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Two photos of the same train driver, taken 26 years apart
(thelemmy.club)
The two trains pictured:
More info about (and photos of) the driver, Han Junjia:
Not to excuse them, but they do have an absolutely fucking absurd population and population density, so it should be noted that they're doing hilariously better than much of the world, proportionately.
I'd say they're a lot like japan: Very good in some ways, still quite amazingly shitty in other ways, and they've ended up like that because they're fairly non-corrupt (at least on a local level, in the case of china) and actually prioritize genuine economic growth (as in: having industry) rather than making people happy or jerking off the friends of politicians.
There's room for critique.
When I was visiting China, I asked what's up with the prevalence of consumer vehicles getting larger like SUVs (similar to US but I didn't mention that).
The common answer I received was, "I feel safer driving in them."
I think they have a long way to go wean off that sentiment.
oh for sure, the most obvious piece of critique is that cars become exponentially more obviously moronic the more people/density you have, which makes the existence of cars at all in most of asia completely insane.