Communal Commity
Speaking of my last post, there are some constraints for my offshoring experiment. I'm only looking at middle-income countries with developed infrastructures with reasonably good healthcare available.
Actually where I am at now in Malaysia fits most criteria to a tee. China, although not middle income (though the distribution is skewed to the cities, where it perhaps starts to approach middle income), had a pretty decent technological infrastructure in place in the big cities. (I seem only to have had faulty internet connections since I've left China.) It would be workable, but not ideal on a number of liveability measures.
Really the only thing I've found annoying here so far is the two-tiered pricing. I'll see an advertised offer for a hotel, and then in the fine print, available only for residents of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. There was probably an implicit two-tiered pricing in China and Taiwan (maybe explicit if my Chinese reading level was higher), but because of the language barrier I wouldn't have been conscious of it everytime I looked at the newspaper.
Today, I noticed an advertisement for apartment homes. "5% bumi discount." Imagine reading in the newspaper in 2006, "5% White-Anglo Saxon Protestant Discount" for a housing development! Every single day, the newspaper I read here, The Star, has articles about communal harmony. There is definitely conflict, although the aim of most parties seems to be to avoid ugliness on the level that takes place in Indonesia.
Actually where I am at now in Malaysia fits most criteria to a tee. China, although not middle income (though the distribution is skewed to the cities, where it perhaps starts to approach middle income), had a pretty decent technological infrastructure in place in the big cities. (I seem only to have had faulty internet connections since I've left China.) It would be workable, but not ideal on a number of liveability measures.
Really the only thing I've found annoying here so far is the two-tiered pricing. I'll see an advertised offer for a hotel, and then in the fine print, available only for residents of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. There was probably an implicit two-tiered pricing in China and Taiwan (maybe explicit if my Chinese reading level was higher), but because of the language barrier I wouldn't have been conscious of it everytime I looked at the newspaper.
Today, I noticed an advertisement for apartment homes. "5% bumi discount." Imagine reading in the newspaper in 2006, "5% White-Anglo Saxon Protestant Discount" for a housing development! Every single day, the newspaper I read here, The Star, has articles about communal harmony. There is definitely conflict, although the aim of most parties seems to be to avoid ugliness on the level that takes place in Indonesia.
brainfart by Daniel at
11:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home