I think this a modern misconception of the word ni. Prior to the "du-reform" it was used when talking to subordinates. The polite formal way was to use titles and last names.
The new use of ni as a polite pronoun is probably inspired by the rest of europe, as we're trying to be fashionably international.
Interesting article, but I find this part a bit disingenuous:
Within a few years, farms all over China adopted the principles in that secret document. People could own what they grew. The government launched other economic reforms, and China's economy started to grow like crazy. Since 1978, something like 500 million people have risen out of poverty in China.
Though not explicitly stated, the passage seems to imply that the rise from poverty is wholly due to the capitalistic reforms, and a china without these reforms would not have seen any (at least major) similar change. Now this is a china that just decades earlier was destroyed by both the japanese and a civil war. Improvements take time, and these kind of cheap tricks ignore both that and a historical perspective.
Sorry for the rant, but these tricks are all too common, and I think we can afford ourselves some more intellectual honesty rather then let things pass with these ideological slants, unintentional though they may be.
So this benchmark measured "how the population actually experiences web browser performance", and the article pronounces Google Chrome as the obvious winner, with the slight sidenote that FF 5 has a faster "perceived render time"?
Highly valued is not the same as being adequately rewarded. Being a teacher in finland is valued in the way that it is respected and prestigious, something that shines through in the high grades needed to become one. In alot of countries, this is not at all the case.
Bret Devereaux has a series of posts where he delves into the history of the idea behind the meme - https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
It's a thoroughly interesting debunking, and in part IIIb, he talks about how the trope was used to promote racial purity and superiority.