There was an article in today’s New York Times that gives a good overview of the economic boom and the success of entrepreneurs in China. It is clear to any visitor (or anyone who reads the news) that there has been a lot of wealth created in a very short time. What is less clear is if the boom in exports, the stock market, and the real estate and construction boom will burst and crash in the near future. Other uncertainties are whether intellectual property protections will improve significantly, or whether the education system and Confucian values hinder the creative and independent thinking that is vital for success in scientific innovation and entrepreneurialism.
I happened to download a video podcast the other day that was about a similar subject. It is a lecture given at Carnegie Mellon University by a Google employee in China.
The theme of the talk was how China is a very different market from the U.S. market. One obvious difference is the lack of a free media in China. While there are plenty of censor-free media sources in the U.S., there are none outside of the Internet in China. Other than a several weeklong period after the Tibet riots, Google News is available in China.
Some other revealing statistics (United States compared with China):
Average age of an Internet user: 45 years old versus 25 years old
Number of Internet users who go online from Internet cafes:
<1% versus 33%
Software piracy rate: 21% versus 96% (19 out of 20 software programs in China are pirated copies!)
Number of credit cards per person: 2/person versus 0.02/person (credit cards are 100 times more common in the U.S.)
Number of mobile phones: 190 million versus 510 million
The implications: Internet users are much younger, which means a larger emphasis on games, multimedia, and entertainment. Far fewer people access the Internet on personal computers. Instead, many users go online primarily via their mobile phones or computers in Internet cafes. The prevalence of pirated software means the Chinese market is more open to free software like Google’s Office suite, while fee-based software companies, not to mention music labels and movie studios have a really hard time. The lack of credit cards means e-commerce is local since transactions are done in person – the buyer and seller on an auction site similar to eBay meet in person, or a purchase from an Amazon-style online retailer is delivered to your door. By the way, all kinds of things can be delivered – when I need a new jug of drinking water for my water cooler, after a quick phone call, one is delivered to my apartment by bicycle. I’ve also had someone at school order a train ticket for me that is delivered later that day.
Anyway, it’s interesting to learn about how all the little differences in culture and technology have a huge impact on how goods are marketed, bought, and sold. Foreign retailers face a similar challenge. For example, Wal-Mart’s stores in South Korea underperformed and eventually were all closed because they were built and run in virtually the same way as their American stores. Wal-Mart learned from that failure and their stores in China are better adapted to Chinese shoppers. There are no greeters (young female workers smiling and greeting shoppers isn’t socially appropriate), while there are employees shouting out discounts and giving product demonstrations using microphones, music is played loudly, fresh and hot food is served, and there is a sizable horde of workers to help you with anything (or simply follow you around). I'll be sure to visit the new Apple store in Beijing this summer, the first in China, and see what's different.
Shanghai and Beijing are home to a number of R&D centers established by foreign corporations in addition to numerous start-ups and young Chinese entrepreneurs. The friend of Andy's coworker who we had dinner with in Beijing worked for a private equity firm and it was interesting to talk to him about his work. To me, this is fascinating stuff to learn about and witness up close.
[UPDATE] Another good article in a series by Joe Nocera, who authored the article I linked to above, describes the Chinese way of management and guanxi (personal and business relationships). Finally, another article by Nocera describes how Chinese companies are also adopting the marketing and brand management strategies of western companies because of an unavoidable reality: Chinese consumers adore western brands and snap them up as status symbols while they think that Chinese brands are cheap and less desirable. The challenging process of integrating east and west is happening in so many different places.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Dumpling day
We had our midterm exams this week, so now we’re moving on to the second half of the semester. The school year here starts a bit later in year in September and the winter break falls around the Chinese New Year, which his either in late January or early February, so naturally the spring semester ends later, too. American universities, meanwhile, are finishing the school year in the next several weeks.
A few weeks ago a new mall in Taicang opened. It has a KFC, the city’s second, and a huge supermarket. I went to the supermarket last Saturday and spent a long time wandering nearly every aisle on both floors. It was great to find certain hard-to-find foods such as cereal and baguettes. I came home with two boxes of cereal, fruit, a baguette, a jar of curry paste, yogurt, and milk (the first time I’ve found skim milk). I could have spent a lot more money there.
On Friday, after the midterm exams had been graded and returned to the students, we spent two class periods in the cafeteria making dumplings. The kitchen staff set out big pans of chopped vegetables mixed with ground pork, dough, and bowls of flour and water.
I often see teams of cooks preparing dumplings in restaurants but have never watched it up close. I also never realized how much work it takes and how difficult it is to make them look perfect. After everyone made a couple normal-looking dumplings, we got bored and sought more and more creative shapes, which lead to a contest for the most oddly shaped, most intricate, and largest dumplings. A couple boys found a bag of salt and stuffed one of the dumplings with spoonfuls of salt (dumplings stuffed with hot chilies is a long-running prank in China). As luck had it, one of them ended up with that dumpling at lunch. Despite the kid’s strong revulsion after taking one bite, the dumpling was passed around the table so everyone could take a bite and share in the self-inflicted pain. Teenage boys aren't always so smart.
I finally fixed my camera by getting a new shutter button at a camera store in Shanghai a few weeks ago, and got around to taking it along with me this week, so I snapped a few pictures.
They’re available at http://gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt
It has rained at least once during each of the last few weekends. I am in Changzhou for the weekend and it look like it is going to be warm and sunny. We played some American football on the soccer field Friday evening and then I had a turkey sandwich at a western deli/restaurant (my first turkey sandwich here... and it's been eight months as of today). So it was a good start to the weekend!
A few weeks ago a new mall in Taicang opened. It has a KFC, the city’s second, and a huge supermarket. I went to the supermarket last Saturday and spent a long time wandering nearly every aisle on both floors. It was great to find certain hard-to-find foods such as cereal and baguettes. I came home with two boxes of cereal, fruit, a baguette, a jar of curry paste, yogurt, and milk (the first time I’ve found skim milk). I could have spent a lot more money there.
On Friday, after the midterm exams had been graded and returned to the students, we spent two class periods in the cafeteria making dumplings. The kitchen staff set out big pans of chopped vegetables mixed with ground pork, dough, and bowls of flour and water.
I often see teams of cooks preparing dumplings in restaurants but have never watched it up close. I also never realized how much work it takes and how difficult it is to make them look perfect. After everyone made a couple normal-looking dumplings, we got bored and sought more and more creative shapes, which lead to a contest for the most oddly shaped, most intricate, and largest dumplings. A couple boys found a bag of salt and stuffed one of the dumplings with spoonfuls of salt (dumplings stuffed with hot chilies is a long-running prank in China). As luck had it, one of them ended up with that dumpling at lunch. Despite the kid’s strong revulsion after taking one bite, the dumpling was passed around the table so everyone could take a bite and share in the self-inflicted pain. Teenage boys aren't always so smart.
I finally fixed my camera by getting a new shutter button at a camera store in Shanghai a few weeks ago, and got around to taking it along with me this week, so I snapped a few pictures.
They’re available at http://gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt
It has rained at least once during each of the last few weekends. I am in Changzhou for the weekend and it look like it is going to be warm and sunny. We played some American football on the soccer field Friday evening and then I had a turkey sandwich at a western deli/restaurant (my first turkey sandwich here... and it's been eight months as of today). So it was a good start to the weekend!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Birds and politics in Taiwan
We read a lot of random articles and stories in my reading class. Most of the readings come from old IELTS and TOEFL exams. One we read last week was about bird watching in Taiwan, which doesn’t seem very interesting. I don’t know much about Taiwan, although I have been reading more about it because of some recent developments. They elected a new president, Ma Ying-jeou, last month, and he is a leader who is more open diplomacy and closer relations with China. Two weeks ago, Ma’s vice-president, Vincent Siew, met with the Chinese President Hu Jintao, which was the first meeting between leaders of the two governments since 1949.
I think it is a promising development, because the poor political relationship between the two sides is absurd in several ways. They are culturally and economically very close, but direct travel between Mainland China and Taiwan is prohibited. Taiwanese investment in the Mainland is restricted in many ways, despite the fact that a large number of Taiwanese work in China, which goes back to when they had the language and business skills and the capital to build factories when China opened up in the 1980s. Yet people still have to travel through Hong Kong or South Korea to go back and forth.
It’s a situation similar to the United States and Cuba. Millions of Cuban-Americans, many of whom live only 100 miles away from Cuba in southern Florida, cannot travel directly there to visit family just because the governments don’t like each other. Taiwan fears that China will try to reclaim and reintegrate Taiwan (and by force if necessary) or that closer ties will damage the independence and freedom enjoyed by citizens of one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. But I think that China will trend more towards Taiwan’s model, rather than the other way around. So if the new government in Taiwan can work with Beijing and end some of those restrictions, I think it would be for the better.
Anyways, the article my students and I read described the different ecospheres in Taiwan. Since it is a large island with a warm and wet climate, it is an oasis of biodiversity, and obviously a great spot for outdoor activities like hiking, rock climbing, and bird watching. There are 440 species of birds, while the United States, which is more than 250 larger in area, has only 800 bird species. Only Madagascar has more bird species per square kilometer. And 20% of the birds in Taiwan at any time are classified as “vagrants” because they are not native birds, but rather got lost while migrating and ended up there. The birds obviously don't heed the political ban on travel across the strait. It sounds like a cool place, and if it were easier to travel there from China, I’d be interested in making a visit.
One other note: a UW-Madison student who started studying Chinese when his family adopted two children from China, has been working as a translator for Yi Jianlian of the Milwaukee Bucks. There was a good story about him on the UW website.
I remember Yao had a translator in his first year or two in the NBA who was also a young American guy. It sounds like a sweet job to travel with a professional sports team and spend much of the time talking to the media.
I think it is a promising development, because the poor political relationship between the two sides is absurd in several ways. They are culturally and economically very close, but direct travel between Mainland China and Taiwan is prohibited. Taiwanese investment in the Mainland is restricted in many ways, despite the fact that a large number of Taiwanese work in China, which goes back to when they had the language and business skills and the capital to build factories when China opened up in the 1980s. Yet people still have to travel through Hong Kong or South Korea to go back and forth.
It’s a situation similar to the United States and Cuba. Millions of Cuban-Americans, many of whom live only 100 miles away from Cuba in southern Florida, cannot travel directly there to visit family just because the governments don’t like each other. Taiwan fears that China will try to reclaim and reintegrate Taiwan (and by force if necessary) or that closer ties will damage the independence and freedom enjoyed by citizens of one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. But I think that China will trend more towards Taiwan’s model, rather than the other way around. So if the new government in Taiwan can work with Beijing and end some of those restrictions, I think it would be for the better.
Anyways, the article my students and I read described the different ecospheres in Taiwan. Since it is a large island with a warm and wet climate, it is an oasis of biodiversity, and obviously a great spot for outdoor activities like hiking, rock climbing, and bird watching. There are 440 species of birds, while the United States, which is more than 250 larger in area, has only 800 bird species. Only Madagascar has more bird species per square kilometer. And 20% of the birds in Taiwan at any time are classified as “vagrants” because they are not native birds, but rather got lost while migrating and ended up there. The birds obviously don't heed the political ban on travel across the strait. It sounds like a cool place, and if it were easier to travel there from China, I’d be interested in making a visit.
One other note: a UW-Madison student who started studying Chinese when his family adopted two children from China, has been working as a translator for Yi Jianlian of the Milwaukee Bucks. There was a good story about him on the UW website.
I remember Yao had a translator in his first year or two in the NBA who was also a young American guy. It sounds like a sweet job to travel with a professional sports team and spend much of the time talking to the media.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Cell phones
This is a really interesting article about cell phones and how rich and poor alike around the world covet them.
I had actually read about the guy profiled in the article, Jan Chipchase, who does on-the-ground marketing research for Nokia in countries around the world, a few months ago. His story got me interested in learning more about how communication and technology can help alleviate poverty.
Cell phones are certainly popular here, and the biggest cell phone provider, China Mobile, has more subscribers than any other phone company in the world (350 million and expanding at 5-10 million subscribers each month!). From my experience, cell phone coverage and call quality is better here than in the U.S., and more Chinese use their phones for email, pictures, games, and videos than Americans do.
One of the newer capabilities of cell phones is as a credit card. In countries like Finland and Japan, people can use their cell phones to pay for bus tickets or buy things from vending machines. A new system is being developed in China to allow people to wire money and make purchases through simple text messages. The more than 100 million rural migrants working in cities and factories in eastern and southern China send billions of dollars back to their relatives. Traditional wire transfer services charge high commissions and money sent physically risks being lost or stolen along the way. Rural residents also don’t have easy access to banks or ATMs.
Text message transactions offer a simple solution by allowing people to send a text message to the account number of a shop owner or a relative. The first message states an amount of money to transfer and they receive a second message to confirm that an electronic transfer was made. Just as microcredit loans are giving the poor around the world access to small amounts of capital to start and expand small businesses, soon cell phones could give the poor access to simple electronic banking.
Another cool new innovation with cell phones to help the rural poor is going on in India. Many villages are not wired with landlines so there is no phone or Internet access. And in many places, there are still no cell phone towers either. So small cell phone signal boxes are being installed on the public buses and courier motorcycles that make daily trips to most rural villages. Cell phones and computers are being programmed to send and receive text messages and emails when a bus or motorcycle broadcasting a mobile phone signal happens to drive by. The signal box picks up new messages and drops of responses to old messages. A little programming work even allows computer users to enter an Internet search and get the caches of the top several websites downloaded to the computer the next day, after the search has been relayed to a cell phone signal box on a bus, which then travels to a city, downloads the search results, and passes the information on to the computer the next time it swings by.
We take for granted most of the simple things that make our lives much better, like cell phones, email, ATMs, and modern medicine. But only a small fraction of the world has access to those modern conveniences. A lot of smart people are using technology and some innovative ideas to make these things cheaper and more accessible, so that even the world’s most poor and illiterate people can benefit from them.
I had actually read about the guy profiled in the article, Jan Chipchase, who does on-the-ground marketing research for Nokia in countries around the world, a few months ago. His story got me interested in learning more about how communication and technology can help alleviate poverty.
Cell phones are certainly popular here, and the biggest cell phone provider, China Mobile, has more subscribers than any other phone company in the world (350 million and expanding at 5-10 million subscribers each month!). From my experience, cell phone coverage and call quality is better here than in the U.S., and more Chinese use their phones for email, pictures, games, and videos than Americans do.
One of the newer capabilities of cell phones is as a credit card. In countries like Finland and Japan, people can use their cell phones to pay for bus tickets or buy things from vending machines. A new system is being developed in China to allow people to wire money and make purchases through simple text messages. The more than 100 million rural migrants working in cities and factories in eastern and southern China send billions of dollars back to their relatives. Traditional wire transfer services charge high commissions and money sent physically risks being lost or stolen along the way. Rural residents also don’t have easy access to banks or ATMs.
Text message transactions offer a simple solution by allowing people to send a text message to the account number of a shop owner or a relative. The first message states an amount of money to transfer and they receive a second message to confirm that an electronic transfer was made. Just as microcredit loans are giving the poor around the world access to small amounts of capital to start and expand small businesses, soon cell phones could give the poor access to simple electronic banking.
Another cool new innovation with cell phones to help the rural poor is going on in India. Many villages are not wired with landlines so there is no phone or Internet access. And in many places, there are still no cell phone towers either. So small cell phone signal boxes are being installed on the public buses and courier motorcycles that make daily trips to most rural villages. Cell phones and computers are being programmed to send and receive text messages and emails when a bus or motorcycle broadcasting a mobile phone signal happens to drive by. The signal box picks up new messages and drops of responses to old messages. A little programming work even allows computer users to enter an Internet search and get the caches of the top several websites downloaded to the computer the next day, after the search has been relayed to a cell phone signal box on a bus, which then travels to a city, downloads the search results, and passes the information on to the computer the next time it swings by.
We take for granted most of the simple things that make our lives much better, like cell phones, email, ATMs, and modern medicine. But only a small fraction of the world has access to those modern conveniences. A lot of smart people are using technology and some innovative ideas to make these things cheaper and more accessible, so that even the world’s most poor and illiterate people can benefit from them.
Chinese nationalism
Over last several decades, the Chinese government has replaced communism with both capitalism and nationalism. Nationalism is the ideology that holds the nation of 56 different ethnic groups together and sustains the support for single party rule. And in many ways, nationalism is just as powerful and dogmatic as communism once was. Any disagreement with the Communist Party is seen as an attack on the nation, so political dissent is still branded as treason.
So it’s no surprise that criticism of the government’s policy on Tibet invokes a strong nationalistic response. A recent NY Times article gives a good description of the nationalistic attitudes that most young Chinese hold (and I’ve come across some of the same arguments cited in the article).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13forney.html?em&ex=1208232000&en=3f78fd18ca46542b&ei=5087%0A
Another point the article brings up is how Chinese youth grow up with a very intense and narrow education, and enter adulthood with little of the real life experience or knowledge that is gained through work or travel abroad. I’ve found the same thing. Although most of my students are well-off and a few have traveled abroad, they know very little about what goes on outside of China or even in Beijing. I’ve even had a hard time getting information on what is in town and how to get around. They know where their house and their school is and the few blocks in between, but not much else.
There is a backlash against CNN and other western media sources for their “ant-China bias,” such as labeling photos of Nepalese or Indian authorities beating monks as Chinese police.
http://www.anti-cnn.com/
And then a shocking story came out recently about a Chinese-born student at Duke University whose life was threatened (as well as that of her parents in China) when she did not unconditionally support the Chinese students counter protesting Tibet supporters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Not good p.r. for China. But their accusations of hypocrisy do make you think. If a number of western countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the USSR’s human rights abuses and the invasion of Afghanistan, would it be well-reasoned to boycott an American Olympics over Guantanamo and the Iraq War? Are we worrying more about human rights abuses of other governments than of our own?
So it’s no surprise that criticism of the government’s policy on Tibet invokes a strong nationalistic response. A recent NY Times article gives a good description of the nationalistic attitudes that most young Chinese hold (and I’ve come across some of the same arguments cited in the article).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/opinion/13forney.html?em&ex=1208232000&en=3f78fd18ca46542b&ei=5087%0A
Another point the article brings up is how Chinese youth grow up with a very intense and narrow education, and enter adulthood with little of the real life experience or knowledge that is gained through work or travel abroad. I’ve found the same thing. Although most of my students are well-off and a few have traveled abroad, they know very little about what goes on outside of China or even in Beijing. I’ve even had a hard time getting information on what is in town and how to get around. They know where their house and their school is and the few blocks in between, but not much else.
There is a backlash against CNN and other western media sources for their “ant-China bias,” such as labeling photos of Nepalese or Indian authorities beating monks as Chinese police.
http://www.anti-cnn.com/
And then a shocking story came out recently about a Chinese-born student at Duke University whose life was threatened (as well as that of her parents in China) when she did not unconditionally support the Chinese students counter protesting Tibet supporters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/17student.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Not good p.r. for China. But their accusations of hypocrisy do make you think. If a number of western countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the USSR’s human rights abuses and the invasion of Afghanistan, would it be well-reasoned to boycott an American Olympics over Guantanamo and the Iraq War? Are we worrying more about human rights abuses of other governments than of our own?
Thursday, April 17, 2008
A brief visit to Beijing
I finished class at 3 in the afternoon on Friday (Fridays are shortened by three periods) and biked home, walked to the bus station and made it there in time for the 3:30 bus. I got into Shanghai just past five, so I could have made the same flight as Andy at 8 o’clock, but I had booked a later flight at the other airport, which is closer to the city, just in case anything like bad traffic held me up.
So I had some time to kill and I walked around and had a bowl of noodles. The last couple of times I was in the city it was raining or there was simply poor visibility, but that afternoon it was warm and clear so for the first time in months I was able to walk along the river and get a good view of the other side.
I tried to take the metro to the airport, but it didn’t quite get me there. The metro system was originally planned to be extended out to the older airport, called Hongqiao, where my flight was to depart at 9 p.m. The metro map in my guidebook shows one line connecting with the airport and I assumed the existing metro line was the same. I forgot about reading somewhere last year that the plans were changed for some reason, so that line doesn’t exist yet. I took the line as far as I could and got off.
My flight time was quickly approaching and the traffic looked pretty bad so I opted for a motorcycle taxi. Guys on motorcycles hang out near train, bus, and metro stations, where they offer cheap rides. I went to the one motorcyclist who had an extra helmet with him. We negotiated a price and I hopped on the back. It was a cozy, little double-seat to share with him and the helmet was too big and the chinstrap a little too loose. Several times the helmet blew off, like when a baseball player sprints around the bases, but the chinstrap did keep it from flying away. It was a fun ride weaving around buses and accelerating down the dimly lit and narrow side streets that he took. We went down a quiet, windy road with only trees on either side. I had no idea where he was taking me until we passed a bunch of warehouses and courier vans. It started to look more like an airport when I could see a tall fence and rows of lights. It must have been a short cut to the airport.
The Hongqiao airport was reworked in the fall to accommodate a new Shanghai – Beijing express service. There is a dedicated terminal for the flights to Beijing that leave every 30 minutes throughout the day. The separate check-in and security was nice and efficient, although they confiscated my water bottle and toothpaste. The largest tube of toothpaste you can carry is 100 grams, even though mine was 120 grams and nearly empty.
I sat next to a Chinese student who is graduating with a degree in English from the Beijing Language and Culture University, which is where I plan to study Mandarin in July and August. It was nice to hear more about the university because I’ve never seen it.
When my plane arrived around 11:30 pm, Andy was already in the airport with two colleagues. He sent me a text message to tell me that he was waiting outside of Terminal 3. I was confused because I could not find any sign of terminals other than the one I was in. I wasn’t even sure what terminal I was in. I asked a security guard who told me to take one of the buses outside to get the other terminals.
It turns out I was at the old terminal, and the airline Andy flew on went to the newly built terminal. The bus ride to that one took me down a big highway for several miles, until we approached a gigantic building with a sweeping red and silver roof over what turns out to be the largest airport terminal in the world. It’s one of Beijing’s new upgrades for the Olympics, and, because of its size, it’s not the best place to try to find someone.
The bus dropped me off just a few hundred feet from where Andy and his two colleagues who traveled with him were waiting, and we got a ride into the city with a friend of Andy’s Chinese colleague. We collapsed in our beds at 1:30 am for a few hours of sleep before heading out for a day at the Great Wall.
After much wrangling over whether to take a guided tour or to simply hire a taxi for they day, we decided to go with the tour. It left at 8 am and the first stop was a Qing dynasty tomb in the foothills outside of Beijing. It was a cool compound of old walls, a courtyard, and buildings that housed a big statue of an emperor, some old silk clothing, and other artifacts. We were with a small group of English-speaking tourists – a couple from England, a couple from India, and a couple from Australia. We went through the tomb along with several enormous groups of Chinese tourists, who jostled for space at each exhibit only to snap a picture and hustle on to the next one.
Waiting outside of the tomb for the rest of the group to catch up, we listened to a number of women pushing drinks and souvenirs with shouts of “Hello… Water! Hello!” It was only the beginning of a long day spent among souvenir and snack peddlers.
The next stop was a jade store and factory. We saw some jade craftsmen at work and listened to a brief presentation on jade and the Olympic medals that will feature three different hues of jade stone. It was a huge place, basically an outlet factory, with all kinds of jewelry and house ware made out of jade.
We were anxious to get to the Wall, but were stuck there for a bit longer as our tour included lunch at the jade place. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. yet when we were seated in a large and empty dining hall but the food was great. Andy’s Chinese colleague burst out laughing in the middle of the meal at the absurdity of eating lunch so early and sharing dishes around a Lazy Susan with a group of strangers.
When we got to the Wall, we had to hike up a long parking lot past lots of people selling Great Wall coffee mugs, hats, and sweatshirts emblazoned with “I climbed the Great Wall” (and referred to as “sweaty shirts” by the vendor).
The others in the group took a rollercoaster-type trolley up the steep hill to the Wall, while Andy, his Dutch colleague Sander, and I hiked a just a few more steps to reach the Wall at a low point in between two hills. The climb was a steep up-and-down trek that had us shedding layers and stopping to catch our breaths after each ascent.
There was always a handrail and sometimes there were steps but they were usually really big. Some steps were so steep and high that some people had to pause and calm their nerves before slowly descending. On the way up it was easier to just use our hands and climb the steps like a ladder.
Andy and Sander obviously had not gotten out much during their first five days in China, because they were surprised and a little bewildered when people stopped and asked to pose for a picture with them. Inside the dark Ming dynasty tomb no one paid attention to us, but out on the Great Wall we stood out and were treated like rock stars by old guys and teenage girls alike who wanted our pictures.
The highest peak of the Wall along the stretch that we hiked was packed side-to-side (wall-to-wall?) with people. And, of course, there was music blasting and souvenir vendors on and along the Wall, too. So crowds and commerce are unavoidable almost everywhere here (especially on a Saturday at the Great Wall), but we were lucky to have cool, dry weather and great visibility. Everyone I know in China who has been to the Wall seems to have had rain or fog and never quite experienced the famed view of the Great Wall snaking across the rolling hills and disappearing over the horizon. Our views that day were not spoiled by poor weather. And, to my surprise, I couldn’t see any roads or buildings in most directions, either.
We got to the top of the trolley after about an hour of hiking and waited for the others, who did a down and back trip from the trolley, to get back. We cooled off by snacking on some ice cream. It was Andy’s first time trying corn-flavored ice cream. It was okay, and it beat out the green bean-flavored bar in a taste test.
Our trip back to the city took us past the shiny aqua-colored Olympic swimming complex and the unconventional Olympic Stadium, also referred to as the Bird’s Nest. We took a taxi to one of the best-known Peking duck restaurants, the 168-year-old Quanjude Beijing Duck restaurant. The meal was awesome. A deep-fried whole duck was expertly sliced next to our table, like a Chinese Thanksgiving dinner, and we ate the duck along with several vegetable, pork, shrimp, and tofu dishes and washed it all down with locally brewed Yanjing beer. I love those capacious Chinese restaurants where big groups share different dishes around a round table. And eating duck in Beijing in one of those large restaurants made for a remarkable meal and was the perfect cap to our daytrip out to the Wall.
After dinner, Andy, Sander, and I walked around the neighborhood, where we stopped in a grocery store, before venturing to Tiananmen Square, which was closed off and empty at night, save for a few guards. We were exhausted so we saved the sightseeing for the following day.
We did Beijing in one day on Sunday, beginning with a visit to Mao (his dead body at least) in the Mao Memorial building, which is right in the middle of Tiananmen. He died in 1976, and ever since his preserved body has lain in a glass. We waited in long line that wrapped part way around the outside of building. Luckily it moved briskly through the security and into the first room of the memorial hall, where people laid flowers at the feet of a huge statue of a seated Mao. His body lies at rest in the next room, clothed in a grey suit and wrapped in a red blanket. It was surreal–it’s not every day you get to see a 32-year-old dead body. It was neat to see one the most significant historical figures and very interesting to see the somber mood of others as they walked by his body and bowed. He certainly hasn’t gone away as his face is on the front of the 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 yuan notes (all but the 0.1 and 0.5 yuan notes) and a giant portrait of him hangs above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is the entrance to the Forbidden City at the north end of Tiananmen.
We spent the next couple of hours exploring the Forbidden City, where we enjoyed the 75-degree weather and blue skies along with thousands of tourists from around the world. At least this place was expansive enough to accommodate a ton of people and not feel to overcrowded everywhere. At the sites we saw on Saturday it was sometimes hard to walk faster than a slow, shuffling pace. The downside of its size is that it probably takes more than a single day to see everything. We left in the early afternoon to go eat lunch and visit the Temple of Heaven, where goats were sacrificed and prayers to the gods were conducted to ask for bountiful harvests.
When Andy and his colleagues left for the airport in the late afternoon, I took a taxi back to the hotel to pick up my bag. I spotted the top of the new Central China Television headquarters way down at the end of a street, so I decided to head in that direction. It’s a stunning new building that seems to defy gravity. On my way towards it, I walked through a neighborhood full of stores plastered with Russian signs. There were a number of big buildings that appeared to be wholesale markets for clothing, bags, and watches, and for some reason, it was all in Russian. People on the street were either Russian or Eastern European, or they were Chinese and were trying to sell me stuff and made their pitches in what sounded like Russian. Kind of odd.
The subsequent few blocks were just as international and had me feeling perplexed again. There was a sprawling park that was surrounded by two- and three-story buildings ringed with tall fences and barbed wire. When I first saw an armed guard standing inside the fence of a discreet complex, I thought it was a prison. Then I saw more of the same, and noticed the large satellite dishes and national flags atop many of the buildings. There were dozens of embassies, as it turned out, and all of them were heavily fortified. There were security cameras installed on the streetlights and uniformed soldiers standing outside each gate and at every street corner. The entrance to virtually every school, factory, office tower, and apartment building in China has a security guard in a little building. In addition, tall walls, gates, and steel bars on windows are common, so I guess it makes sense that embassies have some additional security, but it seemed a bit excessive. I didn’t take many pictures because there was almost always a guard watching me.
The CCTV building was on the other side of the park and the diplomatic area. It looks nearly finished and I stared at it for a while, wondering how it stays upright and how they could possibly get all those cranes on top of it.
I took the metro to the train station to catch a sleeper train back to Shanghai. The first two metro stations I went to were under construction, so I had to rush down the street to where someone told me the closest open station would be. That one was being renovated, too, but remained in operation. The city is installing ATM-style ticket machines and turnstiles to replace the tellers who sell paper tickets and take your ticket before you board. The station and the ticket process were certainly out-of-date.
I arrived in Shanghai around 7 a.m. and made it back in time to shower and get to the school in time for my 11:15 a.m. class.
Pictures are up online at http://gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt. I left my camera’s memory card at the hotel on Sunday, so no pictures of the Forbidden City (and none are allowed in the Mao memorial).
So I had some time to kill and I walked around and had a bowl of noodles. The last couple of times I was in the city it was raining or there was simply poor visibility, but that afternoon it was warm and clear so for the first time in months I was able to walk along the river and get a good view of the other side.
I tried to take the metro to the airport, but it didn’t quite get me there. The metro system was originally planned to be extended out to the older airport, called Hongqiao, where my flight was to depart at 9 p.m. The metro map in my guidebook shows one line connecting with the airport and I assumed the existing metro line was the same. I forgot about reading somewhere last year that the plans were changed for some reason, so that line doesn’t exist yet. I took the line as far as I could and got off.
My flight time was quickly approaching and the traffic looked pretty bad so I opted for a motorcycle taxi. Guys on motorcycles hang out near train, bus, and metro stations, where they offer cheap rides. I went to the one motorcyclist who had an extra helmet with him. We negotiated a price and I hopped on the back. It was a cozy, little double-seat to share with him and the helmet was too big and the chinstrap a little too loose. Several times the helmet blew off, like when a baseball player sprints around the bases, but the chinstrap did keep it from flying away. It was a fun ride weaving around buses and accelerating down the dimly lit and narrow side streets that he took. We went down a quiet, windy road with only trees on either side. I had no idea where he was taking me until we passed a bunch of warehouses and courier vans. It started to look more like an airport when I could see a tall fence and rows of lights. It must have been a short cut to the airport.
The Hongqiao airport was reworked in the fall to accommodate a new Shanghai – Beijing express service. There is a dedicated terminal for the flights to Beijing that leave every 30 minutes throughout the day. The separate check-in and security was nice and efficient, although they confiscated my water bottle and toothpaste. The largest tube of toothpaste you can carry is 100 grams, even though mine was 120 grams and nearly empty.
I sat next to a Chinese student who is graduating with a degree in English from the Beijing Language and Culture University, which is where I plan to study Mandarin in July and August. It was nice to hear more about the university because I’ve never seen it.
When my plane arrived around 11:30 pm, Andy was already in the airport with two colleagues. He sent me a text message to tell me that he was waiting outside of Terminal 3. I was confused because I could not find any sign of terminals other than the one I was in. I wasn’t even sure what terminal I was in. I asked a security guard who told me to take one of the buses outside to get the other terminals.
It turns out I was at the old terminal, and the airline Andy flew on went to the newly built terminal. The bus ride to that one took me down a big highway for several miles, until we approached a gigantic building with a sweeping red and silver roof over what turns out to be the largest airport terminal in the world. It’s one of Beijing’s new upgrades for the Olympics, and, because of its size, it’s not the best place to try to find someone.
The bus dropped me off just a few hundred feet from where Andy and his two colleagues who traveled with him were waiting, and we got a ride into the city with a friend of Andy’s Chinese colleague. We collapsed in our beds at 1:30 am for a few hours of sleep before heading out for a day at the Great Wall.
After much wrangling over whether to take a guided tour or to simply hire a taxi for they day, we decided to go with the tour. It left at 8 am and the first stop was a Qing dynasty tomb in the foothills outside of Beijing. It was a cool compound of old walls, a courtyard, and buildings that housed a big statue of an emperor, some old silk clothing, and other artifacts. We were with a small group of English-speaking tourists – a couple from England, a couple from India, and a couple from Australia. We went through the tomb along with several enormous groups of Chinese tourists, who jostled for space at each exhibit only to snap a picture and hustle on to the next one.
Waiting outside of the tomb for the rest of the group to catch up, we listened to a number of women pushing drinks and souvenirs with shouts of “Hello… Water! Hello!” It was only the beginning of a long day spent among souvenir and snack peddlers.
The next stop was a jade store and factory. We saw some jade craftsmen at work and listened to a brief presentation on jade and the Olympic medals that will feature three different hues of jade stone. It was a huge place, basically an outlet factory, with all kinds of jewelry and house ware made out of jade.
We were anxious to get to the Wall, but were stuck there for a bit longer as our tour included lunch at the jade place. It wasn’t even 11 a.m. yet when we were seated in a large and empty dining hall but the food was great. Andy’s Chinese colleague burst out laughing in the middle of the meal at the absurdity of eating lunch so early and sharing dishes around a Lazy Susan with a group of strangers.
When we got to the Wall, we had to hike up a long parking lot past lots of people selling Great Wall coffee mugs, hats, and sweatshirts emblazoned with “I climbed the Great Wall” (and referred to as “sweaty shirts” by the vendor).
The others in the group took a rollercoaster-type trolley up the steep hill to the Wall, while Andy, his Dutch colleague Sander, and I hiked a just a few more steps to reach the Wall at a low point in between two hills. The climb was a steep up-and-down trek that had us shedding layers and stopping to catch our breaths after each ascent.
There was always a handrail and sometimes there were steps but they were usually really big. Some steps were so steep and high that some people had to pause and calm their nerves before slowly descending. On the way up it was easier to just use our hands and climb the steps like a ladder.
Andy and Sander obviously had not gotten out much during their first five days in China, because they were surprised and a little bewildered when people stopped and asked to pose for a picture with them. Inside the dark Ming dynasty tomb no one paid attention to us, but out on the Great Wall we stood out and were treated like rock stars by old guys and teenage girls alike who wanted our pictures.
The highest peak of the Wall along the stretch that we hiked was packed side-to-side (wall-to-wall?) with people. And, of course, there was music blasting and souvenir vendors on and along the Wall, too. So crowds and commerce are unavoidable almost everywhere here (especially on a Saturday at the Great Wall), but we were lucky to have cool, dry weather and great visibility. Everyone I know in China who has been to the Wall seems to have had rain or fog and never quite experienced the famed view of the Great Wall snaking across the rolling hills and disappearing over the horizon. Our views that day were not spoiled by poor weather. And, to my surprise, I couldn’t see any roads or buildings in most directions, either.
We got to the top of the trolley after about an hour of hiking and waited for the others, who did a down and back trip from the trolley, to get back. We cooled off by snacking on some ice cream. It was Andy’s first time trying corn-flavored ice cream. It was okay, and it beat out the green bean-flavored bar in a taste test.
Our trip back to the city took us past the shiny aqua-colored Olympic swimming complex and the unconventional Olympic Stadium, also referred to as the Bird’s Nest. We took a taxi to one of the best-known Peking duck restaurants, the 168-year-old Quanjude Beijing Duck restaurant. The meal was awesome. A deep-fried whole duck was expertly sliced next to our table, like a Chinese Thanksgiving dinner, and we ate the duck along with several vegetable, pork, shrimp, and tofu dishes and washed it all down with locally brewed Yanjing beer. I love those capacious Chinese restaurants where big groups share different dishes around a round table. And eating duck in Beijing in one of those large restaurants made for a remarkable meal and was the perfect cap to our daytrip out to the Wall.
After dinner, Andy, Sander, and I walked around the neighborhood, where we stopped in a grocery store, before venturing to Tiananmen Square, which was closed off and empty at night, save for a few guards. We were exhausted so we saved the sightseeing for the following day.
We did Beijing in one day on Sunday, beginning with a visit to Mao (his dead body at least) in the Mao Memorial building, which is right in the middle of Tiananmen. He died in 1976, and ever since his preserved body has lain in a glass. We waited in long line that wrapped part way around the outside of building. Luckily it moved briskly through the security and into the first room of the memorial hall, where people laid flowers at the feet of a huge statue of a seated Mao. His body lies at rest in the next room, clothed in a grey suit and wrapped in a red blanket. It was surreal–it’s not every day you get to see a 32-year-old dead body. It was neat to see one the most significant historical figures and very interesting to see the somber mood of others as they walked by his body and bowed. He certainly hasn’t gone away as his face is on the front of the 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 yuan notes (all but the 0.1 and 0.5 yuan notes) and a giant portrait of him hangs above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is the entrance to the Forbidden City at the north end of Tiananmen.
We spent the next couple of hours exploring the Forbidden City, where we enjoyed the 75-degree weather and blue skies along with thousands of tourists from around the world. At least this place was expansive enough to accommodate a ton of people and not feel to overcrowded everywhere. At the sites we saw on Saturday it was sometimes hard to walk faster than a slow, shuffling pace. The downside of its size is that it probably takes more than a single day to see everything. We left in the early afternoon to go eat lunch and visit the Temple of Heaven, where goats were sacrificed and prayers to the gods were conducted to ask for bountiful harvests.
When Andy and his colleagues left for the airport in the late afternoon, I took a taxi back to the hotel to pick up my bag. I spotted the top of the new Central China Television headquarters way down at the end of a street, so I decided to head in that direction. It’s a stunning new building that seems to defy gravity. On my way towards it, I walked through a neighborhood full of stores plastered with Russian signs. There were a number of big buildings that appeared to be wholesale markets for clothing, bags, and watches, and for some reason, it was all in Russian. People on the street were either Russian or Eastern European, or they were Chinese and were trying to sell me stuff and made their pitches in what sounded like Russian. Kind of odd.
The subsequent few blocks were just as international and had me feeling perplexed again. There was a sprawling park that was surrounded by two- and three-story buildings ringed with tall fences and barbed wire. When I first saw an armed guard standing inside the fence of a discreet complex, I thought it was a prison. Then I saw more of the same, and noticed the large satellite dishes and national flags atop many of the buildings. There were dozens of embassies, as it turned out, and all of them were heavily fortified. There were security cameras installed on the streetlights and uniformed soldiers standing outside each gate and at every street corner. The entrance to virtually every school, factory, office tower, and apartment building in China has a security guard in a little building. In addition, tall walls, gates, and steel bars on windows are common, so I guess it makes sense that embassies have some additional security, but it seemed a bit excessive. I didn’t take many pictures because there was almost always a guard watching me.
The CCTV building was on the other side of the park and the diplomatic area. It looks nearly finished and I stared at it for a while, wondering how it stays upright and how they could possibly get all those cranes on top of it.
I took the metro to the train station to catch a sleeper train back to Shanghai. The first two metro stations I went to were under construction, so I had to rush down the street to where someone told me the closest open station would be. That one was being renovated, too, but remained in operation. The city is installing ATM-style ticket machines and turnstiles to replace the tellers who sell paper tickets and take your ticket before you board. The station and the ticket process were certainly out-of-date.
I arrived in Shanghai around 7 a.m. and made it back in time to shower and get to the school in time for my 11:15 a.m. class.
Pictures are up online at http://gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt. I left my camera’s memory card at the hotel on Sunday, so no pictures of the Forbidden City (and none are allowed in the Mao memorial).
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Inflation across borders
Inflation was a hot button issue in China last year. The construction boom and the expanding middle class is stretching demand for oil, building materials like concrete and steel, precious metals and other commodities such as meat. And the Chinese renminbi is undervalued so imports are artificially more expensive. Pork prices jumped over 60% last year in China, for example, while eggs and dairy prices rose 15-30%.
There was a good overview of the causes of inflation in the developing world and its effects in an article in the New York Times. One of the ceramic factories in the town of Foshan, close to Guangzhou, that Bud and I visited, is cited as an example of a Chinese producer that has been forced to hike their prices to compensate for rising costs.
It is now inevitable that inflation in these countries would lead to higher wages and higher costs for manufacturing exported goods and eventually those higher costs would be reflected in the prices Americans. I saw an article on Reuters the other day interviewing working-class shoppers at a Wal-Mart and a Dominic’s supermarket in Chicago about the noticeable increases in food prices, so I am sure it is now a big issue in the U.S. So it’s hard on lower income Americans and even tougher for the poor in developing countries, who may spend a third or more their income on food. And it’s a challenge for governments in those countries their economic growth depends on their competitive advantage of cheap and abundant land, energy, and labor.
There was a good overview of the causes of inflation in the developing world and its effects in an article in the New York Times. One of the ceramic factories in the town of Foshan, close to Guangzhou, that Bud and I visited, is cited as an example of a Chinese producer that has been forced to hike their prices to compensate for rising costs.
It is now inevitable that inflation in these countries would lead to higher wages and higher costs for manufacturing exported goods and eventually those higher costs would be reflected in the prices Americans. I saw an article on Reuters the other day interviewing working-class shoppers at a Wal-Mart and a Dominic’s supermarket in Chicago about the noticeable increases in food prices, so I am sure it is now a big issue in the U.S. So it’s hard on lower income Americans and even tougher for the poor in developing countries, who may spend a third or more their income on food. And it’s a challenge for governments in those countries their economic growth depends on their competitive advantage of cheap and abundant land, energy, and labor.
Monday, April 07, 2008
early April update
It hit 70 degrees yesterday and 73 degrees today. It was also really humid. I thought it was raining outside when I first looked out the window this morning. It turned out to be just a steamy, warm fog. It felt almost tropical and in the middle of the day someone turned on the air conditioning in one of the classrooms. So the weather is nice now but it is going to be uncomfortably hot in a month or two.
Last Friday was a holiday called Qing Ming or Tomb Sweeping Day in English. I ran down a road on my jog that I had never been down before. There was a small cemetery next to a trash-filled river. It was an odd coincidence to come across my first cemetery in China (cremation must be much more popular than burial because I had not seen any cemeteries before then) on the Tomb Sweeping day when people visit their relative’s graves to clean them up and leave flowers. Each grave had at least one brightly colored plastic flower and a few had large wreaths of real flowers. A group of nicely dressed young people entered as I left. They gave me a strange look because I was wandering around the cemetery in shorts and a sweat-soaked T-shirt.
Not much else happened that day. The next holiday is May Day in just over three weeks. It used to be a weeklong holiday but was shortened to four days this year. Although it is the Labor Day inspired by communists in Chicago decades ago, it has ironically become one of the biggest sales and shopping seasons in China. The National Day in October and the Chinese New Year in January or February (both weeklong holidays) are the other two government mandated holidays that coincide with seasonal sales at most stores.
Last Friday was a holiday called Qing Ming or Tomb Sweeping Day in English. I ran down a road on my jog that I had never been down before. There was a small cemetery next to a trash-filled river. It was an odd coincidence to come across my first cemetery in China (cremation must be much more popular than burial because I had not seen any cemeteries before then) on the Tomb Sweeping day when people visit their relative’s graves to clean them up and leave flowers. Each grave had at least one brightly colored plastic flower and a few had large wreaths of real flowers. A group of nicely dressed young people entered as I left. They gave me a strange look because I was wandering around the cemetery in shorts and a sweat-soaked T-shirt.
Not much else happened that day. The next holiday is May Day in just over three weeks. It used to be a weeklong holiday but was shortened to four days this year. Although it is the Labor Day inspired by communists in Chicago decades ago, it has ironically become one of the biggest sales and shopping seasons in China. The National Day in October and the Chinese New Year in January or February (both weeklong holidays) are the other two government mandated holidays that coincide with seasonal sales at most stores.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Blog moved
After the unrest in Tibet and Nepal began, the Chinese government shut down a number of blogs and news websites, including Google News and YouTube, in an attempt to limit access to pictures and videos of the riots. The Internet–western websites specifically–was extremely slow for almost a week. I wrote a blog about Tibet and some other news but was unable to post it to my website. My computer could not connect to the Apple-run site that hosts my blog. After many attempts on different Internet connections over the next two weeks, I finally gave up. My Internet use is subject to the whims of the Communist Party. As you can imagine, it is extremely frustrating at times.
In the meantime I’ve been getting back into a routine of studying Chinese and now receive some tutoring from a young teacher at school. The process is slow going but it is occasionally rewarding when I can decipher a new sign or speak a few words with a local.
I went to Shanghai on Saturday and picked up my repaired camera (the shutter button had fallen off) and joined Dan Barbato and several Chinese friends of his at his apartment for dinner. His second dog, who was just a puppy golden retriever when I first saw her in the fall, is now nearly full-grown. Dan’s girlfriend prepared a number of delicious dishes, including bamboo with tofu, a crunchy green vegetable that no one knew the English name for, and a simple homemade chicken soup (a whole chicken boiled for four hours) that made for awesome comfort food.
I went out later that night and saw a Chinese punk rock band at a bar with really cheap drinks. As I watched the four Chinese musicians play loud and angry music and the female singer scream her lungs out, I couldn’t help but feel that this is a special time and place at a unique point in history. It feels like the inception of a new cultural identity in a country that is undergoing tumultuous change and self-reflection, similar in many ways to the countercultural movements in the United States in the 1960s or la Movida in Spain in the post-Franco years. Shanghai is the fashion, music, and design center of China and you can feel the creative energy bursting out in so many forms. It was a cool experience.
I’ll place updates on this site for now. Andy Copps arrived in Shanghai a few hours ago and I’ll be in Beijing with him this weekend, so stay tuned…
In the meantime I’ve been getting back into a routine of studying Chinese and now receive some tutoring from a young teacher at school. The process is slow going but it is occasionally rewarding when I can decipher a new sign or speak a few words with a local.
I went to Shanghai on Saturday and picked up my repaired camera (the shutter button had fallen off) and joined Dan Barbato and several Chinese friends of his at his apartment for dinner. His second dog, who was just a puppy golden retriever when I first saw her in the fall, is now nearly full-grown. Dan’s girlfriend prepared a number of delicious dishes, including bamboo with tofu, a crunchy green vegetable that no one knew the English name for, and a simple homemade chicken soup (a whole chicken boiled for four hours) that made for awesome comfort food.
I went out later that night and saw a Chinese punk rock band at a bar with really cheap drinks. As I watched the four Chinese musicians play loud and angry music and the female singer scream her lungs out, I couldn’t help but feel that this is a special time and place at a unique point in history. It feels like the inception of a new cultural identity in a country that is undergoing tumultuous change and self-reflection, similar in many ways to the countercultural movements in the United States in the 1960s or la Movida in Spain in the post-Franco years. Shanghai is the fashion, music, and design center of China and you can feel the creative energy bursting out in so many forms. It was a cool experience.
I’ll place updates on this site for now. Andy Copps arrived in Shanghai a few hours ago and I’ll be in Beijing with him this weekend, so stay tuned…
Unsettling Events in China
There have been some protests in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and in parts of northern India, related to the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan independence movement. The central government is using tanks and troops to crackdown on the unrest. People are burning cars and Chinese businesses, some monks are on hungers strikes while others have committed suicide. It’s a public relations crisis for the Communist party because of the world’s attention towards the summer Olympics. Also, the country is under close scrutiny after the U.S. State Department removed China from its list of the worst human rights abusers earlier this week.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP10739920080314
Another PR mess occurred after a more subtle show of support for Tibet a couple of weeks ago when the singer Bjork shouted a few words in support of Tibet during a concert in Shanghai. The government was infuriated and banned her from any future performance in the country (I wonder if she saw that coming). For the government to react that way to the words of some pop singer was a little pathetic and humiliating, but now the government is scrambling to contain serious dissent.
The power of the Communist party is degraded little by little every time they are embarrassed or challenged by criticism and protests like what is going on recently. It is hard for me to believe that the Chinese and Russian model of authoritarian capitalism can last. Every time the government’s legitimacy is threatened, they have to compromise by giving up some of their control. In China, that has meant gradually loosening control over the economy and trade. Meanwhile their people are becoming wealthier, more educated, and are gaining more contact with and knowledge of the rest of the world, despite the government’s attempts to control information, influence public opinion, and limit political freedoms. And I really don’t think my students and their generation wants to live in a country that is run that way.
(See http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87105/michael-mcfaul-kathryn-stoner-weiss/the-myth-of-the-authoritarian-model.html for more on Russia’s authoritarian model and it’s shortcomings.)
Not only are human rights abuses a blemish in China, but the record of animal rights abuses is shockingly poor, too. One of the many campaigns to clean up Beijing for the Olympics is to rid the city of feral cats. The fear of diseases spread by cats has led some people to beat feral cats to death, while an organized campaign is underway to round up cats and send them to compounds outside the city to be killed. Yet according to this article, cat meat is still being consumed in some places. Wow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=528694
I just know that it’s going to be an interesting Olympics because from my experience living here, the number of weird and strange things that I see or hear about is never-ending.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP10739920080314
Another PR mess occurred after a more subtle show of support for Tibet a couple of weeks ago when the singer Bjork shouted a few words in support of Tibet during a concert in Shanghai. The government was infuriated and banned her from any future performance in the country (I wonder if she saw that coming). For the government to react that way to the words of some pop singer was a little pathetic and humiliating, but now the government is scrambling to contain serious dissent.
The power of the Communist party is degraded little by little every time they are embarrassed or challenged by criticism and protests like what is going on recently. It is hard for me to believe that the Chinese and Russian model of authoritarian capitalism can last. Every time the government’s legitimacy is threatened, they have to compromise by giving up some of their control. In China, that has meant gradually loosening control over the economy and trade. Meanwhile their people are becoming wealthier, more educated, and are gaining more contact with and knowledge of the rest of the world, despite the government’s attempts to control information, influence public opinion, and limit political freedoms. And I really don’t think my students and their generation wants to live in a country that is run that way.
(See http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87105/michael-mcfaul-kathryn-stoner-weiss/the-myth-of-the-authoritarian-model.html for more on Russia’s authoritarian model and it’s shortcomings.)
Not only are human rights abuses a blemish in China, but the record of animal rights abuses is shockingly poor, too. One of the many campaigns to clean up Beijing for the Olympics is to rid the city of feral cats. The fear of diseases spread by cats has led some people to beat feral cats to death, while an organized campaign is underway to round up cats and send them to compounds outside the city to be killed. Yet according to this article, cat meat is still being consumed in some places. Wow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=528694
I just know that it’s going to be an interesting Olympics because from my experience living here, the number of weird and strange things that I see or hear about is never-ending.
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