Dr. Luke in China

Remember its totally OK to express any political signs in US sport unless its about US politics of course

There’s lots of police and volunteer work in Xinjiang to destroy any that grows here I actually visited a drug education centre in Xinjiang and they said it grows so much because birds often eat hemp seeds and drop them while feeding or maybe carry them on their bodies etc. but also because cannabis pollen spreads so easily especially with strong winds here in mountains, its why you find it all over the place

Watching England in the far remote city of Urumqi in NorthWest China Mostly Argentina fans so i’m outnumbered… but shows how popular football is here!

@RnaudBertrand yep hahaa- lots of Russian history in Urumqi which i can show you too when you come over!

@96Stats Funny, thanks! So unexpected to me to find this Russian community in Yining, of all places!

@RnaudBertrand Nice one! This Russian guy from your vid is also famous in the area for his music- he has his own accordion museum in the park which is cool 😁 worth checking out if you have time

This is so funny. I followed Luke's recommendation in the comments yesterday 👇 and went to this Russian bakery here in Yining, Xinjiang. And I met the man himself: Alexander, a Chinese Russian! He looks 100% Russian but speaks Chinese like a local. And he is, in fact, a local: we chatted a bit and he explained his family history - they've been here in Xinjiang for 6 generations! This is something people commonly don't know about: China recognizes 55 official ethnic minorities living in the country and Russians is one of them - there are quite a few Russians exactly like Alexander who look Russians in all respects but are Chinese. We saw many of them during our previous RV roadtrip in Dongbei on the border with Russia, it's more unexpected to meet one here in the middle of Xinjiang 😅

@TreyWhitfield_ @RnaudBertrand sure 圣尼克莱东正教堂 and 俄罗斯大列巴阿列克桑德拉的面包房 both fairly close to each other

@96Stats @RnaudBertrand Do you have a Chinese name/address for the bakery and/or church?

@96Stats Oh I definitely need to check him out, thanks for the tip!

you have to go to Alexander's bakery... he's a Russian Chinese dude, his house is right next to the Orthodox Church which is where i met him. He's so famous there that they made a song about him everyone in China knows! Speaks good English and of course looks just like a foreigner, but he's 100% Chinese! and they have legit russian bread there too, really good!

It's day 8 of our Xinjiang RV roadtrip and, for the first time in the trip, we're in a big city: Yining (伊宁), with a population of roughly 1 million people. It's dinner time so we went to a very famous local street market called liu xing jie (六星街) with a lot of local specialties. I got myself: - Some beef wrapped in lamb guts and cooked in a stew - Some local milk curd mixed with shaved ice - An actual lamb head - apparently a big highlight of Uyghur food. And I have to say it's pretty good, and yes I ate the tongue and everything ☺️

Oh and the same Chinese pharma company who did this is also paying up to 175 million USD to develop a brain-disease treatment whose mechanism was again identified by AI. Basically the main takeaway is that Chinese pharma companies are now beginning to purchase AI-generated biological hypotheses rather than just subscribe to AI software

Wow! China has just moved an AI-discovered drug for lung disease into Phase III trials. AI did everything - it identified the disease target. Then another AI helped design the molecule. Now 320 patients will test whether it actually works, and it looks promising so far! Super exciting stuff! The West are YEARS behind on this kinda stuff now

All these US wars but not many are talking about how America just lost a quieter, arguably more important one to China: the race to invent the world's medicines. 5 years ago, Chinese labs were just 5% of Big Pharma's global dealmaking. Now, they're on track to be 66% of it. Crazy. And now more new drugs made their world debut in China than in the United States. The first time in modern history any country has taken that crown off America. The West still tells itself China does the cheap manufacturing while the "real" science happens in US/Switzerland… that story is now years out of date. This is something I know well because it's literally what I studied doing my PhD in medical AI here. Trials that takes around 500 days to go through in the US can take under 90 in China. China are also using their own AI models too and patenting them. The US are way behind on this now. So yeah, US drugmakers now depend on Chinese molecules to survive that patent cliff. If you cut the pipeline, you ain't hurting China, but you'll hurt Pfizer, Merck and Lilly etc etc.. and you starve American patients of the next generation of drugs

@RnaudBertrand i mean its just one reason haha! Chinese characters are super interesting and detailed, like 晃 can also mean to stroll..so it could mean its a place to enjoy life there too, or it could be just as you said hhaha

@96Stats Oh I see, now I get it 😅

Tonight we're staying in another very charming little village in Xinjiang, adorably called 晃晃 (Huanghuang) which literally means "shaky shaky." Somewhat random because, to my knowledge, it's not a place with earthquakes or anything but it's a cute name! Here's an unedited 5min video of us discovering Huanghuang so you can see what a tiny village in Xinjiang actually looks like today!

So, i think the rivalry means slightly different things to both countries. Many English supporters associate Argentina with the Falklands, the Hand of God, Simeone’s gamesmanship and painful World Cup eliminations. For many Argentines, England can represent something larger: a former imperial and economic power, the country occupying their territory, and the nation that introduced football before Argentina transformed it into part of its own identity.

The drama continued in 1998. David Beckham kicked out at Diego Simeone (yep current Atletico manager) and was sent off. I think many Argentines can even admit Simeone exaggerated the contact so so much to get him sent off. Argentina won. Four years later, Beckham got his revenge by scoring a penalty against them to knock them out.

The England/Argentina rivalry always fascinated me. My dad fought in the Falklands war, so i kinda grew up hating Argentina and wanting to learn more about it. There's actually soo many more reasons for our rivalry, here's a thread🧵