Archive for April, 2009
Some more Silk Road cultural exchange
Posted by: Rachel in East Vs. West on April 30th, 2009
And quite a surprising one too: “Authentic Turkish grilled meet” (Shawarmah) in a street corner in Jinan. Wasn’t expecting that.
A slice of Turkey anyone?
Is the Middle East red?
Posted by: Rachel in East Vs. West on April 29th, 2009
Well, it always has been, nothing new here, but look at this collection of news from the past week. Is it just me or does it look like China is getting ready to get seriously involved in the Mid-East?
at the Wall Street Journal China Journal, Sky Canaves reviews a new book about “the new silk road” and the growing ties between China and the Arab and Muslim worlds.
These stories, as told by Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, are part of what he calls the “new silk road” emerging between China and the Middle East. It marks an increasing flow of trade and ideas, not just from East to West, but within the East as well.
On a somewhat less encouraging, though not the least surprising note, Simpfendorfer also tells how Song Hongbing’s “Currency wars” is gaining popularity in Arab countries.
And on the science fiction department: Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi concluded a four country mid-east tour earlier this week. After visiting Cairo and Jerusalem, he presented a Chinese “Five points plan” for middle-east peace. The Israeli website “Arutz-Sheva”, a religious-rightist media organization, brings the story that wasn’t really covered by other Israeli media.
Meantime, China’s Union Pay is expending to nine Mid-Eastern and Central Asian countries. lucky them.
Last but not least, this fantastic BBC story of the pomelos that almost caused a nuclear war (via Shanghaiist). Now, if Chinese fruit growers also fake the taste of Israeli oranges, I think my own life, at least, will be perfect, and the main reason to be interested in the middle east will be gone.
The importance of plumbing
Posted by: Rachel in East Vs. West, Stories from the Countryside on April 24th, 2009
There are stories sometimes in various dunadain blogs of people who really make a difference, changing China, or have given many years of their lives to her, or just having brilliant business ideas that promote chinese culture. Me, I can only read in admiration. The only act of significance I ever done in China was on a much smaller scale.
Not long ago, someone who has been here for a while, gathering all kinds of crazy tales, asked me: “What was your most hard-core Chinese experience”?
There’s an easy one: the Oscar will have to go to that day when Bendi cleaned a toilet in a village school. Will not trouble you with the gory details of what that toilet was like. If you’ve had the good fortune of traveling in rural China, you’d know what I’m talking about. If not, then better not to know.
Old School
As Bendi was supposed to stay and work in that school for at least few weeks (ended up staying there for a year), She realized she’ll just have to do something about the situation. It took a week to gather enough confidence and Chinese vocabulary to address the issue. The headmaster heard Bendi’s carefully prepared speech, with words like 卫生危险 well rehearsed beforehand, nodded in approval, agreed completely that something should be done, and went back to scratching his toes. Another week passed.
The beginning of the third week, Bendi took her pretty little arse (it was still small then…), her carefully kept hands and a deep breath, grabbed a shovel and plunged in. Well, not literally, but begun extracting, ammm, things, from the pit. It took about five minutes before one student saw what the laowai was doing and alarmed everyone else. You would not believe what a commotion the vision of a 老外 doing 劳动 can stir: teachers rushed in, begged me to stop and swore on a stack of Confucius analects the toilet will be clean by the end of the day.
Sure enough, that afternoon all classes were canceled, all students recruited to the mission of cleaning the stables. And what a mission it was, man. Drainage canals were dug, water brought from the well, earth turned and floor scratched. By nightfall, we had a fairly clean facility, a special dinner and a big bonfire to commemorate victory over crap.
My former colleagues reminded me of this episode earlier this month, when I finally found the time to visit my old school in Baoshan. In neck breaking pace China, it was soothing to see that barely anything has changed there. There is now an electric bell to announce classes, a computer with no Internet connection, and, as He Laoshi proudly showed me, a new toilet building with partitions(!) and actual drainage system, built with money donated by a Chinese-American visitor. Amazingly, the facility is being reasonably maintained, and is almost clean – a student duty that is sometimes still called there 繁老师负责, after yours truly. At a risk of sounding preposterous I’d say that I’ve never been prouder in anything in my life. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure cleaning that slimy toilet was the most important thing I’ve ever done.
No, wait, I’ll have to take this last one back. It was the ONLY important thing I’ve ever done.
Boy, Girl, Girl, Boy
Posted by: Rachel in Cinternet, Minorities on April 22nd, 2009
This video is apparently very hot on Youku (Via Youku Buzz)
Apart from being hilarious, it threw me back some four years, to the year I spent as volunteer in a rural community of Yunnan, gathering enough oddities to last a lifetime of a blog. One of my colleagues in the school was a young male teacher who was obviously very feminine, and completely unashamed about it. As the year dragged on and I got to know the people better, another teacher told me the guy’s mother really wanted a girl, but when she couldn’t have one, she started dressing her son in girl’s clothes – something that lasted for several years.
The other teachers and village people thought it all a bit odd, but never held it against him. women generally liked him and none of the men seemed to be the least uncomfortable around him. Also, as far as I could tell he didn’t have any problem managing classes of 50 or more unruly teenagers.
I can imagine his emotional life being pretty complicated, but all and all, I believe he was probably better off in that backward, very conservative rural community than he would have been in many liberal societies.
Once, when having a girls talk with some of the female teachers, I was stunned to learn they all thought him to be the cutest guy around. (He was very far from my standard of cuteness, but then again, that year turned on its head almost everything I once believed to be universal standards).
Is it possible that just as in China its easier to accept the idea of more than one god, it is natural to think there are more than two genders? what an exiting thought.
In memory of He Fengshan
Dr. He Fengshan. Photo from the Yad-vashem archive
All that is needed for evil to succeed is that decent human beings do nothing – Edmund Burke
Today is Holocaust remembrance Day in Israel. Last night I had the privilege to hear the story of Dr. He Fengshan (何凤山）as told by his daughter He Mengli at a remembrance ceremony at the Israeli embassy in Beijing.
Dr. He was the general counselor of China in Vienna in 1938. He witnessed the anschluss (the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany) and the marching of Adulf Hitler into Vienna. He later told his daughter how appalled he felt by many Austrians enthusiastic welcome of the Nazis.
Almost 200,000 Jews were living in Austria at the time, and most of them started to look for ways to leave the country. Unfortunately, many countries, including Britain and the US found that exact time fit to enforce severe quotas for immigration, and refused visas for most applicants.
Dr. He at the Chinese consulate was one of few diplomats who acted differently. He immidiately started issuing visas to Shanghai for anyone who applied; sometimes 300 visas a day. He continued doing this despite a direct order from his boss, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, who hoped to maintain good relations with the Nazi Regime, at a time when China itself was attacked and suffered.
Some of the refugees who got visas to Shanghai actually made it there, but others used the visas issued by He to leave Austria and find refuge elsewhere (Some kind of visa was required for a jew to be allowed to leave Austria).
Dr. He continued his heroic operation despite being ordered by his superiors to stop, and despite the Nazis confiscation of his consulate building. He was ordered back to China in May 1940, and later moved to Taiwan with the Guomindang government. He continued his diplomatic service under the ROC until 1973, when he retired and moved to the US.
According the Ms. He, her father rarely ever talked about his time in Vienna and has never made any attempt to contact any of the people he saved. His disobedience remained as a black mark on his service and his promotion was halted (though he did serve as ambassador to several countries). His deeds were never acknowledged during his lifetime but his daughter researched and brought his story to light after his death in 1997. The number of Jewish families saved by his actions is unknown but probably measured by the thousands. Ms. He managed to fulfill her fathers dying wish in 2007 when she brought his remains back to China. He and his wife are buried in his native village of Yiyang （益阳), Hunnan province.
My mother was born in Vienna in 1935. Her family was among the fortunate who got a visa to the then British ruled Palestina. They left Austria in November 12th 1938, two days after the kristallnacht, made it safely to Tel-Aviv and settled there. Other members of the family managed to escape to the US, Argentina and Australia. Of those who stayed in Europe, none survived.
Youtube? What is Youtube?
Isn’t it sweet of the Shanghai Daily to report on Google’s intentions to expend the Youtube library? Readers would surely be happy to know that content from Universal, Discovery, National Geographic and many more will soon also be unavailable to them via Youtube.
(It’s just an agency item and probably editors haven’t given it much thought, but still caught my attention as being a bit ballsy, reporting this with no mention of the tube still being blocked in China).
There isn’t enough foreign media in China
Posted by: Rachel in East Vs. West on April 16th, 2009
Timothy Garton Ash at the guardian thinks there aren’t enough foreign reporters in China, and this is not our only problem:
As they compete fiercely for readers and viewers, mainstream western media tend to stick with a few stories that are familiar and interesting to them. They report so much about Tibet not because they are ideological China-bashers but because their consumers are fascinated by and care about Tibet. Yes, their news stories on China’s domestic politics tend to the sensational and the negative – so do their stories about the domestic politics of their own countries. Those who edit and select these stories are just following the market-oriented rules of their trade. If it bleeds, it leads.
obviously, correct. I said so before. We all want to hear stories we are already familiar with. We really don’t want to take new ideas and facts with our coffee, thank you. (isn’t this paragraph ironic? hmmm).
But then again, if this is the way things are, I’m bound to ask what difference will more foreign reporters make? wouldn’t it be just more of the same?
There are exceptions, of course. Garton Ash brings the example of a BBC report about land seizure in a certain Chinese village (Sorry I wasn’t able to find the original report). These are the kind of stories for which journalism exists – exactly the sort of things bloggers just can’t do. Too often, however, the report will jump a bit hastily from the particular case of a wronged farmer/worker/activist to a general conclusion along the “China is on the verge of collapse” line of arguments.*
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe it should be done otherwise. Those stories are of interest to the international media particularly because someone thinks they have wider implications, and so general conclusions must be drawn. Thing is, village riots, local conflicts, petty crimes etc are all the business of the local media, first and foremost. The work of the local media in China is a whole other issue, and too big to start pondering about tonight. Generally speaking, the Chinese media shows more will and maybe is given more liberty, to deal with that sort of stories. It is naturally far from being enough but you’d really to be blind to be here a while and not see the change that the local media has undergone in the last 5-10 years. Eventually, it will be up to them to do the real reporting. As Ronald Soong so accurately said not long ago: The western media no longer matters.
Nevertheless, there are surpringly few foreign journalists in China, considering it’s gigantic size, its diversity and its central global role. When I got my own accreditation in November I was told there are about 700 accredited foreign journalists here, including technical staff. There are probably many more non-accredited but its interesting to make the comparison with Israel, a country that gets just as much international news coverage (though why I never fully understood). According to the Government press office, there are about 700 accredited foreign journalists in Israel, and probably few dozens unaccredited, and others who are based in the area ruled by the Palestinian authority. Isralestine is about 28,000 square meters in land area – somewhat bigger than Beijing municipality (though much less in population). so there you have it. Not enough jurnos here despite how it would seem on those Friday nights at the bookworm.
*This isn’t referring to the BBC report, which I haven’t seen. I sincerely apologize to the reporter(s) if this isn’t the case in that report, and trust that none of my two readers has anything to do with the BBC anyway.
China Mobile can help you plant rice
Posted by: Rachel in Minorities, Stories from the Countryside on April 15th, 2009
They that sow in tears will reap in joy: This poster was hung on a door of a small shop in North Yunnan.
“This spring sowing season. Mobile comes to your help”
The ad offers 30 Yuan of agricultural products (seeds, I guess) for at least 60 yuan prepaid cash in a mobile phone account. The lord hath done great things for them indeed.
