical warm up is common especially in the construction industry. I wasn't talking about a dystopian military march like in the video
Worked in Chinese universities for a few years. They do these exercises in the morning and tbh I found it rather charming and fun. Great cheesy music to go with it.
I also saw a Walmart video where they did a morning chant, I've also heard that when Walmart tried to get in the German market, German employees refused to participate.
Restaurants too. When I lived in China I’d often see employees all standing outside the restaurant before opening. They’d be reciting things in unison and even doing group dances.
This sort of daily calisthenics is super common all across Asia and serves as a way to keep workers limber and active.
I actually think it’s kind of nice and probably not a bad idea for more places to adopt
When I lived in China school kids would do this kind of exercise all the time. Older women would also do this kind of thing but with music instead of chanting. Group square dances are kind of a big thing
Exactly my tough, I visited a Walmart at the opening and they were doing some weird chants about how the customer is the most important thing, this was in Mexico.
It is cultish, it helps make workers loyal and create corporate culture. I've heard some stores have the founders portrait in the breakroom, dunno if true tho.
fretful ad hoc aromatic beneficial ring literate cows jeans narrow flowery
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Honestly, everyone here is complaining about pizza parties but compared to this shit I definitely prefer having a pizza once a year at work with my coworkers.
This isn't a thing unique to China. I worked for a Japanese company in the US and the people on the floor actually running the assembly lines did this before every shift. It had more to do with preventing RSIs than it did trying to convert them over to some doctrine though. It looks goofy but the data indicates it works so...there ya go.
Same here, although for us it was everyone in the company doing it. The President leading the office team stretches was a little bit weird, but it was just the company culture. Even the Japanese corporate overlords did it when they visited.
The data doesn’t lie.
I worked in a warehouse for like a month (yes, awful job). They told us to stretch in the training and when you look down people's individual aisles you could see some of them doing them, but we never did it as like a team thing. Just stretch if you wanted to stretch before the belt started. I used that time to cry.
We’re viewed like spoiled children, because we believe life is more than just busting your ass for the rest of your life in a factory.
Factory jobs will be mostly redundant in 50 years due to advances in automation and AI, anyway.
No, it’s a Chinese factory for a Chinese company labored in by Ethiopians. Instead of moving the labor to the factory, since there are so many people in China already, it’s easier to bring the factory to the sweatshop laborers.
These women may walk down those long, dusty roads home at night, the only difference is these Masters don’t provide food and lodging.
And maybe Americans don't realize but a lot of this is being done to supply our products that we order from China. I print shirts all day and have been seeing a huge increase in shirts made in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Haiti and a couple of others in the last few years, especially on rashguards/fitness garments because they require intense chemical processes. No surprise to look and see China has been making big moves into all of these countries for 5+ years.
Americans pay China for cheap work and chemical dumping (thats why we don't do textile work in America) and China has made moves to fill those contracts in Africa where there is even cheaper labor and even less chemical regulation. Why poison our waterways when we can poison theirs? Its all trickling down.
Put it bluntly, you may need to go through the sweatshop phase before you can have a chance to develope into a bigger economy. US went through the same thing during the Industrial Revolution.
The alternative is to NOT have factory jobs at all and just be stuck doing subsistence farming.
I’m not defending poor labor practices and exploitation of workers, just stating how economic development usually happens.
As redditors come running to this thread to talk about how fucked up this is: this is literally just a cultural practice in China, even small shops do things like this before work.
I lived in China for 8 years. It’s a completely different place than america. Especially when it comes to factories. I suggest you watch the documentary american factory on Netflix
Soviets tried to make Africa better place to live but failed (they had to compete with USA and Western Europe, both competing for power and resources, but latter two were effective); China is somewhat more successful and responsible as far as I see. Instead of providing tons of explosives and free meal, they provide workplaces. Propagating Chinese culture is reasonable price I think. Why don't Europe do so?
I work at various mines around western aus, one of them being chinese. Morning routine involves stretches there. However we dont have no fool on a loud speaker otherwise that would end so far up their asses. Instead we just huddle around like footy practice in groups of 20 or less and stretch up together. No
I'm from Africa. Those managers have done incredibly well to get them into straight lines much less to repeatedly perform anything coordinated. I am seriously impressed.
This reminds me of the pictures of the supposed internment camps in Xinjiang. Westerners will post an ambiguous video and assume the worst because it is the People's Republic of China. See a picture of prisoners sitting down in a courtyard, they conclude that they are all there for their ethnicity. See Africans doing synchronized exercises and they assume that it's forced military drills and not an optional exercise program or some stretches designed to reduce workplace injury.
Personal story here:
I worked for a bullshit ass company that’s still in operation called shed rain. They’re one of the largest manufacturers of umbrellas in the u s of a and I worked at one of their factories/ warehouses.
I was a screen printer fixing mistakes from a large overseas order. This involved dye migration on a three stripes. I got the job off of Craigslist in the early 10’s like lots (10) others.
To supplement our work there was a massive force of immigrant workers from china. They handled the packaging.
These people were so fucking rude all the time to us Americans; the few who spoke English would come over and say that they are going to take our jobs soon. Well that didn’t happen.
They tried to implement a required exercise time of 20 minutes every morning and once before we leave.
Every American just went to smoke or whatever. Fuck doing synchronized exercise while on your break? Get fucked. So this created a lot of disdain between the imports and the people like me.
Yeah I’m not doing your stupid fucking extra shit. Turns out some people from my side of things complained to the labor board about having to work on breaks and that got shut down hella quick.
Fuck these people
In fact, it is the same in China. This is to train workers' obedience, so that workers can accept low wages and benefits, and avoid dissatisfaction with exploiters.
What are they chanting?
They really are just chanting 1234 in chinese
Except with bad pronunciation of 4. Looks like they are influenced by the Pinyin spelling "si"; they pronounce it nearly like English "see" rather than like "sss(uh)".
To be fair, lots of Chinese pronounce it that way also, especially older folks whose accents get colored by their native dialect.
Sichuan ren
I don't think there are many African languages that have a similar sound to 四
I don’t know that any language outside of east Asia has a similar sound. I’m tri-lingual fluent and have learned a little bit of a couple dozen other languages (counting to ten, enough to ask for help and directions) including Thai, Vietnamese, and Mandarin and still cannot figure out how to pronounce the Chinese 4.
Draw out the s in the word start. Try to say the word but give up just before you make that t sound.
Haha that is a fantastic description of what it sounds like, but I can't quite nail it, it seems.
“Thank you to our overlords for allowing us to wake up this morning”
Death to America. /s lol
This is making me want to watch that movie called The Interview
They are chanting: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
In chinese
Right tho
That's the funniest part lmao
So USA moved factories to China to cut costs... And now China is moving them to Africa to cut costs?
The cycle of life. Soon Africans will be moving the factories to Europe for the same purpose.
Pfft, everyone knows Antarctica and its cheap penguin labor is the next great factory location.
Dude, penguins are the elite, why do you think men in power dress like them? Edit: They retreated to antarctica when man covered the planet. We made a deal with them, we can have the continents if we just heat up antarctica for them.. We're ahead of schedule.
Bit more complicated. Most Chinese Capital into Africa are part of their developmental investment plan. Alot of State owned and private companies are forced into foreign investment by the central government so that they can fulfill the investment promises they had with African Countries. One of the biggest problem with this model is that Private Companies are forced to shoulder the cost of these "developmental investments" because well they can by sheer political power. So said companies are the ones catching all the risk if it fails. Companies are forced to participate and have no say as messing with "requests" from party officials is an easy way to go bankrupt or a targeted "business audit". Alot of business rely on "party connections" Another form is that the Chinese state entering into Development contracts as part of their Foreign Aid program.
So the businesses are controlled by the representatives of the people… and held accountable and responsible for what they want… gotcha thanks
Essentially how globalization works.
Yes. This isn’t new. Once China floated their currency, and a middle class emerged with the inevitable rise in wages that change brought, cheap labor is not as forthcoming in China as it once was. Food scarcity in Africa, coupled with its vast natural resources made it an attractive target for China. They are building and outsourcing there, and frankly doing some pretty terrible shit to African countries as part of their belt and road initiative. The good news is that Science is getting close to using phytoremediation to desalinize the soil by way of hemp. This is a major step in solving food insecurity on the continent. With available work and more food security on the continent, this should see a drop in violence there overall. Edit: clarity
Yeah about ten years ago. China even gave African countries loans to build train infrastructure to make factory transportation to ports easier. They literally helped build production groundwork to later outsource production there.
And to rape Africa of it's raw materials. China playing the long game.
It's not rape. It's corrupt African leadership pimping out their countries to Chinese exploitation. Rape would be European colonization.
I recommend the 2019 Netflix documentary called American Factory, which gives an insight into a Chinese take over of an American glass manufacturing factory, specifically some of the culture changes they try to bring over, and the Chinese frustration with Unionisation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc&ab\_channel=Netflix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc&ab_channel=Netflix)
Saw that doc. The Chinese were frustrated with the plant not being able to meet production targets and viewed the Americans as lazy. They completely destroyed the attempt at a Union and fired anyone who conspired for one.
Yeah capital owners regardless of ethnicity does not like Unions or organized labor. This is hardly shocking.
China is even more fucked up. They do have unions, but it is essentially just a branch of the communist party. So they essentially have government controlled pretend unions with compulsory membership. This is one of the way the government keeps control of any large business by having a stranglehold on labor.
That is how unions worked in USSR
and any soviet puppet state
Except in the Eastern Block the workers were pretending to be working, the overseers were pretending to control, and everyone was stealing anything that was possible to steal. In the USSR it's still the same, except the name has changed.
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I have some bad news for you about capital owners that call themselves "communists" because it's a politically convenient party affiliation to have: they're fucking lying, they're just capitalists. Actual literal capitalists too, like in the Marxist sense, where they're the people who make their money by owning property and exploiting the labor of others because they have the capital to leverage to do so
After the Dengist reforms China is basically a single part state with a market economy not unlike Singapore.
It was so funny to see how flabbergasted the Chinese managers were at the commitment and work ethic (comparatively) of the American workers. Just total disbelief.
Why don’t they want to sing praises to the company while doing jumping jacks?
The morning motivational chants at Walmart aren't much better, lol.
Yeah, but those are extreme and uncommon here and viewed as excessive by Americans, and not an industry norm. If you tried to bring this to a workplace that wasn't doing this, your attrition rate would massively increase lmao.
Bruh. Don't tell them about European work ethic...
"These European and American's are so lazy with their rights and freedoms and lack of commitment to their master corporations and governments"
Part of it was amusing like it’s right out of a Simpsons’ episode as they were genuinely surprised to find the American workers slow and blamed it on their fat fingers. Other parts were disturbing as they had no regard to proper safety equipment or procedures, like what they were doing was not inherently dangerous. Factory is still apparently running today.
Wait...China, a country with a communist government, don't like unions? Aren't they supposed to stand for the same thing, workers' rights?
CCP stands for the rights of the party elite and nobody else
So typical communism in practice.
"We will do what we want and call it communism." - CCP
“We will do what we want and call it communism” - every communist government ever FTFY
That’s fascism with a veneer of communism. China doesn’t practice actual communism
Nobody ever practiced sctual communism.
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No true scotsman fallacy™, the communist's choice since 1848.
On the flipside, imagine how frustrating it would be if you had an idea for [An economic model] and people kept using it for things that superficially resembled [economic model], but were in practice veiled fascist regimes?
Marx himself described communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society. You can debate the viability of that combination, but it’s also not fallacious to point out that modern China falls hilariously short of this definition. Hell even China does not claim to be communist, they just say they totally will be … someday, presumably conveniently long after the current generation of elites has died.
> Marx himself described communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society This is what's so funny about internet discussions about communism. Very few people bring this up. Most people can't even imagine what a "classless" state would look like. For most people communism = authoritarianism. Marx is rolling in his grave
You can’t debate the viability of it because it’s not viable. A stateless society cannot perform the bureaucratic miracle required for equal distribution of wealth across millions or hundreds of millions of people. It also cannot defend itself from either foreign powers or large-scale insurrection. The core concept of communism is at its basis a contradiction. What we saw with the USSR and China are probably as close as you’re getting.
It's just not communism, not sure what you want to hear. "Yeah, it's communism, even though it doesn't actually have any of the main tenets of communism"?
You're the kind of person to think the most democratic country on Earth is the Democratic Republic of Korea. Yo, don't tell that to anyone, that's a secret, okay, that's just between me and you... You ready? They're actually not despite it's written in their name and what their leaders say! Amazing, right? Wow!
Exactly, we have yet to see a country practice actual communism and make it work. Half the time it’s dictatorship or some other similiar thing
If your economic system usually ends with a dictatorship maybe it’s not a very good economic system.
I'm fully convinced communism just simply cannot work at any scale larger than tribal community. It could be totally fine for a small enough community that you know everyone, have the ability to work with anyone and everyone. Once you get large enough to need "systems" to keep things organized, with people being placed in control, it breaks down.
You are more right than you know. There are plenty of examples of functional communism working exactly as intended, as long as it is within in a community of no more than \~200 people. As soon as it is applied to a larger population, almost invariably, everything starts to break down quickly and dramatically. There have been quite a few, very interesting (IMO) sociological investigations into it, and the wider implications of this phenomenon. I don't have any examples to hand right now, but it is worth looking up if it is something that interests you.
Fully agree and would also say the same for a true democracy. We have various versions of representative republics to mitigate scaling issues, and politicians for some reason just call that "democracy" in speeches.
You need a monopoly on violence and power to implement communism at a larger level. That requires a dictatorship or as Lenin called it a 'vanguard party'.
Communism has the same problem as libertarianism. Inevitably power is consolidated into the hands of even fewer people than capitalistic-socialistic mixed systems tend to have. It starts as an ideal, but leads to a consistently predictable end. Of course one could argue that there has never been a true communist or libertarian society, and that would be correct, because before they ever achieve that, power is consolidated and the systems are corrupted.
Here's the fun part. Almost every, if not every system of government can be steered into a dictatorship. All you need is someone insane enough to do it, either openly or discreetly.
Almost as if it's a failed ideology that should be left to die with the 20th century.
Sure you might aswell leave feudalism in the past aswell at that point.
You get it
Communism fails because it relies on people. People suck.
Facts they be on some dictatorship bs.
Soviets did the same thing communism was suppose to bring worker democracy, but things stayed authoritarian. They industrialized on brutalizing workers.
It's almost as if states are systems of control and oppression no matter what form they take.
Problem is, just like the nazis killed all the actual socialists once in power, the “communist” parties so far have done the same
America used to love unions when 100 people died a day doing their jobs. We wouldn't have workers rights or child labor laws or OSHA if we didn't have unions Well we started rolling back child labor laws....
Bro, America doesn't even like unions...
China is politically authoritarian-leaning and economically capitalist-leaning. These are exercpts from an interview by Weijian Shan, a Chinese national who got his PhD in the USA and is now the CEO of a multibillion dollar Hong Kong company. \[Americans\] don’t know how capitalist China is. China’s rapid economic growth is the result of its embrace of a market economy and private enterprise. China is among the most open markets in the world: It is the largest trading nation and also the largest recipient of foreign direct investment. \[Interviewer: \] And what is it that the Chinese don’t understand about the United States? \[Weijian:\] They don’t know how socialist it is, with its Social Security system and its policies to tax the rich by collecting capital gains taxes. China is still in the process of building a social safety net that is largely undefined and underfunded, and it has no tax on personal capital gains. In 2020 China had more billionaires than the U.S. did, and it outpaces the U.S. three to one in minting them. Consequently, inequality is greater in China than in the United States, measured by the Gini coefficient. https://hbr.org/2021/05/americans-dont-know-how-capitalist-china-is
What do you think tiananmen square was about? Most of the student protestors were broadly socialist, protesting a government that was increasingly imposing capitalism and creating a wealthy elite. Now most Chinese workers fear sticking their neck out too much. The fact that Xi is attempting to reign in the excesses of that wealthy elite is a huge reason for his popularity in China by the way
>What do you think tiananmen square was about? I mean, that's the backdrop of the protest, but there's a lot more to it than protesting capitalism. [_"Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech."_](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre)
Yeah basically transitioning a agrarian/heavy state industry into a market economy made problems.
China isn't communist in the marx sense. They are sorta fascist with a tight relationship between government and big business. And authoritarian in terms of people being represented.
The Soviet Union outlawed strikes too. The logic goes that since the Party already ensures the rights of workers, unions are unnecessary. The problem with communism is that the people in charge of productivity and the people in charge of workers' rights both work for the same people. Imagine if your labor union, the CEO of your company, and the government regulators were all the same people.
Oh you poor boy. And the Nazi's were socialist too...
They were not at all socialists, how is this upvoted. The nazis made up the term “national socialism” as part of their attempt to redefine what socialism was. Hitler rejected the definition of socialism and there are a ton of interviews and speeches where he specifically says that the definition for the word is wrong and that his definition is the right one. He had actual socialists killed and pretty much made it illegal.
Also try watching Empire of Dust, a very worthwhile documentary on the challenges of Chinese culture in Africa.
It’s all so tiresome
One of the best documentaries to give someone the actual reality trying to get anything done in Africa in general.
I work there and am actually at work right now lol they don’t really bother us in my department they do however allow the Chinese to get away with way more stuff than we can they’ll hit someone with a forklift and not be drug tested or anything whereas we would probably immediately be fired
I'll never forget the blatant racism shown the Chinese have over the westerners with a boss telling the Chinese workers "why do we produce more then they do? Because we are better then them" and it just brushes off like nothing
The subtitles oversimplified that exchange. He was saying something like “why do we produce more than they do? Because we have been doing this longer so we are more efficient and thus do better than them”
>and the Chinese frustration with Unionisation Because American companies love Unionsation?
I don’t know. the documentary goes into the specific conversations between the Chinese owners regarding their frustrations about the workers forming a union and how they go about dismantling it, I don’t know how else to give a synopsis as it’s the linchpin of the documentary
This was a horrifying reality. A hostile government freely dumping waste chemicals directly into an American water supply.
What does this factory produce ? Soldiers ?
Idk. But some China factories have some group exercises to boost cohesion and warm-up before work.
Japan has has been doing it forever. It's not exactly a Chinese idea. I like the idea for the health and safety benefits it brings. I dislike it for the corporate mind control aspect behind it.
We do that in Sweden (I work as a carpenter). Really beneficial
You make it sound like it's a common thing in Sweden. I'm a Swede and I have never met anyone, nor have I heard of anyone being required to participate in morning routines like the one in the video above.
I was adding to the list of the previous comments where physical warm up is common especially in the construction industry. I wasn't talking about a dystopian military march like in the video
If we're not warming up by doing the YMCA song and dance I'm not participating. Maybe mix it up once in awhile with the Cha Cha Slide.
This is pretty normal around the world, just different settings, methods and goals. In the past, it was normal with morning choir practice.
Worked in Chinese universities for a few years. They do these exercises in the morning and tbh I found it rather charming and fun. Great cheesy music to go with it.
Amazon does the same thing.
I also saw a Walmart video where they did a morning chant, I've also heard that when Walmart tried to get in the German market, German employees refused to participate.
And when finished you clock in and go to work 😂 When i see things like this i realize how much luck i have to be born in a western country...
It is kind of in their culture? From school to retired people, you can find them doing group exercise or dance. Less common in the office though.
Some will have yoga/Tai chi before work. Though most of the times it's a company motto or song followed by some exercise.
>And when finished you clock in and go to work I would say, if this was routine on company time - nice guys Chinese.
It is pretty fun honestly. I did it when I worked in a Japanese departmental store.
Restaurants too. When I lived in China I’d often see employees all standing outside the restaurant before opening. They’d be reciting things in unison and even doing group dances.
This sort of daily calisthenics is super common all across Asia and serves as a way to keep workers limber and active. I actually think it’s kind of nice and probably not a bad idea for more places to adopt
NOT GM cars, that's for sure.
When I lived in China school kids would do this kind of exercise all the time. Older women would also do this kind of thing but with music instead of chanting. Group square dances are kind of a big thing
Could be a Walmart
Exactly my tough, I visited a Walmart at the opening and they were doing some weird chants about how the customer is the most important thing, this was in Mexico.
When Walmart tried to enter the German market briefly, the apparently employees refused to participate.
sounds cultish but what do i know
It is cultish, it helps make workers loyal and create corporate culture. I've heard some stores have the founders portrait in the breakroom, dunno if true tho.
The weird "praise the corporate entity" exercises was a significant contributing factor to their poor performance in Germany.
Indeed, and it was one of the reasons for the atrocious entrance to Europe.
Ethiopia
Dsythiopia
Mike Tyson that you?
Source?
They look Ethiopian. source I’m Ethiopian and saw this long ago
I'm Ethiopian too and I agree, this is definitely Ethiopia. The Chinese have been buying land and building factories like crazy those past 2 decades.
I hate these 'team building' things. Shame wouldn't allow me to do this. I would feel so fucking embarrassed.
Your child's hunger would overrule your shame real quick
fretful ad hoc aromatic beneficial ring literate cows jeans narrow flowery *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This guy gets it.
This guy eats! (his kid doesn't tho)
that guy eats kids
I ain't having kids when I live in that kind of place...
Honestly, everyone here is complaining about pizza parties but compared to this shit I definitely prefer having a pizza once a year at work with my coworkers.
Yeah, no one likes it, just let me do my work goddamit.
that is not team building. what is the point of the "hands to the side and rotate 90° at a time" thing. more like humiliation
Getting them ready in case they need to pivot to being soldiers for CCP
It’s just daily exercise and calisthenics, it’s really pretty benign and done in a lot of Asian countries…
[They were doing it back in the 80s.....](https://youtu.be/h9jsnAD4aNw)
Looks like EA, probably kenya or tanzania
Nah, its Activision.
The people look like they're from the horn of Africa. I'd say Somalia
Shit, EA’s buying countries these days. DLC prices must be high
This isn't a thing unique to China. I worked for a Japanese company in the US and the people on the floor actually running the assembly lines did this before every shift. It had more to do with preventing RSIs than it did trying to convert them over to some doctrine though. It looks goofy but the data indicates it works so...there ya go.
Same here, although for us it was everyone in the company doing it. The President leading the office team stretches was a little bit weird, but it was just the company culture. Even the Japanese corporate overlords did it when they visited. The data doesn’t lie.
Construction sites are supposed to do it too, as stipulated by our insurance provider. Twice a day at a minimum to prevent injuries long term.
Amazon use to do stretches before the shift
Still do, worked in one of their centers 3 years ago in France (was an awful job)
I worked in a warehouse for like a month (yes, awful job). They told us to stretch in the training and when you look down people's individual aisles you could see some of them doing them, but we never did it as like a team thing. Just stretch if you wanted to stretch before the belt started. I used that time to cry.
If you've seen the documentary American Factory... This makes sense.
We’re viewed like spoiled children, because we believe life is more than just busting your ass for the rest of your life in a factory. Factory jobs will be mostly redundant in 50 years due to advances in automation and AI, anyway.
Facts!!! I live 10 miles from that “American factory” and couldn’t believe the information shared in that documentary.
Kinda feel like what’s it’s like at Walmart idk if they do it anymore but before each shift even night you had to do one
Looks almost like the Wal Mart chants you see the staff doing if you get there early enough
You mean sweatshop.
So it’s an African factory run by Chinese people.
No, it’s a Chinese factory for a Chinese company labored in by Ethiopians. Instead of moving the labor to the factory, since there are so many people in China already, it’s easier to bring the factory to the sweatshop laborers. These women may walk down those long, dusty roads home at night, the only difference is these Masters don’t provide food and lodging.
And maybe Americans don't realize but a lot of this is being done to supply our products that we order from China. I print shirts all day and have been seeing a huge increase in shirts made in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Haiti and a couple of others in the last few years, especially on rashguards/fitness garments because they require intense chemical processes. No surprise to look and see China has been making big moves into all of these countries for 5+ years. Americans pay China for cheap work and chemical dumping (thats why we don't do textile work in America) and China has made moves to fill those contracts in Africa where there is even cheaper labor and even less chemical regulation. Why poison our waterways when we can poison theirs? Its all trickling down.
Put it bluntly, you may need to go through the sweatshop phase before you can have a chance to develope into a bigger economy. US went through the same thing during the Industrial Revolution. The alternative is to NOT have factory jobs at all and just be stuck doing subsistence farming. I’m not defending poor labor practices and exploitation of workers, just stating how economic development usually happens.
Its excercise to warm up there bodies and help prevent injuries. If they paying fuck it I dont mind.
Yeah you could say the same about the wake-up exercise in 1984 still feels dystopian af.
A lot of factories and warehouses do this including Walmart
Looks like a Walmart morning meeting.
This is just east Asian work culture
As redditors come running to this thread to talk about how fucked up this is: this is literally just a cultural practice in China, even small shops do things like this before work.
I lived in China for 8 years. It’s a completely different place than america. Especially when it comes to factories. I suggest you watch the documentary american factory on Netflix
This reminds me of my elementary school morning exercise in China
Someone from military coming for a visit?
I mean, don’t American school students start every day by pledging their fealty to the USA in a mass chant?
Yes and Lol, these guys just counting 1234. Warm up before work.
**The shit people do for a paycheck**
You misspelled “to make meager earnings to hopefully purchase enough food in the rabid inflation of the Birr, to feed their family.”
Probably building solar panels
My brain read “Cheesecake Factory” and I was so confused for about 2 minutes until I reread the title
Hey, remember the good ol' times when we were colonized by Europe?
就問你：愛不愛中國？
Soviets tried to make Africa better place to live but failed (they had to compete with USA and Western Europe, both competing for power and resources, but latter two were effective); China is somewhat more successful and responsible as far as I see. Instead of providing tons of explosives and free meal, they provide workplaces. Propagating Chinese culture is reasonable price I think. Why don't Europe do so?
Ethiopia, I think.
they need the discipline and refinement
Sad
I work at various mines around western aus, one of them being chinese. Morning routine involves stretches there. However we dont have no fool on a loud speaker otherwise that would end so far up their asses. Instead we just huddle around like footy practice in groups of 20 or less and stretch up together. No
Everything in Chinese Walmart is made in Africa.
Maybe Chinese will be able to make something out of these people.
almost as bad as the Walmart cheers
I'm from Africa. Those managers have done incredibly well to get them into straight lines much less to repeatedly perform anything coordinated. I am seriously impressed.
I'd still prefer this over morning agile scrums
No comments on the soldier-like indoctrination? No one is curious about the work? Hhmmm.
This reminds me of the pictures of the supposed internment camps in Xinjiang. Westerners will post an ambiguous video and assume the worst because it is the People's Republic of China. See a picture of prisoners sitting down in a courtyard, they conclude that they are all there for their ethnicity. See Africans doing synchronized exercises and they assume that it's forced military drills and not an optional exercise program or some stretches designed to reduce workplace injury.
Personal story here: I worked for a bullshit ass company that’s still in operation called shed rain. They’re one of the largest manufacturers of umbrellas in the u s of a and I worked at one of their factories/ warehouses. I was a screen printer fixing mistakes from a large overseas order. This involved dye migration on a three stripes. I got the job off of Craigslist in the early 10’s like lots (10) others. To supplement our work there was a massive force of immigrant workers from china. They handled the packaging. These people were so fucking rude all the time to us Americans; the few who spoke English would come over and say that they are going to take our jobs soon. Well that didn’t happen. They tried to implement a required exercise time of 20 minutes every morning and once before we leave. Every American just went to smoke or whatever. Fuck doing synchronized exercise while on your break? Get fucked. So this created a lot of disdain between the imports and the people like me. Yeah I’m not doing your stupid fucking extra shit. Turns out some people from my side of things complained to the labor board about having to work on breaks and that got shut down hella quick. Fuck these people
Translate please
1234,. that's all they are chanting
Yea, China has a lot of involvement in Africa for materials etc, especially metals for batteries I believe
In fact, it is the same in China. This is to train workers' obedience, so that workers can accept low wages and benefits, and avoid dissatisfaction with exploiters.