Do you feel safe in your country?

Of course it's gutter trash. That doesn't mean they can stop making it. I didn't want to buy it, but you know, I liked looking at it. It's like if they stopped making Bud Light. We know it's terrible, and I drink nothing with a twist off top, but I just enjoy looking at them.

 

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nothing, just a little predictable

 

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remember Matilda Bay wine coolers? I loved those damn things

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My parents' front door doesn't even lock. They live in a very pleasant suburb southwest of Cleveland.

I lock my door. I live in a gated community so it's very safe... but... SHIT! That's why they are there. It's a no brainer: take the precautions available.

~String

 

Country is safe, have good Police, Customs.
But when crossing road, not safe because everybody want to drive car first. People walking big problem, cannot wait because important to drive car, spend money on car, buy petrol, so important to use car.

Or why have a car? You have to drive it or waste of money, so you have to have reason to be on road. Reason is: 'have car now spent money for car, now I can be on road and in better position than someone walking across road, they wait for me because have important journey'.

 

Hmm; which choice should I have chosen?

"I feel very safe, I could walk around my house at 2 in the morning." I feel safe enough that I do walk around at 2AM but nervous enough that I am alert when doing so and understand that there is a real but very small chance that walking around at 2AM might get me killed.




"I feel safe yet still take precautions, I lock my door. " Not locking the door would be very stupid where I live. I feel safe but not absolutely safe.




"I live in a very friendly neighborhood, we all know each other and trust one another. " I live in a fairly friendly neighborhood. We don't know each other and we still sort of trust each other.



"I live in a dangerous area, crimes and shootings are common."
How dangerous? How common? I guess my area is semi-dangerous.


"I live in a corrupt area, police, criminals, no one can be trusted." Young men hanging out on the streets can't trust my police force but I can. But will the police show up if I call? I mostly trust my neighbors and know who might be a criminal. I never trust the people who might be criminals.


"I live in a safe neighborhood, but I am still always worried." It is a semi-safe neighborhood and I am rarely worried.

 

Zima is disgusting. I can believe any one ever drank that yuppy bilge.

 

At that age just talking next to a woman and having her interact at all is a big deal.

The trick is just don't hit on her. Seperate from the group and talk low enough they can't hear. Then just say something nice so she smiles and you'll have instant top dog status in your hunting pack. Of course this is probably 20 years too late.

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I love being the oldest guy at a party. All they dewey eyed kids wondering whose dad I am and trying to behave while looking uncomfortable. Then the dawning realization that I party harder than they do and if its a party I'm spinning at, that's just icing on the cake after the set.

And there's always some totally wasted girl who very seriously says "I hope I can party like you when I'm your age."

 

Notes Around

Dude, I drank MGD in college. I emerged from that period thinking Weinhard's Ale was good beer. Malt liquor is aimed squarely at the young and stupid, and compared to what came immediately before Zima, the "wine cooler" explosion, it seemed like a novel idea. The stuff was "refreshing" much the way Sprite is. Of course, I still drink Sprite on occasion; I want nothing to do with malt liquor. Hell, there's a bottle of Lambic Framboise still sitting untouched in my brother's fridge because I finally actually had a bottle and saw the label: "Malt beverage with raspberries added". I mean, yeah, it's unique stuff, but I was more impressed when I thought it was beer.

And, frankly, compared to the bilge that sells hot nowadays (Sparks sticks out in my mind, because even cocaine couldn't make that stuff taste good), the least we can say is that Zima wasn't a crime against humanity. Absolute shite, to be sure, but if I never taste something that horrible again, well ... thankfully the blow blurred the memory.

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Frankly, no. My parents drank B&J and Seagram's wine coolers. I remember a strong desire to drink one or the other's wild cherry variety, because, well, yeah. We had recorded Weird Science off television, and I watched it so many times I could recite it line for line. I still can when it's on. But one of the commercials, even to this day, with the old tape lost, was for a wild cherry wine cooler, and I am as positive as I can be that the music at the end of the spot was Tesla's "EZ Come EZ Go", at a time when Mechanical Resonance was one of my favorite albums.

I suppose I'm not really helping the topic with this, though ... so we'll try this ....

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Cool. Works for me.

You realize, though, we need someone to take that position. He's filling a vital community need.

 

Oh man, I forgot about that cooler.
Remember the commercials with those 2 old guys.

 

I live in a Canada, and yes. =)

 

i live in suburban sydney, i always make sure the doors are locked cos we've been robbed twice, but within a space of 20 years. i'd feel safe walking round my block at any time of night, although i'd get a little skittish around the shops, where there's occassionally some dodgy characters.

 

My area in Canada couldn't be safer, as far as I'm aware. I lock my door, but that's because if I didn't lock it and my stuff got stolen, I'd have to kill myself in shame. I suppose the worst I ever hear of is people's used bikes getting stolen around the university. That's apparently quite common.

I've always considered my town in China to be extremely safe. The locals have been trying to convince me since day 1 that it's actually very dangerous, but I've just never seen any proof of that. Yes I get propositioned by hookers, but that doesn't really bother me.

One day I was going to get a drink and I saw two young would-be thieves trying to grab a woman's purse from behind. About 20 people were watching this happen and no one said a word. So I ran up behind them and told the girls to be careful and told the kids to scram. They cursed at me in some dialect I don't speak, spit on the ground in front of me and walked away. As I was walking back to get my drink I noticed a large man who looked like the kids (all obviously not Han Chinese) laughing at me and shaking his head.

I went upstairs to my school and asked some of my local friends what they would have done in the situation. To my surprise, all of them said "nothing". Why? Why wouldn't you help the girl? "Because that big man has friends and will wait for you and stab you and take your money." (N.B. Only the Chinese could possibly think taking my money was the worst part of that sentence.) He never did. In fact, about two weeks later I saw him and the kids at a pool hall and we had a game together. The kids obviously didn't like me, but the old man said I had balls.

That's about the biggest danger I've seen in my part of China. Although two of my coworkers did get mugged a few months back. In broad daylight, in the middle of the street, with hundreds of pedestrians walking by. No one offered to help them (the muggers didn't have weapons) and no one stopped to talk to the police. It reminded me of something Matteo Ricci once said of the Chinese: (quoting from memory and in translation from Italian, so probably a bit off...) "China is the only culture where running away is considered more valiant than helping someone." As another local friend put it: "If I had stopped to help George (the coworker), my mother would have scolded me."

 

ive never understood locking doors myself. if someone wants to break in then they are going to find a way in, so just leave it unlocked. if you're not home then at least you saved yourself a broken door on top of the other damages, and if you are home the shotgun is going to stop them a lot faster than a small piece of metal in a flimsy door frame surrounded by windows.

 

i live in a quite area, there are very little kids, but the centre of blackpool is violent especially in the summer months when the holiday makers come in, but my area is lovely, but for various reasons i dont feel safe here, i have even ahd a panic button installed in my place by the police, so no i dont feel safe

 

Tyler, I love your China Posts.

I live suburbia, Canada. I'm pretty confident I could destroy anyone who got in our house. I'm more worried about the charges I'd face from authorities for smacking around an intruder. So I'd really rather they just rob someone in Toronto who's more used to it.

 

LA, make a copy of that post - it could be construed as a physical threat.
Get the police again.

 

where does that confidence stem from? when i wake up in the middle of the night, i struggle with walking and seeing, let alone fighting someone who's possibly armed. they're robbing a house, they're probably pumped full of adrenaline, they can blind you just by pointing a torch at you in the dark.

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

When I lived in the south I left the front door unlocked and keys in my car. Now that I live in Sacramento California I lock my doors, lock my car, think that a large pit bull is considered the best home security, and carry a weapon at times when I am in public. Oh yes, when I first moved here I got robbed at gunpoint in the heart of downtown. Now I am always aware of people around me...paranoid I have been called...smile.