CHINAMATIC

Gun Shape Baby Cradle by Shi Jinsong

2009-12-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

There is currently an exhibit called "China - Contemporary Revival" at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy. Shi Jinsong, a contemporary artist from Hubei has his works as part of the display there, entitled "Gun Shape Baby Cradle." I was not incredibly drawn to his work until I read his three major influences:

1. Radical socio-cultural change in China.

2. A reading of Foucault's Madness and Civilization.

3. The birth of his first daughter.

Then, his work made a lot more sense.

Photo and information from DesignBoom.

Chinese people see environment as biggest security threat

2009-12-10T19:13:00.001-08:00

From Newsweek:

Conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the MacArthur Foundation, the study found that three quarters of Chinese pointed to environmental problems such as climate change as a major threat to China's security, while 67 percent cited water and food shortages, and 58 percent said internal separatists. Only half of respondents thought the U.S. posed a security threat, and 45 percent still worried about Japan (though the survey indicated that would change if Japan were to acquire nuclear weapons). The other big regional players--India, Russia, and South Korea--were seen as relatively negligible risks.

Chinese universities unite against discrimination

2009-12-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about the continuation of employment discrimination in the United States. It's disheartening to read the personal accounts.

Here is an article from ChinaCSR on how Chinese universities are fighting sexist employment tactics:

A group of 14 Chinese universities including South China Normal University and China University of Political Science and Law have united to resist employment discrimination against college graduates.

It is said that female college students are more likely to be discriminated against and they are often asked such personal questions such as "do you have a boy friend?", "when do you plan to get married?" or "when do you plan to have a child?" as the employer thinks female workers will be more troublesome than their male counterparts. What's more, women often retire earlier than men, this means they will work less time for the employer than men.

In addition, there are some other ridiculous examples of discrimination. For example, an employer who was born in the Year of Dog doesn't want to hire someone who was also born in the Year of Dog to prevent possible conflict between them; or an applicant surnamed Pei may be rejected for a job because the pronounciation of their family name sounds like "loss of money" to the employer.

It is understood that employment discrimination is discrimination in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, and compensation based on such factors as nationality, gender, social background, age, physical condition, and disability that have nothing to do with a person's capability. Currently, most employers in China set limits on permanent residence, age, height, and gender for a job applicant. It is learned that in addition to direct discrimination such as "men first", there is also indirect discrimination such the employer requiring that all potential applicants to be over 1.7 meters tall, which can be seen to be a discrimination against women.

Besides the universities' action, a Law on Anti-Employment Discrimination has been drafted to draw people's attention to employment discrimination.

A poem by Bei Dao

2009-12-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

Black Map

in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map  I’ve come home-- the way back  longer than the wrong road long as a life  bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market  my father's life-spark small as a pea I am his echo turning the corner of encounters a former lover hides in a wind swirling with letters  Beijing, let me toast your lamplights let my white hair lead the way through the black map as though a storm were taking you to fly     I wait in line until the small window shuts: O the bright moon I’ve come home-- goodbyes are less than reunion only one less

Translated by Eliot Weinberger.

Chinese:

黑色地圖

寒鴉終於拼湊成 夜﹕黑色地圖 我回來了—歸程 總是比迷途長 長於一生  帶上冬天的心 當泉水和蜜制藥丸 成了夜的話語 當記憶狂吠 彩虹在黑市出沒  父親生命之火如豆 我是他的回聲 為赴約轉過街角 舊日情人隱身風中 和信一起旋轉   北京﹐讓我 跟你所有燈光干杯 讓我的白髮領路 穿過黑色地圖 如風暴領你起飛  我排隊排到那小窗 關上﹕哦明月 我回來了—重逢 總是比告別少 只少一次

More of his poetry: Jacket 14, lyrikline.

Twitter around the firewall!

2009-12-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I just found this via someone who just added me on Twitter (simabull).

All of these links can be used to access Twitter and get around the Firewall:

http://t.guancha.me/2009/11/24/latest-twitter-use/

I just tried Power.com and I can't believe I didn't know about this before - you can even register for a Twitter account through the site.

Tell all your friends in China! Or tell them to subscribe to this blog via RSS...

Environmental China on Blogspot

2009-11-20T00:48:00.000-08:00

For those of you who think e-mail newsletters are a bit old-fashioned, or who just like reading everything in RSS, here is Environmental China as a blog.

Note: For those of you in China, RSS feeds are not blocked, even if the original website is - so subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Blank Slate of Sexual Education in the Chinese Countryside

2009-11-19T07:00:00.001-08:00

As Chinese youth are exposed to more and more sex via the Internet in China’s rapidly expanding economy, the education system still has to catch up to their newfound curiosity. Even many schools in Beijing have only recently started true sex education classes, and these only usually begin in high school. There is an inconsistency in the way that China is becoming increasingly liberalized in some ways, but not quickly enough in some important ways and the problem of sexual education illuminates this (you can see the progression of abortion rates here). A number of horrific incidents have occurred recently, including a young woman giving birth in a toilet. Here is a recent article in the Slate concerning the lack of sex education in China. The following story provides a detailed description of the reaction of a small town to the incident of a 14-year old girl giving birth with no one ever noticing she was pregnant.

[From ChinaNews] While the other farmers of northern Guangdong are celebrating the much-needed rainfalls, 42-year old Deng Decai has locked herself at home, unremittingly smoking and sighing. Even in his dreams he never would have thought that only a week earlier, his 14-year old daughter Deng Chunhua would secretly give birth to a baby boy in her dorm room and proceed to throw the baby boy out the 5^th floor window.

The tragedy happened on November 4^th at a junior high in Aobei. According to local sources, one morning Deng Chunhua felt stomach pains and decided to not go to class and gave birth to a baby boy in her dormitory. The birth petrified Deng Chunhua, she was terrified of being reprimanded by her parents and despised by her classmates, so she put the baby in a black plastic bag and threw it out her window. However, the bag landed near the school walls and was discovered by a teacher later that day.

The above story was confirmed by the school principal. After the baby was discovered, the school immediately sent the physically weak Deng Chunhua to the hospital.

On November 6^th, Deng Chunhua was taken away by the police. Yu Fu, the school principal says that the question of whether or not the baby was thrown out of the window by her and how she got pregnant will have to be officially confirmed by police investigations.

The news soon led to heated discussion on other issues in the quiet town, the local residents are extremely dissatisfied with the local education system and forms of supervision. When a new student registers at a school, there should be a physical examination, how can no one notice that a young girl is pregnant while attending a school? However, during interviews, her classmates and parents all thought that she had merely gained weight.

“She had only been in school for two months and teachers and students all thought that it was just body fat,” Xu, the vice-president of the school told reporters. The school does have a physical exam when students enter the school, but it is scheduled in December.” Xu does admit that the school cannot avoid supervision duties and responsibility, and after the incident the school had an emergency meeting to discuss and summarize the incident.

Seven kilometers away from the school outside the small village, the reporter found the girl’s father Deng Decai. Upon seeing the reporters, Deng Decai unceasingly blamed himself, “I am to blame! A few months ago, Chunhua’s mother was washing clothes by the river and neighbors mentioned that Chunhua looked pregnant, but I said, she’s so young, it’s impossible, she’s just gained weight.”

Even now, Deng Decai has no idea when her daughter was impregnated. Deng Decai has three children, two boys and one girl, Deng Chunhua is his second child, and Deng Decai has always felt that Chunhua a sensible and obedient daughter, she never went online, and never got involved with riff-raff. Everyday when she got home from school she would help her mother with household chores.

This is a tragedy that should not have happened, besides the future of these junior high girls, what worries one even more is that when tragic incidents are increasingly more frequent, there is not attempt to change the fact that there is a lack of sex education at home and at school.

This case in northern Guangdong is not an isolated incident, on December 18^th, 2008, Cong Hua, who should have been entering into the second year of junior high, gave birth to a baby boy; on October 15^th, 2009, a 17-year old at a school in Southern China gave birth to a baby boy in her school dorm. Similar to the case of Chunhua, the parents, teachers, and classmates of these two girls had not idea that the girls were pregnant, the two girls also chose to be silent and secretly dispose of the babies.

“If I had known about the effects of teenage pregnancy, much of this sorrow could have completely been avoided,” Chunhua’s school director told reporters. There is basically no sexual education at schools in the countryside in China, these schools often have health classes, but once they reach the topic of sex and sexual organs, many teachers will allow students to self-learn, this type of avoidance is very dangerous in a generation of curious youth who are exposed to sex very early via the Internet, these adolescents have no sense of methods of birth control, and many times when they become pregnant, it is only understood to be weight gain.

“In our small town, no one has the nerve to talk to small girls about sex, if the girl is 17 or 18, the mother may remind her.” Deng Decai and the other farmers in his small town are not prepared to handle pregnancies of teenagers born in the 90’s.

During the interviews, the reporter found that many students did not know who to turn to to talk about their problems. They feared criticism from their teachers, contempt from classmates, and were not willing to communicate personal issues to adults at their school, and their parents were often busy in the fields all day.

The director of the school, Zhang, told reporters that the school plans to open psychological counseling rooms to help students in the uncertainly of their teenage years. Still, the school is unsure how useful these counseling rooms will actually be.

Posted first at ChinaHush.

Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek's indirect reconciliation

2009-11-18T04:50:00.000-08:00

News story from My Sinchew:

The grandchildren of Chinese communist icon Mao Zedong and his arch rival Chiang Kai-shek met in Taiwan in a rare encounter mirroring warming ties between Beijing and Taipei, a report said Tuesday.

Kong Dongmei, believed to be the first Mao relative ever to visit Taiwan, was on the island with a cultural delegation from the semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, said the local China Times.

She met Monday with John Chiang, a Taiwanese lawmaker and grandson of Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who was Mao's mortal enemy on the mainland for most of the period from the 1920s until the 1940s.

They met when Kong's delegation visited the headquarters of the ruling Kuomintang, the party that the elder Chiang played a key role in shaping both on the mainland and in Taiwan.

"It's just a coincidence we met. I didn't think too much about it," Kong said when asked if their meeting symbolised the end of the feud between the two late leaders, according to the report.

Kong, who runs a multi-media publishing company in Beijing, has reportedly made three previous low-profile visits to the island, most recently in July.

The battle between Mao and Chiang for control over China cost the lives of millions and only ended in 1949 when Mao's communist forces seized power, banishing Chiang and his troops to Taiwan, where he set up a rival government.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, and tensions mounted under the island's former pro-independence government.

Ties have improved dramatically, however, since President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang took office in 2008.

The Useless Tree

2009-11-18T04:30:00.000-08:00

Since I've become increasingly interested in understanding the Dao and Lao Zi's way of thinking, I've been reading through a lot of The Useless Tree's posts and it's really one of the only blogs out there that does an excellent job reflecting not only Daoism as a form of thinking, but a Daoist style and vibe.

The Daodejing: First Chapter

2009-10-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading Wang Meng's interpretation and explanation of the Daodejing and I've found it easy to understand, insightful and astute. This is the first chapter in Chinese:

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。

无，名天地之始，有，名万物之母。

故常无欲，以观其妙；常有欲，以观其徼。

此两者同出而异名，同谓之玄，玄之又玄，众妙之门。

And here are three English translations of the first chapter from various scholars. I feel that it is impossible to translate and be understood in the same terms as it would be in classical Chinese. However, I translated Wang Meng's explanation of the first chapter and I hope it provides some further insight than a direct translation. I would be interested if anyone has a great online source that explains the Daodejing chapter by chapter.

Translation:

The Dao is not easily explained, and if it is explained, it loses what is most fundamental, most natural, most primal, most eternal, most deep and also most abstract about the Dao, instead it would become a cheapened, on the surface, momentary, and plain insight.

Also, primary qualities are not easily labeled, they are not easily named and it is difficult to find the most suitable recapitulation. The truest and most accurate concept is difficult to articulate. The things that we can regularly articulate are all momentary, superficial, on the surface and shallow.

Nothingness or no-nameness – no concept, no title, no named name, this is the state of the universe’s beginning. Being or the concept of being present, being named, is the state of the universe’s occurrence. So often we must begin from the angle of nothingnesss, or the concept of nothing, to observe and contemplate the world’s vastnesss, deepness, mysteriousness and profundity.

At the same time, our rich, varied, and ever-changing world can be observed and contemplated from the angle of being or existence.

Nothingness and being come from the same universe, the same process and the same changes; these concepts come from the same observation and contemplation about the universe and its processes. They are abstract concepts of ultimacy; they are the closest concepts to the deep and profound idea of the Dao. The Dao is endlessly deep, endlessly vast, endlessly immense, endlessly changing with multiple states and positions – it is marvelous.

Thank you Useless Tree for the mention ^_^

Environmental virtue: What can we learn from China?

2009-10-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Previously, I’ve blogged about environmental justice as a framework of looking at environmental protection and why we should act. In the past few years, a new form of environmental ethics has been gaining momentum - environmental virtue ethics (EVE). Aristotle saw moral virtue as a reflection of a certain state of character, rather than our passions or our faculties and it is this kind of virtue - a consistent, repeated, dedicated character to environmental protection that is considered a environmental virtue ethic.

Ronald Sandler and Peter S. Wenz say that acting virtuously for the environment would mean manifesting a combination of both human-centered values and non-human centered values. An environmental virtue would allow both human life and nature to flourish, whereas acting non-virtuously would be harmful to both. For example, they argue that uncontrolled consumerism is harmful to both humans and the environment; any short-term gain is outweighed by long-term harms. To put this into visual perspective, Lu Guang’s documentary “Pollution in China” does a heart-wrenching job.

While sometimes it seems difficult to constantly act environmentally-friendly in today’s society, it is not impossible to be an environmentally virtuous person and I think China, while a developing country still economically developing in ways that are harming the environment, is also in many ways setting examples for how one would act virtuously to function synergistically with the environment, rather than merely utilizing it for personal gain.

One good example is that China’s entrepreneurs are shaping up. In this article from The Nature Conservancy, Charles Bedford talks about SEE (Society-Entrepreneurs-Ecology), an organization of wealthy entrepreneurs who want to help the environment.

From Bedford’s post:

SEE, quite simply, is a club of like-minded entrepreneurs with a commitment to support the government’s environmental agenda by funding local NGO’s that also embrace that agenda and that are committed to principles of “cooperation” and “win-win” solutions. They have raised and spent millions of dollars. They have grant cycles and annually give out over 70 prestigious (and monetary) awards for good works in the field that meet their criteria. SEE acts like a cross between a foundation and a country club — members pony up a certain amount every year and participate in the grant-making and awards decisions in what can only be described as a very garrulous democracy.

In other words, these entrepreneurs have found a way to be consistently dedicated to environmental protection. Also, the reasoning behind the creation of SEE is something people who are more “pro-economy” do not understand (everyone might seem green these days, but this is not completely the case): Pollution will harm the environment and the economy. This also reiterates the reasoning behind environmental virtue ethics.

Another way in which China could be an example to other countries is rooted in the habits of its citizens. The 2009 Greendex survey showed that China ranked third in terms of environmentally friendly consumer behavior. Chinese citizens drink boiled tap water instead of bottled water, use bikes for transportation more often than cars (China scoring highest overall in the transportation category), and practice energy-saving activities when it comes to housing.

Of course, China is still very much a coal-guzzling economy. Due to the massive amounts of coal found within China’s borders, this might not change anytime soon. Also, as China still has a ways to go before being fully “developed,” consumption is likely to increase.

In no way am I saying that China is perfect when it comes to being environmentally friendly, but in order to establish what an environmental virtue would be, it is useful to examine those activities that might lead to virtuous states of character. Aspects of China’s economic growth show that capitalism and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive and can even be mutually beneficial – electric bikes and scooters, solar power, reducing the use of plastic bags. I have noticed a recent wave of praise from the Western media for China’s environmental policies (i.e. Thomas Friedman’s The New Sputnik, or this article about Chinese solar in GOOD). These articles are productive not because they are pats on the back for China, but act as a model of environmentally virtuous actions for other countries to take note of. Criticism should motivate China, but praise should motivate other countries.

Posted first at Responsible China.

Open source education at PKU

2009-10-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

This semester I decided to transfer to the philosophy department at Peking University while also auditing a few classes in the Chinese and History departments. These departments are largely more “traditional” PKU departments than the international affairs department, meaning the professors are older, the classes are more developed, less oriented on Power Points, and more nuanced in lecture style. I am extremely pleased with my decision.

I think the aspect of these departments that I am most in awe of is the extent to which the classes are “open-source.” University education in the United States is extremely expensive and also rather exclusive in that you never find random people in your classes. This is either due to deliberate exclusivity on behalf of the university’s regulations, or the fact that there is simply no will from other people to listen in on college classes.

At PKU, this is completely different. I have talked to devout Christians who are genetic engineers in my theology class, a commercial broadcaster in my Classical Chinese class, a manager of a software company in my complexity science class, a high school student being forced to study economics in an Ancient Egyptian history class, etc. etc.

The professors are extremely amicable to these outsiders and it is a established tradition of PKU to have outsiders listen in on classes. In one class, a professor reflected on how there was absolutely no more room in a classroom for interested listeners so the professor lectured close to the window and had people listen by standing outside. I find this spirit to learn and spirit to teach admirable and contagious and I would be interested to know if it is widely occurring at all Chinese universities.

Modern Sky Festival

2009-10-09T00:40:00.000-07:00

Photo from Adriano Morán's photostream on Flickr.

I went to the last day of the Modern Sky Festival a couple of days ago. Having been to similar-type music festivals in the US, there was something so right and so wrong about the vibes at Modern Sky. The audience members were dressed both Playboy-like and alternatively; many girls sported tails and fuzzy ears, with Bob Marley-colored clothing and Converse shoes also adequately represented. There were a lot of blanket-entrepreneurs selling scarves, second-hand clothes, CD's and accessories decorated with marijuana.

One of these entrepreneurs deeply disappointed me: He was selling t-shirts that featured large pencil-drawn toads and the words "Odio et Amo" (He told me this was Greek for Hate and Love). I've been trying to consistently support small business but when I had almost paid him, he happily retorted: And you can be assured of the quality, miss, these were made in Nike factories.

The vibes that didn't feel right were the batches, crowds, and lines of police officers all over the festival grounds. Only today did I learn that all international acts were banned at the festival. At first I thought there were only a few guarding the stage and other relevant areas, upon some exploration around the edges of the festival grounds, I found that there were large batches of guards sitting in darkness.

Comparatively though, these guards were not as rigid and well-trained as the ones I saw at the Wang Lihong concert about a month ago. The guards that guarded the stage there were trained to not move a muscle for the entirety of the concert. These guards were more dynamic, thought not quite rocking out to the music. The Chinese government is still nervous when large groups of young people that they don't quite understand get together.

Ironically, the most in-demand Chinese band of the day, Miserable Faith, performed a memorable song that seemed to resonate well with both the obvious presence of authority and the slightly sedated but twitching audience. The chorus (and song title) is “哪里有压迫哪里就有反抗" (wherever reigns oppression, there will reign resistance). This song had the best crowd response of the entire day, everyone yelled along with the chorus and a rebellious tenor rang through the entirety of the festival grounds.

Commendable Chinese Scholar: 周策纵

2009-09-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

周策纵 (Zhou Cezong, also Chow Tse-tsung) is a renowned historian and scholar in redology (no, it's not the study of the color red). He strongly defended the May 4th movement and wrote May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (in English).

A review in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1960) says:

Though scholarly, this book is not a dry treatise. It contains such an absorbing account of the May Fourth Movement that it might well have been journalistically entitled "The Awakening of the Dragon."

My favorite creation of 周策纵 is this poem. The best way to read it is in a circle and no matter what character you start with, backwards or forwards, it creates a beautiful poem. There are 40 possible combinations of poems, each line of each poem with 5 characters, 4 lines total. It is called a “回文诗," which translates as "palindrome poem." This poem highlights well the exquisite characteristics of the Chinese language, especially its flexibility in structure and word order.

Here is the poem in a circular format:

And here are all the permutations of the poem:

Forwards:

月淡星荒渡，斜舟绕乱沙，白岸晴芳树，椰幽岛艳华。
淡星荒渡斜，舟绕乱沙白，岸晴芳树椰，幽岛艳华月。
星荒渡斜舟，绕乱沙白岸，晴芳树椰幽，岛艳华月淡。
荒渡斜舟绕，乱沙白岸晴，芳树椰幽岛，艳华月淡星。
渡斜舟绕乱，沙白岸晴芳，树椰幽岛艳，华月淡星荒。
斜舟绕乱沙，白岸晴芳树，椰幽岛艳华，月淡星荒渡。
舟绕乱沙白，岸晴芳树椰，幽岛艳华月，淡星荒渡斜。
绕乱沙白岸，晴芳树椰幽，岛艳华月淡，星荒渡斜舟。
乱沙白岸晴，芳树椰幽岛，艳华月淡星，荒渡斜舟绕。
沙白岸晴芳，树椰幽岛艳，华月淡星荒，渡斜舟绕乱。
白岸晴芳树，椰幽岛艳华，月淡星荒渡，斜舟绕乱沙。
岸晴芳树椰，幽岛艳华月，淡星荒渡斜，舟绕乱沙白。
晴芳树椰幽，岛艳华月淡，星荒渡斜舟，绕乱沙白岸。
芳树椰幽岛，艳华月淡星，荒渡斜舟绕，乱沙白岸晴。
树椰幽岛艳，华月淡星荒，渡斜舟绕乱，沙白岸晴芳。
椰幽岛艳华，月淡星荒渡，斜舟绕乱沙，白岸晴芳树。
幽岛艳华月，淡星荒渡斜，舟绕乱沙白，岸晴芳树椰。
岛艳华月淡，星荒渡斜舟，绕乱沙白岸，晴芳树椰幽。
艳华月淡星，荒渡斜舟绕，乱沙白岸晴，芳树椰幽岛。
华月淡星荒，渡斜舟绕乱，沙白岸晴芳，树椰幽岛艳。

Backwards:

华艳岛幽椰，树芳晴岸白，沙乱绕周斜，渡荒星淡月。
艳岛幽椰树，芳晴岸白沙，乱绕周斜渡，荒星淡月华。
岛幽椰树芳，晴岸白沙乱，绕周斜渡荒，星淡月华艳。
幽椰树芳晴，岸白沙乱绕，周斜渡荒星，淡月华艳岛。
椰树芳晴岸，白沙乱绕周，斜渡荒星淡，月华艳岛幽。
树芳晴岸白，沙乱绕周斜，渡荒星淡月，华艳岛幽椰。
芳晴岸白沙，乱绕周斜渡，荒星淡月华，艳岛幽椰树。
晴岸白沙乱，绕周斜渡荒，星淡月华艳，岛幽椰树芳。
岸白沙乱绕，周斜渡荒星，淡月华艳岛，幽椰树芳晴。
白沙乱绕周，斜渡荒星淡，月华艳岛幽，椰树芳晴岸。
沙乱绕周斜，渡荒星淡月，华艳岛幽椰，树芳晴岸白。
乱绕周斜渡，荒星淡月华，艳岛幽椰树，芳晴岸白沙。
绕周斜渡荒，星淡月华艳，岛幽椰树芳，晴岸白沙乱。
周斜渡荒星，淡月华艳岛，幽椰树芳晴，岸白沙乱绕。
斜渡荒星淡，月华艳岛幽，椰树芳晴岸，白沙乱绕周。
渡荒星淡月，华艳岛幽椰，树芳晴岸白，沙乱绕周斜。
荒星淡月华，艳岛幽椰树，芳晴岸白沙，乱绕周斜渡。
星淡月华艳，岛幽椰树芳，晴岸白沙乱，绕周斜渡荒。
淡月华艳岛，幽椰树芳晴，岸白沙乱绕，周斜渡荒星。
月华艳岛幽，椰树芳晴岸，白沙乱绕周，斜渡荒星淡。

There is no Wikipedia entry for Zhou Cezong - anyone interested in writing one? There seems to be scattered information on the Internet.

The Great Mediocre Firewall of China

2009-08-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

I've been contemplating this entire Great Firewall business lately. I asked a Chinese friend how he gets past the Firewall and his answer was simple: Look up 翻墙 (literally "over the wall") on Baidu and click the first result. Knowing that there are thousands of Firewall enforcers in the Chinese government and with the 50-Cent Party (五毛党) now being used by local governments to control Internet rhetoric, I was pretty shocked at how easily I was accessing Blogger and Facebook.

翻墙 is the general term for getting "over the wall" in China and Baidu is the most used search engine. It makes sense that this would be a commonly searched term and fanqiang.org being the first result on Baidu, it would be often used to access website that are blocked. With such a mighty team of Firewall police, why haven't they caught on to this website yet? I've checked it's existence everyday for nearly a month now and it's always operating boasting with slogans such as "Taking the road less traveled," or "There is no difficulty the heroic Chinese can't overcome."

There is the phenomenon of the logic of collective action (explanation here) starting to take place within the Chinese government at the different levels.

1. The reason the 50 Cent Party is becoming more and more prominent is because local governments now have their own incentives for controlling the Internet. They can't rely on the Central government to handle everything and must have their own forces impacting the flow of information on the Internet.

2. It is way too costly for the Central Government to pore through everything, so they only control sites that might impact national affairs, especially social networking sites. If the government really wanted to, it could control the Internet with an iron fist, but the opportunity-cost makes it not worth it. In example, I was talking to a Beijing native about the events in Xinjiang and how the government shut down all Internet access. His response, "Of course they would! For the Chinese government, this is an incredibly easy feat." So, their goal isn't necessarily to prevent everyone from climbing "over the wall," it is not important for the CCP to make the wall insurmountable, just existent.

So, why is Fanqiang.org still not blocked?

Honestly, I don't know. It has ads from Skype, Google, and other corporations, it must be quite visible and regularly used. I've asked a number of local Chinese and their response is that the government has no interest in sealing the wall, but the wall is just a symbol meant to express their position that Internet control is necessary. It might be a sign that control of the Firewall is not as strict as the government likes to make it seem, or it might simply be a large hole in the wall that neither the CCP or local governments have had the incentive to fill in.

Anti-US Chinese political cartoons circa 1958-1960

2009-08-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

This website has a high-quality collection of old anti-US Chinese political cartoons circa 1958 to 1960.

These two are probably my favorite:

1. The banner on the bird's shirt says "Modern correctionalist" (represents Japan) and the alligator is labeled as the US.

2. On the factories in the background it says "Continue the leap" (Great Leap Forward). The black hat says "Western media commentators" and the tie on the other man says "Readers."

Other notable ones are 3, 11, and 32.

Creative Commons

2009-08-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

I just added a Creative Commons license to my blog.

I am HTML illiterate, but thankfully it's incredibly simple - step by step instructions here.

Creative Commons describes themselves as:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization
We work to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.

CC provides free, easy-to-use legal tools
Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The Creative Commons licenses enable people to easily change their copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”

I really think this is an important step forward in the sadly over-commercialized world of artistic expression.

A great article entitled "Articulating a Chinese Commons: An Explorative Study of Creative Commons in China" can be found here. It is also licensed by Creative Commons.

A brief explanation of the basis of Taiji

2009-08-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

Image from here.

When I ask most people how many parts they see in the Taiji (or Yingyang) symbol, most people will answer 2 or 4. The most accurate answer, however, is 1. I think this misconception is common, but it also reveals a general misunderstanding of the Taiji, or a concept that has largely influenced Daoism, Confucianism and other branches of Chinese philosophy.

Lao-Tzu says:

道生一 The Tao begot one.

一生二 One begot two.

二生三 Two begot three.

三生万物 And three begot the ten thousand things.

With an explanation of this, we can understand the meaning behind the Taiji and how it relates to the hexagrams from the I-Ching.

The Tao begot one.

The Taiji is literally the Great Ultimate, or the symbol for how the universe is ordered. The circular shape stands for One, the universe. Lao-Tzu used this concept to describe the Dao, it is the most original and ultimate way to conceive of the universe. With the Tao, the Taiji symbol itself is born for it represents the Great Ultimate.

One begot two.

The Tao is the Universe - there is only one, but the Universe is composed of two elements: yin and yang. Yang is 阳, or the creative aspect; Yin is 阴，or the receptive aspect. The way that the sun and the moon operates explains this concept most precisely - the sun gives off light and the moon's light is created by reflecting the light of the sun; the sun is creative, the moon is receptive. In the hexagrams Yin and Yang are represented by __ __ and ____, respectively. At this point, the elements of the Taiji are explained - Yin and Yang are the two basic forces of the Great Ultimate.

Two begot three.

Each basic trigram has three lines (of Yin and Yang). So why are there three? Each line represents the Heaven, Earth, or Humanity. When two Yang symbols or two Yin symbols are combined, another Yin symbol is created. When one Yang and one Yin symbol is combined, a Yang symbol is created. Hence, the joining of the Heaven and the Earth created Humanity, so Two begot three.

Three begot the ten thousand things.

With the eight trigrams, all other things were able to be created. The 64 hexagrams are created by combining the different trigrams and they are able to represent the rest of the main components of the universe.

The Eight Trigrams (from here.)

Kun (Earth) and Qian (Heaven) are the most basic trigrams and the word 乾坤 (Qiankun) in Chinese literally means Universe.

I think the basis of Chinese philosophy relies on this opposition between Yin and Yang, where Western philosophy begins more with an opposition between Good and Evil (which Nietzsche strongly criticizes).

As Lao-Tzu says:

After Tao was lost, then came the 'power'; After the 'power' was lost, then came human kindness. After human kindess was lost, then came morality; after morality was lost, then came ritual.

The Children's Palace: Where nature decides nurture

2009-08-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Genetic Testing

The movie GATTACA left a deep impression on me as a 1984-esque portrayal of a world were genes mean too much. According to this CNN article, in Chongqing, a "Children's Palace" was established to help parents decide how to raise their child based on genetic testing.

Previously, DNA testing has more often been used to detect genetic diseases, but now genetic testing is being used to discover what each child is genetically-geared to accomplish. With the One-Child policy, each only child bears an enormous amount of pressure to please the parentals, and this test is just another way to make their child-raising blueprint that much more successful.

The camp itself seems harmless, but what implications might this genetic testing carry with it? A statement from the director of the camp to CNN about a child's results:

This child is very thoughtful and focused, so I suggest she go into management.

It seems that there is a strong pseudo-science aspect to this whole affair - "thoughtful and focused" are rather vague traits that could be seen in any profession - so why management? If anyone walks into a Chinese bookstore, they can see the massive amount of self-help books on the shelves that many people are poring through, especially about management. With Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People selling very well in China, and other books about people-management filling the shelves, management-type jobs are quite 火 (literally - fire), or popular. So is this "test result" really a scientific result? My first reaction is no, it is a purely what a parent would want to hear - an arbitrary construction at worst, an acceptable answer at best.

Other events are probably creating the economic conditions where a camp like this eventually could be in high demand. A primary reason would be the recent crisis where college grads could not find jobs, even if they graduated from the top universities in China. If a parent can pick a major or a profession for a child so that they are the best of that field, this problem could be avoided. The idea of a specialized child-rearing process is no doubt becoming increasingly attractive to parents.

Parenting Techniques

I wonder how Chinese parents feel about the whole "nature vs. nurture" debate. Should genetic nature fully determine the method of nurturing?

Chinese parenting techniques have lead to a paradox in child development literature. Chinese parenting techniques have been characterized as "controlling" and "restrictive." These styles of parenting have been associated with poor academic achievement in European-American family samples, but Chinese students perform well, if not better than European-American students.

Ruth K. Chao, a Professor of Psychology at UCLA, argues that this way of describing Chinese parenting is ethnocentric and suggests an alternative depiction of "training." Chao argues that this "training" concept is much more fitting to describe the Chinese parenting model; her studies also show that Chinese mothers were better at employing this technique than European-American mothers.

Now, back to the CNN article. CNN quotes Dr. Blinn as a critic of program saying:

"Kids, especially at younger ages, they need to have fun, they need to enjoy themselves, they need to find meaning in life," Dr. Blinn said. "They need to have rich deep emotional interchange with their families and parents."
"Whether it's really good for a two- or three-year-old to be sent off to a camp to be genetically tested, you know, and put in this track so early in life, I have some real doubts about whether that's in the child's best interest," Blinn added. "It seems to be more in the parents' best interest."

What is this "need" that Dr. Blinn talks about? Is it possible that this genetic testing is not necessarily "bad" for children, but just a modern extension of Chinese parenting techniques? Of course, Chao's study only measured academic success, not exactly the degree to which a child is "happy." For Chao, the important concepts emphasized in Chinese parenting are xiaoshun and guan, which imply care and concern for the child that "authoritarian" fails to capture.

On one hand, I would be curious to see what Chinese psychologists say about the genetic testing camp and how it would fit into an explanation of Chinese parenting techniques. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure the conclusions that this camp provides for parents are reliable to construct a "training" course.

Posted first at ChinaGeeks.

The Rise of Environmental NGOs

2009-08-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently found two stories about environmental NGOs in China directly taking a stance against the government to improve environmental policy.

The first is a landmark case in which a court accepted a lawsuit brought on by a charitable organization, The All-China Environment Federation. They are suing the government for allowing the construction of a ice cream workshop in Baihua Lake, a beautiful scenic area. This article is reported in both English and Chinese. Also, the China Environmental Law Blog has a good article on it.

The second concerns The Green Volunteer League asking the Ministry to reconsider its recent punishment of two hydropower projects in the Jinshajiang River in southwest China. The NGO is requesting that the Ministry also halt the construction of two hydroelectric power plants in addition to stopping construction of the dams (China Daily).

Both of these stories have undetermined endings, but I’m hoping they’ll end in favor of the environment. I also hope that I will see more and more stories about NGOs standing up for environmental protection.

Links:

Posted first at ResponsibleChina.

Global Times: True Xinjiang

2009-07-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Caption: The contestants take to the stage at the preliminary contest for the 2009 Miss Tourism International in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region July 19, 2009. Photo from True Xinjiang.

Global Times now has "the largest portal on Xinjiang in English language and aims to present everyone a true picture of this autonomous region in Northwest China."

This entire operation makes me slightly wary. While I've always kept in mind that Global Times is a newspaper under the auspices of the Central Government, I've always found certain articles in the Global Times to be unique in quality and character, in contrast to the quite predictable Xinhua or People's Daily. Of course, I am also hesitant to immediately conclude that all information on the website is government propaganda and not worth considering.

From a quick scan of the headlines, it seems that True Xinjiang is geared towards proving 1) that the Chinese government is set on maintaining stability in Xinjiang; 2) Xinjiang is a marvelous tourist destination.

Here is the About US:

TrueXinjiang.com is maintained by dedicated editors and correspondents of the Global Times website (www.globaltimes.cn). Approading a true Xinjiang - the site is the largest portal on Xinjiang in English language and aims to present everyone a true picture of this autonomous region in Northwest China.
Through this portal, aspects of Xinjiang rarely known to the outside world have a chance to highlight their charms. It covers culture, religion, travel and latest developments in Xinjiang with voices from both authorities and individuals. Features like "Xingjing in my eyes" and "Xingjinag, my hometown"are designed to reflect Xingjiang’s local life. You are also welcome to join Xinjiang-related issues on the forum.

When Global Times opened it's English website, it made the cover of Xinhua and similar Chinese newspapers (Danwei).

Perhaps something worth investigating: how does the Chinese government project itself in English-language media versus Chinese-language media? In a recent conversation I had with a Chinese friend in the media industry, he pointed out that if you read both Chinese and English news daily, you'll notice a difference in the media's attitude towards Chinese politics, international views of China, etc. He feels that Chinese news in English is usually a bit more bold and more critical than if you were to read the same story in Chinese. For example, CCTV-9, CCTV's English language channel, broadcasts many things that other CCTV channels would never touch on.

It's become really quite difficult for me to find any single media outlet that reports on China objectively. Any suggestions? I think my favorite source for news on China is still ESWN.

Environmental China now working with chinadialogue

2009-07-25T02:12:00.000-07:00

Environmental China is now cooperating with chinadialogue by contributing to their news round-up. An example can be found here.

chinadialogue is probably my favorite website that explores environmental issues concerning China for one reason: they are true to their name. Not only do they have bilingual versions of all their articles, they also translate all comments that are posted to their site. This means that a true two-sided conversation can be had about China's environmental issues.

Also, chinadialogue provides exclusive, well-written, and refreshing content concerning environmental issues. The topics they cover are important and come from experts in the field. If you're interested in the environment, but you find it an overwhelming and complicated issue, I would highly recommend chinadialogue.

The Chinese Consciousness: Lu Xun, Darwin, and Love

2009-07-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

Through Western history, Darwin has been associated with quite a line of fascists. Rather than seeing his logic as a comprehensive explanation for the movement and continuation of ecosystems, people have attributed him with one maxim: the survival of the fittest. That has always been the problem with thinkers who think and write, live through private walks and armchairs, and subsequently don't see a point in publicity. Their ideas become twisted, misapplied, convoluted and glamorized for perverse purposes.

However, there is also the other side of the coin. If Hitler and fascism are one side of Darwin's historical coin, the other side could be Lu Xun and love. Justifications are usually the crux of a person's action, though also surprisingly flexible, more of a kaleidoscope than a telescope. To Lu Xun, Darwin's theory of evolution gives rise to one abstract and necessary concept: Love.

The arrangement of the natural world does possess inevitable shortcomings, but it is a combination of old and nascent ways, and there is no error. It does not use the concept of 恩, but it gives nature a type of instinct, and that is what we call "love."

According to Lu Xun, if parents did not love their children, there is no way they would evolve or better themselves, much less survive. Through his criticism of traditional Chinese emphasis on 恩, or, favor/grace, Lu Xun promotes Darwin's evolutionary theory in his essay, How we should act as fathers (Chinese version here). 恩 is the child's obligation to repay her parent's for giving birth and raising them, and hence the child's life is lived to grace the old with favor and grace. Lu Xun says (translated):

The principle that I have in mind is extremely simple. It is based on the natural world. First, we must preserve life. Second, we have to continue life. Third, we have to expand and develop this life (this is evolution). Nature is like this, hence father's should also act this way.

Lu Xun claims that except for single-celled animals, most animals are capable of a trusting and healthy relationship with their children. He says that Chinese society has misused this trust to expect return, rather than expansion and improvement. Having only been exposed to scientific or politico-historical interpretation of Darwin, I initially found Lu Xun's ability to extract love from such a rational explanation of nature to be absurd, but now I understand this emotionality-rationality fusion is an inherent part of Chinese philosophy (i.e. yin and yang). Lu Xun did start out as a doctor before he became a revolutionary writer, but now I'm glad to find this rationality-emotionality fusion to be comfortably existent in Chinese consciousness.

Pictures from here and here.

More quality controlling

2009-07-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

A new book just came out about Chinese manufacturing and why it's so cheap. The book is entitled Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game. I found a very informative book review at Asia Times.

Excerpt:

Despite that approach, China for nearly a decade has been phenomenally attractive to importers, particularly Americans. Even though other countries can undersell it, China remains the top choice for contract manufacturing. China has better infrastructure and internal stability than low-cost producers such as Vietnam or India, so shipping channels are more reliable. It has a wide range of manufacturers, eager to make anything importers want, offering the equivalent of "no money down" deals, driven by the mantra, "All we need is your sample".

Electronic Waste: The Ethics of Trash and Environmental Justice

2009-07-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

The Modern Predicament

The amount of material needed to sustain the modern world is somewhat ridiculous– and what better way to understand how much substance we buy is there than looking at the trash we produce? For example, in 2005, the United States produced 246 million tons of trash.

This is an extremely large amount of trash to visualize and sociologists tell us that the human mind cannot meaningfully grasp numbers higher than a few thousand. A better way to put it into perspective: A blue whale, the largest animal in the world, weighs about 160 tons. Therefore, 246 million tons of trash is equal to 1.64 million blue whales of trash. Just the heart of a blue whale is the size of a car.

Chris Jordan is an artist that is focused on displaying the extent of American consumerism. I think that through his work, we can develop a more concrete image of the incredible amount of things we use. His website can be found here. He says:

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

Trash encompasses unwanted food, cans, computers, boxes, etc. The implications of throwing out trash might bring a sense of guilt sometimes because you’re not recycling. But here’s a thought: Trash kills. Not quickly and violently, but slowly, dismissively, and subtly.

For around $1.50 USD, about 60,000 local workers including children risk their lives and limbs to scramble for anything out of your old computer. In Guiyu, Guangdong, picking through electronic waste has replaced rice production. The city is an electronic slaughterhouse. For example, some workers go to the local river where they make small fires to heat an extremely toxic mixture called Aqua Regia (Latin for “king’s water”), which is composed of 75% hydrochloric acid and 25% nitric acid. This process is extremely harmful to both humans and the environment. The residents of Guiyu cannot drink local water, and many villagers have become sick and weak. China takes in about 72% of the world’s electronic waste, which is about 35 million tons. Most of this waste is toxic and dangerous and long-term effects are still unclear.

A New Framework for Trash Disposal: Environmental Justice

The U.S. goes through at least 426,000 cell phones everyday (Chris Jordan art) in addition to countless other electronic supplies. How can we re-conceptualize this amount of stuff in a way that is more human, more ethical, and more pragmatic? Let’s look at the philosophy of John Rawls. He says, “In justice as fairness, men agree to share one another’s fate.” Rawls emphasizes that legitimacy is more of a technicality than a moral standard, and that justice is the maximal moral standard. Although it is “legal” for companies to throw electronic waste in Guiyu because the locals get paid for compensation, this is not necessarily just.

The environmental justice movement emerged in the early 1980s as a concept in the United States. Dr. Robert Ballard, a prominent environmental justice advocate says:

The environmental justice movement has basically redefined what environmentalism is all about. It basically says that the environment is everything: where we live, work, play, go to school, as well as the physical and natural world. And so we can’t separate the physical environment from the cultural environment. We have to talk about making sure that justice is integrated throughout all of the stuff that we do.

Before the rise of environmental justice, the trend of the environmental movement has been neglectful of difference and pluralism, especially in the United States. As Wolff notes, “the genius of American politics is its ability to treat matters of principle as though they were conflicts of interest.” (quoted from here). Scholsberg writes:

In addition to the lack of both diversity and attention to environmental inequalities, the form that mainstream environmental organizing has taken has angered grassroots activists attentive to resource and environmental justice issues. Specifically, critiques have addressed the centralization and hierarchical structure, the lack of democratic and community participation, and the general evolution of the major groups into professionalized interest groups practically indistinguishable from their adversaries. (Read as a Google Book)

Environmental justice shifts the focus from the environment as a commodity to be preserved to a more holistic understanding of the environment as an interactive forum that is part of experience, whether it be for humans, animals or plants.

New legal precedents should be set in the realm of trash disposal to be environmentally just, so cities in the deathly condition of Guiyu do not exist. As Keith Lewis, of the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario and an object of the history of nuclear waste in the United States says, “There is nothing moral about tempting a starving man with money.”

Posted first at Responsible China.

The so-called "Asian fetish"

2009-05-08T23:47:00.000-07:00

Being in China means that this term appears in many conversations concerning multicultural couples, and it is especially prominent in Beijing, where Caucasian/Asian couples are often seen. This post would like to offer some thoughts and ideas.

Definitions. The much-used and relied on Urban Dictionary. There are six definitions offered, and most of them have more "downs" than "ups." The following are the two most popular:

1. asian fetish: Refers to the strong attraction to asians, most prevalent in caucasian males. Although asian girls have A's in more than just grades: what they lack in boobs, they make up for in beauty. Usually exotic and petite, guys don't necessarily feel superior but more masculine around them, only adding to this.

(This definition received "490 up" and "151 down")

2. asian fetish: a sexual attraction to asian females by white males. contrary to public opinion, there is nothing racist or wrong with this as it is an example of outbreeding behavior.

(This definition received "163 up" and "112 down")

Freud. For Freud, a fetish is a "token of triumph over the threat of castration and a protection against it" (from Decadent Subjects). In other words, the fetish is a "penis-substitute" and represents the male's refusal of the possibility that a woman has no penis, "for if a woman can be castrated then his own penis is in danger, and against that there rebels part of his narcissism with Nature has providentially attached to this particular organ." (Freud, "Fetishism," 1927) In other words, it refers to a "contradictory belief structure which enables the infant to deal with the shocking discovery of sexual difference." (from Colonial Fantasies) Homi K. Bhabha applies the term "fetish" to post-colonial studies by replacing penis with skin/race/culture, so an "Asian fetish" would be the structure of thought which allows for the discovery of difference in skin/race/culture.

Inaccuracy/Degradation: In a book entitled Yell-OH Girls!, a contributor to the book claimed that the term in itself is flawed - the term "fetish" refers to obsessions with objects, since "Asian fetish" refers to an obsession with a certain type of person, it should be re-named "Asian-philia."

Media. The San Francisco Examiner published an article in 1990 about the growing number of multiracial couples in the Bay Area entitled "Asian Woman, Caucasian Men," which I could only find online here. Also, an account in the Yale Daily News of an incident of perversity.

Ideas for further analysis:

1. Online forums: People are incredibly honest in online forums about their desires and apprehensions. Even if some may consider this phenomenon somewhat debunk and meaningless, it is affecting people's views and mindsets towards relationships. Perhaps this is a good place for sociologists/psychologists/anthropologists/cultural theorists to obtain information on how people conceive of an "Asian fetish."

2. There are now many more women of Asian descent who lack those qualities stereotypically associated with why men have "Asian fetishes." Many of these women still marry Caucasian males, and there are instances where these woman earn more than their husbands. How would this affect studies of the "Asian fetish"? (especially in post-colonial literature)

3. "Self-fulfilling prophecy theory": This term is unnecessarily overloaded with meaning and in some cases it is merely an aesthetic preference. However, due to the constructed cultural implications of Caucasian/Asian couples, these couples begin to question the true source of their attraction and become overly conscious of a concept that might not pertain to them.

4. A valid question posed in a forum, "do you think it is possible for an asian male to have an asian fetish?"

Appreciating C-pop, and going beyond (slightly)

2009-05-05T02:31:00.001-07:00

Writing Chinese essays has taken most of the energy out of me lately (10000 on North Korea, 5000 on transnational corporations, 3000 on environmental justice), but through all of this, I have discovered that I concentrate quite well with Chinese music. I'm not sure what most of your impressions of Chinese music is, but I have discovered some artists I enjoy besides Jay Chou.

信乐团

信乐团 - 爱情 36 计（rock)

信乐团－ One night in 北京 - One night in Beijing (rock)

Lonely China Day - One (alternative, rock)

Lonely China Day - Red Blossom of Plum and Me (alternative, rock)

朴树－那些花儿 - Those flowers（ballad, pop - this song is just beautiful)

陶喆－爱，很简单 - Love, Simply (love song)

南拳妈妈－香草把噗 (pop)

王力宏－春雨里洗过的太阳 - (pop)

My exposure to Chinese music is in no way comprehensive, and I'm working on finding more hip-hop/electronica/alternative/indie rock. Once I have more time I will put together something with more variety. If you're more educated on Chinese music than I am, I would really appreciate any suggestions beyond this list.

(photo from here)

Trying not to get eaten: Liu Xiaoyuan and the problems with China's judicial system

2009-04-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, my friend sent me an article from Southern Window （南方窗）written by a Beida law school professor, Zhang Qianfan, furiously decrying the lack of judicial reform in China. His first paragraph reveals his trenchant criticism (translated from here):

Judicial reform has been intermittently in progress for 10 years now, and today we have reached a point where people are deeply dissatisfied. In a country ruled by law, corrupted officials might be commonly seen, but judicial corruption is still very rare. However, in the process of China's reform, not only is the law unfair and corrupt, but the phrase "both the plaintiff and the defendant get eaten" has become a common saying among ordinary people. The forms of corruption are also systematically renovated, and endlessly reproducing.

I'm currently helping a controversial and civic-minded Beijing-based lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, to find organizations or people wanting to cooperate with him on a project.

Liu Xiaoyuan at his office in Beijing

From my conversations with Liu Xiaoyuan, it seems to me that China needs more civic-minded lawyers, legal structures, and legal precedents to address judicial corruption. While the number of lawyers in China has jumped from 2000 in 1979 to over 120,000 in 2006 (source), most Chinese law offices are still small, and oriented more toward commercial purposes.

Liu Xiaoyuan talked to me about his efforts to correct the injustice imposed on Li Zhiping, a farmer in Hebei. Li Zhiping was wrongly sentenced to the death penalty twice, and finally because of inadequate evidence was put into detention for seven years. Li Zhiping submitted sixteen petitions that were not redressed. Afterwards, with the legal assistance of Liu Xiaoyuan, Li Zhiping was released on bail, fully revocated, and deemed innocent.

Liu Xiaoyuan also told me that there is a resource of government-funded lawyers for people who want to sue, but don't have the money, but also that there are often cases of people who are sent to labor re-education camps or psychiatric hospitals by courts in order to avoid hearing their cases.

It seems to me that judicial reform in China is slow, and that there are many key blockades that prevent the reform from actually advancing rule of law. I feel that civic-minded lawyers in China should really collaborate, focus on symbolic cases that can act as precedents, and write law reviews that can assist future civic-minded lawyers. Another point Liu Xiaoyuan brought up to me during conversation is that a lot of scholars who analyze judicial reform tend to get caught up with overarching problems and not the more specific snags or technical flaws that actually occur in the process, i.e. they don't really talk to the people who are wronged. Liu Xiaoyuan told me that the cases who are often reported in the media are exceptional cases that are willingly corrected once they are exposed, it is the less sensational and more oft-occurring cases that are forgotten and form the trend of judicial corruption.

According to Jamie Horsley, a Deputy Director of The China Law Center at Yale:

The courts are the ultimate backstop in a rule of law system to restrain arbitrary and abusive state and private behavior. China’s judiciary needs to be strengthened, through structural changes in the court system that promote judicial independence from government or Party interference and increased professional training to enhance competence, so that judges can better fulfill their role to help channel grievances off the streets. A more authoritative and transparent Chinese judiciary would help increase the prestige and effectiveness of the Chinese legal system. Judicial reform is essential to China’s rule of law endeavor.

The China Law Center has a great list of articles if you're interested in this topic.

(Image from AP, linked from Fox News)

Environmental China #1

2009-03-28T22:43:00.001-07:00

I'm now in charge of PACE's (Professional Association for China's Environment) media and outreach program and Environmental China is a new project that I'm in charge of. It's really easy to get Environmental China in your e-mail, just submit your e-mail here. Here is the first edition, I'm working to be more diverse and complete in my sources and I think I'm going to ask PACE members to perhaps submit an exclusive PACE article every week or so as well.

Environmental China

A weekly update of China’s environmental news and analysis from PACE (www.pacechina.net)

By CC Huang

Welcome to Environmental China, PACE's e-mail newsletter devoted to giving interested readers a comprehensive update of news concerning China's environment. This newsletter will be sorted first with an Opinion section, and then a rundown of news divided into Public/NGOs, Government, and Corporations, with news about each sector's involvement in China's environment. Articles within each section is sorted chronologically. Any comments, suggestions or questions can be directed to cc.huang2@gmail.com.

OPINION

Growth is good but it must be green (China Daily, 3/26/2009) With the onslaught of the financial crisis last October, politicians and economists immediately began to blame Americans for consuming too much and Chinese for saving too much. Whoever is at fault, China has quickly learned that it can no longer depend on growing exports to drive its economy.

Opportunities abound in China’s environmental monitoring sector (Interfax-China, 3/23/2009) Environmental monitoring is becoming an increasingly important sector of the environmental protection industry as the Chinese government pays more attention to emission control and reduction.

Small-scale agriculture: A viable solution for China’s food and environmental concerns? (The Green Leap Forward, 3/18/2009)

PUBLIC SECTOR/NGOS

China’s green push starts at the bottom (BBC, 3/28/2009) Local farmers use to muck to create energy, reveals a trend toward environmentally friendly practices that might be more difficult for the government to understand.

Jet Li moves One Foundation toward combating climate change (China Daily, 3/26/2009) Kungfu star Jet Li is leading his One Foundation in a new direction - that is, raising public awareness about combating climate change and is teaming up with Tony Blair’s Climate Group to launch a low-carbon city project in Guiyang, Guizhou.

Pupil’s attend environmentally-friendly education activity (Xinhua News, 3/26/2009) Photo Gallery: Pupils attend environmentally-friendly education activity to observe plants in Yichang, Hubei.

Tibet: No; Climate Change, Yes! (NBC News, 3/25/2009) On Monday Greenpeace China turned Yongdingmen, one of Beijing's ancient city gates, into a gigantic countdown clock ticking down to the United Nations' Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen in December.

Better to light a candle then curse the crisis (Shanghai Daily, 3/24/2009) Chinese from all across the country turn off their lights for an hour for Earth Hour, an hour celebrated across the world to increase awarenesss for conservation.

5^th World Water Forum calls for joint action on water challenges (Xinhua News, 3/22/2009) The 5th World Water Forum, the largest water-related event in the world, concluded in Turkey on Sunday, or the World Water Day, with firm commitments of tackling global water challenges jointly in the context of sustainable development.

GOVERNMENT

China makes additional investment in pollution control in Songhua River Basin (Xinhua News, 3/25/2009) China will add 36 pollution control projects with an investment of nearly 1.8 billion yuan (26.3 million U.S. dollars) for pollution control in Songhua River Basin in the northeastern Jilin Province.

Top state-controlled think tank proposes greenhouse gas trading plan (China Daily, 3/25/2009) A top Chinese State think tank has proposed a global greenhouse gas trading plan to reflect the different historic emissions of rich and poor nations.

China and the Copenhagen Climate Change Agreement (Mark’s China Blog, 3/26/2009) Over the past few days, I've been reading some of the back-and-forth and jockeying for position among the global players in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conferencein Copenhagen later this year. From what I'm reading, a lot of people are hopeful that Copenhagen will provide a sustainable framework for growth over the coming century.

Minister of water resources: China to continue efforts in sustainable water system (Xinhua News, 3/22/2009) China will continue its efforts in infrastructure and water-related systems to enable sustainable development, Chinese Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei said Saturday on the eve of 17th World Water Day in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

CORPORATIONS

Research report on Chinese solid waste disposal industry (Business Wire, 3/26/2009) Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue on the Chinese solid waste dispostal industry.

Multiple Certification for Fuji Xerox recycling site in China (ChinaCSR.com, 3/26/2009) Fuji Xerox Eco-Manufacturing (Suzhou) has been granted quality and environmental certification for its integrated recycling system in China.

GD Power to spend 660 million yuan on alternative energy projects (China Daily, 3/26/2009) GD Power Development Co, a major power producer and heating supplier in the country, announced on Thursday that it will pour 660 million yuan ($96.63 million) into several alternative energy projects through its subsidiary to further diversify its business portfolio.

Auto Zone China: Aims for 10 Million New Cars in 2009, but $1.5 Billion goes to energy vehicles (SUSTY, 3/26/2009) The central government has promised 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) funding for development and deployment of alternative energy vehicle technologies, including hybrid, all electric, and fuel cell vehicles, as well as standards that require more energy efficient manufacturing facilities.

Airbus: Expands Environmental Certification to US, China (Wall Street Journal, 3/25/2009) Aircraft maker Airbus said Wednesday Airbus Americas and Airbus China Beijing Campus have achieved certification according to the ISO 14001 standard for Environmental Management Systems.

Lax environmental laws give Chinese steel unfair edge (The Intelligencer, 3/25/2009) China's lack of substantial environmental laws gives it an unfair advantage in the steel industry - a gap that could widen if future global-warming laws don't address China, according to leaders in the U.S. steel industry.

Hebei invests in wind power (JLM Pacific Epoch, 3/25/2009) Hebei Provincial Construction Investment Corporation (HPCIC) plans to build wind power projects totaling 400MW and already has 100MW built or under construction, reports Shanghai Securities News quoting HPCIC General Manager Wang Yongzhong.

State Grid issues guidelines for CSR (China Daily, 3/23/2009) State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the first Chinese enterprise to formulate a corporate social responsibility (CSR) report in 2005, took the lead again in recently issuing a Guidance for the Implementation of CSR, thoroughly illustrating how the State-owned enterprise fulfills its social responsibilities.

A Letter to Google

2009-03-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Google,

I've always felt that business and commerce were going to be pathways to US-China cooperation in a way that would be competitive yet productive in terms of advancing efficiency, technology and mutual cultural understanding. I feel that Google's creative, user-oriented technologies can be very conducive to building rich and productive relations amongst many countries.

Recently, I asked a Senior Brand Manager at Baidu two questions about their company's future plans and I would like to know what you think.

The first question concerned whether or not they had plans to cooperate or work with Google. The short reply was "No" and the long reply was "perhaps in the future." I understand that Baidu sees Google as a serious competitor and is afraid that any cooperation would hinder their market value. I'm quite a supporter of what Isaac Mao deems "sharism," so this answer was sort of disappointing, but I was not distraught.

My second question was about a) allowing the search engine to combine Chinese and English internet sources to create a more comprehensive way to access knowledge and b) increasing translation technology so that non-bilingual web users could read websites in both languages. Since I grew up in the United States, I tend to use Google a lot more, mostly out of habit, but because I'm learning more about Chinese organizations, history, and religion, I find that Chinese sources are definitely more fruitful and plentiful in this respect. The Senior Brand Manager replied that they were not interested in this; they wanted to focus on East Asian sources, specifically Chinese sources, even in the long-term because they wanted to focus on the Chinese-speaking population.

This response was quite distressing to me - as a student of both Chinese and English-oriented disciplines (i.e. Daoism versus Postmodernism), I feel that a very important goal for search engines and information providers is to combine, sort, and streamline all knowledge so that all sides can better build understanding of each other. I feel that this is especially important to overcome this East-West divide that I've noticed in media, mindsets and markets.

I understand that market shares, branding, etc. are important, but I hope that Google is willing to engage in this greater goal of total knowledge accumulation for an expanding and globalizing civil society. I hope that Google will continue to work at developing translation technology to make things more coherent for readers who want information from multilingual sources and to use more and more Chinese sources in their search results (perhaps the search window itself could translate?). It doesn't have to be John Searle's Chinese room, but I think translation capabilities right now have a lot of potential for improvement.

Thank you for your time and I hope all is well with you. Most of my informational life revolves around you - Gmail, Google Reader and Google News make up a lot of my free time - so I would like to say thank you for being quite amazing.

With a handshake,

CC Huang

China's Post-modern Economy

2009-03-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Jiang Qiping last Thursday. He is one of the most dynamic and provocative Chinese scholars I have ever listened to and his ideas have given me a lot to think about. Thanks to him, I finally learned the Chinese term for libido - 力比多.

He is chief editor of China Internet Weekly, executive director of China Information Economics Soceity (CIES) and also executive deputy-head of National Information Evaluation Center (NIEC).

His talk was centered around postmodern economic theory and he mentioned scholars ranging from Toffler and Bataille to Derrida and Foucault. The whole talk was a rapid-fire three hours, but here is a translated excerpt from an article he's written so you can get an idea of what this guy is thinking:

I think the current Chinese economy is a ternary economy where a pre-modern economy, a modern economy and a post-modern economy co-exist. In China, the post-modern economy is stimulated predominantly by information technology. The internet is key in generating this economic machine. A post-modern economy is based around a Gross National Happiness index and the Internet is the main trend of this post-modern economy. Performance is no longer the most important thing - value has replaced performance, heterogeneity has superseded homogeneity, and emotionality has unseated rationality to create three new economic trends.

A lot of his ideas are very similar to those of Alvin Toffler if you are interested in this line of thought. Also, here are two other articles if you're interested (in Chinese...I'm willing to translate if there is a popular demand):

Foucault's Ideas on Post-modern Economics - TechWeb

The Postmodern Turn of Economics - eNet

Mengxi and Gua-qi Theory

2009-03-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I have been remiss – starting classes at Beida (PKU) has been hectic and I’ve started a few other new things as well. Apologies, but from now on I plan to resume more regular blogging.

Recently I’ve become a bit tired of so-called “news” so for this post I want to talk about something not new at all, but hopefully still refreshing. I am taking a Original Texts of Daoism （道教原典) class and although I am not taking the class for credit, my regular attendance prompted the professor to assign me a rather difficult reading on Gua-qi Theory (卦气说) to explain to the class.

A simple Google search provided me with minimal information about Mengxi (孟喜)or Gua-qi Theory. Gua-qi Theory is Mengxi’s interpretation of the I-Ching and his subsequent application to seasonal changes and the yin（阴）and yang （阳) of things. He uses 卦 (trigrams and hexagrams – explanation here) to interpret seasonal periods. Mengxi divides the calendar in three ways – according to each month (lunar), by day (solar), and by the seasons. The pairing of each one of the 64 hexagram/trigram(s) with each partition is painstakingly done.

That’s as much I’ve understood thus far, there is a lot more information on Baidu if you can read Chinese, but for now I haven't found any great English sources on Gua-qi Theory. This is the first time I have pored through any sort of ancient Daoist text and it raises a lot of questions for me. Especially in conjunction with last session’s discussion on Daoist alchemy, I now conceive of Daoism much differently. Back in the day, Daoists used different materials (As, Au, Hg are three of the more common ones that they focused on) that also had corresponding hexagrams to mix supposedly magical potions to become immortal. They also practiced turning bronze into gold. They believed that through natural evolution under certain conditions bronze could turn into gold over up to thousands of years, but they believed that with a sophisticated knowledge of chemistry, this process could be sped up. Otherwise, in the words of my eccentric and intelligent professor, “They would now be considered crazy.” What would now be considered fortune telling and bad science used to be an important part of Daoism, or more specifically, Daoist practice. Additionally, I feel that Daoism is now also subject to an extremely philosophical interpretation in the West, i.e. mostly based on interpretations of the Tao Te Ching (道德经), rather than see as a method to religious practice and day-to-day application. My class is based around reading texts and interpretations that I can't seem to find English counterparts of. Sadly, it is also a school of thought that is losing scholars in pursuit of its analysis in China (as opposed to 儒家, Confucianism, which is re-emerging). These are just some of my thoughts, I would love to here other opinions on the role that Daoism plays in modern day.

A Lesson in Polygamy

2009-02-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

Important edit: So a former co-worker informed me yesterday that this is fake news...it started when someone write an article based off of an old Chinese story and it eventually reached mainstream media before it could be truly verified.

A Chinese businessman with five mistresses ended up in very unfortunate circumstances. He decided he could only keep one in this terrible economy. Hence, he held a contest to decide which one to keep. From CNN:

He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.
The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said.
It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff.
Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death.

If only the economy were better...

Thanks Tyler!

What if Obama was the first Chinese president?

2009-02-16T01:19:00.000-08:00

Sina is celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year and they are asking the Chinese public “What if you were (insert person) ?” And the motto is “You can influence the world: this world needs your point of view.“ Among the people mentioned include the Secretary-General of the UN, the director of the Spring Festival, Jet Li, and, of course, the “Person of the Year” – Barack Obama.

I just attended a US-Sino Relations class today at Peking University, and my professor, Fan Shiming，mentioned that the Chinese public probably understands Americans more deeply than the American public understands the Chinese. However, he said this was not the case for China scholars in the United States. He said that expert analysis of China in the U.S. is much more sophisticated than expert analysis of the U.S. in China. I thought it might be interesting to see how some netizens think Obama should solve the current global economic crisis. Some of their responses are serious, and some are quite entertaining. Here are some translated responses I chose from here:

周雪亮

First, I would emphasize that the economic crisis is due to an overheating of the economy, and that economic crises inevitably occur periodically.

It is very important to put people at ease.

Second, I would construct a new system to deal with such a difficult problem. I would call all the people to unite in resistance.

Lastly, the President should provide government support to small and medium-sized companies to put people at ease.

天欲创高

I think Obama should learn from China. A portion of the economy should be a planned economy and a portion of the economy should be a free market economy. He should not let the greedy Wall Street gang control everything, those good-for-nothings have their fill and then do their work poorly.

mingjingcai

If I was Obama, I would surely let the United States collapse because I am Chinese. I am very realistic.

河听雪

Sell the Pentagon to Bin Laden, sell the White House to Chinese developers, sell Bush to Iraq, and that would revive the economy.

关于唐诗

If I was Obama, I would quickly enter into a love triangle with Clinton; that would definitely get attention, and hence trigger economic expansion. It is not that straightforward, but a little self-sacrifice is needed to induce economic expansion, it is not "turning acting into reality" anyways.

吴楚勇

If I was Obama, I would eliminate hegemony, and then join the international community to deal with the financial crisis together!!!

耗子在深圳

According to Keynesian economics, war is also a method to overcome an economic crisis.

xpohai

Many people are focusing on America’s economic problem. It’s true, the economic crisis has a direct impact on all of us. But without peace, even if there is money it goes to constructing military weapons, and we can’t even enjoy it. I hope that the first thing Obama does is to put his foot down and stop war and also discontinue using power to control other countries. Instead, use your power to protect world peace, and not be like Bush and make the entire world hate you, if you do good things all people will be grateful…just like our President Hu Jintao!!!

小严何燕

If I was Obama, I would bring socialism to the United States!

iii007

Make Americans listen to the Chinese.

尘世萧声

Manage well US-Sino relations.

乱云飞度我从容

There are many factors behind the economic outbreak. I would use the following strategies to solve the economic crisis:

1. 1. Most importantly is the stability of the country

2. 2. Cultivate the confidence of the public

3. 3. Adjust the energy structure

4. 4. Ensure the value of the dollar and reduce inflation

5. 5. Accelerate and utilize research and development of new technologies

6. 6. Enter into multilateral diplomacy

4到16

Invite the entire country to dinner!

wdzhello

If I was Obama, I would take away sanctions on China’s high-tech exports, this can lead to a drastic rise in trade and both sides could get what they want, the economy could then surely revitalize.

huye8800

If I was Obama, I would make the US and China one country, to prevent us from fighting each other. Together, we can jointly promote the progress of civilized world.

Media biases

2009-02-10T03:03:00.001-08:00

Check out the subtle differences in the way different media outlets reported on the United Nation's review of China's human rights records (for best effect, read full articles):

Article 1 - China faces unprecedented human rights scrutiny - Christian Science Monitor

Excerpt:

Some observers doubt that the formal and generally nonconfrontational UN body will actually put China on the spot for the wide-ranging human rights violations of which its authoritarian government stands accused.
The United States declined to join the council when it was formed in 2006, saying the body was toothless. President Obama has said he will reconsider that decision.
Monday's meeting "will be a kabuki dance, a farce," argues Brett Schaefer, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, unless China takes foreign criticism more seriously than it has done until now.
Human rights activists here and abroad, however, express hopes that Monday's meeting will indeed help speed China's efforts to improve its rights record.
"International pressure is very helpful and very, very necessary to improve the human rights situation here," says Li Heping, a well-known human rights lawyer who has himself been kidnapped and beaten up for his work.
"The UN report that comes out of this meeting could have a positive impact" if it reflects independent assessments of China's record, he adds.
Even if Chinese diplomats refuse to answer the hard questions that some European and other delegations plan to put at the council meeting, "that would be good for us to show them up for what they are," says Juliette de Rivero, a Human Rights Watch activist in Geneva.

Article 2: China defends human rights record at UN Review - CBC News

Excerpt:

Chinese officials assured the United Nations they are committed to the protection of human rights Monday, a claim challenged by a handful of Western nations.
China is in the spotlight in Geneva as the UN Human Rights Council launched its review of the communist country's human rights record. The 47-member council examines the human rights record of each UN member nation once every four years.
"China is fully committed to the promotion and protection of human rights," China's ambassador to the UN and delegation head, Li Baodong, told the council.
Li said the government opposes torture and would never allow it to be used against ethnic or religious minorities, a charge levelled by human rights groups against Beijing.
"At this moment, about 50 governmental agencies are working on a human rights action plan … which would soon be made public," said Li. "It is the first of its kind in China and will set targets for all departments, in a major move to advance human rights protection in China."
China also dismissed allegations of repression of Tibetans and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Beijing allows regional autonomy in areas with significant proportions of ethnic minorities, said a member of the Chinese delegation, who stressed "there is no ethnic conflict" in China.
"Regrettably, a few people with external forces try to split Tibet and Xinjiang. They by no means represent Tibetans and Uighurs.
"[Tibet and Xinjiang] are inseparable parts of China," he added.
Groups such as New York-based Human Rights Watch say they have extensively documented cases of abuse in the Tibet autonomous region and elsewhere.
China won praise and support from council members Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Sudan, said Reuters. Egypt and Zimbabwe hailed Beijing for protecting human rights, while Pakistan and Sri Lanka called Tibet an "inalienable" part of China.

Article 3 - China defends Human Rights Record at UN Council - VOA News

Excerpt:

China takes its position on the world stage seriously and has sent a high-powered team to defend its human rights record before the U.N. Human Rights Council.

But, China need not have worried. Opinion was definitely in China's favor as country after country took the floor to praise China's achievements. The head of the Chinese delegation Li Bao Dong set the tone of the proceedings.

In presenting his country's report, he stressed steps China has taken to safeguard its citizens' rights, to govern as a law-based society and to improve the welfare of its people.
Li said China pursues a policy of ethnic equality and regional ethnic autonomy.

"Ethnic minorities in China benefit from special preferential policies in political, economic, cultural and educational spheres," said Li. "The Chinese government encourages due and multi-language teaching in schools of ethnic minorities ... Huge investment has also been made to protect the religious practices, cultural identities and other heritages of ethnic minorities."

Reflections on the past - Nanjing

2009-02-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

A movie about a German engineer who saved 200,000 Chinese in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre is being made. I read Iris Chang's book a long time ago and it had quite an impact on me; I was encouraged to learn more about Chinese and Japanese history and understand why such a thing happened. I'm glad this movie is being made.

I would also reccomend Nanking and The Rape of Nanking (based on Iris Chang's book) for those looking for other films on the Nanjing Massacre.

Additional articles:

Massacre Movie "John Rabe" hits Berlin - Xinhua

German-Chinese Co-Production Plans John Rabe Movie - Deutsche Welle

What the Chinese are reading - Pixels or Print?

2009-02-09T00:08:00.000-08:00

The Shanghai Daily ran this article today about how traditional classics like Lao She are becoming neglected. Chinese students and young adults are turning to online reading instead. The Shanghai Daily article quotes one youth saying:

"He is just too far away from us and we only need him in exams for Chinese literature," says Dennis Chen, 20, a junior at Shanghai University.

"I can write his name and I know his most famous works are 'Rickshaw Boy' and 'Teahouse,' more than enough for the exam.

"How do you expect us, who grow up in one of China's richest city when the country's average economic growth rate stays at two digits for years, to understand how the poorest of the poor suffer in a bad era?"

Chen's argument is endorsed by many young people and apparently his parents. He says they agree he only needs to know the names and the basic information to pass the exams - and "maybe watch movie or drama for most of the works.

After reading this article, I did some research - what ARE Chinese people reading? The hot topic for 2007 was health and the hot topic for 2008 was the economy. The top selling book in 2007 is entitled "The Intelligence of Not Getting Sick" and the top selling book in 2008 is entitled "The Currency War." (from here and here - Chinese).

More to come on this topic later. I'll probably dive into some popular online fiction so I can give my opinion on online fiction vs. Lao She.

Interesting parallel: I read both this article in Wired and this article in the NYT about how cell phone novels are now the bestselling "books" in Japan.

Football in China

2009-02-08T23:48:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Iowa City and not being into football sort of alienates you around football season...hence I really liked this post. Thanks Mark!

From the LA Times:

Even at its own Super Bowl party, the challenges the NFL faces in China were on full display.

Although the Super Bowl was broadcast nationwide by state-run CCTV, Chinese authorities put it on a 30-minute delay, so organizers of the NFL party piped in a live feed from a Philippine satellite broadcaster. And though local fans were enthusiastic, they frequently stared blankly at TV screens during complicated penalties and on-field rulings.

"The NFL has a lot of work to do in China," said Hong Liu, a 50-year-old Pittsburgh Steelers fan from Beijing who began following the sport while attending college in western Pennsylvania.

The NFL's struggles in China have come despite an increasingly affluent youth culture hungry for international sports, and the league's major push, begun in 2003, to make China its fifth foreign target market, after Britain, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

The league opened a Beijing office two years ago with grand plans to stage an exhibition game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots before the 2007 NFL season. The plan included an effort to recruit Chinese rugby and soccer players to perform as place kickers.

But the game was scrapped as part of an overseas retrenching that also saw the league shut down its struggling NFL Europe league. The sport has had difficulty persuading Chinese national broadcasters to televise games live.

心 - Escaping the mind-body dualism

2009-02-07T00:50:00.000-08:00

Last semester I took a psychological anthropology class and spent some time investigating the problem of mind-body dualism. Yesterday I read an article about 心理学 (Psychology) in Chinese and decided the character 心 is a great example of history (at least etymologically) not falling prey to the making of distinctions between the body and the mind. 心 is defined as both heart and mind and it used to look like this:

(image from here)

...which seems to be some sort of representation of the brain and the heart. Of course the etymology of psychology also shows a transcendence of defining psychology as "the scientific study of the mind and its functions." From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

1653, "study of the soul," probably coined mid-16c. in Germany by Melanchthon as Mod.L. psychologia, from Gk. psykhe- "breath, spirit, soul" (see psyche) + logia "study of." Meaning "study of the mind" first recorded 1748, from G. Wolff's Psychologia empirica (1732); main modern behavioral sense is from 1895

Sharism: Issac Mao

2009-02-04T01:07:00.000-08:00

I'm really into this essay. I read the Chinese version first, but the English version is pretty good too.

Here's an excerpt:

Sharism will be the politics of the next global superpower. It will not be a country, but a new human network joined by Social Software. This may remain a distant dream, and even a well-defined public sharing policy might not be close at hand. But the ideas that I'm discussing can improve governments today. We can integrate our current and emerging democratic systems with new folksonomies (based on the collaborative, social indexing of information) to enable people to make queries, share data and remix information for public use. The collective intelligence of a vast and equitable sharing environment can be the gatekeeper of our rights, and a government watchdog. In the future, policymaking can be made more nuanced with the micro-involvement of the sharing community. This "Emergent Democracy" is more real-time than periodical parliamentary sessions. It will also increase the spectrum of our choices, beyond the binary options of "Yes" or "No" referenda. Representative democracy will become more timely and diligent, because we will represent ourselves within the system.

And here's his defense against people claiming it's just a new strain of Communism.

Farming to Fame: The Components of a Star

2009-02-03T04:44:00.000-08:00

After watching CCTV's annual 春节晚会 (Spring Festival Party), I became intrigued with a popular TV show entitled 星光大道 (Avenue of the Stars) because of its winners for 2008 - two regular Chinese farmers. Here is the section featuring the two farmers (here is a link with better sound quality if you just want to see the singing). One farmer sang opera and practiced breathing by placing a large rock on his stomach - a self-invented tactic. The other, whose singing skills were much more natural, simply sang songs of Chinese farmers and created dances based off of his daily activities on his farm. His full-name is 马广福 (Ma Guangfu), and his nickname is 老马 (Lao Ma - literally "Old Horse").

The next day, I watched an episode of 星光大道 featuring 老马 and began to understand his charm and why he was able to get 2nd place. Lao Ma is humble, down-to-earth, genuine, and extremely amicable. Beyond that, I think he speaks to a portion of Chinese culture that has not yet been lost amongst large farms and heavy farm machinery. After seeing him sing and perform, I felt more connected to the life of the Chinese 农民 (farmer). Here is a clip of one of his songs. As you can see, definitely not a Kelly Clarkson. I have translated the first two stanzas below:

Hua-la-la (sound of the river), the moving Yellow River,

Flows toward the East night and day,

The sons and daughters of the yellow earth,

Walk in the direction of the sun.

Paths of mountain ranges; channels of waterways,

Sounds of rambles in the sky*,

Previously not sung so it moves toward the West**,

Many years of hopes and expectations,

Many generations have been in pursuit,

The youthful people of the plateaus,

At least have found good times.

*The name of a number of tunes used for the folk songs of northern Shaanxi. Usually two sentences in a paragraph, a short tune has only one paragraph, while a long one may have scores of paragraphs, sung to the same tune repeatedly. When it is repeated, the tune may change flexibly.

**A important direction, signifies the direction that the sun sets.

The Human Justice Search Engine

2009-01-26T04:17:00.000-08:00

The Renrou (人肉 - human flesh) search has been in the news everywhere and signifies a new method of public surveillance (Google even made this term its subtext on its Chinese homepage for a day on April 1st). Some basic information here if you're not familiar. But why is the search for flesh? My first reaction to this name was that it was part of some sort of organ trafficking ring. The name gives it such a gritty, visceral context - and it seems that the netizens who engage in the searching are out for something closer to...justice?

Alice Poon recently translated an article entitled "Using the Human Flesh Search Engine to Fight Corruption Fits Well with China's Situation" here. Before reading this, I had only read about instances such as the Kitten Killer and the unfaithful husband. There are a lot of arguments concerning privacy and whether the human flesh searches constitute "cyber-violence."

In a way that answers or circumvents all these arguments, I think this article makes a convincing argument about why human flesh search engines can combat government corruption. Currently, government officials in China are not required to declare their wealth and assets and the Renrou search engine has allowed the public to pinpoint corrupt officials. Government officials are public servants and I think the degree of privacy that they should expect is different. Especially in the case of Zhou Jiugeng, I would say that netizens acted rather lawfully. Instead of the public taking justice into their own hands, they informed local authorities of their findings, who then put Zhou out of a job a week later.

In a one-party system like China, there is a weak checks and balances system for the government to regulate itself. With regulation, I think that the internet could be an effective way to fight social injustice in China, specifically in the instance of government corruption. Perhaps it could even be deemed a form of grassroots democracy? Since Chinese citizens don't have the right to vote for who is in power, the Renrou search engine has become a way for them to make sure that those who are in power act legitimately.

Obama's Black and White Cat

2009-01-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

This isn't entirely about China, but I am a citizen of the United States and I'm quite happy about Obama and the "end of an error."

Currently, there is a wave of articles and books being published in China about its amazing 30- year reform and how much China has achieved in the last 30 years. Of course, Deng Xiaoping gets most of the credit for setting the tone for these 30 years. I just read this article which instantly brought to mind Deng Xiaoping's ideology of pragmatism (a.k.a non-ideology) and especially his saying, "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice."

The article starts off talking about Richard Thaler, a renowned economist that consults regularly with Obama's top economic adviser, and then moves into various aspects of Obama's inductive, non-ideological method of making policy decisions. Thaler is one of the founders of behavioral economics. Here's an example:

As it happens, Thaler is revered by the leading wonks on Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Though he has no formal role, Thaler presides as a kind of in-house intellectual guru, consulting regularly with Obama's top economic adviser, a fellow University of Chicago professor named Austan Goolsbee. "My main role has been to harass Austan, who has an office down the hall from mine, " Thaler recently told me. "I give him as much grief as possible." You can find subtle evidence of this influence across numerous Obama proposals. For example, one key behavioral finding is that people often fail to set aside money for retirement even when their employers offer generous 401(k) plans. If, on the other hand, you automatically enroll workers in 401(k)s but allow them to opt out, most stick with it. Obama's savings plan exploits this so-called "status quo" bias.

I'm really quite tired of the American political trend of labeling policies as either democratic or republican and I hope Obama truly maintains this behavioral approach in facing all the problems the US is going to have to surmount.

Rice for Obama's Step-grandmother

2009-01-22T04:25:00.000-08:00

Chinese have donated 100 tonnes of rice to Obama's step-grandmother and her 82 AIDS orphans in Kenya. I found this news incredibly heartwarming.

More from Reuters, The Standard, and Beijing Youth Daily.

From Saving the Environment to Saving the Recyclers

2009-01-21T02:57:00.000-08:00

Although the stock market is not doing so well, there is one industry that might actually envy the current performance of the stock market: the recycling industry. And the largest importer of the world's waste? China.

The cycle makes a lot of sense. Since China exports a lot of products (toys, clothes, etc.), it also needs a lot of materials for these products to be packaged. So when consumers in the US began to have less money to buy these products, China also needed less of America's recyclables (especially paper, because China does not have a source of fiber) to package these products. Another example is plastic - since China is not making as many toys, demand for the recycled plastic that these toys are made of is also dropping.

The results are rather dramatic. Official reports say that four-fifths of China's recycling plants have closed, millions are left without employment and the price of recyclables have more than halved (source). The prices of some materials have dropped even more - the price of tin has gone from $327 to $5.

Back in April, an article from Reuters had dubbed the recycling industry "recession proof investing." That does not seem to be the case anymore. However, there were some economic disadvantages of recycled materials from the beginning, and it also depends on what is being recycled in order to determine how much energy is being saved.

Interestingly, this slump in the recycling industry might actually encourage more efficient and environmentally friendly tactics. For example, British plastic dealers will need to sell purer shipments of plastic to new industries that might be opening up in places like Vietnam and Pakistan. Also, countries that used China as a convenient cheap place to export their waste might have to find domestic solutions to their problems, creating a push for more sustainable technologies to develop. There is also the alternative of increasing the use of energy-from-waste plants.

Video from Reuters.

(Photo from The Guardian)

White Paper on National Defense Released

2009-01-21T01:32:00.000-08:00

Full text here.

Some excerpts...

from "National Defense Policy":

China pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature. China places the protection of national sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, safeguarding of the interests of national development, and the interests of the Chinese people above all else. China endeavors to build a fortified national defense and strong military forces compatible with national security and development interests, and enrich the country and strengthen the military while building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects.
China's national defense policy for the new stage in the new century basically includes: upholding national security and unity, and ensuring the interests of national development; achieving the all-round, coordinated and sustainable development of China's national defense and armed forces; enhancing the performance of the armed forces with informationization as the major measuring criterion; implementing the military strategy of active defense; pursuing a self-defensive nuclear strategy; and fostering a security environment conducive to China's peaceful development.

From "Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense"

Following the principles of mutual benefit and common development, China is conducting cooperation with foreign countries in defense-related science, technology and industry. It emphasizes exchanges and cooperation with developed countries in defense industry technology to draw on their experience in technological development and management. It enhances mutually beneficial cooperation with developing countries, and engages in joint R&D and production in major cooperative projects, in accordance with the national conditions and specific requirements of the partners. On the export of military items, it adheres to the following principles: It should only serve the purpose of helping the recipient state enhance its capability for legitimate self-defense; it must not impair peace, security and stability of the relevant region or the world as a whole; and it must not be used to interfere in the recipient state's internal affairs.
China's defense-related science, technology and industry actively conduct cooperation with other countries in the field of hi-tech industries, combining military and civilian needs, and makes great efforts to develop hi-tech civilian products with high added value. Major breakthroughs have been made in developing the international market for space products. China has exported its first satellite; and the earth resources satellite project with Brazil has played an important role in both countries' economic development. China has significantly enhanced its cooperation with other countries in aviation products and technologies, and made new headway in developing the international market for civil aircraft. China's shipbuilding industry has exported products for civil use in series and batches, further increasing its share in the international market for such products.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Why slay a dragon if you can hug a panda?

2009-01-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Two terms that are floating around are panda hugger and dragon slayer. Definitions of both from Tim Johnson:

As a national symbol of China, pandas represent the cute and cuddly side of the Middle Kingdom. Panda huggers are those who want to embrace China, pulling it closer to the orbit of the West with greater trade and engagement. Panda huggers view the sophistication of many Chinese senior officials, believing that vast differences in core political beliefs can be set aside for cooperation, trade and engagement that mutually benefits both sides.

Dragon slayers, on the other hand, are deeply distrustful of China’s long-term intentions. They generally focus on China’s military build-up, and say its opacity is cause for alarm. Every new spy case uncovered in the United States – and there are many – causes them to lose sleep.

I read an interview yesterday in Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报) conducted with Robert Lawrence Kuhn - definitely somewhat of a panda hugger. He has a new book out: The Inside Story of China's 30-Year Reform: How China's Leaders Think and What This Means for the Future.

How did he become a panda hugger? Kuhn has traveled to China more than 100 times and has met with many of China's top political leaders. The first time he visited China was in 1989, of which he says (translated), "The China of that time was impoverished, but the people had a strong will to change their own destiny; in many ways this will was even naive. I found this sense of will in all my Chinese friends extremely appealing."

Kuhn points out that he does not want to known as a puppet of the Chinese government, nor is he a proponent of China because he can get rich off business deals. Kuhn is also careful to say that he is critical of China, but not so critical as to not understand China's actual conditions.

I think one point that Kuhn makes in this interview is quite important:

Investigating China's national conditions gave me one insight that was especially meaningful to me - and that is the difference in development of China's regions near the ocean and those that are landlocked, and the fact that even neighboring provinces have different problems. Zhejiang and Jiangsu are both economically booming, but their models for development are different because their history and characteristics are different.

The nationalism of China can sometimes overshadow the fact that China is composed of many different provinces, each with its own needs, shortcomings and strengths. I'm sure Kuhn is somewhat biased due to his close friendship with so many Chinese and how often he has visited China. Even being in Beijing for just a few days, I feel my ability to criticize China weakening due to the massive amounts of good food and the random fireworks that have been going off. However, I think that Kuhn does have an understanding of China that is deeper in certain ways than some other Western sinologists due to his extensive conversations with Chinese leaders and his insight into the subtleties of Chinese culture. I tried to buy his book in Xidan today but it was sold out. Chinese people are definitely reading this book. I hope just as many Westerners read it (especially dragon slayers) just to see the other side.

Feathered Dinosaur Found in China

2009-01-18T05:06:00.000-08:00

From National Geographic, a new feathered dinosaur was found in China and is helping to contribute to explanations of how birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Quality Control

2009-01-18T04:07:00.000-08:00

I found this letter to Barack Obama from an elementary school student in Kansas City here:

Congratulations! I am glad that you have been elected for president! I don't like "China toys" because they break too easy. I want you to stop letting China send stuff to the US and help build more US companies.

I trust you to help protect the U.S. from war and let us have freedom. I hope you enjoy being in office!

Keith Williams

While the sentiment of this child is very simply put, I think it illustrates a general sentiment that I've felt about goods produced in China being of poor quality and hence the need for more things to be "Made in the USA." With all the accusations of Obama being socialist from McCain and Palin (in my opinion just another way to describe tax cuts) for increasing government spending, the fact that Bush approved of a hefty bailout amount to various US companies (not even tax cuts to individuals) was not called socialist. Socialism is more so a way to describe government control of production, and not just simply wealth. So, if Obama were to intervene and force companies such as Mattel to produce in the United States, this would definitely be an example of socialism.

If Obama were to not allow China to "send stuff" to the US, I doubt US consumers would be that happy unless Obama heavily subsidized these US companies to continue selling their products at the same prices. I think the following cartoon illustrates how Chinese factories get contracted to produce products for US companies (from here):

Since many Chinese factories are rather small, it is easy for large companies to move to a different factory if they don't accept their prices, or even for those factories that the large companies contract to have a smaller, poorer, factory produce the same product. I think this passage from Marshall W. Meyer, a professor of management at Wharton, analogizes it well to taking a taxi in China without using the meter:

And that means, to give you an extreme illustration of it, tat you get into a a taxi in Shanghai and say, "Take me up to Suzhou," which is a good long ride. It would normally be about 300 to 350 RMB on the meter. Let's say that would be about 45$ to 50$. You agree with the cabdriver on a fare and say, "Don't do the meter. I'll just give you 400 RMB, tax, tips, tolls all included."

And you hope in the cab and he goes three blocks and then waves down his friend and says to him,"Will you take these folks up to Suzhou for 300 RMB?" And the next thing you know you are transferred to the other taxicab. The first driver pockets the difference and you'll get your ride up to Suzhou. That's not a problem. It's interesting how transactional so many events are in China.

Now let's go to manufacturing - the large manufacturers. Let's look at toy manufacturers like Mattel. They normally forbid second- and third-tier subcontractors. And yet when you look. what you will see in many instances is that in violation of contract terms sometimes second-, third-, and fourth-tier subcontractors are used. All this is aimed at getting the cost down.

This survey done by William Loft shows some interesting results. His mattress company asked twelve suppliers to quote prices in China. All the factories were given the same specifications to make the same mattresses. Six weeks later, the company went to the factories and mentioned that they would be testing for quality. Ten out of the twelve factories raised their prices. Price and quality do go hand in hand. It is not necessarily who or where the product is produced that matters, it is how much they are getting paid and the degree of quality control. US companies need to do a better job of verifying quality before products are sold. Chinese factories also need to have stricter quality and safety measures, but that might mean US companies and consumers pursue fair trade prices and not necessarily free trade prices.

Some other articles on quality of products made in China:

China's challenge to Italy

Chinese say factory standards on the rise

Democracy or Democrazy?

2009-01-11T13:50:00.000-08:00

In Spring of 08, I was infatuated with the idea of China and democracy. I felt that China was a country full of potential for change and I spent a long time thinking about what democracy should be versus what the CCP thought it was. Being in Washington DC, I was filled with political notions and I had just started truly supporting Obama's campaign and slightly idealistic notions of the future of the United States.

Then in May, I went to Beijing filled with these ideas and fully ready to discuss them with native Chinese. Olympic fervor had swept Beijing and everyone was busy volunteering for the Olympics, talking about how much money Beijing was spending on the Olympics, or enjoying the bustling and exciting nightlife that Beijing had to offer. Discontent seemed to be only felt by those directly mistreated by the government and an emotionally charged nationalism had swallowed most of China - almost to a point that the government couldn't control. Except for some laowai (foreigners), no one really wanted to talk about political change or weaknesses of the CCP. Most of the native political dialogue was based around the naive nature of foreign criticism of China (especially about Tibet).

In dynastic China, "the skies are high, and the Emperor is far away" is an old saying that indicates a profound disjoint between the populous and the government. There has always been a strong central government in China, but the people are generally busy running their day to day lives and they have little concern for the conduct of the Emperor. The history of revolution in modern China has disproved this statement and even the concept of revolution now has a sacred, extremely powerful implications. Liu Xiaobo's essay "That Holy Word, 'Revolution'" is quite excellent and you should read it if you have any interest in social movements in China. Liu Xiaobo is also the main proponent of Charter 08, a document calling for democratic reform and harshly criticizing the central government. A good blog post about it here.

Something that I feel doesn't receive enough mention, however, is the fact that there is discourse on democracy within the CCP. One might think: What is an authoritarian government trying to accomplish with discourse on democracy? About words like democracy, Orwell says, "the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearers to think he means something quite different."

So what is democracy in the minds of the CCP? Three notions follow: primary level democracy, intra-party democracy and consultative democracy.

1. Primary level democracy: In Hu Jintao's speech to the National Congress in October 2007, he cites that primary level democracy would include locally elected leaders managing public affairs and public service programs and expanding political participation. Since over 800 million Chinese belong to rural communities, the implementation of village level elections is a widespread politicization effort. Depending on the village, 3-7 members are elected with the decision-making power to "practice self-management, self-service, self-education, self-oversight and exercise democratic oversight over cadres. (speech here)"

2. Intra-party democracy: Hu also mentions the need to expand intra-Party democracy with the goal of "enhancing the Party's solidarity and unity." Hu says that the working mechanisms of local Party committees will be improved and authority will be given to the local Party members to make "major decisions." These local Party members are not really democratically elected though, so the localization of power will not necessarily reflect the interests of any specific local population. Hu also emphasizes democratic centralism, a concept that has been a principle of the CCP since the days of Mao and Deng. Intra-party democracy, according to Hu, seems to be a trickle-up model of authority at best.

3. Consultative democracy: The vice-president of the Central Party School and a member of the CPPCC, Li Junru, is responsible for the idea of consultative democracy. This form of democracy is being implemented in three ways. First, there is a six-week period before party cadre appointments in which regular citizens can have input on the candidate's qualifications. Second, local party committees have to listen to feedback from local villagers before public works are built or other projects are undertaken. Third, the CPPCC is represented by eight "democratic parties" in addition to the CCP to create a sort of "multi-party cooperation" that furthers democracy. All of these parties were founded before 1949, so they share much of the nationalist and collectivist urgency of the CCP. A good article here.

There seems to be something very democratic missing in all these ideas of democracy but the CCP has caught on to the need to use democratic rhetoric. There is no trend of developing a way for the public to elect leaders to be in top-echelons of power, which is the minimum definition of democracy that is used in the West. Yu Keping, the deputy director general of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau and the director of the Comparative Political and Economic Research Centre wrote a piece entitled "Democracy is a Good Thing" that is apparently popular reading among party cadres. A part of it can be found here.

A term I saw used in a forum is "democrazy," which is apparently what some critical netizens call the "democratic" reforms that are being implemented (it's also an album by Damon Albarn). I think there is something to be said about paying attention to what the CCP says and what the CCP actually does. For example, this quip from a People's Daily article illustrates the tricky nature in which the CCP describes their goals for China:

Wen said that China shall develop the democracy in its own way. The socialist system is not contradictive to democracy, and a highly developed democracy and a complete legal system are inherent requirements of the socialist system and an important benchmark of a mature socialist system.

The country has the full capacity to establish a nation of democracy governed by laws within the framework of the socialist system, Wen said.

He pledged to develop democracy, improve the legal system and continue to push forward political system reform.

How do you disagree with rhetoric such as this? The CCP has achieved an astute ability to convey their policies in pleasant and agreeable ways. I'm reminded of Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language."

Mao Xinyu and the Incestuous CCP

2009-01-09T14:53:00.001-08:00

Mao Zedong's grandson, Mao Xinyu, has his own blog here. It's in Chinese, but you can see all his blogging friends and such. I found this on BBC James Reynold's blog.

This made me think further about the CCP and how they sustain power. Power is consolidated within the most powerful CCP families. For example, Hu Jintao's son is President of Nuctech, a government-owned company that makes scanners for shipping containers and accounts for 90% of the domestic market. And there's definitely a reason that Mao Xinyu is a senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). The government still controls the majority of the shares in larger companies and economic growth and although China's GDP grew 10.4 percent in 2004, only 6.4 percent of that is relevant to ordinary Chinese people (cite).

Other numbers can be thrown out. The state controls more than 38% of China's economy. The CCP appoints 81 percent of the CEO's of state-owned enterprises. Great article here by Minxin Pei. .

Digital Democracy and Charter 08

2009-01-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

The 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen demonstrations take place on June 4th this year, and recently there has been growing tension between democracy activists and the CCP. When over 300 Chinese intellectuals, students, workers, etc. and over 5000 netizens signed Charter 08 (translation here), the Chinese government started detaining and questioning the leaders behind the charter.

Leading dissidents Liu Xiaobo and Zhang Zuhua were both arrested for organizing the charter. Chinese Human Rights Defenders website has an excellent assortment of articles (in English and Chinese) if you would like to know more about the Charter and the dissidents.

The advent of the internet has made crushing these movements a lot more difficult for the Chinese government. In March 2000, even Bill Clinton said

In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable modem...We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China. Now, there's no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet - good luck. That's sort of like trying to nail Jello to the wall.

Clinton's words are coming true in many ways - the internet is providing supporters of the charter a way to garner more support with no concrete central organizing force for the CCP to target. Even a month after the arrest of the main organizers behind Charter 08, there is still much discussion about it among Chinese netizens.

The Woman in the Chinese Room, Part I

2009-01-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

I found this fantastic poem sort of randomly and it lead me to explore two topics. One is only sort of related to China, and the other is grounded in debating the nature of Chinese aesthetics.

This post is about a hypothetical, and is thus only hypothetically related to China. The Chinese Room is John Searle's thought experiment that he felt disproved the argument for strong artificial intelligence. For Searle, strong A.I. is based on understanding thoughts and not just simulation of thought (which would be weak A.I.). According to Searle, if he was sitting in a room with a comprehensive assortment of books and tables that would allow him to translate English into Chinese based on rudimentary "translations" of Chinese symbols, he could actually fool a native speaker of Chinese that he understood the Chinese being spoken at him from outside the room. Searle thinks that syntax is distinct and inferior to semantics, which strong A.I. would be able to replicate. This website has a longer and illustrated explanation of Searle's argument.

My immediate response to Searle's argument is that there does not exist a computer program that could really convince a native Chinese speaker that the computer was also a native Chinese speaker, even based on syntax. It seems that Searle is over-imagining the actual capabilities of even weak A.I to argue against strong A.I. Chomsky has demonstrated that there are an infinite number of sentences in every language so this computer program would have to be infinitely large to repeatedly convince Chinese speakers that it knows Chinese.

It seems like the only reason Searle used Chinese is because it's a puzzling language that he doesn't understand and enhanced his point about someone being able to employ a language but not necessarily understand the subtleties of it. I would be incredibly happy if someone could create such a computer program that is proficient at natural language. The Natural Language Processing field has made some advancements, but Searle's thought experiment that is based off a "simple algorithm" (that doesn't exist) is unfortunately still science fiction.

Beijing Natives

2008-12-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

This is a fun music video about life in Beijing. It has a cool mix of modern and older aesthetics. I can't find a translation of the lyrics but I think the animation does a good job conveying the message behind the song.

The undying nature of Chinese culture

2008-12-25T16:49:00.000-08:00

I just finished an essay on why early 20th century authors in China were so prone to write about the historical moment in which they were placed. I found that even the authors who criticized Confucius (i.e. Lu Xun) felt and expressed a societal obligation to better China that Confucius himself would have endorsed. Here is a pretty good anthology of modern Chinese literature on Google Books. Some of the pages are missing, but some of the stories are completely uploaded (for example: Kong Yiji, An Old Established Name, Xiaoxiao).

After I finished this essay, I moved on to listen to Jay Chou's newest album. Jay Chou is a Chinese pop sensation from Taiwan who actually writes a lot of his own music. I found that Jay's music reflected a lot of this love for China that these early 20th century authors radiated. I think a great example of this is Jay's song about Chinese herbal medicine. Part of the first stanza is as follows:

If Hua Tuo* was still alive

The blind worship of foreign cultures will be cured

Foreigners will come and learn Chinese

Stimulating our national heritage and consciousness

(full translation here)

*Hua Tuo is a famous physician from the Han Dynasty. Wikipedia article here.

Among his other songs, Jay uses metaphors with Chinese ceramics, speaks of the sound of the lute and has numerous references to a Chinese culture that have survived Westernization. Of course, in my mind, Jay is one of those gems of pop culture that truly retains culture while having mainstream appeal.

Some of Jay's more culturally tuned songs on YouTube:

Blue and White Porcelain (translation)

Compendium of Materia Medica (translation)

Dragon Fist (translation)

I'm not totally satisfied with the translation links that follow, but I can't seem to find a better website with translations yet.

Of course, Jay and Lu Xun have completely different contexts and goals for their work, but I feel that what they share in conveying Chinese history and culture is extremely valuable and something I hope continues to be preserved in modern works.

Status update: Sino-US Relations

2008-12-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

Found this clip today of a Canadian netizen singing the Star-Spangled Banner in Chinese.

The post also mentioned that this is one of the best times for Sino-US relations and I must say I completely agree. Just looking through current news on China shows that:

1. Relations with Taiwan are good. Being one of the few points between the US and China that could instigate military action from China or the US, relations with Taiwan are thankfully only getting better. The heads of state of China and Taiwan have recently agreed to allow further cooperation between banks and to allow Chinese contractors bid for construction projects on the island.

2. Rice is going to China soon to celebrate the 30th anniversary of established US-China relations.

3. The Chinese like Obama. While McCain does have some support, an overwhelming amount of Chinese people do support Obama. This shows that Sino-US relations will be on the rise once he is inaugurated, but it also shows that the Chinese might have a similar vision for the future of the US that many Americans have. While Sino-US relations are one of the few things that Bush did manage well, it seems that China is still hoping for the US to take a different course in other aspects of its foreign policy dealings.

Sexual liberation or sexual perversion?

2008-12-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

An adult hotel is opening in Nanning that might become quite controversial. Pictures of a worker demonstrating the "furniture" provided is included.

Why more people should learn Chinese...better

2008-12-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

The latest journal issue from the Max Planck Institute really did a terrible job of choosing its cover art. What they thought was a Chinese poem was really an advertisement for Chinese strip clubs. Either this means that foreigners need to do a better job of doing Chinese or foreign companies that want to write about China should have some sort of native Chinese consultant to get better information on things like this.

Full post here.

Chinese Democracy

2008-12-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

No, this post is not about the new Guns N' Roses album. I found this website today which has a pretty well put-together section on elections in China.

I really liked this article about direct elections in Shiping County in Yunnan Province. According to the article, out of 106,600 eligible voters in the county, the voter turnout was 103,500, or 97.1 percent. Imagine if Americans were that enthusiastic about voting! I can't imagine this county spent any money on bumper stickers and t-shirts for Get out the Vote efforts.

Here's a really optimistic article about how China will be categorized as "Partly Free" by 2015 by Henry Rowen, a pretty smart guy.

Cell phone controls robots

2008-12-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

A guy in Hong Kong controls a robot with a cell phone. Video.

Guantanamo Bay and China

2008-12-03T12:41:00.000-08:00

Wo Weihan, a Taiwan citizen accused of providing missile technology about China and top secret information about the personal of one of China's leaders, was executed by the Chinese government last week.

The US offered criticism and regrets, but this article brings to light disturbing parallels between the Chinese government's use of national security to warrant human rights violations and the justification behind Guantanamo Bay.

Over the summer, evidence was released saying that the torture and interrogation techniques employed at Guantanamo Bay were inspired by Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War (full article). Also, many people criticize China's oppression of the Uighur population in Xinjiang, a population that China claims has dangerous aims for terrorism. Guantanamo Bay has housed 22 of them, many of them receiving no due process rights.

Does the United States gain in security what it loses in moral authority? China is known for its abysmal human rights record, but prioritizing national security over human rights is a rocky road that both the US and China are trekking in rather similar ways.

Miss Tibet?

2008-12-03T00:43:00.000-08:00

Shocking. The Chinese government and Tibetan elders agree on something. Both are encouraging beauty pageant contestants to withdraw from a Miss Tibet beauty competition. The Miss Tibet pageant just happened, and a total of two contestants participated. Many Tibetans see the pageants as a proud expression of Tibetan nationalism, the Chinese government sees it as defiance, and Tibetan elders see the pageants as watering down Buddhist philosophy because they do not respect non-materialism and the appreciation of inner-beauty.

The Dalai Lama's stance?

If there is Miss Tibet, why not Mister Tibet? He could be handsome. Then it would be more equal.

The full article is here.

Pictures of previous Miss Tibet winners.

Photos are from here and here.

Are Chinese children becoming smarter than American children?

2008-12-03T00:24:00.001-08:00

There was an intriguing article in Asia Times on why Chinese kids are going to be smarter because they are taking piano lessons while American children are playing video games. There are 36 million Chinese children taking piano lessons compared to 6 million in the United States. This difference becomes even more staggering when the diligence and discipline required of Chinese children is considered. Excerpts:

There is little doubt that classical music produces better minds, and promotes success in other fields. Academic studies show that music lessons raise the IQs of six-year olds. Elite American families still nudge their children toward musical study. At Brearley, New York's most exclusive girl's school, playing in the orchestra is a requirement. American medical schools accept more undergraduates who majored in music than any other discipline (excepting pre-med).

Any activity that requires discipline and deferred gratification benefits children, but classical music does so more than sports or crafts. Playing tennis at a high level requires great concentration, but nothing like the concentration required to perform the major repertoire of classical music. Perhaps the only pursuit with comparable benefits is the study of classical languages. It is not just concentration as such, but its content that makes classical music such a formative tool. Music, contrary to a common misconception, does not foster mathematical ability, although individuals with a talent for one often show aptitude for the other.

According to the article, "the present shift in intellectual capital in favor of the East has no precedent in world history." More articles on the relationship between music and intelligence here and here. Oliver Sacks also just wrote an excellent book on the powerful relationship between music and the brain.

China's piano fever

Working in the system

2008-12-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Recently, a magazine under Xinhua news service published an editorial blaming the way that riots are handled by local officials. Editorials like this are extremely infrequent, especially ones that are so direct. Huang accuses local officials of mischaracterizing the true causes of riots by attributing them to "masses who don't know the truth," when in reality the officials are covering up injustices imposed on the masses as a result of the rapid social and economic changes happening in China. Longer article here .

This editorial reminded me of an article I edited over the summer about violent riots in China. While published in an English publication and not one controlled by the government, this article airs many of the same grievances about local governance. This article can be found here (PDF). This article gives a series of pretty good examples of the actual nature of these mass riots while analyzing the problems with local government.

Mummies in Xinjiang

2008-11-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

Mummies were discovered in the western deserts of Xinjiang province in 1993 that give evidence of Uighur settlement in the region dating from 3,800 years ago.

Uighur nationalists are using the evidence from the mummies to claim settlement of the land before the Chinese Han came in, Chinese authorities were initially reluctant to openly allow study of the mummies, and foreign scholars say that the mummies show only that "melting pots" are much more common than historians originally thought. The mummies were discovered in the late 80's and are better preserved than many Egyptian mummies.

It's interesting to me how Americans openly discuss and learn about the genocide of the American Indians and our blatant forceful colonization of the land, yet China still carefully tip-toes around issues such as this. Most of the large, industrialized nations that exist now are based on land that was used and settled by many different ethnic groups. There have been some separatist movements initiated by American Indian groups in Canada, but a Google search of the same issue for separatism in the United States among native groups yields few relevant results. In no ways is that a scientific endeavor, but it leads to an interesting question - what are the factors that makes a group feel the need to lead a separatist movement?

Articles about the Xinjiang mummies for comparison (dates of publication spanning from 1994 to 2008):

New York Times

The Independent

DISCOVER magazine

Underwear

2008-11-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

Very

funny.

Zafka Zhang

2008-11-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

Zafka Zhang is pretty awesome. He is the co-founder of China Youthology, a consultancy that works on consumer insights for marketing, communications, and product design targeting Chinese youth. He is also head of research at HiPiHi (a leading Chinese virtual world platform), a lead adviser for the Association of Virtual Worlds, a project member with Creative Commons in China and an expert on Chinese subcultures, music, art, and digital marketing. Read a great interview with him on virtual worlds, his band and youth culture. His personal website can be found here.

Internet addiction

2008-11-17T15:33:00.001-08:00

China is the first country in the world to decide that internet addiction is a psychiatric disorder. Internet addiction has been paid special attention to in other parts of Asia. Korea has a boot camp for young people addicted to the internet. The idea of internet addiction being a disorder was first proposed as a hoax by Ivan Goldberg, M.D. in 1995. He modeled it on the mental illness called pathological gambling by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Here is a translation from the original article:

According to estimates from China, approximately 10% of young internet users are afflicted by internet addiction disorder, of which 70% are men. Dr. Tao says that internet addiction is the expression of a deeper psychological problem, almost all children afflicted with internet disorder have behavioral problems. Internet addiction has further exacerbated their problems. He says that when the users are not online, they are likely to turn to crime and drug abuse to deal with feelings of isolation, and some even choose to commit suicide.

When the issue of internet addiction was first brought up, scientists argued over whether something that was not physically ingested in anyway could be considered an addiction. Places like the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery have sprung up in the US. Perhaps it won't be too soon before internet addiction disorder (IAD) is categorized as a disorder by the APA as well.

Street art in Guiyang

2008-11-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

This street art, drawn in chalk, from a one-legged beggar (pictured above) in Guiyang is fantastic. Images are from here.

The Collapse of Dynasties

2008-11-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

A team of researchers discovered a stalagmite rising from the floor of a cave in Gansu Province. The chemicals in the stone reveal the reasons for the end of several dynasties in Chinese history. By analyzing chemical concentrations in the stalagmite, scientists were able to match periods of weather fluctuation with the end of the dynastic periods.

According to the researchers, the 9th-century dry period contributed to the decline of the Tang Dynasty and the Mayans in Mesoamerica. It also may have contributed to the lack of unity during the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms period, they said.

The full article can be read here.

Beijing Music Scene

2008-11-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a great compilation on a variety of Beijing bands. The author does a great job starting with Cui Jian, "the father of Chinese rock," and then moving into newer bands. You can also listen to individual tracks from each band.

Consumer Wasteland

2008-11-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

This is scary.

Smoking statistics and media advertising

2008-11-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

According to this report, 60% of men smoke in China, while a mere 3% of women smoke. Although sexist tobacco control policies appeared a few years ago, this is not the main reason for the disparity. Another main reason is the representation of smoking in the media as something very masculine. On the other hand, women were encouraged to be examples of "New China" starting in the 1950s. Here is an excerpt from the article:

During the 20th century, heroic men of the revolution, such as Lu Xun, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaopoing, were regularly depicted as cigarette smokers. Provincial offices eased mimicry of these heroes between 1949 and 1976 by designing packaging with male revolutionary imagery and by issuing cigarette ration coupons to family heads. Since then, to meet the escalating earnings targets set by Beijing, employees of the China National Tobacco Corporation have positioned cigarettes as an index of male economic success and a convenient tool in social exchange.

These statistics are striking, especially when the statistics of the United States are considered, where 23.9 percent of men and 18.1 percent of women are smokers (from the American Heart Association). It's pretty spectacular how advertising can have such an effect on social habits in the long run.

China's stimulus package

2008-11-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

After Obama won the election bid on Tuesday, Asian stock markets went up 3.2 percent. This trend will probably continue for a while. On Sunday, China announced a $586 billion stimulus package to revitalize China's economy. Exact provisions can be found here.

China's advantage here is that the state feels that they are responsible for leading the market and hence are taking pro-active measures to prevent a larger financial crisis, especially considering that China's growth rates have been shrinking in the past few years.

Richard Spencer, a China correspondent for the Telegraph of UK says:

We often talk about how the West and China should learn from each other. Here, perhaps, is one area where we could learn from China: it is admirably pragmatic in financial policy. The reason why the West has failed is precisely the error that we have so often accused China of making: putting ideology, in our case attachment to a mythical free market - before democracy, if that means listening to all sectors of society.

The question is - would the West ever want to learn this lesson? If China's ultimate goal is economic growth and stability, would the West sacrifice its free market principles to learn from China? Depends on who's dictating our economic policy - if we look at the housing market, economists have varying opinions on whether or not pragmatic social policy is the best answer. A good range of opinions can be found here.