so what his face other than you know an
actual face the best way for me to
demonstrate face to you is by using
garbage so today guys I'm talking about
face now this is something that is
probably the most important thing you
need to understand if you're dealing
with China in any way shape or form I
mean okay it is a cornerstone of all
business here
it's a cornerstone of all relationships
here it's basically the cornerstone of
life here and so it's quite a difficult
concept to explain but I'm actually
going to demonstrate this whole concept
of face to you using garbage because
believe it or not face in China can be
very well demonstrated using the garbage
bins here and how trash works so let's
see how good China is at recycling so
you got recyclable and non-recyclable
now let's go around keep in mind this
one is non recyclable Oh
on this side recyclable and
non-recyclable no matter where you put
your garbage in I guess it all goes to
the same place or something now when I
first got to China specifically to
Schengen which is one of the big sort of
impressive cities you find here in China
I was actually very impressed this was a
long time ago in 2006 I noticed when I
got here that all over the place
you had garbage bins but not just normal
garbage bins he had separated
garbageman's you have recyclable and
non-recyclable and you know it gave me a
very good impression and made me think
wow you know China's very
forward-thinking it's very green I want
you to pay attention to that behind me
there that single sort of garbage bin at
that old man's sort of carting along
we'll get to that in a minute anyway I
thought wow very forward-thinking very
green fantastic and this is face ok
those garbage bins were giving the city
if
not China in general face in other words
a perceived pride a perceived benefit a
perceived depth or perceived whatever
and the best way to basically describe
face is to describe it as pride and
honor and to lose that pride and to lose
that honor is one of the worst things
that can happen to a person here in
China and especially if you are to make
them lose face or lose honor in front of
somebody important or in front of their
family or something that's the quickest
way to get yourself into hot water here
so back to the garbage why did I say
that garbage is the best way to
demonstrate face in China well it's very
simple
those recyclable bins you know the
recycle non-recycled boo bins the ones
that gave me such a good impression when
I first got here it's actually all just
fake it's all rubbish okay I didn't mean
that pun but I kind of liked it anyway
but it is it's just rubbish okay so here
we can see non recyclable as this is the
non recyclable bin but it's absolutely
full of plastics cardboards bottles
things like that and here we have the
recyclable which is full of the same so
there's literally no difference between
this and this here have again the yellow
one is supposed to be the non recyclable
one but it's just full of plastics
bottles cans all sorts of recyclable
stuff and the one with the non
recyclable the one that's supposed to be
recyclable is also just full of plastics
bottles cans corn cobs whatever really
doesn't make any difference and once
again here we have another okay says
other waste but yet we've got plastic
got Styrofoam containers plastic straws
all that here under recyclable we have
plastic we have you know the usual stuff
that you would expect to find in fact a
very little difference between the two
so once again I mean I could do this all
day but there's never going to be a set
of trash bins anywhere in the city where
you
actually have the trash separated
correctly the if you look inside the
recyclable side you'll see it's full of
non-recyclables if you look inside of
the non recyclable you'll see it's full
of recyclables people don't care they
just throw anything in either one
basically the path of least resistance
which ever been is closest that's the
one they'll use and to make matters
worse when they actually come to collect
the garbage it'll be like that old guy
that I showed you earlier with a big
sort of garbage can he will go and he
will just empty the trash out of both of
them directly into one bin so it doesn't
actually matter that they were separated
so if people were even separating them
in the first place it would all end up
in the same place anyway now at the end
of the day this doesn't really matter
too much because there is a thriving
recycling industry here in China
basically people will go through the
garbage and they'll dig out plastic and
cardboard and things and any side alley
you duck down here in China you'll find
people actually dismantling things like
there's this old he's over here
dismantling a fan to get the metal bits
out to copper out you know and he will
obviously go and take it to a recycling
plant and get each and every part of
that thing salt and of course the same
is with it done with cardboard and
plastic bottles and the like and this of
course is just happening down a side
alley you know there's a Main Street
over there and you know anywhere you go
in the big cities if you turn down any
other side le you will see people busy
dismantling things you know for
recycling so at the end of the day
there's a system in place that overcomes
this whole weirdness with the fact that
the recyclable and non-recyclable been
things are never separated now bunchy
you guys might be saying well that's
probably just in your city or you know
well that's maybe just in the south of
China or something but no I specifically
was anticipating that because I get a
lot of people saying you don't
understand China you only live down
there in the south so I got a friend of
mine who lives up in Shanghai which
everybody sees as sort of the jewel of
China the sort of classier most
sophisticated city in China so I got him
to go out and take a look at some bins
and what he found is actually quite
amusing so we're going to switch over to
a video that he's made for me a
wonderful video which really
demonstrates my point to a tee now let
me show you something here in Shanghai
in my own compound so this is the
garbage management or disposal system in
my compound so you have four bins one is
recyclable the other one is regular
domestic garbage this one is compost bin
so you know basically everything that's
biodegradable everything that can go
back to the ground and the last one is
like toxic waste like batteries acid
anything they can't put away in the
regular dump now let's see what's inside
the bins yeah it doesn't look too
recycling to me
let's see what's domestic looks about
the same
now the compost which is supposed to be
only like biodegradable and food
leftovers kind of thing yeah you got
plastic trays and bags and paper and
containers and now let's look at the
toxic waste bin you pretty much have the
same thing again some domestic garbage
now for some reason I feel like it
wasn't really recyclable stuff but just
regular garbage and she threw it in the
first available bin so you see the same
thing just happened just now and I can
guarantee you this was not recyclable
stuff I could see through his little
plastic bag and those were not like just
limited to plastic paper and cardboard
and whatever and for some reason they
feel like this lady behind me is gonna
do exactly the same thing
anyways let's see what happens there
yep first bin seems like if you're
coming from this way you're more likely
to just dump it in the first bin no
matter what's in your bag this is really
funny because that lady now just came
from the opposite direction and just
threw it in the first bin coming from
her direction
closer right in the recycling bin and
you saw what was in the bag right so
again it seems like China has really
great intentions when it comes to
garbage management and disposal but the
application and the education of the
public is not quite there yet
that being said not everything is lost
because where there's money to make you
will find people willing to go in those
bins and dig out the plastic bottles the
plastic containers the cardboard boxes
anything that a company is willing to
pay for to eventually recycle or reuse
they'll be willing to they get out and
kind of run their own like kind of low
their own little business right it's
just unfortunate it's not part of the
system all right so I hope by now you
guys have figured this whole face thing
out basically in China perception is
more important than reality in other
words it's more important for people to
perceive you as being smart or rich or
maybe powerful something like that or
progressive or whatever the case the
perception is more important than
reality so you could be a poor person
struggling to just make it by but as
long as you can afford the clothing or
the bit store the car or whatever it is
in order to make people think that
you're rich you know that's more
important than you actually being rich
and it goes with everything it's like if
your colleagues at work perceive you as
being incredibly smart because you've
got a lot of degrees and so on and so
forth that's more important than you
actually being smart anyway that's just
a cultural thing and if you can
understand face and the concept of face
you'll do incredibly well in China
you'll also do incredibly well if you're
doing business deals and things like
that with
newspeople so I hope this has given you
some sort of understanding and this will
also give you a little bit of
understanding as to why I get so much
hate for almost no reason on my channel
from Chinese medicines and that's simply
because you know a lot of people believe
that these these medicines believe that
they're that I'm causing China to lose
face by pointing out simple truths in
daily life which are kind of
inconvenient truths things like Chinese
just not a utopian society that's 100%
perfect in every single way anyway guys
I hope you found this informative I hope
this helps you understand China better
so that when you deal with China when
you come to China and you visit China
you will make a better sort of
experience out of it all
so thank you very much for watching
until next time you know the drill as
always stay awesome
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