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Comment by mpsprd | Hacker News Reader

This article makes me think about "tofu-dreg projects" [0]

Poor quality construction work prevalent in mainland china. If you look for content with this keyword, you will find jaw dropping videos of constructions workers bending or breaking "rebar" with their hands, Owners chipping away concrete in high-rise buildings like its sand, etc.

Of course some of this can be propaganda, but considering it has a local name, there must be truth to it.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu-dreg_project

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It does have a propaganda feeling to it. I went thru the top 25 YouTube videos for tofu dreg recently, and they had that undertone of hoping for China to collapse.

There are crappy building practices in any country. The real question is prevalence, which I can’t seem to answer.

Then where are the videos of western tofu dreg? China has a literal army of propaganda posters. Am I supposed to believe such problems exist and it never occurred to them to push it?

> In July 2021, another occurrence of tofu-dreg construction happened in Zhengzhou in Henan province where the entire city was put at a standstill due to torrential rains and flooding. The city was referred to as a “sponge city” because of how vulnerable the drainage system was. Some argued that the city was not to blame since they were experiencing unprecedented rain levels, but there was evidence later found pointing towards a weak infrastructure.

Damn, sounds like NYC this past week. Here's one of many videos:

https://x.com/OfficialWildX__/status/1707867092832378884?s=2...

At least in new York there are drains under the grates. In China there are grates but no actual drains. Someone still got paid for building drains.

> Then where are the videos of western tofu dreg?

I'm not totally sure I understood what tofu dregging was, but there's no shortage of low quality construction, collapsing bridges, unmaintained infrastructure, etc. in the US.

This is an incredibly naive take on an issue that is wide spread in China to the point of it being almost the norm.

Confucianism does not lend itself well to crucial infrastructure , you know, things you don’t want to collapse.

https://www.chinaexpatsociety.com/culture/the-chabuduo-minds...

It’s an entire mindset.

Fascinating. Within the past 2 years, the US suffered 98 people killed in a condo collapse, and a fairly serious (though thankfully non-fatal) bridge collapse. There's also the especially egregious case a bit further back of the New Orleans levies failing during Katrina. Must have been undercover Confucians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076343656/pittsburgh-bridge-...

If you really want to go down that road:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61290444

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57830767

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096810346/survivor-found-alm...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-66286576

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You simply cannot compare the two.

I could provide examples all day of how Chinese culture and the CCP allows this type of phenomenon to continue unabated.

It isn’t to say that there are serious infrastructure concerns in America that continue to go unaddressed.

But the scale of graft and shoddy construction in China beggars belief. It extends into every aspect of enterprise, taking shortcuts is the absolute cultural norm.

The reason it was such enormous news was due to how very rare this situation is in the US. Apartment buildings don't collapse on a weekly basis.

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