[SpaceBar]

All joking aside, this shows the deep underlying cultural differences between the occidental and oriental worlds. Things like ethics in engineering, and building codes are taken for granted in the western world where they originated, but those who try to emulate the west through cheap mimicry only see them as impediments to making a buck, or a yuan in this case.

[hometoroost]

Yes, but it’s coming soon to a government near you.

[Upstate NY Guy]

All joking aside, this shows the deep underlying cultural differences between the occidental and oriental worlds. Things like ethics in engineering...

Apparently this was not always the case. Great Wall for instance.

[GonzoGOP]

All joking aside, this shows the deep underlying cultural differences between the occidental and oriental worlds. Things like ethics in engineering, and building codes are taken for granted in the western world where they originated, but those who try to emulate the west through cheap mimicry only see them as impediments to making a buck, or a yuan in this case.

Beg to differ. Here in the Peoples Republic of Chicago we had a highway paved using slag rather than limestone as aggregate. Whole thing came apart the next winter. But the contractors (close friends of the Daley family) had already had their front company declared bankrupt. Couldn't' get the money back and they had far too strong of political connections to prosecute. It has nothing to do with Asian / Western and everything to do with Statist / Individualist.

[american_ranger]

I challenge your conclusions with the big dig in Boston.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Yep. QC is the biggest thing lacking in most Asian construction and production. Sometimes you get trash in the concrete, other times you get a building so over-built that it is pretty much intact when it falls over.

[dangus]

Not so much east v west, but democracy v totalitarianism. In a totalitarian society, everyone has to game the system to make a living, and there is no accountability.

[tlb]

>>>All joking aside, this shows the deep underlying cultural differences between the occidental and oriental worlds

There is a cultural difference NOW. It was an American Vanderbilt who said “The public be damned”.

China is now where we used to be back in the era when cheap fragile substandard wire was sold to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge and cardboard mortuary shoes were sold to the Union Army infantry. Robber barons whose philosophy is anything we can get away with for a buck no matter who gets hurt.

You saw this in Dickensian England too. It seems to be a necessary and inevitable stage of capitalist growth. Therefore in the LONG run it’s a good thing, but it gets people hurt in the short run.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

A friend who lived in Southeast Asia for many years marveled at the locals' satisfaction with mimicry in products. Things like ersatz toothpaste, didn't matter if the actual product looked and tasted like library paste as long as the tube said "Colgate" or "Crest" on it. Often the tube would be a re-inflated Colgate or Crest tube, stuffed with some sort of unidentifiable and completely ineffectual goo.

In this case, it looks like a bridge, and that might have been good enough, until it fell down.