Israellycool In China

After using public terminals at the show, this is the screen I left them on.

Brian of London here reporting in from Koh Samui in Thailand. If you’ve been missing my posts, rest assured I will one day be back in Israel and posting will be able to resume a more regular schedule.

I’ve been on a trip to the far east taking in Bangkok, Thailand; Guangzhou, China and now Koh Samui in Thailand again. If you follow me on either Twitter or Facebook you’d know this of course.one day be back in Israel and posting will be able to resume a more regular schedule.

Both Facebook and Twitter are generally blocked in China and it’s only with a little light subtrefuge that it’s possible to see them.

Some stories and notes from China. I was at the Canton Trade Fair. The scale of this event is hard to convey. I’ve been to large trade shows in Las Vegas like CES and it is no exageration to say that all of CES would fit comfortably into one of the 4 halls in China. It might well fit in the lobby of one of the 4 massive halls.

The majority of the Chinese people we met, who are the public faces of the factories producing all sorts of stuff you use every day, have very little concept of what or where Israel is. In fact I was a bit surprised at how few Israelis or visible Jews we saw. Obviously there were a few, but it wasn’t out of proportion to Israel’s tiny numbers.

A funny thing happened in the lift at my hotel. I get in with two arabs and 3 Israelis. I know their nationalities because they were all speaking loudly on the bus back to the hotel and I wasn’t. I’m determined to listen to hear what the Israelis say without letting on I know. I think they even know (or were chatting with the) two Arabs.

As we get in I accidentally press two floors instead of one and its clearly a mistake because the floor I select is an office floor not part of the hotel.

The Israeli woman tells her friend near me in Hebrew to “double press on the number 11 and see if it cancels it”. I know this trick, my apartment lift works this way!

Of course without thinking I press twice on 11 and then she’s staring at me wondering how I understood her command in Hebrew. Cover blown and I have to admit to understanding Hebrew!

I’d make a lousy spy.

Just one lobby
Just one of the 20 exhibition halls

 

18 thoughts on “Israellycool In China”

    1. Wifi was not free, my Chinese sim card’s reception was patchy (though comparatively cheap for 70Meg of data) and of course it blocked twitter and facebook. I used the public terminals to check important emails a few times.

      BTW I have two factor authentication set up so I need a code from my iPhone to log in each time otherwise I never would have done such a rash thing as punch my password into a public computer in China.

  1. “The majority of the Chinese people we met, who are the public faces of the factories producing all sorts of stuff you use every day, have very little concept of what or where Israel is.”

    I wish this were true for all non-Jews everywhere. Israel’s biggest problem is that too many people have an opinion on it.

    1. Unfortunately, the ruling elite do have opinions of Israel, and they tend to fall in line with the diplomatic lynch mob.

      1. Of China? Thats complete BS or irrelevant because China and Israel have good relations and frequently make deals and work with each other. Its an open secret that China gets US tech to reverse engineer, from Israel.

        If the US ever dumped Israel, China would be there.

        Something about 5000 year old civilizations in a sea of barbarians…

          1. As a non-ruling-elite Chinese citizen I can verify, it’s true very few Chinese people know much about Israel. And those who votes in UN absolutely doesn’t represent common Chinese people’s opinion because the whole government doesn’t 🙂

      2. China’s ruling class goes where the money goes. Right now the Muslims have the trump card of oil, but the Chinese don’t want to be dependent on their oil any more than we do, and unlike the U.S.A. they’re not reluctant to tap into their natural reserves while progress in making nuclear power safer and more efficient is being made.

        In caring for their economic interests above all, the Chinese government is no different from many others. The difference is the Chinese are honest about it, meaning there’s a greater chance that even the naive politicos among ours won’t make the mistake of assuming Israel and China have “friendship” rather than common, transient interests—a mistake Israel has made in assessing its relationship with the U.S.A. and consequently suffers the price every time an administration inclined toward appeasement of Islamic imperialist aggression assumes power.

        1. Yeah, I bet Bibi cries all the way to the bank every time the U.S. sends another billion dollars Israel’s way. You’ve got to be the biggest idiot this side of the Jordan River if you really think Israel is better off without American support. USA! USA! USA!

          1. “Yeah, I bet Bibi cries all the way to the bank every time the U.S. sends another billion dollars Israel’s way.”

            Israel has not received monetary aid from the U.S. for over five years, and that’s largely thanks to Bibi’s policies from back when he was Minister of Finance. Kudos to Bibi for Israel no longer being the U.S.A.’s monetary vassal.

            As it is said, “Not of thy honey and not of thy sting.” The honey-pot of U.S. “aid” (extortion, really: Used to force upon the Jews the American view as to where they may build on their own land) and the “special relationship” (meaning we’re hitched to your interests, like the way we couldn’t retaliate to Saddam’s SCUDs back in 1991) comes with too many stings, uh, strings attached to be worth it.

            Israel is not the U.S.A.’s kid brother. It’s ours to sink or swim and to stop having to think of America’s reaction every time. We don’t need you, we need HaShem.

            I’m tired. I could waste my whole life b####ing about the situation like this on the intarwebs. Have at your Blazing Saddles and Monty Python skits, Jim. As for me, it’s high time for me to take the heart of Judaism, its overarching truth-claim, a little more seriously: The idea that the entire universe was created in order that the Jewish nation should study and perform the Torah. Everything else is vanity.

            1. To tell you the truth, I’ve always thought of Israel as our unruly kid brother. You know, the kid with the tousled hair, a slight but endearing gap between his front teeth, and ears that stick out just a bit too much. But we didn’t adopt you for your looks. Face it, you’re stuck with us. But I promise we won’t try to convert you to the Mormon faith even if Romeny wins the election.

            2. Could you be specific as to the current aid breakdown?

              I know the “economic aid” was simply the US not charging us for what we still owe from 1973.

              1. Who do you think paid for Iron Dome? And if you get F-16’s instead of cash, that still counts as aid. You’re Israel, not Chad. We’re not sending you containers of cottage cheese to feed starving Israelis. And if you’re addicted to that Isaeli hazlenut confecton whose name escapes me, you’re paying for that with your own money.

                1. I assume we pay for the F-16’s, unless it’s “military aid”. Anyway, I was asking the other guy; I wanted some actual facts instead of the usual distorted stuff in the press.

                  I recall the load guarantees business. Turns out that we had to pay to make up for the charge against the budget, so at the end of the day, it was a net gain for the US.

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