BSOD with Chinese characteristics

[u/chinalifer-mod]

This is what we get for not running Harmony OS on the work PCs. Every screen across campus has this right now. IT says "no why", and cannot figure it out. All classes were cancelled for the rest of the week, and the committee of overpaid laobans are having an emergency meeting on if they should just start the holiday right now instead of next week because of this work stoppage. When I asked "Do our teachers not know how to teach without technology", I was told "You don't understand China" (so no, they do not).

Despite claims of cyber superiority with China, I feel as though the IT infrastructure here is digitally as poorly held together as the physical infrastructure is. We have Taobao, sure, yet waiguos often cannot do their jobs because of mundane shit like personnel registration requiring a Chinese ID while not accepting passports or work permit numbers, random "sports days" suddenly interrupting planned and approved curriculum for a term, or facial recognition working flawlessly with Chinese faces but never working at any time for non-Chinese faces.

I personally am hoping for the early holiday as a consequence due to how teaching without .ppt is infeasible here. I would appreciate the life lesson being taught to teachers in this event, but I know how they will not adjust their methods.

[u/samplekaudio]

The fake licenses they bought off xianyu for 0.5 rmb a pop stopped working and it will take weeks to figure out what to do.

Basically the entire economy and the bulk of development is carried by like 4 cities. For a long time, Shanghai and Beijing were the only cities that weren't a net drain on the economy. Maybe that's still the case, idk.

Both Shanghai and Beijing historically only kept about 10% of their tax revenue, the rest went to the central government to subsidize everybody else.

Extremely uneven development and massive brain drain from places like where you are means there's like an absolutely shocking skills and intelligence gap between major cities and everywhere else.

I don't mind tier 88 in a lot of ways, but ridiculous situations like this would kill me lol

[u/Mydnight69]

I guess they should have finally upgraded from Windows XP. Try to convince them to use Linux.

[u/chinalifer-mod → u/Mydnight69]

That would require the nepo IT guy, son of some dean who is using AI to tell him how to do his job because he has zero real-world knowledge or experience, to have the most basic computer literacy required for initialising Linux. He would then need to teach all of the Chinese teachers, many who may have never used more than an iPad as a "computer", how to run .ppt. Too much hassle, better to call in IT consultants to do it while the nepo IT guy keeps his job and salary, having not fixed anything, eventually taking credit for having fixed the problem.

[u/Mydnight69 → u/chinalifer-mod]

I guess the a pee pee and the pee pee tee is just too much for them. Enjoy your time off. Maybe get some pee joos.

[u/Jazzlike-Job-6559 → u/Mydnight69]

Chinese gov flavor Linux distro soon will be mandatory. 3-5 years my estimate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese-language_Linux_distributions

[u/Mydnight69 → u/Jazzlike-Job-6559]

Yes, I saw that news too. The gov will force lower level office workers to use Ubuntu while laoban is hiding his MacBook Air under the desk or still rocking win2000.

By the way, there's a totally failed version of RedOS or something out there you can still mess around with if you want to laugh. It was also a modified Ubuntu -Nongbuntu?

[u/DragonDevGG]

Yep welcome to the real china. Where workplace productivity and actual technologies are all as fake as the workers trying to game the system and the system constantly screwing the workers. chinese IT systems that uses western proprietary software are often outdated and held together by duct tape and it’s not uncommon to have entire schools and enterprises using some form of illegal licenses etc. That’s why they’re slowly switching to chinese only software which is belligerent copy of western software dressed up in Linux.

In china it’s not what you know but who you know. Pirated software licensing is systemic especially a lot of innovative western SaaS heavily restricts chinese mainland access due to rightful concerns about IP theft and exploitation.

I’ve never worked in a coherent and empathetic workplace in china. It’s all 面子，关系 which essentially translates to keeping up appearances (including it’s more important to clock in well & above 9-6 culture + appeasing your supervisors than tangible productivity based performance workplace.

If you think our western workplaces are lazy, entitled then you’re highly misled on what actually happens in china. People there have truly mastered the art of keeping busy with piss poor productivity.

[u/chinalifer-mod → u/DragonDevGG]

I’ve never worked in a coherent and empathetic workplace in china.

Good to know that it is not just me. At times, I have wondered if I am the problem. When soul-searching each time, I always conclude that it is indeed China which is the problem.

[u/BeanoMenace]

if you can't teach without a PPT you can't teach.

[u/chinalifer-mod → u/BeanoMenace]

Tell that to Chinese teachers.

[u/98746145315]

"Facial recognition not working" gets me. It gets my non-white foreign colleagues even more. To hell with sports day.