Agree.
China has the same situations as Russia.
I've heard of two situations foreigner will think China.
1. A closed area, every folks familiar with Kongfu, dressed like the Qing-dynasty with long pigtail.
2. Young folks in gray dresses with red sleeve emblem, yelling around with big slogans who will crash everything before them, just as the insistutional revolution 30 years ago.
The movies and the limited books result to these problems consider no political intensions.
I like India from the movies especially the dancing party, I know Indians are very smart from the software development area. Slums? Go away!
Welcome to China :)
LiYi
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Fjelstad" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 4:05 AM
Subject: Re: [TN] NTC: Russia
Hi Inge,
Your experience mirrors mine from when I lived and worked outside Moscow
for a couple of years in the 1991-1993 time frame. Many of the scientists
and engineers I worked with could read and write English but were not
comfortable speaking English. Still, they were also very eager to learn by reading
and people seemed to devour books. I had a physicist neighbor who learned
Polish so that he could read a book banned in the Soviet Union that was
available in Poland as Poland was leaving the communist block. He was not
alone in this regard.
Today, I suspect that reading has tailed off and television and other
media content has increased. I think I had 2 and a half channels, one of which
was classical music and dance and the other mostly nature programming with
some cartoon content for children. Books were sold and resold everywhere in
stores, on the streets and in the metro and dog-eared hand written
manuscripts of forbidden content were not uncommon. I suspect that much of the
book reading that I used to see on the metro has been replaced by IPods. So it
goes...
Things are always in flux some of the better and some for the worse but
change is constant.
Best,
Joe
In a message dated 10/17/2009 1:51:30 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Hi Werner,
did you try harder? I learned, that they read lots of english (because of
the dominating english on Internet), but they don't dare speak when
meeting
real americans or english ditto. I got ill for one day, and had to see a
doctor. The guide translated from english to russian. I said some words
in
english to the doctor, but she just looked at me and shook her head.
Later,
when I passed her room, she was speaking with another doctor..in english
I
knocked the door and said 'what? Can you speak english after all?' - 'Of
course I can, but my pronounciation is so bad. But I can read all american
scientific literature, no problems.' I think it was something like with
your engineeers.
Thanks for the travel report, I will enjoy it tomorrow. Travel report! You
are very ambigous!
Inge
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: [TN] NTC: Russia
Hi Inge,
Interesting. I was in Moscow a year ago, and with the exception of the
Red Square area, what we found pretty much agreed with your initial
expectations—I am sorry to say.
Of the 65 engineers I lectured to, a grand total of 5 spoke passable
English.
No evidence of anything but Cyrillic signs everywhere, including the
Moscow airport.
Attached you find my travelog from that trip.
Werner
-----Original Message-----
From: Inge <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, Oct 17, 2009 3:22 pm
Subject: [TN] NTC: Russia
Hi all,
am back after a couple of weeks by boat all along Volga river. Visited
many
places, from small villages to Moskow.
Remarkable how brainwashed and indoctrinated I've been despite TV
programs,
books, films etc. I still thought that mobile phones wouldn't work
everywhere, expected rusty Ladas, slammering trams, flimmering TVs, a
KBG
man following me when taking photos near a military missile area,
greyish
and wrecky houses, shops with more or less empty desks, 25 year old
passenger aircrafts, rusty railway trains, stinking diesel trains,
suspicioius people when shooting around with my digi cameras etc. What
a
wrong image I had in my head. All quite opposite. Mobile worked
everywhere,
even hundreds of kilometers from nearest community (masts everywhere),
more
new cars than what I have seen anywhere else, super modern trains, that
you
will not find anywhere in the US, latest flatscreen TVs, noone
interested
in my sneeking around, I could walk straight into KGBs headquarter if
I
wanted, the defense ministery had no fences around the huge building, I
walked with camera lifted just outside the President's office building
(the
guardsmen took no notice) , modern diesel engines, advertisments of a
size
I've never seen before, e.g. a 10,000 sq meter announcement for
Mercedes
Benz. More moderna cash machines than what we have, everything
computerized.
American music everywhere, english menues, english announcements,
american
cars,....I thought sometimes that I was in the US, but this was many a
times
much better (sorry to say so, but that's what I thought). No forgotten
ghettos like in New Your or Paris or Liverpool, no people hanging
around
doing nothing. No overweighted people. Everywhere a rumbling of
building
machines, caterpillars and cranes. Building, repairing everywhere. Of
course, I didn't see whole Russia, but 2,400 kilometers along Volga
gives at
least a good glimpse.
So, I had to readjust my idea about that country. Furthermore, maybe a
very
wrong statement from my view, but I dare say : America, look up...not
far
from here Russia will pass you (I don't speak of military power, which
I
have nada insight in, but welfare.
This doesn't change my attitude to America, which I like very much, but
America got a competitor on my inside.
Nevertheless, noone will care about what I think or say, I'm just 1 / 6
000
000 000 of the total.
Inge
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