Rocking Offkey

Ahmed

2009-08-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

His name is Ahmed.

"Ni Hao" Ahmed greets me in his funny Chinese. On any given day, Ahmed would holler at he in either Chinese, English, Arabic, or French, depending on his mood.

Ahmed was born in Iraq, he lived in Lebanon.

"In Lebanon," He would say, "we say hello to people in English, Arabic, or French, everyday." He learned "Ni Hao" from me - without third intonation. Ahmed didn't learn English in school. He told me he was never in school since he came to the States in high-school age.

I didn't know his name was Ahmed, although I had patronized his coffee shop since forever. He didn't bother me with such details besides chatting me up with soccer. Until, a guy upset him one day.

"This guy is a douche bag." His chin motioned to a leaving figure, wide and white, while he prepared for my latte.

"He asks me what my name is, and I tell him I'm Ahmed. Then he starts to ask me what do I think of the Nine-Eleven; his son is in CIA blah, blah. WTF, just because I have an Arabic name doesn't make me have anything to do with terrorist." Ahmed raises his voices a bit. He never raised his voice over anything besides soccer and holler to the girls.

I like South Park, I like douche bags in South Park, so I don't use the word often. But Ahmed doesn't mess around.

I actually caught the end of their conversation, wherein the guy commented that "It would be interesting to see how they would kiss up Russia and China's asses." He was talking about Obama.

"Yeah," Ahmed continued with his no-nonsense approach, "What about kissing asses, who cares, I say it's better than going around killing people."

You don't need to know Ahmed's name to know he is Arabic. His looks, deep and big eyes, shaved bear line, are, for the lack of better words, quite mid-eastern.

Ahmed has a fondness for Asian girls, especially Chinese. "Asian girls are the best." He would say. When Ahmed speaks of Asia, he means East Asia, possibly South East Asia too, but nothing beyond, although he is very proud of Iraqi soccer team beating Chinese in the Asia Cup.

"This girl has her third boyfriend in two weeks. What's up with Asian girl liking white guys?" He was speaking of the girl having ice cream with a masculine guy in the corner. I couldn't answer that question. For a moment, I almost felt guilty I couldn't hook him up with a Chinese girl many times he asked me. He looked pretty white himself, at least to me.

That's when I told him I was going to Australia.

"Really? Beautiful place, but I wouldn't want to go on those beaches though. Do you watch Animal Channel? There was this guy holding crocodiles. He was in TV commercials, he was everywhere."

Ahmed gave me an incredulous look after I replied no, and continued:"One day, he went to Australia, and stung by a fish. Then he was gone. No Animal Channel, nowhere." He inhaled, "He was dead, just like that."

"Good luck man." Now he remembered to add.

Ahmed doesn't mess around.

__________________________________________________________________________

P.S.: The person Ahmed referred to, I later learned, through google, was Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter". He was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.

Random conversation

2009-08-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

"Read this", F showed me a lengthy pdf file, with half serious authoritative voice.
It was a preface to a book, in Chinese.
"Why?" I'm confused, "I've had enough dealing with editors."
"My Mom asks me to read", she continued, "but I'm hoping you can read it and then tell me what's it about."
I'm speechless.

Half a minute later, randomness picked up again.
"My Mom would love to read your writing." - Apparently, she wanted to stick with the Mom thing today.
"It's the first time I hear of it" - I would have none of it.
- "I told her you were always busy"
- "True, true."
- "I bet you can't write in Chinese either."
I was in searching of words again.
"Seriously, write one, she would love to read it," F adds emphatically, "but she reads only Chinese. Are you the sage one? Write."
- "But, but...I don't have time."
That deterred her for just five seconds. "Aren't you write in Chinese and have random conversation with random people online all the time?"

That's when I remembered this space - to add more random staff for random people.

Oh So Sensitive

2009-04-28T05:20:00.001-07:00

This might be old news. When talking about Shangfang, a Beijing University Professor and scholar claims that 90 percent of those repetitive shangfang people are psychologically paranoid. Shangfang is a Chinese word, meaning skipping local judiciary and seeking justice from a higher authority, usually in Beijing. His claim stirs a big commotion.

If you've used Baidu Tiebar, an easy to access forum that is associated with the Chinese search engine, you have probably encountered its "sensitiveness". "Protest" (抗议）obviously is a sensitive word, along with "government" (政府), while complaint (控诉) is ok. Baidu self-imposed so many sensitive words that it's difficult to carry out a normal conversation without using some acronym. Although using sensitive words doesn't mean you can't post them, it means the post needs "editor review" before it can go through, at some point, you just say: f..k this and give up.

Modern technology actually acerbate the censorship problem. When the human were in control, at least they would decipher the true meaning of your message. "Language crime", although egregious, was actually rare. Machine intelligence on the other hand can't differentiate between you protesting someone doesn't blow you a kiss, or protesting some social cause. It makes online communication so much more difficult. True, Baidu might be the biggest offender when it comes to sensitive words censorship, there are many more influential liberal sites out there. But I see this self imposing trend spread to others, like Douban.

In such an environment, it's pretty much given that you are a bit paranoid or compulsive if you insist getting your message through by jumping through all the hoops.

That brings us back to that claim about repetitive shangfang persons. It may well be true that many of those repetitive shangfang-ers are a bit psychologically compulsive. If that Beijing U scholar has any academic credential, I should give him some benefit of doubt. But the question we really should be asking is: what makes them compulsively wanting to skip the local judiciary. What's the injustice that makes them paranoid?

Cherry Blossom and What not

2009-03-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's not about the Japanese restaurant I used to eat out. It's the latest internet buzz of public debate in China. A twosome of mom and daughter was chastised and booed away by students of Wuhan University while posing for photos with cherry blossom, wearing Japanese Kimono. And public debate ensues.

Cherry Blossom and Kimono make great photo ops, since Japan is known as country of cherry blossoms. The beautiful backdrop of Wuhan University campus provides an enticing make-do for those who can't afford a trip to the east. (*Blossom forecast for D.C. is currently at April 1st.) Unfortunately Wuhan is also a city endured intense battle during Japanese invasion in WWII, and the animosity still runs high for a host of historical reasons. For this very reason, the university has a standing regulation that prevent students to pose with kimonos during the blossom season to ensure public safety. The poor mom and daughter wouldn't be able to hang the "same as there" picture in their sitting room, but good thing no one is hurt.

Consider what has been fueling the internet in the U.S., from AIG bonus scandals to newest bailout plans, life is relatively good in China if unpleasant treatment by radical students can cause public buzz. American press is so preoccupied by domestic messes that some border hot-spots in South China sea and skirmish in Tibet have not generated much fanfare.

However, it's one thing to grab the chance to preach forgiveness, and promote individual rights; it's quite another to stretch it to something far beyond. China is quite unique, with its political system and all - I busted a chuckle watching Obama prime time press conference when a reporter uttered "communist" in mentioning China - but some has gone far as to suggest Chinese are different people. Brainwashed is something you hear often. Perhaps they are wired differently emotionally - how can they hold their grudges for so long! It's not always the foreigners who suggest that. Some Chinese actually buy into that. Those folks, somehow, have the wonderful abilities of not counting themselves. Their crystal ball apparently doesn't inform them that there are loons and radicals everywhere, and public anger, even unfounded should be handled with caution. Not to mention, we are all from trees in Africa and are all going to die. Many AIG employees don't deserve the public anger that thrust their way, some even receiving threat mails, after all, many of them don't give out bonuses to themselves. But hey, people are angry.

Some folks have asked me if Chinese are easy to catch public fever. Idolization of Mao was often cited as evidence. I would cast my glance onto images of Obama on the sidewalk. I've seen his artistic contour on the sidewalks, on windows, on graffiti-filled bridges...you name it. If that's not idolization, I don't know what it is. People like to look up to someone in tough times, it's in our human nature. And, unlike Obama, who hasn't achieve anything significant so far, Mao actually achieved something.

Speaking of AIG and what America is up to, you can read by starting with this rolling stone article. You should get a pretty good idea of why the system failed, and why it's so difficult - it's often pick your poison - to fix it. The U.S. government is proposing using tax payer money, 1.3 trillion of them, to buy up toxic assets, with plenty room for corruption and back-dealing. That's precisely what the Chinese government did to their big banks and financial companies, circa 1998-2000, when they cleaned up balance sheet by absorbing bad assets. In addition, the U.S. seeks to seize too-big-to-fail firms, essentially turning them into state-majority-owned companies. Alas, that again, is precisely the Chinese system, where government controls key big firms and let the smaller ones swim on their own. What has this world turned into?

The doomsters would say apocalypse will arrive sooner or later. But I like Keynes' take: in the long run, we are all dead.

California Coast

2009-03-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

I can never get enough of these.

Look Ma, He doesn't let me spy on his new toy on his curbside

2009-03-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

That's essentially what The Pentagon said in a story that breaks out to media. USNS Impeccable, the sonar equipped Navy spy-ship was turned away about 75 miles off the coast of Hainan island, and near the Chinese submarine base.

China, in rebuttal, emphasized that the incident happened in Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles, or 230 miles, from coastline. In general, ships are free of passage in EEZ, but navy spy-ships certainly raises flags. NYT reports that "The United States and other nations consider the area as lying in international waters. " In fact, it is governed by UNCLOS, which the United States accepted all but Part XI as customary international law, although it hasn't ratified it.

In reality, spy incidents like this happens all the time. Although, the U.S. is probably the only country who thinks it has the right to lay hands on anybody's ass - or spy on toys. It's not clear to me whether it's because the ship finally gets intolerably close to the Chinese, or the Chinese patrols suddenly decides to act like they some backbone after the Russia sinking cargo ship incident. Either way, for the U.S. to protest and claim "oh they laid some woods to block our passage" is pretty amusing.

NYT gets one thing right. It draws some similarity to the spy plane incident. Whether who is the initial provoker, it offers some test for the new President. And I'm guessing the Chinese Navy would be a winner out of this too, since it is hotly debated the need to build a Naval Carrier in China. In incidents like this can possibly sway the support.

Dark Comedies in Crisis Time

2009-02-19T01:25:00.000-08:00

These are the times of dark comedy. They make you laugh out loud, and deeply sad at the same time. Even the best New Year's Movie wouldn't have scripted it. (This year's Chinese New Year's Movie, If You Are The One wasn't very good.)

From CNN, the story of Chinese mistress contest taking tragic turn:

A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.

...
When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.
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.

If you think only laymen are able to provide laughs, you would be wrong.

Zhang Weiying, a prominent Chinese Economist who got his degree from Oxford and a proponent of market reforms, suggests solving China's consumption stimulus problem by giving each citizen a share of the massive foreign reserve. All government assets really belongs to the people anyway, he was quoted saying in open talks, so if we give it back to the people, maybe they can spend it as they see fit.

Hold on, Prof. Zhang, do you really understand what Foreign Reserve is? Official foreign reserve, although sounds like government asset, doesn't really belongs to the government. Every time someone, say an exporting company, brings in foreign currency, like Dollar, and he exchange it with the central bank to domestic currency creates foreign reserve. China has massive foreign reserve only because the central bank forces companies to sell most of foreign exchange holdings to the central bank, and China exports far more than imports. So, although those reserves are "official", they don't really belong to the government. For every reserve deposit that is created on the central bank's balance sheet, there is debt to the private sector in RMB created. If you were to everyone a share of the reserve, and he/she was about to spend it, which requires converting into domestic currency, you would end up creating money twice. Stimulating? Yes. But what a wonderfully messy world would it be.

Not to mention, the U.S. government and the whole financial world would be in panic. In normal times, it actually makes sense to leave the foreign currency and thus risk management decision in the private hands. But, not in crisis times. Imagine now again, an average person is allotted a share of $10,000. He would worry about the value of those dollar immediately. Now, given all the jittery about Dollar, and prospects of the U.S. bailout programs, he would most likely want to exchange at least a large share of that into RMB just to be safe. Since, nobody is stupid, they all know others have the same worry, the best way to preserve value is to run ahead of everyone else in selling dollar. Bam! you created equivalent of bank runs in exchange rate market. On the contrary, the current arrangement, however unsound it was before, has advantage of stability. The Chinese Central Bank has to taken into account the loss of value on their remaining large holdings when it plans to sell dollar.

Mr Zhang's suggestion seems to deserve a hearty laugh. But considering he is one of government's hey advisers, it is actually far less amusing.

When idiots run asylum

2009-02-07T23:51:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, when we were young and restless - yes we did - we would touch upon these unpleasant political topics. My roommates would refer to Chinese intolerance, extreme in times like cultural revolution, as "asylum".

I had a slightly different take. "Asylum isn't that bad", I would inject my comments, "Asylum actually has its own rules. It depends on who is running it. It only gets that much worse when idiots, or inmates are running it."

That was a distant memory.

Then, when a friend talked about forming a group on Doudan, a Chinese social network, my reaction was that I would only form a group if it was about "the more you read, the more counter-revolutionary you become."

The phrase that later became the group title was an actually phrase from the Cultural Revolution. It was used as my contempt for Douban, and that unduly adulation of an "educated person". "Counter-revolution" was, of course, a word long buried in the history book. No one actually use it in everyday life, except, maybe, to jeer. My tenet of the group was that too much reading wasn't always desirable, it would stymie your original thinking, especially if you half-understand half-cooked ideas or facts. (In fact, that's my understanding of the original intent of the slogan.)

It was never an active group - as lazy as I am, you can always expect that. If I remember it correctly, the longest thread in the group was about "what would you request your daughter to read or not to read", with about 15 replies.

Fast forward to today. I got an email, informing me that the group was dismembered due to "violation of related laws and regulations". I believe it was due to Douban's voluntary compliance of internet censorship. Frankly, although not that I care, I can't quite make out what regulation it specifically violates. But the incident does reminds me of the conversation about asylum we had many many years ago.

I can't pinpoint whether the group was dismembered because of the asylum, or who runs it. But I would like to think I had a point.

Super "Balls"

2009-02-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

It wouldn't be Superbowl if it didn't give us some ads to talk about.

Apparently, AshleyMadison.com managed to slip their new commercial (youtube) into the Super Bowl after being formally rejected by the NFL and NBC from airing nationwide. For those of you don't want to google, the website, a Canadian company, is a dating site geared toward married people who want to have affairs. Yes, that's the sole focus of that website!

Ironically, the current economic environment has something to do with the slippage of the standard. According to its CEO, "The effects of the current recession are so profound that many local stations were willing to accept Ashley Madison advertising dollars." And what's more, "In this current economic climate," he adds, "Divorce isn't an option for many women who are stuck in unhappy marriages. We want them to know there's a service just for them."

Oh, this isn't just a North American thing. I've heard stories from my relatives about Chinese white collar girls advertised themselves to be "second wife", allegedly to weather the economic storm.

Ads from the dating website isn't the only banned commercial Super Bowl. A pro-life video portraying President Obama as an unborn child has also been rejected by NBC-TV, alongside with a PETA commercial.

Sometime, you wonder what the world has come into. You know, there is Super Bowl, and then, there is super "balls", as in somebody's got the "ball".

What does Obama want of China?

2009-01-30T00:40:00.000-08:00

The evidence of policy stance of the new administration towards China is scarce. The only significant comment comes from Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary. In talking about the U.S. economic policy, he says that "strong dollar is in the national interest of the U.S.". However, turning to China, he also says of China "manipulating" its currency value, meaning, RMB needs to appreciate.

Now let's set aside first China's right to "manage" (as the U.S. often did during the 80s) exchange rates. Let's try to decipher what the heck he really means. So, in Geithner's mind, China needs to appreciate currency value against dollar, which is against the national interest of the U.S. Maybe he is being deliberately ambiguous? Not likely, he isn't Fed Chairman. Or he may imply the Dollar needs to be strong against other major currencies, like Euro, but weak against RMB. That would imply that RMB appreciates way more against the Euro, which doesn't seem likely, not to mention trillions of IOU notes U.S. issued to China - and continued Chinese support that needs for the new debt. Of course, in the event of RMB appreciation, it automatically deflates. Therefore, the only consistent interpretation, it seems, is that Dollar needs to be "strong" in order to support the bailout plan, but the U.S. wants to get an upper hand in the "currency manipulation" blame game, so it can pressure China to appreciate RMB and thus alleviate the U.S. debt burden later.

I suspect this would be the central theme in US-China relationship during early part of the administration. It would be very interesting to see how this plays out.

China's New Year Shopping List

2009-01-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

With a retrenching U.S. economy and stash of foreign reserve. What's on China's new year shopping list as "Niu (ox)" year approaches? Early indications are that they are not blowing cash on the wall street, like what Japanese did in the nineties. In stead, China keeps her eyes on talent and human resources.

Reports of CIC (China Investment Corp.)'s headhunting in New York has received some media coverage. With much less fanfare, Chinese colleges and universities are making a major push to hire faculties on the U.S. academic market. Record number of schools were present in this year's ASSA meetings (for Economics, Finance, and Social Science). With many of the U.S. markets in hiring freeze and improved incentive packages, they expect better success than previous years. According to a Dean of Beijing University, China has large demand for fiscal theorists now that government surplus creates a happy problem to have, but a problem nevertheless. Even Chinese astronomy observatories are throwing a banquet reception in the field's U.S. annual meetings. Not to be left out, Chinese industries are also quietly making the recruiting push, they don't usually make high-profile noise, but they pop up here and there.

I am not sure this is due to low risk appetite in overseas investing or simply brilliant strategic planning, or, China learning from the experience of the Japanese, but this is not the first time Chinese sophistication surprises me. Cue the Mastercard ads...priceless.

The Great...What do they know?

2008-12-17T23:28:00.001-08:00

I'm really not in a position to spend time writing right now. But here is a perfect dark humor I come across when doing some work.

You wouldn't be short that Time would run a cover of The New Hard Times, given the current situation. But maybe you would be amused that just a year ago Times (UK) ran a column of Welcome to the Great Moderation. Great Moderation is a term that is used to describe the peaceful growth the world has been enjoying. It has caught some fire in the circle of policy makers. I have come across at least one FedRB's research paper that used the term in the title. The subtitle of the January Times piece says:

Historians will marvel at the stability of our era

Maybe the author is mocked by his ten-year-old son right now. It begs the question: what does commentators really know. Yeah, sure, historians will marvel about something.

Is China graduated from "Original Sin"

2008-11-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

Some more quick thoughts about the sizable Chinese stimulus package:

Is China graduated from the class of emerging markets, which are often characterized by inability to borrow in the local currency - the original sin, and countercyclical fiscal policy? Many people in the west are in shock of the size of stimulus that was announced. Although the true figure is hard to verify - I have no idea how they arrive at that figure - China is acting more like a matured economy on that front.

Upon further investigation of the detail though, China is unique in many aspects. Perhaps it should not be in the EM class at the first place.

Most of the announced stimulus is directive to state-owned companies to invest and expand. The U.S. has been urging its banks to lend more also, but I bet China would have more success in cajoling its companies.
China enjoys high saving rate. Although many argue the approach has been mercantilism, the high reserve comes in handy in a time of crisis like the current one.
The mere size of a diversified economy. Countries like Chile and Brazil, and possibly Russia who relies a lot on oil revenue, are more likely to be subject to a turn-of-trade shock from their commodity exports. Although China's external component of GDP is about 70%, which is alarmingly high, China also enjoys the advantage of sheer size and a more diversified economy.

This reminds me of a New Yorker critics piece:

If the invention of derivatives was the financial world’s modernist dawn, the current crisis is unsettlingly like the birth of postmodernism. For anyone who studied literature in college in the past few decades, there is a weird familiarity about the current crisis: value, in the realm of finance capital, evokes the elusive nature of meaning in deconstructionism. According to Jacques Derrida, the doyen of the school, meaning can never be precisely located; instead, it is always “deferred,” moved elsewhere, located in other meanings, which refer and defer to other meanings—a snake permanently and necessarily eating its own tail. This process is fluid and constant, but at moments the perpetual process of deferral stalls and collapses in on itself. Derrida called this moment an “aporia,” from a Greek term meaning “impasse.” There is something both amusing and appalling about seeing his theories acted out in the world markets to such cataclysmic effect. Anyone invited to attend a meeting of the G-8 financial ministers would be well advised not to draw their attention to this.

He could be talking about market characterization terminology. Developing, underdeveloped, emerging, BRIC, what else?

Here and There

2008-11-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

A trip to grocery store, $68.
A cup of Spanish Latte, $3.80.
Keeping the marriage between men and women? $75 million.
If politicians like an average voter can not be trusted to lead, can you trust voters to pick the right person?
Taiwan, violence broke out upon Chinese official's visit to negotiate direct trade deals. A CCTV female reporter was also attacked during the "siege". Taiwan may think of itself as a vibrant democracy, it has much to learn from the relative tranquility on American streets where close to half of the people don't agree with the person elected.

If the government should be "by the people, for the people", what if "people" are unruly and violent, happy to take cheap shots, being exploited by politicians in the process?

I'm not sure what exactly people on the Taipei streets wanted to achieve, it seemed like a whole a lot for nothing, but here are some perspectives from the top, take your pick:
Ma Ying-jeou:"Tsai(DDP Chairwoman) was responsible for (instigating) the clashes."
Tsai:"The government that forces people to go into the streets should be held responsible." Hmmm, I'm disappointed in Cornell (where Tsai got JS.)
One way to weather the storm in an economic downterm is to take money from haves to have-nots. Then the economic wheel can keep turning. Fiscal stimulus may be one politically acceptable way to do that. By fiscal expansion, government debt would be later financed by increased taxes, which would be shouldered of larger proportion by high-earners, or if not sufficiently financed, would cause inflation, which would bring savers' real wealth down. Large inflation is as ugly as a recession, so is to be avoided. Therefore, the tax burden is to be shared one way or the other.

While the U.S. congress is contemplating a second stimulus, Chinese government unveils a large stimulus package, featuring mostly State-driven investment project. The success of it depends on who it really benefits - it should be the poor - and how it will be financed later.

Trick or Treat

2008-11-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself,” that's a famous line from Roosevelt's first presidential speech. People wanted him, in comparison to hapless Hoover, to succeed so much that FDR had to hire many additional workers to handle mails from well-wishers.

The election will be over tonight. In the process, Palin went from the most popular governor in the country to be edified on SNL and a Tina Fey double. Republicans complained so much about media bias, it would probably put Chinese grievance in shame. That will be over also for her, win, or in the most likely case, lose.

We don't yet know what Obama is going to do, although we know his promises add up to 85 pages. Energy policy will probably be the first to gather enough political will to pass, although coal industry is already trembling in fear. Many Chinese are enamored with him, the way they saw a young, handsome, and energetic politician in Clinton, bill, that is. But his China policy is harder to differentiate. We only know he leans against more free trade, that he opposes NAFTA. Somehow, these issues were not even debated, not on the level of "lipstick on a pig" at least.[Speaking of trade policy, it used to be that American workers are more productive than others, so free-trade naturally favors the U.S., but that edge is rapidly waning, so does the appetite for free-trade. This election, more than anything, is a referendum on American people's acceptance in The U.S. new reality in the world. They don't worry about "the world leader" anymore than "give me the bread today". I wonder what Krugman thinks, since he was a strong proponant for free-trade in his more academic years.]

Oh, we also know that when slightly annoyed, while McCain has that it's-so-ridiculous-it's-laughable look, Obama has a more solemn what-the-heck-he's-talking-about look. As FDR could testify, personality plays a large part in a president's initial success.

The season of well-wish should not wait for January. Some will ask the "trick-or-treat" question, but the Hallowing is already over.

P.s. Here's another paragraph in the same FDR speech that is as interesting to read this time around:

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

Sweet Organic Yogurt

2008-10-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

My organic yogurt tastes sweet.

It makes me curious since I can't seem to find sugar in its listed ingredients. Upon further investigation though, I find the curiously worded "evaporated cane juice". "That's sugar" - my third grade science education saves me from puzzlingly over this myth for the rest of my life.

But I feel almost guilty. We are not suppose to think through these things. We like our yogurt organic and low-fat, we like sweet taste to help our happy digestion, but we don't like the word "sugar" on our otherwise healthy yogurt. "Evaporated cane juice", the geeky sound of it makes us feel so much better.

In Chinese idioms, there was a fable about "three in the morning, four for the evening". Once was a man who raised monkeys, he became poorer and had to bargain to cut their food. "I'd promise each of y9u three chestnuts in the morning and four for the evening." The monkeys were angry, "How can you treat us so poor!". "Then how about four in the morning and three in the evening?" the man re-offered. "That's much better", the monkeys were satisfied with his concession and jumped off triumphantly.

The modern day version of the story in the U.S. is probably presidential election. I don't know Barack Obama would keep his promises without raising taxes, nor do I know how McCain would balance his budget by cutting Pork Barrel Projects. No matter, all we care is whether Palin sounds stupid in interviews or eloquent in debates, or what "pro-America" really means. With Peggy Noonan weighting with mighty wordsmithship, is there any doubt this is more of a battle of words than anything else? Inside-out China lead to to an interesting article about verbage, but I see us more of prisoners of words. The challenge of the art is how to tell us we are in trouble without saying the word "trouble", or in McCains case, how to reassure the fundamental is sound without uttering the word "sound". Modern Homo Sapiens are not that different from old-time primates.

Certains words are to be avoided. While I'd love to be in that room to see the drama, no one in the media would utter nationalization or sociolization outright. If we were to sustain bailouts and revamps without otherwise changing our economic habit or raising our own taxes, we will sure shedding some of our burden to the next generation. But we don't want to hear that, we prefer to call it economic "smoothing". The chinese, being an old civilization surely understand the power of words, how else can you find naked capitalism basking under the glory of socialism? In a new market de-regulation, the China Security Overseeing Commitee calls the newly allowed short selling "security financing" (融券）. My suspicion is that "shorting" would sound too much capitalist and unpleasant.

Give us our sweet yogurt, but never say sugar. You are in business.

Calling All Monet

2008-10-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Fall color is beginning to be in full swing. For kids, they don't worry about the financial crisis, nor do they have the agony of your football team losing, all they call is the 16th birthday of Hanna Montana! Yay! For adults, nothing is quite like a sunny weekend to brush the mood up. I find the pictures loose a bit of color and brightness, so I decide to leave one of them dark and in black and white in protest.

Next Big Step in China?

2008-10-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

This autumn is a bit extra chilly. I don't hear the topic of trade policy and China from the presidential debates when turmoil on the Wall Street is all the rage, but let's not lose sight on changes in China that could have potentially significant effect on the world economy for years to come.

China is said to address agriculture policy on the coming parliament conventions. The new policy would "allow agriculture land to circulate". Many believe the wording is a cover for capitalization of the agri-land, and a prelude to complete privatization.

Whether privatize or not, a new wave of land concentration and corporation of agriculture production are in sight. Many of those who are now called "migrant workers" will then simply be called "workers". Many of them, for one reason or another, will sell their land asset and become permanently labor force, whether in urban factories or on the newly formed agriculture corporations. Many of the young in China's rural areas have already left their home. Years after, a young man who wants to start up on agriculture will have the same problem as young ones in Indiana - it's difficult to get into since land will be difficult to lease or purchase. After the private capital pours into agriculture, there will be no longer an excuse to keep the price of agriculture products down, thus changing the relative price of Chinese economy. And since China is so big, it will have profound effect on the world economic structure too. [On a side note, the word "farmer" will no longer has a connotation of slightness in China.]

It's hard to judge if the new direction of the policy will be successful. But if the process in the cities are of any guidance, we can probably anticipate that the increase in productivity and the economy will be there but rights of individuals will be encroached in many cases. As economists would say, economists care not the redistribution problem until there is a crisis.

It all seems remote compared to the financial crisis we are in. However, some argues what happens in China is the single most important factor shaping our changing world. The integration of China into the world economy has realigned world's manufacturing industry and jobs; the cuddling of foreign capital and poor protection of workers rights has put pressure on the negotiation positions American workers are in; etc. The dead-weight will be cast, the credit issuance will resume. The next step of what China is going to do will have prolonged effects for years to come.

Topsey Turvey Economics

2008-09-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

funniest news piece about the economy on Sina Finance. Translated into English, it reads:

President of SoHo China, Pan Shiqi, in pleading for government help in the real estate market, warns that suffering of developers would lead to higher housing prices, not lower. Houses, he says, like coal, pork, and baby milk formula, will have higher prices when supply shrinks.

I have to solute him for not mention just one non-durable product, but three as comparison; I'd also solute him for understanding concept of higher price with negative supply sift. However, before doing that, he needs also assume the market for housing, a durable good, is in equilibrium - then why the hell he cries for government again? China has been worrying about an American style meltdown originated from real-estate market, and this quote can be viewed as an empty threat from the troubled developers.

Don't ask Chinese real estate tycoon about economics.

It reminds me of a research paper by Chicago economist. The gist of that thesis is that inequality isn't as bad as previously believed when measured in real consumptions because the rich buys differently. While the poor has enjoyed steady or declining prices as a benefit of Chinese exports, the rich has not been as lucky - the price of luxury cohort of the same goods don't decrease as much.

The consumers of China's contaminated diary products, because they can not afford the more expensive foreign brands, would surely disagree.

Cows on the Street

2008-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

What do China's milk incident and America's financial turmoil on Wall Street have in common?

A lot, actually. For starters, we are in a era of having to pay for someone else's responsibilities. The well behaved financial companies would have to pay for overly aggressive firms; if Washington's proposed bail-out, amounting to hundreds of billions of promised money, was to carry out, taxpayers are expected to pay for the greed of the money managing industry. The government would in effect control a huge stake in the financial industry, and in turn control a large chunk of the economy. Who says the U.S. is capitalist and China is socialist again? In China, well behaved milk producers are suffering the same as corrupt and negligent firms turn public confidence toward mil product to historical low. Diary farmers are also in a bind. As government rush to sort out the mess, for now, their daily output are only to be trusted to feed the flowers and plants.

Let's play the blame game. Washington blames greed on the Street. Traders blame stupid quants giving the wrong model. Quants blame business people feed their computer with the wrong data, and business people naturally blame banks. As banks blame on hapless people like you and me, you blame on your stupid neighbor who brought houses he couldn't really afford. The folk would undoubtedly point back to politicians in Washington. Oh, Merry go around. On the other side of the globe, consumers want to slaughter the diary giants. The diary producers would point fingers at farmers. After all, that's a easy target and it has always been first instinct of firms and officials caught red-handed to blame on them. The farmers would blame on the market and milk collectors that squeezed their profit, or everybody else who made their lives equally hard. Or, as the joke goes, they would blame on the cows, and let cows blame on grass feeds.

But you get the sense something systematically is wrong, in both cases. Oh, you can always point to greed for an answer - that's always there, but you also get the sense that the game wasn't set up right.

I read somewhere that mainstream Chinese economists - "mainstream" is a negative word in China when associated with experts - argue that China has established a bright, ideal system of localized competition, provinces, counties, and municipals competing against each other with their own industries and resources. That sounds fine and dandy, like a theory, at first glance; until you realize it involve the madness of competition of political power in the market place. Firm behavior when backed by local governments are like throwing two boxers into the ring with no judges. They would scratch and scrawl, taking turns to be judge themselves. When competition intensifies, they could literally choke babies - see the milk incident, and until then would central authority step in for a fix. Speaking of central authorities in China, they are finding out the new realities quick. Their usual ways to fix and control are lagging in this information age, so they always find a step behind the public's expectations.

The same can be said of the government in Washington.

After the dust settles, the too-big-to-fail firms on the Street will live on, the too-much-government-asset-to-fail dairy producers of China will have a happy new life. The market was up Friday, but don't mistake cows as bulls. If the Wall Street were raising cows, the situation would be described in Chinese joke parlance as "The cows remained calm," a joke with similar connotation of wacky Iraq minister in denial.

Say Cheese

2008-09-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Antonioni's film Chung Kuo was shot in 1974, under special approval from the then Chinese government. It was subsequently banned for "negative portrait" of China, the ban was lifted after 30 years in 2004.

Those days in Antonionno's film are long gone. You can hardly identify the scenes in the film of today's Tian'anmen Square, or Shanghai, except maybe the ritual way people taking pictures - in wedding photography boutiques. Zhang YiMou would later make a name for himself in the west depicting the rural China - before he resurrected himself directing the Olympics Ceremonies, that is, those days are gone too. But the film remains particularly interesting, you can see the pace of life, the innocence on people's faces of that time.

I am interested in photography, as a way to capture reality, and present perceived reality. Susan Sontag's comments about the film in On Photography provided some interesting perspective beyond the film. Frankly, both "They are trying to bring us down" crowd and "You are either with us or against us" crowd will benefit reading it. As ESWN comments, this is hardly about this particular movie but extends to the rest of life. Of course, no one should take everything said in an art critique as literal truth, so no need to boil your blood over:

Nothing could be more instructive about the meaning of photography for us -- as, among other things, a method of hyping up the real -- than the attacks on Antonioni's film in the Chinese press in early 1974. They make a negative catalogue of all the devices of modern photography, still and film.

While for us photography is intimately connected with discontinuous ways of seeing (the point is precisely to see the whole by means of a part -- an arresting detail is a striking way of cropping), in China it is connected only with continuity. Not only are there proper subjects for the camera, those which are positive, inspirational (exemplary activities, smiling people, bright weather), and orderly, but there are proper ways of photographing, which derive from notions about the moral order of space that preclude the very idea of photographic seeing.

Thus Antonioni was reproached for photographing things that were old, or old-fashioned -- "he sought out and took dilapidated walls and blackboard newspapers discarded long ago"; paying "no attention to big and small tractors working in the fields, [he] chose only a donkey pulling a stone roller" -- and for showing un-decorous moments -- "he disgustingly filmed people blowing their noses and going to the latrine" -- and undisciplined movement -- "instead of taking shots of pupils in the classroom in our factory-run primary school, he filmed the children running out of the classroom after a class."

And he was accused of denigrating the right subjects by his way of photographing them: by using "dim and dreary colors" and hiding people in "dark shadows"; by treating the same subject with a variety of shots -- "there are sometimes long-shots, sometimes close-ups, sometimes from the front, and sometimes from behind" -- that is, for not showing things from the point of view of a single, ideally placed observer; by using high and low angles -- "The camera was intentionally turned on this magnificent modern bridge from very bad angles in order to make it appear crooked and tottering"; and by not taking enough full shots -- "He racked his brain to get such close-ups in an attempt to distort the people's image and uglify their spiritual outlook."

Besides the mass-produced photographic iconography of revered leaders, revolutionary kitsch, and cultural treasures, one often sees photographs of a private sort in China. Many people possess pictures of their loved ones, tacked to the wall or stuck under the glass on top of the dresser or office desk. A large number of these are the sort of snapshots taken here at family gatherings and on trips; but none is a candid photograph, not even the kind that the most unsophisticated camera user in this society finds normal -- a baby crawling on the floor, someone in mid-gesture. Sports photographs show the team as a group, or only the most stylized balletic movements of play: generally, what people do with the camera is assemble for it, then line up in a row or two. There is no interest in catching a subject in movement.

This is, one supposes, partly because of certain old conventions of decorum in conduct and imagery. And it is a characteristic visual taste of those at the first stage of camera culture, when the image is defined as something that can be stolen from its owner; thus Antonioni was reproached for "forcibly taking shots against people's wishes," like "a thief."

Possession of a camera does not license intrusion, as it does in this society whether people like it or not. (The good manners of a camera culture dictate that one is supposed to pretend not to notice when one is being photographed by a stranger in a public place as long as the photographer stays at a discreet distance -- that is, one is supposed neither to forbid the picture-taking nor to start posing.) Unlike here, where we pose where we can and yield when we must, in China taking pictures is always a ritual; it always involves posing and, necessarily, consent. Someone who "deliberately stalked people who were unaware of his intention to film them" was depriving people and things of their right to pose, in order to look their best.

Antonioni devoted nearly all of the sequence in Chung Kuo about Peking's Tien An Men Square, the country's foremost goal of political pilgrimage, to the pilgrims waiting to be photographed. The interest to Antonioni of showing Chinese performing that elementary rite, having a trip documented by the camera, is evident: the photograph and being photographed are favorite contemporary subjects for the camera. To his critics, the desire of visitors to Tien An Men Square for a photographic souvenir is a reflection of their deep revolutionary feelings. But with bad intentions, Antonioni, instead of showing this reality, took shots only of people's clothing, movement, and expressions: here, someone's ruffled hair; there, people peering, their eyes dazzled by the sun; one moment, their sleeves; another, their trousers. ...

The Chinese resist the photographic dismemberment of reality. Close-ups are not used. Even the postcards of antiquities and works of art sold in museums do not show part of something; the object is always photographed straight on, centered, evenly lit, and in its entirety.

We find the Chinese naïve for not perceiving the beauty of the cracked peeling door, the picturesqueness of disorder, the force of the odd angle and the significant detail, the poetry of the turned back. We have a modern notion of embellishment -- beauty is not inherent in anything; it is to be found, by another way of seeing -- as well as a wider notion of meaning, which photography's many uses illustrate and powerfully reinforce. The more numerous the variations of something, the richer its possibilities of meaning: thus, more is said with photographs in the West than in China today.

Apart from whatever is true about Chung Kuo as an item of ideological merchandise (and the Chinese are not wrong in finding the film condescending), Antonioni's images simply mean more than any images the Chinese release of themselves. The Chinese don't want photographs to mean very much or to be very interesting. They do not want to see the world from an unusual angle, to discover new subjects. Photographs are supposed to display what has already been described. Photography for us is a double-edged instrument for producing clichés (the French word that means both trite expression and photographic negative) and for serving up "fresh" views. For the Chinese authorities, there are only clichés -- which they consider not to be clichés but "correct" views.

In China today, only two realities are acknowledged. We see reality as hopelessly and interestingly plural. In China, what is defined as an issue for debate is one about which there are "two lines," a right one and a wrong one. Our society proposes a spectrum of discontinuous choices and perceptions. Theirs is a constructed around a single, ideal observer; and photographs contribute their bit to the Great Monologue. For us, there are dispersed, interchangeable "points of view"; photography is a polylogue.

The current Chinese ideology defines reality as a historical process structured by recurrent dualisms with clearly outlined, morally colored meanings; the past, for the most part, is simply judged as bad. For us, there are historical processes with awesomely complex and sometimes contradictory meanings; and arts which draw much of their value from our consciousness of time as history, like photography. (This is why the passing of time adds to the aesthetic value of photographs, and the scars of time make objects more rather than less enticing to photographers.)

With the idea of history, we certify our interest in knowing the greatest number of things. The only use the Chinese are allowed to make of their history is didactic: their interest in history is narrow, moralistic, deforming uncurious. Hence, photography in our sense has no place in their society.

The limits placed on photography in China only reflect the character of their society, a society unified by an ideology of stark, unremitting conflict. Our unlimited used of photographic images not only reflects but gives shapes to this society, one unified by the denial of conflict. Our very notion of the world -- the capitalist twentieth century's "one world" -- is like a photographic overview.

The world is "one" not because it is united but because a tour of its diverse contents does not reveal conflict but only an even more astounding diversity. This spurious unity of the world is affected by translating its contents into images. Images are always compatible, or can be made compatible, even when the realities they depict are not.

Photography does not simply reproduce the real, it recycles it -- a key procedure of a modern society. In the form of photographic images, things and events are put into new users, assigned new meanings, which go beyond the distinctions between the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false, the useful and the useless, good taste and bad. Photography is one of the chief means for producing that quality ascribed to things and situations which erases these distinctions: "the interesting." What makes something interesting is that it can be seen to be like, or analogous to, something else. There is an art and there are fashions of seeing things in order to make them interesting; and to supply this art, these fashions, there is a steady recycling of the artifacts and tastes of the past. Clichés, recycled, become meta-clichés. The photographic recycling makes clichés out of unique objects, distinctive and vivid artifacts out of clichés. Images of real things are interlayered with images of images. The Chinese circumscribe the uses of photography so that thee are no layers or strata of images, and all images reinforce and reiterate each other. We make of photography a means by which, precisely, anything can be said, any purpose served. What in reality is discrete, images join. In the form of a photography, the explosion of an A-bomb can be used to advertise a safe.

The Election and Baby formula

2008-09-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

The presidential election has attracted many eyeballs, including many from China. To many Chinese, it's a political show, not unlike Chinese contest of Supergirl. To be a good onlooker, basic terminology is a must. So many learn Republicans are conservative and "right", Democrats are liberal and "left". But, they may not realize, by Chinese standard, both parties are conservative.

People on the GOP side may charge the liberals with cynicism; conversely, people on the left may charge conservatives of hypocrisy. And their policies and view about the role of government may differ. But Americans are united by American value that is largely based on Cristian value. However people on the left detest "religious right", or the first African American, Barrack Obama, my be elected TPOUS, the simple fact is no non-religious (i.e. Christian) person can be expected to win the presidency.

To many Americans, it is unthinkable to place the greatest power of the country in the hands of non-believers. The prospects of evil with power are simply too frightening. All the check and balances of a modern nation can potentially fail, the belief, and character of the man will become the last and ultimate defense against the prospect of horror. (Not that Bush has registered a high score, but that's another matter.) Therefore, American presidential contest inevitably will have elements of characters contest, with "just-like-me" mixed in. Some on the left don't understand what makes people vote Republican? As this excellent essay explains, it is the moral simplicity that people prefer.

If China were to install an American style presidential election, I imagine China would split right along the Beijing latitude line, with coastal provinces to the east being the "red state", preferring a freer economic policy, and inland provinces to the west being the "blue state", preferring more government welfare to neoclassical policy - quite different from the American demography. Social moral issues like stem cell research and abortion would never enter the main debate.

I'm about to enter the main point of this blog post. Before I do that, I'd like to point to an online poll I just encountered when perusing SINA. The poll asks, "how do you consider the various naked/nudity incidents?" - nudity, as a way to catch attention, has been encroaching from the online world to Chinese daily lives. To my slight surprise, the top choice is "It's nothing but a result of an open society", followed by "getting naked is the freedom of who possesses the body". "It's morally wrong and need to be curbed" is in the last place. Moral judgment aside - morality itself has no right or wong, it shows China has become more socially liberal than the U.S. This also reminds me I usually detest Chinese websites, even big internet gateways. A lot of content would be crammed into tight page space, with suggestive pictures and popups to the taste of no-eighteen-and-under spreaded here and there. It seems eye-catching, and the money behind it, is the only criteria of those websites.

If getting naked is a harmless moral issue, then the tinted baby formula issue is life or death issue.

I was telling my friend of the tinted baby formula story. She had a hard time to believe social functionaries would all break down to prevent much a thing from happening. It was harder for her to imagine melamine pollution was originated from someone trying to enhance the protein reading in food, all for some extra money, or someone would try to hush the story. Her eyes almost welled up. She can tolerate the corruption of money grabbing, but not this. But that's what happens when social conscientious being replaced by a money-first value system. Someone would have slipped melamine into glutton protein, and with a money-weaken monitoring system it eventually found its way to the baby formula. The ultimate deterrence should comes from sever legal punishment of an established legal system, or the moral belief of the economic agent. Unfortunately, China hasn't perfected the former, but the latter seemed to be already shattered.

There are many debates about China's economic future. But my biggest concern isn't what they teach in economics classes, it's whether and how China can regain her core social values. The failure would pose the biggest risk toward China's economic future. My friend, like myself, is no Christian, but she can now better understand why nonbeliever would find a hard time into the White House, given the historical role of Christian religion in providing the core American social values.

Behind the Juicy Story

2008-09-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought juice would make headline story. An potentially important news that slipped through last few days was that Coke is bidding the takeover of HuiYuan, a dominant Chinese juice make for $2.4B, potentially making it the biggest takeover bid of Chinese firms to date.

The outcome of this take over bid will have much to say about the direction of Chinese global economic policy. Internet opinions, especially those have promoted for domestic name brands, have seen plenty of displeasure of yet another multinational takeover. Do not discount the importance of beverages either; America has been through an similar episode of foreign bid, by a Belgium beer maker, of maker of Budweiser. That deal ended in veil. Chinese fruit juice groups were considering joint opposition to the deal, arguing the proposed takeover, which if successful would give Coke a dominant share of the market, would put them at a competitive disadvantage and threaten their survival. Market awaits to see if the deal can get pass regulator overhang.

But, what is the deeper revelation of this juicy story? The coming takeover touches a nerve of the public, not only the business communities, because foreign capital has permeated many Chinese businesses, many of which, the public believe, have been sold under value. A criticizer would point to high dividend payouts, higher than the IPO take-home of Chinese state banks. Complicating matter is that China is a transition economy from a socialist system, and a lot of the assets sold was accumulated while other parts of the economy was making sacrifice. So, possibly of "sell-out" is always on people's mind.

Yet, such takeover scenarios are inevitable. In particular, current economic structure precisely dictated that, even when Americans are mounting historical deficit against the Chinese. The comparative advantage of the American economy is no longer in manufacturing. In stead, it's more and more in corporate financing, even when its financial markets are in turmoil at home. On the Chinese side, the financiers, mainly banks, have their own bigger moral hazard problem; and for firms, the prospect of property right protection would be higher with foreign capital involvement. It thus creates incentives to sell assets to U.S. capitals seemingly undervalue. Therefore you get the current financial structure. Capital flows from China to the U.S. for low-risk, un-intermediated investments, mainly government bonds, keeping the interest low. Capitals then flow back to China for intermediated investments, snatching up assets. So, for China, the biggest concern is the American inflation; and for American investments, the biggest concern is Chinese growth.

It is a convenient and attractive setup for both sides right now. The real test comes when Chinese economic growth gets stalled, thus amplifying the asset risk. There is a lot of riding, of both sides, on the Chinese economy.

The Other Opening Ceremony

2008-09-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

NBC didn't broadcast it, but you can check out the opening ceremony of Paralympics Game online here. It's smaller in scale, but equally spectacular, and in parts warm and moving. Twelve-year-old ballet student Li Yue, who lost her left leg in the devastating Sichuan earthquake earlier this year, captivated the crowd, dancing from her wheelchair.

The best part of watching an online stream is that you can skip forward the parts about lengthy athlete entering procession and official speech. You won't be bothered by CCTV's cheesy line or NBC's overbearing interpretation either. And you can watch as many times as possible.

Do watch the lighting of the torch at the end. It's uplifting idea and fits para game perfectly.

West Wing Hopefuls

2008-09-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

I feel like watching episodes of West Wing. Actually I don't watch a lot of that TV show, but it ought to be more melodramatic than the real thing, or does it?

A young, energetic and eloquent black president-hopeful (move over Morgan Freeman) delivers a forceful speech. A man in well-tailored suit, with pristine hair that rivals the God Father, rises every two minutes, or five syllable, to applaud. His beautiful wife smiles on, trying to catch the applauding action in unison.

If election were to be decided on looks, Democrats had a thundering punch. Even Michele Obama, ever so slightly pouty-mouthed however hard she tries, has a genuine sparkle in her eyes with wifely admiration and motherly love that makes her shine. The republicans after all have only Cindy McCain to hold the court.

Enter Shara Palin.

Pageant score: R2:D1. She not only evens up casting eye-candy-ness on the Republican side, but also ups dramatic scale of the usually blandish party. She is immediately suspected of claiming her daughters baby as her own. Before you know it, her 17-year-old daughter's knocked-up is front page news. She is then questioned from the way she delivered her baby to her high school basketball team uniform. There is even rumor of tape of her daughter getting drunk available. (Do we really need to know?)

If you think paparazzi in Hollywood are sneaky, think again. I doubt West Wing writers have enough imagination to outdo the script either. I'm less convinced of vast policy difference, I just want a good show. But to prevent the show from degenerating to Beverly Hill 90210, I have an idea for future West Wing hopefuls: call Geena Davis.

Post Olympics Entertainment

2008-08-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

The fun of Olympics dwindles, along with mid-night TV watching. Propaganda from China is being replaced by propaganda from Denver. My brother, having attended games, now hold definitive bragging rights against me. So, I'm left to find my own post Olympic entertainment.

The press doesn't disappoint in providing entertaining material. Thomas Boswell provides a laugh or two by ruing over his Olympic experience and trying to find a negative thesis. Beijing must have done something right if Mr Boswell has only a small laundry list to complain on: Security personnel not allowing him to jump over tapes for the short cut; buses ferrying media persons for being too punctuate; people saying hello even without best command of English. He then uses his imaginative skills to parley all these experienced into his grand thesis, that's worthy of a chuckle. Oh, and everybody smiled, it's just too perfect. Mr Boswell would make a good psy-fi director - mindless robotic drones beaming smiles everywhere, while a plot against humanity brews.

Time UK doesn't miss the train in providing good laugh. I'm not sure I can qualify to pride myself as wide-eyed, but Martin Samuel's column leaves me clueless. The success of the games is attributed to the oppressing making the oppressed "march in unison, drum, smile, dance, mime, jump through hoops if necessary". Aside from the mystery of volunteer hostess " stripped naked for the judges" that is promoted (does it pass the smell test?), the article comments:

Nothing can be decided by an oppressed people... What happens next in China is no more determined by its citizens than the destiny of Iraq was in the hands of Iraqis.

For a minute, I think Royal Marine would be in Tianjin harbor in 24 hours to liberate the Chinese people. Then I wake up to the reality of 21st century, not 1800s.

Actually, the two gentlemen have made some good points, but the clueless-ness nevertheless betrays them and reduced the articles to good entertainment. Judging from comments online, few take them seriously. I only wish my brother and friends in Beijing wouldn't get a bigger chuckle than me. That would be unfair.

Pictures: Mediterranean Turkey

2008-08-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

08-12

2008-08-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Pardon the vulgarness, but doesn't the logo of 2012 London Game look like a man and a woman making out?

The topic slowly but surely moved on to London as Beijing game winded down. The "8 minute presentation" has been a point of talk. South Metropolitan, citing online discussions, called it "praised widely by Chinese for plebeian appeal" but "criticized by British media".

Over-sensationaliztion and mis-characterization are not Western Media privilege. "Widely praised" could hardly sum up the Chinese opinion towards London presentation. Most people didn't "get it" beyond the obvious symbolic images, the double-deck bus, umbrella and soccer balls. Plebeian, was far from the nature of the pitch, of anything but.

In fact, most interesting differences was in the pitching approaches, while Beijing's opening and closing ceremony relied mostly on "people power", the London presentation relied more on "star power".

Double-deck bus and such, like hutong's to Beijing, although very much London, but were cliche-ish and considered hardly selling points. London's selling pitch relied on star power, the popular Leona Lewis, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and David Beckham. Even American Michael Phelps, freshly minted as an Olympic hero, was in front of Buckingham Palace rallying up the crowd.

On the Chinese performance side, you could hardly spot a recognizable face if you were not Chinese. Oh, There was Jacki Chan among the "stars" singing some jumbo-mumble song, but that's it. And there was Placido singing a duet, but he was anything but Chinese. Any wonder why singing was the least attractive part of those ceremonies? Overall, the closing ceremony has been a bore to many Chinese, who grew used to massive production, but an eye-catcher for Western audiences - you couldn't find this many people in a Cirque du Soleil show, could you?

Speaking of stars, David Beckham is considered irrelevant by 1/3 of the world - most Americans, an over-the-hill overpaid gossip column target by another 1/3 - most Europeans, and a megastar by the rest 1/3, including the Chinese; Jimmy Page is considered a nostalgic symbol or washed-up antique depending on your age; Leona Lewis is the most contemporary. People who hates talent shows may want to phone Maria Cary for a career revival. But at least the odds of acceptance here is much higher.

Ugly Gentleman

2008-08-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

British "gentlemen" are enamored with the words "overzealous". Remember the Brits complaining about "overzealous" "men in track suits" trying to protect the flame during the London torch runs? That was in Britain. Now in Beijing, Brits used word "overzealous" and "belligerent" to defend their own rude behavior again.

David Davies, who won a silver in the swimming marathon, soaked Chinese "officials" who was urging him to attend the medal ceremony with bottled water. It should be pointed out that the lady who was splashed water on her face, called official by British media, was actually a volunteer. The ward ceremony was already in delay due to Davies' pass-out at the finish. While the Welsh enjoyed telling his life story on the camera, his fellow competitors was waiting to get on the podium. According to Olympics regulation, failure to attend the award ceremony in time could result in cancellation of the medal award.

Granted, there was a culture divide here. In China, touching of elbow or tucking of cloth in urging was common practice and understood as acceptable, and may even appreciated when for the benefit of the urged; while in Britain, body contact was more strictly forbidden without mutual gesture. Still, the British's action of dousing was extremely rude and thuggish. The British media, which called Davies a gentleman, took no exception, and did not seem to mind of the behavior. Britain’s performance director, Scott, joked: “He was just shaking a champagne bottle, nothing more than that.”

The incident was not widely reported by official Chinese media, perhaps out of desire to keep the Games "harmonious", but had angered many Chinese netizens. Many were surprised that no apology was demanded. Then again, a few Chinese were worrying China demonstrated too much dominance in diving as it was poised to sweep the eight Gold.

Good luck London of 2012.

Yin and Yang

2008-08-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Someone said it to me a few days ago, "It's a boring world, everywhere is the same. Men like to sensationalize in writing, women likes to indulge to dubious relationships."

Come to think of it as the reaction to Liu Xiang's withdraw swirled, that claim captured only half the truth. There were many "Literacy Youngsters" on douban who were quick to their sensationalist style, but there were also plenty of "Angry (disgruntled)" on Tianya forum.

Disgruntled is the yin to Sensationalist's Yang; radicalism goes both ways. But the Chinese press seems to forget the ancient Chinese wisdom. And Thomas Boswell of Washington Post may never understand.

Boswell, on the basis of some disgruntled internet posts, described the Chinese as inferior cruel mobs (remember Cafferty?) who piled on their fallen hero. The sudden drama of Liu Xiong's pull-out had wide spectrum of reaction across the internet. Most voiced support; some questioned whether pulling out was a pre-determined decision; others had a hard time understanding why it had to come down to a decision on the starting block.

Let's read some Olympics press coverage, shall we? Micheal Phelps got eight gold, and New York Times had a whole column dedicated to it, discussing whether that was the greatest Olympic achievement. We were all capable of enjoying the sensation. When I turned to Sina, it had a full special page dedicated to Liu's withdraw, trumping the eight-gold-treatment. The U.S. Had also someone who didn't finish the race, although not on the starting block. Trammell pulled his hamstring in the same round and had to pull up. He got mentioned by NYT only in passing in the article covering Liu Xiang. Lolo Jones, with her unique story, was sympathized in an article.
The media non-corporation award went to Tyson Gay. NBC reporters kept giving him cue on how he was injured leading up to the event, but he insisted he was fine, just "did not get it done". Flip to sina, there were reports that Liu was running 12.96, 12.98 before the race, or more precisely, withdraw. A CCTV reporter even mention she has inside information that Liu was running close to 12.80. The numbers varied. I didn't know which one to believe exactly. But nevertheless, "Beijing Olympics should have belongs to him", as the reporter proclaimed.

There had been enough media frenzy about Liu's tragedy, most unanimously sunny, or humane as someone liked to say. (I'm quite tired of seeing the word "humanity" in Chinese press nowadays, as if the China I've lived was inhumane backward doldrums.) Liu might be fallen, but "did not “lose.” Perhaps to counter charges from the likes of Boswell, there were even reported rumors that an order was given, forbidding the country’s news media from criticizing Liu. A hero was intact.

With all this "yang" in the official media, it was not surprising to find "yin" of different voices in unofficial forums. BBS itself had been the "yin" to the official media's "yang". Together, we had "qi" of a harmonious society - joking. But whether in support of sensationalized tragic narrative or being disgustedly suspicious, it was all in accord to "one world, one dream".

I have watched Liu Xiang four years ago. He was flamboyant on camera after the surprising win, but I liked it. It was spontaneity. And I marveled.

Now four years after, I felt the sadness watching him pulling out. Liu was not on camera immediately afterward, he issued an apology - it's not like he needed to. His apology came out the same time Nike tweaked its ad campaign featuring liu. The words on the poster read:"Love competition. Love risking your pride. Love winning it back. Love giving it everything you’ve got. Love the glory. Love the pain. Love sport even when it breaks your heart." I couldn't help but thought of the word: PR.

What about the "women likes to indulge to dubious relationships" part, you may ask? Well, isn't it obvious by now? The counterpart is that men are not courageous enough.

Who is Liu Xiang

2008-08-18T14:21:00.001-07:00

(1)
What a spectacle it must be when more than 90,000 collectively let out "ahh?" in astonishment.

No, it's not opening ceremonial group exercise, it was the reaction in the Bird's Nest when it was announced Liu Xiang dropped out the race due to injury. More jaws were dropped in front of millions of TV sets in China and around the world. They had seen Liu Xiong warming up; they had seen him at the starting block, seemingly grimacing in pain. They couldn't believe the drop-out.

Several minutes later, huge crowds began to file out, leaving the stadium half empty.

The reaction immediately began. Many couldn't accept the reality how he ended competition - on the starting block, some even suggested he should complete the course, even by walking to the end line. For the conspiracy theorists, they pointed to huge commercial interests behind the decision to pull out. Liu had been the face for numerous products in China. The admirers meanwhile poured out their sympathy and support for Liu, a CCTV reporter even called the pull-out a admirable decision. One had to be puzzled what was admirable in a dropout due to injury.

The speculation centered around the nature and extent of Liu's injury, and the media coverage leading up to the drama. Earlier signs indicated he was not in good shape. He withdrew from a meet in New York in May citing hamstring injury, and alleged purposely false-started at the Prefontaine Classic. He then skipped the European circuit, and did not appear at the opening ceremony. In the meanwhile, Chinese media had been giving a different picture. He reportedly posted a good time in test-run on the track of Bird's Nest. Just several days ago, he was said to run well within 13 seconds. Only on last Saturday, his coach cautioned Liu had a symptom of inflamed Achilles tendon, in injury that was said to first occurred six years ago and suddenly reemerged prior to the competition. That would be the official injury that did Liu in on the starting block of Olympics games. The drama stunned the whole stadium and a whole nation.

Among the bickering between Liu's fans and supporters and those who cast doubt why it ended with this dramatic fashion, it's important to remember that scrutiny was an understandable reaction when so much national pride and money were tied up with Liu. Even the American reporter James Farrows had commented:"But it would be natural and human if it were something more too: perhaps better not to try at all than to be captured forever on tape coming up short. It's hard to feel sorry for someone as rich and celebrated as Liu Xiang. But you can sympathize."

(2)
What to make of the Liu Xiang drama, or tragedy? I say get over it China.

It's unnatural, or even unhealthy, to place so high expectation and pressure on one athlete. It was too high an expectation to expect ANY short distance sprinter to repeat Olympics glory of four years ago. You just have to review Olympic history to see how realistic that is.

Too much had been made out of Liu's victory in Athens four years ago. Liu, as the first top Chinese athlete in sprinting had been a symbol of athletic capacity of Chinese, and even Asians. Many even held him as a proof that Asians are no less inferior to, say blacks, in printing athleticism. Sorry to burst bubble, but 110 hurdle isn't pure speed, technique plays a big part. And so what Asians are not as gifted in short track? Difference in muscle build up has been a reality. Black athletes have been dominating short track running from forever. The U.S. has been successful in track and and field due to precisely racial diversity of population and foreign imports. There is even research that suggests Jamaica sprinters' success - see Bolt and top three finish in women's 100m - is in part because they are naturally gifted due to gene in fast switch muscle fiber. It's neither true nor fair to place ethnic theories behind one athlete.

In America, there are similarly biased sayings such as "White men can't jump". Occasionally, there are white high flying dunkers to "prove them wrong". But frankly, several example of freakish athleticism of whites and bunch of examples of freakish athleticism of blacks prove nothing, nor does it prove anything. While "White men can't jump" remains an urban mystery, nobody seems to particularly care to de-mystify it.

In a commercial, Liu Xiang beams into the camera and asks:"I am Liu Xiang, who are you?" Yes, it's important to answer that question. Who is Liu Xiang? He is still the Olympics champion in Athens, the first Asian to get a gold in short distance track and field. And he should be remembered as such, regardless of whatever drama happened in Beijing. Who are we? We are just spectators. We can cheer on and feel the pride if he wins, but to place too much significance in his victory or failure is just too much. It's just another day an athlete pulls out of competition, dramatic or not.
...........................................................................

九万多个人异口同声“啊”是什么感觉？

不,这壮观情形不是在排演开幕式团体操，而是现场广播宣布刘翔已经退出比赛时全体观众集体地惊诧难以置信。中国和世界各地的电视机前还有数不清掉下来的下巴。

几分钟后球场观众走了大半。

评论马上炸开了锅。持阴谋论者有之，同情支持者有之，甚至认为刘翔走也要走到终点的也不乏其人，把退赛称作“伟大的决定”的也莫名其妙地存在，似乎退赛场景还不够戏剧化一般。

当我们看待各种评论漩涡时，应该说各种反应都是可以理解的。当一个人的体育成就被赋予这么多超出体育的意义，当一个人的成功与否被加以这么多的期望和压力，被和更广义的成功与否联系在一起，当一个运动员的受伤与否，受的什么伤什么时候受的伤，被象保护国家机密一样保护的时候，还有什么不能理解呢。当体育被过多得和商业和民族荣誉感联系在一起——这是实事——指责和洗不清也是正常的事。

醒醒吧，中国人。

集体得瑟什么呢。这种得瑟四年前就开始了。刘翔在雅典的胜利被认为不仅是民族的骄傲，甚至是中国人甚至说黄种人在短跑能力上不比别人差的证明。说实话，110米栏并不是证明单纯速度的项目，它需要的除了速度还有过栏技巧。更何况一个刘翔根本不能证明或反证什么人种的差异。一个体育怪才，刘翔，相对于一些体育怪才，同场竞技的黑人兄弟们，的胜利并不能说明任何问题。美国也流行一句话，White man can't jump (白人跳不起来)。自从黑人在NBA高跳驰骋后，这句话也多少成为城市神话。偶尔也有出个厉害的白人扣篮者，但这些个例并不足以打破神话，也没有人特别在意要去证明或反证。

就算中国人确实在短跑上不如黑人又怎样呢？美国在田径上的成功很大程度上靠的就是人种的多样化和进口运动员（比如来自肯尼亚的长跑运动员）。某些差异本来就存在，有研究表明牙买加人肌肉纤维天然就占优势，但在Bolt出现前没有人相信这么高的人能够跑这么快。当那个中国运动员站在100米复赛跑道的时候，看他的体形就知道他跑不过同场竞技的人并不让人觉得奇怪。但这并不意味着我们不能为他跑出相对自己的好成绩叫好，更不意味着中国人就低人一等。

在一个广告中刘翔问：我是刘翔你是谁？确实，这是一个需要回答的问题。刘翔是刘翔，不管鸟巢戏剧化一幕的后面是什么，刘翔还是奥运会金牌获得者，还是第一个获得短跑项目金牌的亚洲第一人。如果你研究一下奥运历史的话，你会发现期望一个短跑项目的金牌获得者四年后卫冕从一开始就是多么超出现实的期望。而我们，只是看客，观众。我们可以为他的成功而自豪而欢呼，就像美国人可以为菲尔普斯的八块金牌而自豪欢呼。但是赋予竞技太多不相称的意义，滥词赞美或苛求指责，戏剧也就变质。

[附：伤]
5/31/08，刘翔退出纽约赛，理由为大腿受伤
6/8/08，在Eugene的Prefontaine Classic抢跑，有人称故意
随即放弃欧洲赛
8月，“腿伤已好，状态良好”
8/8，未参加开幕式，
8/15，“内部赛测出12.98，脚伤跟腱炎复发”
8/18，鸟巢起跑线上因伤弃赛

Grab Them Golds

2008-08-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

A quick look at the medal count standing, you find leading countries are United States, China, Australia, France, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Japan, Britain, and Italy rounding out the top 10, with the first two in a pack of significant margin. Ladies and gentleman, that's almost your list of G-8 with China as 'guest observer", with Aussies of Commonwealth standing in for their Canadian brethren thanks to their performance in the pool. Only the Koreans are not economically or politically as influential. Conspicuously missing are India and Brazil, two important emerging markets in the BRIC block that many thought of being on the short watch list of G8 expansion.

Some "angry elitist" in China have vehemently protested that the medals had little to do with them so they could hardly got into the spirit of the Games, except...venting. As far as netizens go, the western press talked about "angry youth", a name implying overt nationalism, they missed the other part of the story: for every radical nationalist there seemed to be an equally radical bunch who took the baton from whatever was criticized of China from the West and took it to another extreme level. The Chinese mockingly called them, most of whom never set a foot in the outside world, jingying - or "elite".

The criticizers pointed out that medals are worthless, because they were not representative of how athletic or fit the Chinese were. They had a point. But these games were never meant to be a gauge on how athletic or fit a nation was. Otherwise, Finland should have won the gold of fittest nation, with Canada not far behind. The leading country in medal count, the United States, is also the world's leading country in obesity. The Michel Phelps and Usain Bolts of the world are never meant to represent mere mortals like us, or even whether a sport is practice by the people. They are what they are, games, and competitions.

A member of Canadian Olympic committee was outlining the strategy to improve Canada's medal counts: ID talent, get them into the "system", etc etc, as I typed. Whatever "system" those athletes are in, those games are not only for the national glory, it's also about pushing personal limit, achieving the best. How can anyone not be touched and emboldened by those marathon women filing in the stadium after running 26 miles, battling extreme fatigue? "You not only became a champion," the person in the TV said, "but also found a better self."

..........................................................................

TV Scene one: Tennis, women's single semifinal. The crowd was raucus. Loud chants of "China Jiayou" and "Lina Jiayou" can be heard between plays, sometimes even before the play was over. Some Russian accented "Sa-fi-na~" could be heard streaking out too. Given the atmasphere of the Olympics, tameness wasn't bo be expected, but this crowd was clearly not of your typical French Open. Safina stringed a couple double faults. Maybe the crowd noise was getting to her a little bit, but she kept her cool. Then, Li na charged to hit a overhead. The collective "woo" in anticipation could be heard from crowd. Out of bounds! Li Na was noticablly annoyed, she turned her head to the crowd and cursed out a grumbled "shut up". The crowd went dead. Lest she forgot, she proved she was a member of the crowd too.

TV scene two: Rowlling, women's double skull. CCTV camera was focusing on the Chinese pair who was targeted as haing "gold potential". Cameras were so busy chasing gold potential events that an earlier pair event didn't got broadcasted live. Minutes later, the Chinese got only to the fourth. The ancor in the studio annouced:" It's regretful, but it's O.K., actually China won a silver unexpectedly in an earlier rowlling event." The tape began to roll. No embarrassed TV crew faces could be seen on screen.

Autopsy of a Media Storm

2008-08-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

A story about double-act of singing on the opening ceremony was making rounds in the media and blogsphere. In pursuit of theatricals perfection, directors combined Lin Miaoke's stage appearance and Yang Peiyi's singing voice.

Most of the reports in the western media seemed to be based on an interview of the music director by the Chinese media. transcript shows

陈其钢：“对。也可以说这是最后一分钟的不得已的选择。因为我们经历了若干次审查，都是相当严格的。我们听过一次林妙可的录音，在现场放的，是在联排的时候。然后有各方面的人，尤其是中央政治局的领导，在听的时候，给我们提出了意见，说必须要改变。这是没有办法的”

which indicated Lin's voice was not good enough and had to be mimed by another voice. Whether he was telling the whole story was another matter.

While some reports got that fact straight, others totally missed boat. Chicago Tribune for example, reported as: "one member of China's Politburo revealed Miaoke had lip-synched the song, after the original singer, Yang Peiyi, was told she was not good-looking enough." Chen, who revealed news, was not political leader. the Tribune might not realize it was in conflict with its next line: "Chen Qigang, the ceremony's music director, had been asked last minute by the Politburo official to replace Peiyi with Miaoke, according to an interview with Beijing Radio."

Nevertheless, the "not quite" headline of "girl kicked out of ceremony performance at the last minute" because of "chubby face" and "Bucket/crooked tooth" had became the main theme of the story. I am not sure where journalists got the crooked tooth part. It sounded like their own interpretation by looking at the picture.

Time UK emphasized that theme by using headline of China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony. "Chubby-cheeked with crooked teeth, she was substituted at the eleventh hour by Communist Party officials desperate to present the best possible image of Chinese youth to a curious world. " it asserted.

Whether Lin's voice being subbed in the 11th minute or Yang being substituted, fact remained Yang did not get on the stage except her voice. Who said good looks and stage presence weren't "talent"? Jessica Simpson would probably agree.

Fake, is the predominant word used in headlines across UK press. Headlines such as China 'faked' awesome Olympic opening ceremony was already in place when it was revealed parts of the "footprint" show was not shot in real time. Maybe the Brits didn't know that was not made of secret. NBC mentioned it during the broadcast. Past TV productions, such as fire in the studio fireplace during the 2002 Salt Lake Games, was also generated digitally.

Fake might be an uneasy word, but perfection was always an illusion. Lest we forgot.

Guardian hedged their report by pointing the source to a translation by the China Digital Times website.

"We had been through several inspections - they were all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were spectators from various divisions, especially a leader from the Politburo, who gave us his opinion: It must change," said Chen.

In deed, by leaving out details such as it was Miaoke's voice they were listening at the rehearsal, that translation could lead to confusion conclusions. That's what you got by sending reporters who are not versed in the local language.

Whatever the source, British media finally found their controversial story about the opening ceremony. BBC called it the second "fake" story about the opening ceremony, and asked openly for comments whether this has damaged the image of the Beijing Olympic games. Its own tone was made apparent in its editing choice of comment to appear on the main page - a Beijinger comments: "If the stories are true, it is absolutely disgraceful and I am ashamed as a Chinese citizen."

It's understandable that British got extra mile from this story. London after all has to host the game in four years. As Telegraph put it:"it might now be easier for London to end the 'arms race' that requires every staging of the Games to be more spectacular than the last. "

In fact, the media storm was not broken first in the west hemisphere, Chinese media and blogs were seethed about the story first when the interview was first published. There was something about China and fake that struck a cord in people's mind. Some English language reports even cited Chinese message board writings in the initial confusing hours. Yes, that what journalism reduced to.

The stand-in singing is a result of complex social value system we have today. There is China's overwhelming desire for perfection; there is this film director who is famous for meticulousness in aesthetics; there is Eastern culture of "face value", there is also this today's "looks" obsessed culture - American or British or Chinese. Think of Audrey Hepburn singing to the voice of Marni Nixon. Although it should be pointed out that both girls get credit on both the ticket of the ceremony and DVD that is released, the concern of influence of adults value system - and what kind of system should it be - on the two girls is genuine and legitimate. Personally, I think the directors miscalculated the social amplification and should have simply used best vocal. That being said, some of the directions and tones of this media storm are not surprising. After all, controversies are relatively scarce on these Games, how else can the media be fed on.

无题

2008-08-11T14:53:00.001-07:00

(1) To translate or not to translate
Maybe the Olympics should be hosted by Babel, before the tower-building was stopped, that is. Ring Blog reports:

Normal interview rhythms are being disrupted by the translation of every question and answer to Chinese.
....
The translations irritated some reporters working on tight newspaper deadlines in the United States. One asked why the questions and answers had to be translated when they were all in English. Two minutes later, a question was asked in Chinese, reminding everyone of why there are translations in the first place.

Arrogance, that's what being in a dominant culture could do to you. And the media people wonder why people don't like them that much. Question at hand: do people of the hosting country deserve the privilege to know what is being asked of athletes and what the answer is? Despite the effort in promoting English, there are a lot of people in China who don't understand English well.

(2)
The country that Chinese audience gives most sympathy to in those games is Iraq, the oil rich but war torn nation. After almost missing the Olympics, they received a big cheer in the opening night. Their rowing team appeared to have no team uniform (see picture) and used a patch work of wore out personal T-shirts.

(3)
China has begin her full chase for the gold. But the most I am interested in seeing, is how Chinese media and public treat those who lose. In the past, the media has not been very enthusiastic towards those who failed to clutch the gold, and even not too kind to those who were suppose to medal but crumbled under pressure. Early indication is that the mentality is much more forgiving this time around.

(4)
The most exciting competition so far: 4x100 men's freestyle relay that resulted in a gold for America. The most nerve racking but inspiring competition so far: Men's team Gymnastics in which Chinese team vindicated themselves with a gold.

Sports, History and What the Ceremony Really Gives

2008-08-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

If you ask a Chinese what the most touching moment in the opening ceremony was, most of them will give the answer:"during the A Hymn to My Motherland by a 9-year-old girl". It's a song most of Chinese who have connection to the new Republic can sing along. Part of the lyrics goes: Hymn to My Motherland, returning to the prosperity and a strong nation again.

To give a analogy to what history and tradition brings, let's turn to sports for a moment. Any fan of College Football can tell you what tradition means. It allows historical power houses like Alabama a chance to rebuild their program in times of decline. It allows Michigan be an attractive destination for coaches after some lackluster seasons. In an radio interview of a coach from a big-time program, a reporter ask the coach, "what allows your players always seem to be able to come back from a disappointing start of the season?" The coach replied, I paraphrase, "it's the tradition we have, it gives our players both motivation and confidence they need. 'You are suppose to be good, otherwise you are not deserved to be in this great school.’”

Same goes for nations.

What does the opening ceremony with all that history and culture behind it really brings? You can point to the soft power China projects, you can point to the promoting the understanding of Chinese cultural around the world, you can even point to staging by the Chinese government. But ultimately, it boils down to that lyrics. The pride in historical achievements both motivates Chinese people to "restore the glory", so to speak, and gives them enough confidence of "can do" attitude, which is an invaluable asset and can't be measure by GDP. The culture brings an anchor of self-identity.

That's what touches people in that song.

[p.s.] Michael Phelps, yeeho.

Olympics Opening Ceremony: Live

2008-08-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

- 8:08pm 08/08/2008 Beijing
8:08am 08/08/2008 Eastern Standard Time
- TV, TV, get a TV
- Crap, I don't realize this is a NBC country, which means 8:08pm 08/08/2008 doesn't arrive until prime time. Nothing ever happens until NBC says so.
- 8:15, how can I forget the country up north? Wherever America fails, there's Canada to the rescue. Thanks god for CBC.
- The great inventions, paper, printing, etc. Yeah, I should have known those would be on the show. Shocking...not.
- Zhang Yimou and China are a match made in heaven, his grandiose style of art rendering requires a lot of man-power, and China has a lot of...man power.
- The synchronized human keyboard is... impressive. The reciting Confucius Disciple...menacing (I'm sorry).
- Did I just see Curse of the Golden Flower?
- Oh, the fireworks. How I love them.
- Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman! Wait, what are they singing? Is that Chinese or English? I thought I understood both, now it seems I understand neither.
- Dignitaries on the stand are waving fans to relieve themselves from the heat. The place being the Bird's Nest, it probably can hatch eggs into little birds right about now.

- Switching to web cast now. It's surprisingly hard to find a live stream. Good jobs IOC in cracking down. But thanks to channel surfing, we CAN NOT BE DENIED.
- Parade of Nations is on. Some of the outfits of the teams make the so called "egg and tomato" outfit of Chinese team that so many Chinese were scolding of look beautiful.
- What's up with the background music? It's a combination of all kinds of traditional Chinese music. I hear the mellow Spring rivers and flower night, and I hear trumpet section usually reserved for marriage parade. There are Irish Pipes blending in also. Strange to say the least.
- The Japanese are actually holding Chinese flags. Is that because they are worried about being booed? You have to give it to the Japanese, they are always so methodological about dealing with problems.
- Do I hear Chinese Taipei and Zhonghua Taibei (in Chinese)? It's a compromise. But it passes quickly, I don't give it much a thought.
- More testament to the man power in China, There is a huge ring of cheer leading girls, volunteers I guess, lines up the runways. or should I say girl power?
They are dancing in sync to the music. I'm wondering how they find the rhythm, because there is no rhythm to speak of in the music. They will be doing this for two hours. It must be tiring.
- One of the best benefit of watching Parade of Nations is to watch the close-up shots of beautiful athletes. The TV director clearly understands that.
Seeing the Brazilian flag bearer alone probably gets my casual viewing's worth back.
- The anchor says of a random flag bearer from a Muslim country (of which I don't remember the name) : "She ran with a full body suit and scarf." WOW!
- I just want to yell "Manu, Manu" (Ginobili)

- Now the ring of girls change to waving arms standing still. Finally they can't keep up.
- Sarkozy is in the house. Wasn't he saying he would not attend? I am actually hoping to see his wife.
- Both Russian and USA teams receive a big cheer from the stand.
- The Swedish team wears outfit that resembles Chinese Qi Dress(旗袍). I'm not sure that belongs to their ethnic clothing or is a tribute to the host. It's kind of cool.
- The girls now can't even keep the waving arms up, they change to clapping.
- Finally, the Chinese "egg and tomato" team arrives. A huge roar breaks out in the stadium. Yao Ming, the flag bearer, is accompanied by a 9 year old from ShiChuan. The child reportedly saved 2 lives in the recent earthquake. Nice gesture to show the Chinese haven't forget about the earthquake.

- The final riddle unfolds. Li Ning, an gold medalist and successful businessman of his namesake brand, flys up and runs along the wall of an unfolding scroll, Kong Fu style, around the stadium. The flame is alight! That's probably the highlight of the night...urgh morning. More fireworks are in order.
- Let the games begin.

[update] I just saw the freaking drum performance on NBC with better picture and more comfort. It's awe inspiring. At the same time, it invoked images of ancient dynasties, precise , cheerful, powerful, and a bit intimidating. It was very Chinese - spectacle made possible by the will of people. The Hymn to My Country that followed was touching.

Hundred Years

2008-08-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

[Chinese Version]

China calls the coming Olympics “a hundred year’s dream”. To the Chinese, Olympics is clearly not only a sports gala and party festival. Incidentally, I’ve recently watched Matching to a Republic, a TV series of historical drama. With fifty nine episodes, and 40 plus hours spent on, it probably deserves some of my comments on the historical road China traversed.

Many of the trajectories of present day China can be traced back to hundred years ago. There isn’t much new under the bright sun.

(1)
Let’s start from a scene in a later episode. Sun Yat-sen, who was regarded as the founding father of Republic of China, tried to reorganize his party into a revolution party after he failed the Second-Revolution. At the time, the then president of the new republic, Yuan Shikai, was about to crown himself the emperor of a constitutional monarchy. Of the 11 governors declared as Nationalist Party member, only two supported his agenda in force. Attractive political ideals were no match for practical position in powers. Sun realized the paradox, that he needed more centralized power to achieve his political dream, a real republic. Political construction might get by with loose organization, but a revolution that didn’t have enough public base required authority. He began to encourage political purity and personal loyalty within the party.

Sun didn’t make his political dream a reality. Before him, Emperor Guanxu wanted to reform but lacked real power, Empress Dowager Cixi had the power but didn’t want the radical political reform, at least not while she was still alive. His follower, Chiang, who took a cue from Sun’s realization and took it to another totalitarian level, ran a corrupt government, but at least nominally united China divided by warlords. Mao’s party also understood the secret to survival and what it took to achieve things in China. It promoted ideological purity within party and believed in “Political power grows out of barrels of a gun”. It took only three years for them to win out the civil war. There is no revolution any more today, but the political belief lives on: that you need a degree of central power and authority to get things done in China, where average citizen isn’t informed or active enough of politics. Deng was also such a believer.

Second Revolution wasn’t unique to Sun either. Mao had his own second revolution - the Cultural Revolution. At least part of the motive behind Mao’s second revolution was the same as Sun’s, that he saw his political ideal was in danger, and that his New China was slipping back to the Old China. New bureaucrats were quickly reverting back just like old bureaucrats, and that conflicted with his vision of a strong China. Mao took a page from Sun. To experiment his vision of democracy and people’s power, he encouraged personal idolization of himself and increase his own authoritative power. It degenerated into a disaster. Later elitists inherited the authoritative part but scratched, or postponed democracy part.

The TV drama series stopped short of the Chiang’s era, probably because it was too close for comfort. But Chiang made an unnamed appearance in it. In one episode, a Japanese instructor pointing a finger at mud in a flower pot, said: “This small piece of mud can contain of a large amount of bacteria, hundreds of millions, as many as there any 4 hundred million Chinese.” An angry student went up to the lectern and retorted, “It must contain a hundred million bacteria, as many as the people in Japan.” That man was Chiang.

Ever since Xinhai Revolution, Sun, Chiang, and Mao, their ideology, personal style, and politics were very different, their understandings of the China’s reality and future differ, but they were all nationalist.

(2)
Matching to a Republic as a Chinese production of recent history has some refreshing improvements. Gone are stylized faces and ideological divides. In stead, it depicts historical figures as human and personal touches.

I’ve also witnessed some contemporary historical writing go to another radical extreme. Rewriting and redefining seem to be in fashion. It’s not surprising in the context of the world we live today. Overturning history, whether rightfully so or not, means at least the merit of independent thinking. It attracts attention, usually accompanied by commercial success. If it so happens that Napoleon fought Julius Caesar, or we interpret historical figure with our own modern minds, too bad. Dead people can not explain themselves.

George Washington was a slave owner. He only freed his slaves after both he and his wife died, in his will. But that’s not to say he was not “the greatest man in the world”. Chinese intellectuals at the time especially admired him for not declaring himself the new King of America. In truth, there was little political ground on the American colony for him to crown himself. And why would he anyway？Great leaders are charismatic and of great social conscientious, but they are not living not of their time.

Turning 180 too many times makes us forget where we come from and even where we stand now.

China has a strange tradition of overcorrection. History was dressed up like little school girl according to winds of overcorrection.

(3)
Overcorrection as an ancient political term deserves some interesting investigation. You see, correct as a verb has a natural authoritative, top-down tone to it, like the time God walked into the city of Sodom and decided to correct them, make it just.

To lead a nation as diverse as China, needs tremendous wisdom and courage. To take the shortcut of making a strong nation needs a degree of authority and central power. The problem is that in China, once the power is installed, it does not have the tradition of checking itself. Or that tradition has been lost. With that, came the revolution and subversion, and the more radical solutions in the pass hundred years or so. The question we have to pose to ourselves: does the approach matter even if it is the right thing to do? Where do we place the so called procedure correctness, and where to draw the line?

The central theme in hundred years of China’s political movements is primitively to make the nation stronger. Rights of people come second. Pragmatism has always had market in China. It fits with the tradition of “succeed you becomes the king, fail you becomes the vagabond” well. Political and ideological arenas are no different.

(4)
The modern history of China from hundred years ago started from wars, more precisely, from losing the wars. Since then, general attitude of Chinese toward political system was anxious and goal-oriented, primitively to hope to bring a stronger nation.
An 1876 NYT article said of Chinese “fear of any innovation and reform”. No, it was not describing the religious Tibet, which shall be described as Shangri-La and peace loving etc. Since then, Chinese has made their own conclusion about that piece of history, they flat out concluded: “to be backward is to be beaten.”

The deficiency of politics of which primary goal was to catch up with the world and make the nation stronger – not be mention it was spearheaded by a small population of new elite – was the lack of stability. Only when the population was modernized and learned how to comprise and manage the country through politic could stability be possible. People sometimes are used to all the responsibilities to the leaders and politicians, yet Confucius said: “I reflect upon myself three times a day.”

(5)
The TV drama gave great sympathy to most of the historical figures.

Empress Dowager Cixi was a steady political hand. Her temper might be fickle, but her ability to manage the Qin officials was unmatched. She even had the courage, or foolishness depending on how you see it, to declare war on all major Western powers. However, whatever she did or did not choose to do, she managed the country as if it was her property. Winning the wars would have been nice, but losing wasn’t too much of a disaster either. The burden of war retribution fell on the population, not her highness.

Lee Hongzhang, the last Qin statesman who was called “Bismarck of the East” by the West and once called traitor by the Chinese, devoted his life to China’s diplomatic relation with the world. However, his none-resistant policy was equally costly. He steered clear of the provenances under his governance clear of the military conflict even when the central power in Beijing was been traced out of the city. Once the war was lost, people under his governance couldn’t escape the bitter result either, they would also have to pay war retributions. Frankly, on one hand China was too big for the then imperialists to swallow; on the other, a defeated country has little to bargain for, great diplomatic skill or not. Lee wouldn’t make the slightest difference.

Yuan Shikai, the able politician whose personal ambition drove him to be the hero who ended the Qin monarch, but also doomed him to be one who wanted to become an emperor of his own. But as capable as he was, his Beiyang New Army didn’t register a victory or even a serious fight for the country. In stead, it became a bargaining chip of his own power.

Kang Youwei, the ambitious but impractical reformer who failed, was really the father of all “overseas democratic fighters”.

Chinese like to speak of “grand virtue”, loosely interpreted as fighting for the people, and “personal virtue”. But, grand virtue is sometimes hard to judge, it swings with political and cultural tides. Chinese also often speak of personal political ambition negatively. But ambition isn’t really sinister. The sad tragedy of all these historical figures of the last hundred years was that there wasn’t a system in place to align their personal ambition with the common good of the people.

Luckily, we average folks still have personal virtues to cherish with, especially with the ones close to us.

(6)
The success of the gradualism reform in China was largely praised around the world. Gradualism reform can be traced back to the experience of a hundred years ago. The more radical reform of Wuxu failed, but a more gradual approach later was largely successful.

The world today warily watches China as a “rising power”. Let’s not forget there was a period a hundred years ago the world warily watched China as a possible power, mistakenly we must say, reflectively. The prospect of a large population and vast market was simply attractive, then and now.

The debate started a hundred years ago continued into today: should China make foundation of Chinese wisdom but adopt Western knowledge? Or should China totally westernize, especially in the political areas?

I shall point out this is really a false topic. When enough people opened up to the modern knowledge, when enough people are wealthy and educated enough, when politics is no longer but designed by a small educated elite, people will reach a natural selection. Chinese or Western, does it matter? Moreover, the distinction between Chinese and Western may be water under bridge then. Culture is fluid.

Similarly, Chinese characteristic is a natural mark, not something you proclaim for, or design for. Proclaiming of ___ (feel free to fill in the blank) of Chinese characteristic is always suspicious.

(7)
Speaking of war and treaties, let’s look into a few. The first Sino-Japanese war of Jiawu was largely limited to the navy fights. The central government, the Qin court, was under menace. A treaty was quickly signed. No serious fight was staged. The Battle of Beijing by the eight-nation alliance saw an army of only teens of thousands, with a casualty of less than 2000. Many Chinese forces didn’t fight in the war. The New Army of Beiyang didn’t open a shot, and the South China stayed out of the conflict all together. Although the Boxers, agitators of the conflict, joined the fight, but it’s safe to say no “war of people” happened. To blame the loss of war and unfair treaty all on “to be backward is to be beaten.” seems to be overly simplistic. Fifty years after, facing another advance equipped United Nation army, Chinese forces didn’t loose ground.

It’s not surprising Western powers called the Chinese “loose sand” then. They had a point.

What the new People’s Republic really contributed to the Chinese wasn’t ideological ist, but the new found upward spirit and confidence in the society.

(8)
The Beijing Olympics is said by Beijing and foreign media as a landmark of integrating into the modern world. The process and exploration started more than a hundred years ago.

In fact, the shaping of modern China and its choices are always under the influence of the Western powers, including the worrisome nationalism. People in the West don’t often understand why China can not let go of the memories of more than a hundred years ago. But for Chinese, history from a hundred years ago directly influenced political choices of their nation every step of the way, and thus wired into their current life.

Many people have pointed out Chinese society is often restless. Such restlessness also started a hundred years ago. The history of being the invaded makes people less confident, makes the politics more radical.

If China could have waited the development of the country and its new social class entered the political scene, things might be different. But the international society then didn’t give China patience and time; the wars didn’t give China much time and choices.

Nowadays, the powers make a point not to burden the defeated countries with unbearable debt or too much unfair treatment. That’s an improvement. Lesson learned. But history has no what ifs.

(9)
Now that Beijing Olympics is finally here. For many, “a hundred year’s dream will be complete. Can we get the game start with, and finally get on other businesses?

阳光下没有新鲜事

2008-08-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

中国经常把将要开始的奥运会称做百年奥运。奥运对于中国人所寄托的不仅仅是体育盛事。恰巧，我前段时间也看了《走向共和》。看了五十九集，四十多个小时，不借这个机会写两句对于中国百年来的历史的评论，似乎有点对不住。

中国的轨迹很多可以追溯到一百五十年前，阳光下没有太多新鲜的事。

（一）

让我们从剧中很靠后的一幕说起。孙中山，国父和民主先声在讨袁二次革命失败后改组中国革命党，也开始搞起个人效忠和集权的党务。盖因他开始深刻意识到没有集权和统一的思想，要想实现他所追求的民主，过程缓慢而痛苦，迎接他的往往是失败 —— 11个国民党的总督竟只有2个相应他党魁的革命号召。政治理想和口号固然动人，但事到临头众人看重的毕竟还是自己的屁股和脑袋。孙终于明白而黄兴还没有明白的道理：改良路线的政党可以民主而松散，革命则一定要有集权。

孙没有成功。蒋借着黄埔校长的威望实现了名义上的统一。而相信枪杆子里出政权的中共显然明白这个道理。解放战争，只用了三年。虽然已经无命可革。这种状况一直保持到了现在。二次革命不是孙中山的专利。毛也有二次革命，文化革命。其动机至少在部分上和孙的动机是一致的。恰巧毛走的也是孙的那个思路。要想为民主做成事，首先要有集权。默认和放任神话是毛认为可行的. 最终为集权而付出的代价。

政治家和政治不同，政治思路却没多少区别。

该剧讲述的岁月，蒋的时代还没有到来。蒋却在剧里也露了一小面，虽然编导并没有挑明。一个日本教官指着花盆里的泥对中国学生说，一个泥巴里有很多细菌，好几亿，就像四亿中国人那么多。有一个学生非常生气，冲上讲台抓起一个泥巴，说这个泥巴里有一亿细菌，就像日本人那么多。这个人就是蒋中正。

自中国近代革命以来，孙，蒋，毛等这些人，他们的政治立场和态度不同，个人作风和态度不同，对中国现实和未来的理解不同，但却都是民族主义者。

（二）

《走向共和》对历史的叙述比较以前的有比较大的进步，或者说更加接近于现在的人们对历史的理解，人物形象也不再单一。

相比较，某些流行的历史写作则从一种激进走向了另一种激进。翻案似乎成为一种时髦。这也不难解释，因为翻案本身就是一独立的观点，不管是不是正确，总也是能吸引眼球的。倘若关公战了秦琼，用现代的眼光解读了历史人物的心理，那也是关公自己倒霉。成为历史的人是没法为自己辩护的。

华盛顿是一个黑奴拥有者。他直到自己死后才解放拥有的黑奴。在遗嘱里写明在自己妻子死后给奴隶们自由。但这并不妨碍华盛顿的伟人声誉。中国当时的知识分子更是对华盛顿敬佩有加，对他没有自己称帝啧啧称奇。虽然，事实上当时北美的政治现实并没有称帝的基础。伟大的政治家有独特的人格魅力和社会责任感，但社会政治的基础还是大众。

在对中国百年间的反思之作中，我也读到过一些著名“写手”，也就是把握了对解释历史有相当话语权的人，写的作品。在那儿，袁世凯慈禧等都俨然成了伟大正派的救国救民人物。一百八十度转身的时候往往忘却了自己从哪里来现在站在哪里。

中国历来有一种奇怪的传统，矫枉必须过正，但看百多年来的政治和思潮无不如此。而历史就像一个小姑娘，被随着人们的心意打扮。

（三）

矫枉过正这个词很值得研究。盖“矫”字包含了权威的含义。就好比上帝来到了诺亚所在的城市，决定让那里的人们为了自己的错误付出代价。

引领一个古老人口众多的国家摸索现代化的道路，需要非凡的见识和勇气，要在短期内做成事业，集权也不可或缺。问题在于，在中国权利一旦获得，却没有自我约束的传统。与之相随的，是百年间的革命和政变。需要考虑的问题是，即使做的是有益的事情，可不可以用不正确的方法？也就是所谓的程序正义的位置。成王败寇在我们的历史中占有相当的市场，而实用主义也不是到了邓时代才发明的专利。

（四）

百多年的近代史是从战争，确切地说战败开始的。因此而生的国民心态和政治也是急切而“功利”的。具体说就是要强国。1876年的纽约时报说国人缺乏进取心，厌恶一切创新和改革。我不知道这种说法是不是有点在讽刺现在比如说西藏的某些宗教保守人士。不，显然不是，若是对他们，但凡要用香格里拉乌托邦等寄托美好情愫的词汇的。但该文显然不太了解中国人，也没有预测对中国的历史。国人对战败以来的历史赤裸裸地指出：落后就要挨打。

以强国为主要诉求的政治，缺点是并不稳定，需要依靠强人。立宪人士也好，后来的革命家们也好，终究都是精英政治，拉着中国这头老驴上磨。

欲求稳定的政治，则需公民思想普遍进步，知政治为何物，人人皆为强民而强国，于妥协中寻发展。现在的人喜欢把历史的功过都推到政治家的身上。而孔子说：吾一日而三省。

这时，我突然想到一个叫鲁迅的名字。

（五）

看得出剧中对慈禧李鸿章袁世凯等历史人物给于了很多人性上的同情。

中国人喜欢讲大义和小节。事实上我们经常对这些历史人物的大义随着时代和思潮的变化给于不同的评价。

慈禧，也曾稳重抄持，也曾励精图治，甚至有过虽面对十一国不惜一战的气节。但终其所为，义与不义，终究是“家天下”出发点的结果。可以说战争对于她来说并无失败一理。战则胜之固然好，输了也不大要紧，赔钱的自有广大人民。

李鸿章，这曾被称为东方的俾斯麦的人，一度被许多人称为卖国的人，据说对中国的外交做出过很大的贡献，鞠躬尽瘁。然其始终所信奉不抵抗态度，甚至在兵战既成事实时，实行东南互保而拒中央之命。待国破之日，虽拼力外交力争，免于兵战的东南各地可得免于背负战争赔款为政治赎身哉？就好比今日若有国家以人权为籍口出正义之师，半个中国不战可得免生灵之涂炭？大义的判断基于立场不同，实在不是一件容易的事。事实上，中国再破落也是一个大国，列强并没有吞并中国的能力，城下之盟，有或没有一个精明强干的李鸿章区别不大。

袁世凯，李之后的另一政治强人，他的个人野心成全了他作为结束帝制的第一人，他的才干让他在中国的洋务和开放的道路上颇有建树。然当时的洋务主要不过用垄断的权力和国际资本结合谋取利益，他赖于成家的北洋新军也鲜有为国打过什么仗，反而在他身后造成了军阀割据的基础。

康有为，戊戌变法的失败者。他是近代的亲改革者。但他个人的政治野心和变法失败后不太光彩的所做所为，离大义又相去甚远。康实在是中国海外人权人士的祖先，褒贬如出一辙。

离得远的人看大义，离得近的人看小节。大义难喻。

野心和投机在中国一直是个贬义词。但野心和投机其实并不可怕。所有这些人的悲哀在于，没有机制和环境让他们的野心和投机和大众的利益结合一致起来。大众的政治才能让政治强人为大众而谋利。

（六）

渐进的改革在中国的成功被广泛称颂。这种经验同样来自一百多年前的实践。百年前还有关于“中学为体，西学为用”还是“全盘西化”的争论。这个假命题吵到现在也没有找出答案。

为什么说是假命题呢？因为如果是全民进步所作出的选择，而不是少数精英做出的选择，等到了民富民强，人民需要政治表述的时候会做出自然的选择。“中学”也好，“西化”也好，抑或到时候并没有“中学”和“西学”的区别。文化是流动性的。

同理，所谓中国特色应该是自然的产物，本是抹不去的东西。如果需要标榜和预设中国特色，反而让人怀疑卖瓜的人广告中的成色。

（七）

说到战争和条约，甲午只是败了海战，北京的中央政权受到了威胁，迎来的是马关条约。后来面对史称八国联军的十一国军队，又是败了，政权逃出了北京。于是有了辛丑条约。其实外国联合的军队不过区区数万人，伤亡不过两千余。大批中国的军队并没有加入战争，南方自保不必说，国家操练的北洋新军也没有加入战争。虽然义和团是始作蛹者之一和参战的力量，但“人民战争”并没有发生。把不平等条约简单归结于落后就要挨打似乎并不全面。多年后的五十年代，同样面对“正义”的联合国军，同样面对自己远远赶不上的现代武器，中国军队却打得并不难看。

西方人把当时的中国称为一盘散沙并不是没有道理的。

以毛为首的一代人促成的新中国的建立，重要的不是社会主义或其他主义，是让中国社会重新有了向上的精神动力。

（八）

奥运被不管是中国当局还是其他国的媒体称为中国融入世界的一个标志。这个融入的过程和探索从一百多年前就开始了。

事实上，中国道路的选择一直就受着西方的影响, 包括强国的诉求和西人颇多侧目的民族主义。

无数人指出现今中国社会的浮躁，而这种浮躁的社会沉淀从百多年前就开始了。浮躁是落后挨打之后的不自信的结果。

理想的中国政治应该是国内民智开启，新兴阶层进入社会各主导领域的结果，是先强人后强国。但当时的国际社会并没有给中国时间和耐心。战争没有给中国时间和选择。强国，民族主义，和激进的变革占据了主导的市场。欲速而不达。

二战后的战争，战胜的发达国家也注重不强加太多不平等的要求给战败国，这是不是历史的进步和教训呢。

(九)

现在北京奥运会终于来到了。有些该圆的梦也该圆了。是否，就让比赛开始，然后我们可以干些别的事？

绝代双骄

2008-08-05T03:03:00.000-07:00

这是8月2日网友拍摄的奥运第二次彩排时燃放焰火的美丽瞬间，题目也挺震撼——天朝

The Bird Nest is...Empty!

2008-08-04T20:43:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who always tells me artists are big Huyou - the Chinese term for deceit. "The more famous ones are the bigger huyous" he would say, "they appeal on a higher level."

Not sure how much his views had influenced me, but when NYT published an Interview of Ai Weiwei, an artist whose name is associated with the design of Bird Nest and a classmate of Zhang Yimou, I flocked to see what his huyou was. The NYT's blog called Ai "Bird’s Nest Designer", but a more proper term would be "artistic consultant". Although I guess he won't protest being called designer, only that he has an issue with Olympics, calling it a "pretend smile".

Q: What inspired you in designing the National Stadium? Can you describe the design process?

Ai Weiwei: The design concept for the National Stadium came from a complete “emptiness,” when Herzog & de Meuron and I were talking about the initial plan before we started on the actual design. We emptied our minds, which made it possible for us to find the best points from aesthetics and practicality. The rationale of the structure, its exterior and interior appearance, called for a maximization and unification of aesthetic functions and actual needs. The sense of totality was critical in the initial conception of the design. During the process, we were anxious and excited. We hoped to produce a language that possesses a unique form that is able to support many functional requirements. The entire design process was carefree and fun, it seemed very clear and obvious, free of any obstructions of traditional notions.

OK, so the design concept for the National Stadium came from a complete “emptiness”? What's inside emptiness? Does emptiness has emptiness? Is the steel beams emptiness? Aside form the usual cliches that follows, the whole answer leaves me feeling pretty...empty. Hmm, artistic talking, pretty huoyou.

Q: Are you going to the opening ceremony?

Ai: I’m not attending the opening ceremony, I’m not interested in it, and I haven’t received any invitation. If I need to be more clear on why I’m not willing to be part of the ceremony, it’s that I think it’s too far from the spirit of freedom. I’ve always thought of this ceremony as a product of government bureaucracy, rather than a natural celebration and expression generated among free citizens. I feel that there are too many regrets in this ceremony, which could make me unhappy.

Was it really "I’m not interested in it" or "I haven’t received any invitation."? Now I was really confused. Was he really trying to distance himself from the Olympics after he joined the design of the stadium and reaped financial and press gains? If not for the "designer" title associated with the stadium, few Chinese would have known his name. His double position was very much Chinese. Chinese intellectuals have a tradition of accusing others, say deploring the lack of free speech, and turning around doing exactly the same. All artists are expected to have an edge, but still...Can you say Houyou?

Ai went on to say people in a society that didn’t have democracy were not possible to get excited and cheer for the game - facts not withstand, and thus the term “pretend smile.” But by that time, I've lost interest in further reading.

For the record, out of all newly built stadiums, I like "the cube" the best.

Red Cliff (2): Oriental Wisdoms

2008-08-02T20:57:00.001-07:00

The hype and over-exposed discussions on the internet eventually killed my viewing pleasure. Even the laughing-out-laud absurdity seemed not so funny. But I was still holding out hope for the battle scenes.

Stories of Three Kingdoms are very popular in China because it contains many political wisdom, cunning military maneuver, and personal heroics. The battle of Red Cliff is the most famous because it was a classical case of victory by asymmetrically weaker force and laid down the foundation of triangular balance of power.

However, those who look to the film for some oriental wisdom will likely be disappointed. Wait, there are some. Liu Bei is depicted as a model leader of "serving the people" slogan, as he directs his troops to protect the people at military cost. The underling philosophy is that a king without people is no king. Man power was an essential factor for a weak but ambitious state. In another scene, Zhou Yu orders his troops to run across a muddy pond, so that soldiers who stole the buffolo for food - presumably get some mud on their shoes - won't be singled out. It's an old trick to win hearts and loyalties. But these details don't save the overall blendness.

Not to be deterred, I waited patiently for the battle scene of The Eight Trigram formation. According to John Woo himself, his was the first successful attempt to reenact such battle scene in details. I was getting excited in anticipation. How could I not? My childhood dream was about to be filled - ever since I read about the mysterious Eight Trigram Formation in The Legend of Gods(封神演义）as a child, I've always wanted to see the real rendition, of its traps, decoys, morphs.

And here they came. Troops of Caocao, the powerful evil mandarin, queued into the formation, whose shape looked exactly like the pattern of tortoise shell, lined by iron shields. Why exactly did they willingly and orderly enter the formation without lifting a finger, not to mention weapons, and thus allow themselves being separated by stupid shields on both sides, I had no idea. But if you think that was how they were defeated, you are grossly wrong. Flag was waved and the formation was moving. Along came the generals of the opposition, they would battle the soldiers of Caocao - one versus hundreds at a time- in the narrow allay delineated by the shields on both sides, and won. You would think that the point of having a formation at all was to confuse and divide the enemy to form advantage in local units. But no, for John Woo, the point of having a fancy formation was to have a chance to fight one on hundreds.

It was common in Hollywood style movies to have dumb moments to create the drama. Scoundrels would have every opportunity to kill the heroes at their mercy but always rather waited and not to, only to be killed by heroes because of it. Battle scenes in John Woo's Eight Trigram formation took it to a new height, almost to a fault of insulting viewers intelligence. But, on a second thought, he did manage to plant the scene to show John McClane style heroics and Kong Fu moves. That's exactly what Woo wanted.

If you can call that oriental wisdom, or is that occidental?

正面温情的人物画像

2008-08-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

偶喜欢这种坦诚的对话形式。
　　
　　对诸多作家性格气场的描绘和谈话中她提到的一些小细节都富有趣味，充满王安忆式的细致琐碎。不像有些男性作家的访谈只一味形而上的批判，这俩人温暖的对话让人读起来心里很是舒坦。
　　
　　比如她提到当年上海一个类似于沙龙的小书店，门口放块小黑板，写满书评，以及她在小书店结识的老板和朋友。让偶想起上学时常去的那种小书店，有点怀念。
　　
　　提起迟子建时，居然说写得好是因为长的壮实，又拿苏童来举例，来证明她的观点——写出好小说的人要饱满健康...偶有点想笑。
　　
　　评价的作家很多，大致总有几十个吧。其实是很难得一见的，无论文学前辈、当代名家还是年轻新锐，王安忆不仅以作家的角度，还以一个温和女性的身份来评价她的同行们，视角不同，温情有趣。
　　
　　谈及王朔——他其实是一个温情主义者。为了掩饰自己的伤痛，就会做出特别凶悍的样子，会做出特别抵抗的样子，或者胡来胡闹，把事情搞成一团酱。王朔“很能体会人的情感，但是我觉得他太软弱了，所以很多东西不能抵御”。
　　
　　阿城——有种晚清民初气质。阿城要向你描绘事情的时候就会描述得非常生动。王安忆特别欣赏阿城的另一点是，“他喜欢一种艺术吧，他一定会在生活里面体现这种艺术。我们的艺术和生活往往是分家的，而他的生活状态却是在实践他的艺术观念，或者反过来说他的艺术是体现在生活上的。”
　　
　　相比残雪评点同行及其作品的犀利和咄咄逼人，偶更欣赏王安忆这种正面温情的人物画像。
　　
　　又：原来是在《西部·华语文学》上刊载过，也是刚知道。

Open contraversy

2008-07-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

The opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics Games has still a week to go, but has already created media controversies.

This time, a South Korean TV network, SBS TV released video footage of rehearsals of the ceremony, violating the implicit consent of not leaking details by the media. Details of the opening ceremony was guarded as "state secret" by China, understandably to keep the stunts fresh. It was said that those who were invited to the rehearsal had signed on to the no-disclosure agreement.

This gave Chinese netizens new ammunition to get angry against South Korea. Public opinions in China towards South Korea have not been particularly warm and fuzzy since Koreans claimed rights to cultural heritage of many Chinese traditions. Many people have dubbed the Koreans "cultural thieves" and "men from Mars" since then, and the newest episode added new controversy to the fire. Even CCTV has showed discontent in its news program "One Plus One".

It's not clear whether SBS has "the right to report" or it has violated "professional ethnics", as many claimed.

[update: SBS TV formally apologized.]
PS: Travel channel is currently having a "China Week". The varieties of food on display are having me drooling.

Will capitalism save virginity?

2008-07-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

To believers of market, market will find a solution to everything. Will it save virginity - in China?

China was traditionally a conservative country in sexuality. We've had the likes of Xi Mengqing in old novels like The Golden Lotus and anecdotal stories about gayish princes, but mostly it's hush hush. As the capitalism first arrived when China began its "open and reform" program, sex was also a vocal point of personal freedom as debated subject, so much so that also all Chinese famous novalists at the time all included sex, sometimes pervert sex as part of their depition. Mo Yan, autor of Big Breast and Wide Hips, Su Tong, Jia Ping'ao were all among them.

Then there came Shanghai Baby, a euphoria novel of sex adventures, from which the calling "beauty writer" was born. BTW, the author was relatively tame and far from "beauty" before she made a name, from what I knew of her. And there was Mu Zimei, a blogger famous for publishing details of her many sexual encounters, led the sex revolution to the pinnacle. That's why stories like disco bunny comes as no surprise to the Chinese.

Now, a new wave of chastity is quietly making waves. Surprisingly, one of the force in this new found chastity is the raw and unapologetic Chinese style capitalism. As this Danwei translation of a South China Weekend story tells, while some young women are not try about using their sexuality to their economic advantage, others now see keeping virginity before marriage as an advantage in the competitive marriage market. In economics jargon, the market has reached an equilibrium!

The question then is why virginity is cherished and being seen as an advantage. That's the question I pose to my friend, who is also a Chinese.

"That's because Chinese males are deeply insecure about their sexuality. Having a virgin without prior sexual experience as a wife helps them not being exposed sexually."

She is equally unapologetic.

奥运礼服

2008-07-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

看了今天亮相的08奥运会中国代表团“奥运礼服”，真是很无语。偶能怪谁呢？怪国旗的颜色？还是怪设计师的理念？五星红旗的红黄两色纯度过高、太过明亮，实话说并不适合黄种人的肤色。这就寄望于设计师在色彩和款式上与细节处巧妙设计，结果看到的竟是单纯颜色的堆砌，好似张艺谋的电影。

当初有设计师曾归纳出最能代表华夏文明的六种色彩，即所谓的“国色”：中国红、琉璃黄、国槐绿、青花蓝、长城灰、玉脂白。叹气，现在看来优雅端庄的后四种已全被舍弃，难怪被网友戏称番茄炒蛋白米饭。

07年奥运组委会曾向社会公开征集礼服设计方案，短短几月内，评委会收到了来自全球的设计方案超过2000个，也因此在坊间引发“国服热”，汉服、唐装、中山装，究竟孰能体现古国风范、中华神韵的争议不绝于耳。

最终，考虑到中国体育代表团的礼服应同时体现“历史的元素”、“当下的智慧”与“未来的概念”，所有的“国服”均被放弃。若是在设计上稍微借鉴一下“国服”的中国元素，不知道礼服的效果会不会好些？

还好还好，也有养眼的。名字叫“青花瓷”系列的颁奖礼服尽显中国风韵，多少是个安慰。

人生的意外

2008-07-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

因为懒，读到喜欢的文字，心中暗暗赞叹之余往往不记得收藏
还有空间一些音乐，可能不太稳定，播放器里的连接莫名消失了
开始有点心疼，都是遇到的所爱

很快就释然。或者大家之间的缘分就是这样长的吧。
读过。听到。遇见。已是福份。

如世间的珍宝。人生只百年。谁又敢说，谁拥有谁呢。
遇见一日，便用心体会它的美，它的独一无二。
不让它泯没。不让它孤单。

人生或许就是这样。许多不相干的人和事，
只因一些微妙的连接，而串联在一起。
由此及彼。由彼到风马牛的另一端。

最后，只剩下渺小的人。
惊叹，种种意外的人世间。

清水白石下寒沙
很喜欢。好的心情。分享给到来这里的每一位。
说过的，遇到，终究就是缘分。

The Myth and Common Sense

2008-07-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

It's fun to check your level of common sense, especially when it comes to China.

Let's first be entertained by a story straight out of the Jame Bond movie - if you so wish to think. An UK band gets their name right: Panic! at Disco. It's reported a Shanghainese disco bunny compromised an UK government official. A top aide to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was seduced by a hot woman he met in a Shanghai disco, who came back to his hotel room. In the morning, his (unencrypted) Blackberry was gone.

With my common sense, I see it no more than an extra curriculum activity by shrew "service provider". There is no ethnic code in Shanghai sex deal world that a women won't nick your cellphone or other valuables.

But it doesn't prevent UK officials to extend their James Bond pedigree and painted it as a honeytrap operation. "A senior official said yesterday that the incident had all the hallmarks of a suspected honeytrap by Chinese intelligence", as Times UK reported. Maybe when you are an UK government official, your common sense is wired differently.

The same panic was shared by U.S. government officials. There were numerous report about their hysteria about Chinese cyper espionage. I will care not to list them, you can just google for it. Almost every official has had some sort of claim about his laptop being compromised during trips to China, the most famous being allegations that US Commerce secretary's laptop was hacked during a December trip to China.

The common sense here is that China's web space is ripe with all sorts of malware. If you plug your laptop into China's network unprotected, chances are your computer will come into contact with some sort of malware or spyware within minutes. That has happened to me before. Or if your computer is protected, the firewall will have a line that such such ip address tries to contact your computer without authorization. On the other hand, it would be extremely difficult for the Chinese government to pinpoint your laptop on the open net if you are mobile and gets online possibly from anywhere. But maybe senators and secretaries are not tech savvy enough to know?

The myth is not limited in the James Bond world. Apparently it can be propagated in the bar world also. South China Morning Post reported a story that Beijing authorities are to ban Blacks (Chinese don't usually bother to call blacks "African _" because racial tension with blacks was a no issue historically with China) and Mongolians from bars During Olympics, based on one anonymous source. The stories was subsequently debunked, but still managed to catch some fire among some media and blogs.

My common sense tells me there is no way Chinese authority would pursuit such a policy during Olympics when a significant proportion of Olympic athletes are of African ethnic origin and are likely to frequent bars. Not to mention Beijing will be under the whole world's watch during the time. My common sense also tells me there's virtually no way to successfully tell Mongolian women from Chinese women from the looks. But apparently common senses of SCMP's reporter and quoting media's are very different and, should I say, unique.

Beijing was notorious for lax in enforcing the rules. And Western press often rightfully pointed it out. Now that in the wind of Olympics, China begins to enforce formerly lax enforced visa laws, Washington Post calls it China growing unfriendly to foreigners. And enforcing rules to shut down a foreigner owned club that lacks performance license catches the attention of the Time. Sure, it brings some inconvenience to some individuals, but my common sense tells me no matter what intentions are, a rule is a rule is a rule. Protest the rule if you must, but don't protest the enforcement of it as unfriendly. My common sense, as I know of China, also tells me that foreigners have long enjoyed super-national status in China, Chinese have long been very friendly to them. In fact, many foreigners working in China are doing so without proper visa or documents. They are staying on tourist visa but earning money in China. Oh, they are not doing hard labors as many Chinese do also. Where did the rule promoting western media go this time around? For visa, I believe average Chinese traveling to Europe or America have to jump through far more hoopla than foreigners to China. Just ask any random Chinese. In fact, there was an article on this blog of a rant by a famous Chinese sports reporter of American visa officials' attitudes. But these seem completely escape the media. The unfriendly article is particularly funny because it was frequently said of China as Xenophobia on those papers, yet the story turns out so many foreigners who are working in China illegally and live comfortable lives, including the lead-in story. But, somehow, the fault is still on China.

Of course, Chinese can probably do more. Beijing's People's University sent out students from its Sociology Department to observe people's public conduct and concluded that manners had greatly improved. For me personally, I wish Chinese have learned how to wait a line. I was in a double-line waiting for taxi dispatches in Beijing airport a couple years ago. A Beijing young man cursed out almost looked like wanting to start a fight because I was not taking advantage of the spaces in front of me in the parallel line, waiting instead patiently the man in front of me. To him, it slowed him down. Of course, he saw me as a Chinese. There's no telling what he would do if I was actually of different skin color. My guess is he would be less rude. That's a myth now, but also my common sense.

Murky Love Economics

2008-07-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

The thing about life is that its unpredictable and doesn't subject to one single rule. I would always be aware of the "universal truth" unearthed. Many ideas are inspiring or illuminating. But more often than not, there's always qualifications, in small prints, that need to be noted.

Let's take a look at some of the main points of this very interesting and well written piece by Ben Stein: Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics.

In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship.

Oh what the statistical panacea. What about business failures? What about concept like sunk cost, stop-loss in economics?

High-quality bonds consistently yield more return than junk, and so it is with high-quality love.

The problem is, as we know in the investment world, junk/investment grades can be down or up graded, reversed in a whim, even with name brands. GM might look all mighty blue chip in a day, and slip to junk status to the next. Sometimes, even professional graders - read, Moody's etc - can't provide accurate grades in time, otherwise we won't have subprime crisis. How do you expect we to excel in love bonds in which most of us are amateurs? The negative situation rings more true:

the absolutely surest way to ruin your life is to have a relationship with someone with many serious problems, and to think that you can change this person.

Mr. Stein further urges us,

Research pays off.

Not necessary. Some qualifications are required. Too much research makes you a timid investor, and too much time in research doesn't necessary gives you competitive edge in a competitive market where everybody else does the same. And we all know researches don't earn best money in the finance world, they end up being hired by the more competitive personalities.

Ok, if you think this is all too picky, I agree. However the gist of the stories is, that theory is better at rationalize than practice, and that economics is a science that cares about outcomes in aggregates and statistical results, but love is a very personal thing. While Economics can sweep exceptions as anomalies, personal pains can't.

In the end, we can at least agree that love, like many other aspects of life, needs to be "managed".

人人都是艺术家

2008-07-17T23:37:00.001-07:00

一个很有趣的涂鸦网站Artpad
你可以在上面的画板用一些很简单的工具创作出具有你个人风格的涂鸦

贴几个偶画的:-)

你站在桥上看风景
看风景的人在楼上看你
明月装饰了你的窗子
你装饰了别人的梦

记得当时年纪小
你爱谈天我爱笑
有一回，我们并肩坐在桃树下
风在林梢鸟儿叫
不知我们怎么睡着了
梦里花落知多少

黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛
我却用它来寻找光明
嘿嘿

KTV inside birds nest?

2008-07-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

A look inside the Bird Nest, a passage to the VIP room.

If you think it looks somehow familiar in style, you are right. It looks like KTV, with generous use of gold color and metal in ornate material.

I'm left wondering if it is the designer catering to the Chinese sense of wealth and style, or Chinese asserting control of creativity.

In other news, I've struggled in Wii of Olympic games representing China. If it's any indication, Olympics is hard. The most difficult game for me? Trampoline, twisting accordingly in the midair. And the one I excelled? Baseball! Go figure.

Red Cliff, Panda, and Chinese Films

2008-07-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

The newest buzz out of the Chinese film world is Red Cliff, a famous battle story out of The Three Kingdoms.

The general Chinese verdict seems to be "it's entertainment", also some of the entertaining attempts are so caricaturistic, borderlining absurdity. Amid the controversy and critiques, the film sells, amassing the top box-office receipt in China. Nowadays, China takes on a very American rule - controversy sells.

But sorry Chinese, I'm not sure your complaints are relevant. This picture, from the clips I've seen, isn't filmed with you as the key audiences, rather, it has the Western viewers in mind. Outside of the fact that John Woo has never been truly outstanding besides staging scenes and working the camera angles (see Mission: Impossible II), if you view the film from an angle of someone whose knowledge of The Three Kingdoms as heard passingly at best, you won't see all the absurdity and controversy. All you see are giant battling fields - reminiscent of Rome Army nevertheless, witty humorous retorts - if somewhat modern - between generals and warlords, caring and vulnerability, and love scenes - how can a Hollywood movie be complete without one? Look, it all makes perfect sense. It's just those of you who are too versed in the story and characters that are nitpicking.

Think of the last blockbuster, dreamwork's Kung Fu Panda. The sentiments were divided along the lines of resisting: how can Hollywood produce such crap about our beloved Panda? And alternatively, proudly embracing: it's really wonderful Hollywood can nail the Chinese cultural down so precisely in the film, with a by-line of why can't we make it? Although the latter thought makes very good point about education and creativity, the two views actually share the same psyche - that of lack of confidence. The glee over Hollywood's major production featuring Chinese stories and wits underlines the fact that most Chinese are still seeking being recognized and respected by the Western culture, despite the fact that Chinese cultural that's embodied in the film is actually quite shallow, nor is it ground-shattering. The film is actually very much hollywood, both in value - the underdog hero story, and production. We are not part of the world props up some of unduly praises of the film.

Back to Red Cliff, why doesn't a Chinese made film focus more on Chinese audiences then? You can just look at the numbers. Kung Fu Panda has earned $19.29 million in China between its June 21 opening and July 6, making it a box-office smash by Chinese standards. Comparatively, it earned more than $350 million world wide. So there is little wonder Red Cliff shifts its market focus elsewhere.

China has proved it can produce quite fine art films. It is no stranger in the international film festival circuit. China can produce some entertainment "big picture" also, when it really put money into it. What's mostly lacking is the in-between and blending of the two. Both the amount and variety are far more to be desired. It is on this ground that we can come to understand the paradox of Red Cliff, both of under criticism and hugely successful commercially - because good films are too few, and far in between.

[不管时间是如何把岩石染上颜色的，毫无疑问赤壁正红。
　　
　　网上的评判大致是可悦，可色，可恶，虽忍俊处可谓极致出另见天地，但终究还是比较娱乐的。票房则大有斩获。就算中国的电影没学到家，于争论处见销售利好却已是一板一眼。
　　
　　不过同胞们的口水大致是用错了情。据我的有限观察，赤壁的主要目的观众群本不是国内的大众。吴宇森虽然长处仅限于场面的展现和镜头的控制，却也应本无意于为网络流行语丰富词汇。但如果你想象自己是一名西方对三国一无所知的观众，也许仅有的模糊印象也来自隐约的耳闻，那么这部影片就很容易被理解和接受。你将看到的是宏大的战争场面，甚至很容易和印象中的罗马人的战场联系起来；看到幽默急智的大将谋事，虽然他们的对话有点现代感，但无伤大雅，也和心理预设并不冲突；他们甚至有多面的柔情和脆弱；当然还有爱情场面，没有女色的好莱坞片还叫好莱坞片么？总之，这会让网上所有自作多情的“很强大”的评论没有用武之地。无疑，赤壁是拍给西方观众看的。
　　
　　不如回过头来看看前段时间热门的功夫熊猫。极端的观点无非两种。鄙视之抵制之者有，捧上天欣喜欣慰者也不在少数。甚至听说有引发为什么中国不能拍出功夫熊猫的感慨。这样的感慨虽然有健康的关于创作力和教育的讨论，但终究还是建立在对影片对中国文化“准确地把握”上。其实，两种态度都反映了一种相同的心理状态--对文化的不自信。好莱坞大片用中国熊猫和对中国文化的结合运用是让某些人如或钦点的原因。我们终于被承认了，我们成了世界的一分子。而其实功夫熊猫是再典型不过的好莱坞片，从underdog hero story到故事的叙述方式。其中中国文化只不过皮毛，早已进入西方的知识领域。
　　
　　现在回到赤壁，为什么中国拍的大片却不是以大陆观众作为主要假定观众创作呢？答案看看功夫熊猫的数字就行了。熊猫作为大热片，在中国的前两周收入是$19.29百万。而相比较，它的全球收入是$320百万。赤壁，已经作了好莱坞人的吴拍的电影，把主要市场盯在国外就毫不奇怪了。
　　
　　中国已经证明自己能拍出好的艺术片来。国外大大小小的电影节中国艺术片拿过的奖也不少。中国也似乎证明了所谓“娱乐大片”能拍的马马虎虎-- 只要能投入足够多的钱，国外电影市场也能分很小的一小勺。中国缺少的，是这两者之间的，和把这两者结合起来的电影。以及相称的电影市场。目前的电影市场无论在数量上还是种类质量上都乏善可陈。那么也就不难理解主要并不为中国观众所拍，“很娱乐”，很受争议的赤壁，票房走红也就很容易理解了--我们的可看的电影从数量和质量上都太少了。]

The seat-belt story

2008-07-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

From inside JinMao Tower, a picture she took

Ask my friend who was recently back from China what was her most remembered impression about China. She told me it was the confusion of identities, sometimes people took her as an American, other times people took her as a Chinese.

She told of the seat-belt story that She was unexpectedly pinned down to be American. It was in Nanking. She fastened her seat-belt as soon as she got on a taxi without even thinking much. Little would she expect that it would trigger taxi drivers long talk about all things Chinese and American. As it turned out, she was the first passenger who fastened seat-belt that taxi driver ever carried, although the "fasten your seat-belt" sign was preen on the glove box. The taxi driver went on to have a full lecture on how Chinese were too smart for their own good and never respects little rules. (China has now the most moto accidents in the world.) When my friend indicated she was Chinese also, he insisted that She was American, not Chinese.

This reminds me of a story told on James Fallow's blog. Roughly, Bus drivers in China were hit by an extra cut on highway fees because highway fare collectors were not well paid, they in turn changed the route to detour on crappy roads and waited to take on extra passengers, to make their ends meet. It seemed nobody was seriously enforcing the existing rules and those practices are implicitly understood. And nobody was willing to face to his own responsibilities first. The result was very unefficeint outcomes and wasting of time. Most people who had taken long-distance small buses could tell the same experience.

So maybe small changes will come, since that taxi driver recognized fastening seat-belt as responsible thing to do, and even admirable in his eyes.

残缺完整

2008-07-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

作者是一个叫天心的朋友

一个圆缺了一角，受到其他圆的嘲笑。
他感到沮丧，为什么自己不象其他圆那样滚动自如，轻快飞驰呢？
于是他决定寻找，寻找最适合自己的一角。
他一路走过，有时停下来观赏风景，有时和蝴蝶嬉戏，有时和花草聊天，他唱着轻快的歌谣：呀依呀依呀哦，心中充满了期待。
他遇到了很多残缺的一角，不是太大，就是太小，找来找去，居然没有适合他的一角。他有些泄气了。
就在他要放弃的时候，他发现草丛中停着一角。
“也许你正是我要寻找的那一角！”
那一角睁着迷糊的的眼睛：“什么？我是你丢失的一部分？”
“试试就知道。”
啊，他们在一起真是完美！他第一次有完整的感觉，现在他是一个完整的圆了！
于是，他象其他的圆一样飞奔起来，越来越快，快得都来不及看看周围的景色了，也不能和花草聊天，和蝴蝶嬉戏了。他感到有些乏味，有些疲惫，这就是他想要的生活吗？
原来那些完整的圆从来都没有体会过因为残缺而带来的悠闲自在，所以才会嘲笑他。他完整了，感觉到从未有过的充实，可是，他却更向往缓慢的游历生活了。
他停下来，轻轻地把那一角放下，说：“我们在一起的感觉太棒了！可是，必须得牺牲另一种生活，也许分开更幸福！”
一角说：“没有遇见你以前，我不知道自己是什么。我静静地呆在草丛里看着星空，不知道为什么存在。直到你告诉我，我是你的一部分。我才知道自己也是圆，是个更残缺的，残缺到不知自己是谁的圆。因为和你一起，才有了自己的价值，才知道圆的生活，才经历了那些令人目眩的飞驰。离开你，我是什么？谁也不会以为我是圆了。”
他说：“你可以等待其他残缺的圆来寻找你，也许那样更适合。”
一角说：“其他的圆？无非是你遇到的情况，不是大了，就是小了，即使是合适的也舍弃不了悠闲的生活。”
他说：“我会来找你的。我会永远想念你，因为你是我在这个世界上唯一的最亲密的部分。”
一角不说话了，躺在草丛里，不去看他。
他犹豫着，还是走了。
他可以跟花草聊天了，他也可以跟蝴蝶戏耍了，他浪迹天涯，走过了看过了许多许多壮观的美景。
可他们填补不了他的空虚，那空虚源自无人分享和懂得；他们也驱赶不走他的孤独，那孤独源自生命的残缺。他感到比以前更强烈的孤独。因为他残缺的部分一下子又空了，不仅漏风，还经常被树枝卡住，被石头绊倒。因为不完整，残缺处更容易受伤，布满了泥土和污水，使他很快就憔悴和衰老了。
他开始强烈地想念失去的一角。他决定去找她。
当他回到原来的地方，却找不到原来的一角了。那一角因为不圆无法滚动，渐渐被沙土掩埋，已经不再光彩照人了。也因为残缺，她甚至比以前更残缺了。因为残缺总是比完整更脆弱，易受到伤害。
他们互相看了一眼，谁也没有认出谁，如路人般地错过。
*************************************************
以前读这篇文章，没有这么深的切身感受，以目前的心境去体会，才感觉人生巨大的悲剧性

Pictures of Austria

2008-07-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

[Filing up my photos of Austria, I find most of them are palaces and churches, the usual postcard material. What surprisingly pleases me are pictures with people in them. The tranquility of abbey and boisterousness of square are better caught with human figures. Austrians, they really like the taste of icecream, they never work overtime, and they see themselves as more cultured than those soccer hooligan states. That's my general impression of them.]

整理奥地利的照片，多为皇宫歌剧院等处，和明信片上可见也没太多不同。最后却还是最喜欢画面上有人的几张，修道院的静和广场的动因画面中的人物而丰富。

昨有朋友中国回来。下飞机手上所拿读物竟是《读者》！问之何以看这老古董。答曰：别人随手给的，机场无可看杂志，前面所买中国现今的小资杂志，其语言和所云实在甚难理解，读不懂了。呜呼如是，我实在承认，我做文盲已经好多年了。就好比奥地利人如此懒散，也终有点没落贵族气质。一边数着欧洲杯的钱，一边数落着没有素质的球迷们。一边感慨经济不振，一边满不在乎地啃着3，4欧元一个的冰激淋，而商店简直有一半时间不在营业状态。

Some updates about this blog

2008-07-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Long overdue.

The comment setting is switched to "anyone" which means you can leave comments as "anonymous". However, you are encouraged to get an openID, which will make commenting easier and communication more fluid. If you have a google or Yahoo ID, you already have the openID, you just need to sign in to it. To require openID is to prevent Spam.

I've also been experimenting with the "sphere related content". Sphere is a new search engine said to be content based and intelligent. It gives you links to related blogs and article. More things to read if you find something you are interested. So far, I find it works ad hoc, unless it's a hot topic, and not working at all for Chinese language posts.

This blog, as a blogspot site, is currently available in China. But there is no telling if and when the accessibility will be interrupted by the government, with "the great firewalls of China", although many big companies especially foreign one do not subject to this restriction. It's mostly a nuance, since you can always go around it with a proxy. And if you use firefox (btw, isn't firefox3 lightening quick?), you can always get a proxy add-on.

Also, you can use the translator on the right column. But always be aware the peril of machine translation.

Lastly, for some amusement, the top google keyword to reach this blog is actually for image search - hooters. And I can tell you it was from all over the world. Who would have thunk it?

大陆游客来台

2008-07-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

这两天看新闻说台湾部分景点挂上了五星红旗，增设了简体字指示牌，劝阻了法轮功示威者，警诫了一贯穿着暴露的槟榔西施...原来台湾也喜欢搞这一套，形式主义害死人呀。出门旅游时，人们不就是要品尝当地的美食，看当地的人文景观，了解当地的文化吗？大陆游客到台湾就是要看、要买、要吃、要用台湾风格的东西。据说法轮功什么的是怕大陆游客看了不舒服，其实没那么严重，在香港或者国外类似团体的抗议多了去了，再说现在资讯这么发达，广大人民群众早该见怪不怪了。

闲话

2008-07-08T01:28:00.000-07:00

寂寞掩柴扉，苍茫对落晖。

鹤巢松树遍，人访荜门稀。

嫩竹含新粉，红莲落故衣。

渡头灯火起，处处采菱归。

——山居即事

寂寞与温暖苍茫与生机，
每次念及都有百感交集之慨。
喜欢王维，喜欢他的沉静洁净悲悯
据说他还有一个难得的好品质——不乱写情诗：）

早些时候贴过一篇写王维的文章实在印象深刻
再读还是喜欢

说起这些诗人，杜甫不玩浪漫是真汉子，只可惜太老
李白酗酒，很是烦人
李商隐倒是怜香惜玉，可惜太喜欢乱写情诗
还有个李贺，据说文如其人，冷冰冰的，不好玩
数来数去还就王维了，虽说总是有种虚幻感，但说好听的那是出尘呀

又一说王维字摩诘，想起很久以前看过的一篇文章，
将王国维，王维，维摩诘三人联系起来分析，太有创意了
既然都字了摩诘，可见确实好佛之人，在感情上守口如瓶也都可以理解
所以这样气定神闲的人做朋友应该还是不错的，只是千万别爱上他

Here comes communists

2008-07-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Poster on the picture left says "No service for communist bandits", and the board across the top the of the shop on the right says, "President Chiang, Communist Bandits have landed". Chiang Kai Shek was the leader of Nationalists who lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan sixty years ago.

We all know about the historical direct flights between Mainland China and Taiwan by now, and how local community leaders and businesses are doing what they can to accommodate, and to attract more mainland tourists.

But these pictures are much more interesting. Besides the amusement value - calling mainland tourist "communist bandits", a term used by then-in-power nationalist government - it's also much more encouraging than the official propaganda.

The official happy-all-round picture that's painted surely doesn't represent the whole truth. Besides, most of about-face work is done to attract businesses, and has little value in evaluating where the cross straight sentiment is going. Those posters, however, shows some Taiwanese still regard the mainland as the renegade force, just as mainland see Taiwan as a renegade island. Although the second poster is suspicious of marketing motive.

If there is still quarrel, there is still family. It's when disagreement becomes polite smily faces that two sides go their seperate ways.

Summer Delicious

2008-07-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

This "Naked Among Watermelons" picture recently on exhibition in MOMA is created by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau in 2005.

Of course, Sigalit Laudau wouldn't know watermelon had Viagra effect, according to recent studies.

Freaky coincidence.

I'm wondering when "Have you taken your watermelon" becomes a new catchphrase.

Happy 4th

2008-07-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

Good things about summer are always nice weather, live music, and outdoor sports, and being 4th of July today, it's also fireworks, big and small, above the lake and from backyards.

What defines America, a nation of short historical roots and composed mostly of immigrants and their offsprings? It's fist and foremost the ideas that are found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Some argue this national identity is weakening. Certainly not, judging by the amount of fireworks I hear. Compared to other years, traffic is unusually light. Maybe the hovering gas price does have effect. But the celebratory mood is still there.

I find the following quote quite on point:

America is a way of life ..abundance of land; large families, and assertive children; the importance of religion; an astonishing array of voluntary associations; and a hard-working population that was meritocratic, materialistic, competitive, and on the move.

On a related note, this reminds me of hot abated topic of what defines Chinese. IMO Chinese, being a people of deep historical roots and long civilization, doesn't define themselves depend on the possession of the red passport. What constitutes the cornerstone of my Chinese identity is the understanding of Chinese history, culture, and above all language, which one can't really master without good understanding of Chinese history. Chinese language is so distinctively different from other language system that there's no substitute to appreciate it's beauty. By the time you learn to recite and appreciate the poems of Tang Dynasty, you are inevitably wired to be Chinese. It was said that 80% of what you learn is useless. For a Chinese, it's probably 95% - who else do I talk to about the intricacies of Three Kingdom and my vast knowledge about those two thousand years outside of the Chinese circle? It's far easier to talk about Socrates than Zhangzi outside China. No wonder the old Chinese dynastic empires called anyone who were versed in Chinese culture "Chinese", and anyone else "barbarian". Chinese language and culture, which holds key to Chinese way of thinking, and understanding of closeness (or you can say crowded) of people and family ties are what defines Chineseness for me.

Happy fourth.

走出迷城 Out of the labyrinth

2008-06-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

[The Weng'an incident, which hasn't been as intensely covered by Western press as Tibet, shows the urgency of China's getting out of the labyrinth - The traditional cycle of violence-as-opposition-of-violence and oppression of information gets China nowhere. ]

网上惊闻贵州因命案草菅而乱之事。评论则多冷嘲了事，未言之下也就官逼民反之意。中国的知识分子历来既没骨头又视己绝对正义。

纵观中国自古来所信奉官逼民反，暴力的政权出暴民，起义革命以暴制暴，如此循环往复。民众或出离愤怒，或旁观而呼。殊不知没有制度的突破，不寻找非暴力之途径，则永远用更高之暴力替代，历史仍然重复。烧几辆车几个楼或可一舒胸中之恶气。然终究于事何补？谓盖要吸引外界之目光，若能团结向心，亦有和平之方法。以一种暴力发泄而指望另一法理得以伸张，设若得，于国于民气得益乎？以暴力加控制应对请求司法公正的民众的政府更是愚不可及。而这次西方媒体却失却了报道的热忱。古之法则，影响中国至深。伟如毛者，反官僚与腐政亦止发动文化之革命。动荡后一切如故。或许中国之走出迷城只有至有产者众多，为保护自身利益反复博弈，终需建立制度而走上真正法治。泪。

Hotel Fox

2008-06-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hotel Fox 位于丹麦的哥本哈根，是Porject Fox的部分，由大众汽车公司提供赞助，由原先的Park Hotel改建而成。它于2005年4月25日开始对外营业，所有房间均是由国际顶尖的平面视觉设计师设计，21位设计师为Hotel Fox出了1000个点子最后完成了61个风格不同的房间。
房间分为SMALL,MEDIUM,LARGE,X-LARGE四个类型。定价在125欧元和215欧元。所有房间的设计将会至少保留五年
酒店外观(61个房间的窗外遮雨小篷也都不一样哦,是和房间内的主题相一致的)
风格不同的房间(每一间都是由艺术家们自己设计并亲手绘画完成,家具摆设也是艺术家们亲自挑选)

Action Art

2008-06-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

You call me crazy, I call it art.

Hollywood's KongFu Panda is sweeping through China, and a Chinese artists' boycotting of the movie quickly becomes news. Zhao Bandi, who advocates the boycott by writing public letter to the authority and using his own blog as a fighting ground, is an action artist, or performance artist.

Because of his work of goofy performance arts, some wiser bunch suspects the boycotting itself is his form of action art, perhaps referring to many boycotts of french products and others following the Olympic Torch episode. However, he emphasizes he isn't performing and really means it when being interviewed. "Hollywood movies," he says "is representative of homogeneous American culture." And he wouldn't let his beloved panda, whose image appears in almost all his action arts, be used and demeaned.

Wow, he is serious!

But hold on. Who is to say his public denial about performing an action act isn't part of the whole scheme? isn't in itself part of the art? That's the beauty of permanence art - you are never sure which part of his action is art and which is not! So the thought goes, all the way to the deepest Chinese philosophical thinking.
More over, when you join the discussion, or join to criticize, ridicule him, as many media and blogs do, you become part of the action. Brilliant.

I'm not sure Zhao himself realize that. But looking from afar from my angle, China today is a giant stage of action art.

Just recently, a young writer, Hanhan, opens his usually boasting mouth again on TV, pronouncing many prominent literary figures in history - not only those acclaimed ones in the new republic but also many classical ones in dynastic history - overrate and not good at language. Fine, he is entitled to his own opinion, although his remarks are often of bad taste. The curious thing is that his remarks stirs an echo. His fans trumpet him as a hero, others reply serious arguing in favor of those classical writers, still others denounce him. The fact that Hanhan is just a character and likes to provoke seems escape everybody. Beijing Youth Daily even organizes a multi-page discussion of the topic!

Every society has its characters and oddballs. The more open a society is, the more chance of such oddities are, and the more tolerant the public of it. The uniqueness of China seems to be high the media attention and public participation of those. Energies are spent on trivial acts, as if all member of society are part of some action art. Westerners charge Chinese being "sensitive" and "overreact", but they don't know many Chinese create the same way to the trivial issues within.

Part of the reason, I speculate, is the unprecedented freedom of speech Chinese enjoy, and the same time the boundaries of free speech. Because of free speech, everyone has an opinion and seems excited to expressed, often in an extreme way to attract attention and being unique. And because of the limit of it, more energy is paid to seemingly trivial debates.

The slow unfolding transition, the so-called reform, also has a toll on people's nerves and culture. In a way, the Chinese are putting into a slow cooking furnace where every aspects of the society has a side of new and another of old,it challenges the norm of language and behavior contently. Looking outside of it, you see a giant stage of action art. Even the language is fluid. Maybe one day, Chinese will simply use mistress for mistress, in stead of the more colorful er nai, meaning second breast literally, a term that reflect the more innocent and righteous majority's contempt.

Art is not always easy to be understood, and sometimes has a thin line from strangeness. I'm more in anticipation of Wall-E.

真爱与赝品

2008-06-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

忙乱一番，终于可以静下心，听她讲述自己的闪婚经历。

她讲得平心静气偶听得惊心动魄——
只第二面，对方就认定了她。而她心里也充满好感。用她的话说：心脏几乎要从胸腔里跳出来...但只一瞬间她又装得若无其事，好像根本没在意这位才俊。回家之后她脑子里全是那人，随后细节自不必说郎情妾意一拍即合。她总结道：千万不能把你的心情表现出来，当你还不能确定。但是当你一旦遇到真爱，就要下定决心...

“真...爱...”偶茫然滴看着一脸幸福的她。到底什么是真爱?拿什么来确定你遇见的就是真爱？是那种“神圣的疯狂”状态?还是热恋期的那份迷醉、至乐、强烈的爱意、看任何事物都顺眼的高能量状态？克氏说：“恐惧不是爱，依赖不是爱，嫉妒不是爱，占有控制不是爱，责任义务不是爱，自叹自怜不是爱，不被人爱的痛苦不是爱，爱不是恨的反面，正如谦卑不是虚荣的反面一样。”这么多像爱的形式和景象都不是爱，也许真爱是一个自己遇见另一个自己。可是如果没有自己，怎么找得到另外一个自己？偶疑惑。

她说：“好了，我确定你的那些都不是真爱，统统归为赝品”说这话时一脸同情。好...吧，就算不是真爱MS爱的东西都被叫做赝品，但并不代表失去赝品就不伤心，要是有真品就不会稀罕赝品，可是如果什么都没有，那赝品也是续命的宝贝，碎了也要痛哭流涕。而也因为有的太少，因此就更加悲怆。再说谁知道真品存在吗？如果在，它会来吗？

这就是感性和理性的区别吧。随着年龄增长，内求和反省变成了如影随形的糟糕的生活习惯，平日里总习惯睁大眼睛看啊看，想把一切都看清楚，不知不觉开始理智化——缜密的分析看似有理，但不能击中人心，总是哪里不对的样子，因为隔离了情绪。

最终，她的真爱是“我爱你”，偶的真爱成了“我忘不了你”。总害怕自己被别人忘记，是因为自己会忘记别人...

偶告诉她偶宁愿相信通过疼痛和疗伤把赝品改造成接近真品的方式。再说，也许别人眼中的赝品，在自己这里也可以变成真的宝贝，只要觉得值得。

Have a case against hypocracy? Google will help

2008-06-24T16:59:00.001-07:00

In a review of some of the keywords related to China in 2008, you'll likely to find words like: internet, privacy, moral, Runaway Fan, and and his self-proclaimed crusade against hypocrisy, among others. Now let's switch gear. Here is an interesting case in the U.S. where juries will try to decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene.

In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.”

residents...are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.”

In other words, the defense is trying to use google search to show people are really, alas, hypocrites. To achieve this, they need to intrude into people's privacy, i.e., the google search subpoena. Pure genius.

Granted, defense has still many bars to hurdle. For example, how to pick the controlling "common terms"? How to compare the popularity of sexually explicit searches versus the more benign searches? Do you aggregate them? “Orgy” or "group sex" may be the top search hit, at the same time a very small percentage of all other guilt-free hits. Then you have to worry about the distribution of hits among residents to know how representative of a community those hits are.

Chinese internet users are certainly no strangers to hypocrisy and internet, they long understand the difference in behavior when anonymously online - the so-called internet mob mentality - and offline. But notes to Chinese Fans, The U.S. is a far more conservative, if you wish, country than China, socially or legally. Such a case while may provide occasional boon to police coffer would most likely be ignored in China. And we would lose chance to see such ingenious defense. Maybe the crusaders should pay more attention to google to get the real scoop.

Watch out. Google will shred your hypocrisy.

The tenuous online relationship

2008-06-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

It is said that internet gives us unprecedented power to reach out to other people. Products like Twitter works to strengthen our real life relationships. But it doesn't make our relationships any easier, online or not, especially between a man and a woman.

A while ago, there was an interesting article, exposed on NYT. The writer, reflected her life online and offline working as an online antagonist digging entertainment dirt. It reminds me of another story I have heard. To protect the privacy, I'll omit their names.

He and she met when they volunteered to manage an online group and their bulletin. She was the first to notice him and brought him into the fold. So naturally they were close. They worked together with a handful of other people, identifying the issues, finding out the actual situation, communicating with local activists, writing lead articles, etc. Much was needed to be sorted out of the once chaotic situation, and instant messaging became their best friend amongst back and forth discussions. For a while, they communicated a lot, mostly within the group, but sometimes privately also. Besides the online chore, they would discussed random things like films, jobs, or even fashion occasionally. Since they were worlds apart, she's in Australia and he's in America, his day was her night, he would end up sometime having to urge her to go sleep if it was getting too late. There seemed to be emotional bonding between them beyond being colleagues.

Truth be told, it was never easy in managing the right relationship, especially juggling between different sexes, even on the internet. He soon quits the volunteering work, he was tiring out. However, the jovial stretched on, if only by momentum. They continued to hang out, around forums, by messaging. It looked like the bond would outlast the shared passion, until...

As they said, all good things must come to an end. It was a valentines day. She asked him what he world gave her for comfort, virtual or real. That made him grumble just a bit. Before that, he had received an email letter from her, professing her fondness of him, to which he politely deflected. You can probably chalk it up to cultural differences. Americans take holidays like valentines day a bit more seriously of its cultural content, choosing their gifts or message selectively, while Chinese tend to take western holidays more as an excuse to celebrate or relate. She probably didn't mean to pressure, nevertheless he felt the uneasiness. Or you can theorize the gender difference, girls just want to have fun while boys are more sensitive about it. In any case, he felt things needs to be taken a different direction.

he became more careful in interacting with her, more choicy in his words, and distancing himself a bit, hoping senses would come around. In reaction, she spent more time lurking, seldom seen around. Only if togetherness wouldn't be out-weighted by foolishness. Finally it comes the day she couldn't bear, and decided to disappear from their online circle...

Internet is a dynamic new place to meet with people, sometimes even getting emotionally connected. But, as quickly, that connection could be gone, just a mouse click, or network outage away. Online relationships, as in the story I tell, can be not only tenuous, but also no less stressful. It can create emotional drainage of its own, as exposed has shown. The closeness we share online has a thinner veil. It depends more on verbal interactions and exchanges of ideas. It is ripe for misunderstanding also. After all, without additional information from facial expressions - the warm eyes, the tightening lips, the knowing smiles - language doesn't come close to fully express ourselves. And when real passion develops, there is always the anguish of unreachability. When that cartoon figure in your chat opens its arms across the screen, do you feel the warmth? or some you seriously want to smash your computer for the anguish?

The cyber world poses new questions. The persons behind the virtual world are actually real, how to deal with emotions experienced through virtual world connection? Do you run your online world as a parallel universe, separating it with your offline world, or do you let the two intertwine, encroaching into each other.

Then it comes the question, is the delicacy of online relationships really that much different from those of offline? They are subject to the same prejudices, misunderstandings, different attitudes. Take romantic relationships, some grow love out of psychological whim, others regard it as everlasting passion, and we are all wired with different signal and receptive systems. I'm not sure he and she would have reacted differently were they in a real life situation. It may as well what they see out of a healthy friendship doomed their online rapport.

What makes online relationship seemingly more tenuous, I think, is the tendency of superficiality. We don't usually seek to know each other, or feel comfortable enough to be known, very well in the online world. Even there, the difference isn't huge. Isn't our daily interactions getting more cursory as we getting busier and busier? Ultimately, it's just the pressure and nuisance of relationships., sometimes too close for comfort, other times too flimsy for durance.

He told me he still looked up her webblogs now and then. She probably did the same.

More pictures of Namibia

2008-06-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

纳米比亚曾经是德国殖民地，但她的官方语言却不是德语，而是英语和非洲语。也许是想尽早摆脱殖民阴影的原因。可是由于教育跟不上，普通民众却很少有人会讲英语。

纳米比亚幅员辽阔，人口相对很少。大片大片的庄园，之间无法建立有效的经济联系。庄园主很多都是德国人，本地黑人则大多是打下手。因为文化知识的缺乏，他们也无法参与庄园里高级一点的管理工作。庄园生活虽然工资低微但能节省许多城市生活的费用。纳米比亚虽然不富有，生活费用却并不低廉。很多生活用品价格和中国美国没有很大区别。和中北非相比，这里起码没有战争。

从作为一个游客的观察角度，纳米比亚的经济应该还很是很依赖德国。大批的游客都是来自德国和欧洲，很多庄园顺带作游客生意，政府对于德国游客也有额外的优惠规定。好一点的餐馆里就餐的绝大多数都是本地和来自欧洲的白人，乍一看几乎不相信到了非洲，黑人只有服务生才能看到。倒是麦当劳里大多是本地黑人。非洲人大概有乐天的天性，生活并没有让他们失却乐观，他们会三五成群围聚在建筑物边歌唱。

如果中国当初一直沿着二战前的轨迹走下去，纳米比亚的这些现状会不会也是中国的现状? 从绝对来说应该不会，因为中国人向来重视教育，而且人多。但从相对来说，应该也会有这种依赖性的尴尬。又，听说美国开始对中国游客开放。当他们带着照相机和升值的人民币来的时候，是传统地“到此一游”还是会看到更多的生活？

Windfall time

2008-06-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's not autumn yet, but don't tell the Big Oil. The war in Iraq is finally paying some dividends, for some.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

Key words: no-bid, future contract. Western big oil companies regain control over Iraqi oil field, mission accomplished. When will it be reflected in the pump price is another matter. The price: trillions of government spending and a couple thousand young man's life.

In the other news, China raises gas price today by about $0.6 a gallon, bringing it closer to the international price. The wealthy on the coastal regions are sure to complain, but the old price surely wasn't sustainable. In a way, China, given its world manufacturer status, was subsidizing the whole world. What it will entail on the inflation front is interesting to keep eyes on.

Stumble upon: One of the best analysis on China I read recently

穿着雨靴的小猪 The mud-phobia piglet gets her boot

2008-06-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

看了这篇新闻，心中充满对细心的小猪主人的好感。
美丽的名字。墨绿色的小雨靴。有性格的猪宝宝。

英国约克郡一头名叫“灰姑娘”的小猪可能是世界上第一头患有洁癖症的小猪，自出生后，它一直不肯和兄弟姐妹一起在泥巴中玩耍。直到近日主人为它定做了4只小靴子，它才终于肯和泥巴亲近。

“灰姑娘”自出生后一直拒绝在泥巴中玩耍，后经兽医诊断，这头小猪患有“不洁恐怖”的疾病——一种害怕泥土的恐惧症。这也是迄今为止人类发现的第一头害怕泥巴的猪。

“灰姑娘”的主人黛比表示：“这是我见到的最奇异的事情。这批小猪出生后不久，都纷纷跑向泥巴中玩耍，只有‘灰姑娘’静静地呆在猪圈边，望着远处的泥巴浑身发抖。起初我们以为它只是不愿意离开猪圈或者母亲，后来才发现，只要将它放到没有泥巴的地方，它就显得非常高兴。”

近日，主人用4个绿色的橡胶笔筒给“灰姑娘”量身定做了4只精美合脚的小靴子。有了靴子的保护，现在“灰姑娘”也愿意在泥巴中走一走了。

story

Is grass greener on the other side?

2008-06-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

For a new documentary comparing education in India, China and America, yes seems to be the answer to the question. The film, Two Million Minutes, has drawn mixed reactions from academics.

I am not experts. But having experienced both, I have opinions of my own. If education is a pyramid, American education is loosely plowed at bottom but shining on the top, while Chinese education is rigid on the bottom but petered out at the top.

Before college, Chinese students works far more harder than American counterparts, often to an unnecessarily daunting level. For Americans, only those "nerdy" types concentrate a lot on studying before college, but the rope begins to tighten up in the college. For Chinese, much of the work is done before college, so college is a time to "have a life" besides studying, although job competition makes their life relatively harder than it used to be. At the post-graduate level, such as Ph.D., the rigorousness of Chinese program is no competition to the American. Also, Chinese education is comparatively more goal oriented while American education emphasizes more on the ability to learn.

I had seen some American business graduate student having no slightest clue what square root is, which would be unthinkable to a Chinese - he would have had no opportunity of graduate education in China. But I guess that student finished up his education and got through life just fine, by putting in continuous work. Whatever the route it takes, that seems to be the point of education.

You can watch the youtube trailer here.

Clapping

2008-06-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Two relatively old news: One, Beijing Olympic committee issued clapping guide of Olympic cheers; Two, in the 110 hurdle of Goodwill games, clapping was very sporadic when an athlete from an African country was introduced and he raised his hands to gesture.

Yes, both are a bit hard to get used to, but both are aspects of China. And they are related in understanding the colloquial "why do they do that?".

Talking about clapping, I'm glad no one clapped at the end of showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, including a battalion of kids in the theater. It would have made me feel aged.

I was a huge Indy fan, having watched all Indy movies, many twice. I'm not sure how it got 77% percent rotten. All that action and the plot failed to engage me, to a point I began to wonder about why they kept a silly posture striding two moving vehicles through the Amazon, wasn't it easier just to swirl the car to shake the enemy off? or how come Indy and his troop survived three trips over the waterfall without a bruise. I know, it's a cardinal sin of watching an action movie, but that can't be all my fault, can it? Is that because Harrison Ford seemed to have lost his joie de vivre, or because I'm getting too old for this? Probably both.

Let's talk some Economics

2008-06-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

Let's talk some economics, since there seems no escaping for that.

I find Economist online, my favorite news magazine is now totally open and free. There's no longer subscriber-only content. But my Nike shoes nevertheless stays about the same price. While we marvel the free contents online, let's not forget they are not actually costless. It's advertising from the likes of Nike and the price I pay for it keep the web world, including this blog service from google, free.

My brother, who was recently visiting the U.S. told me everything here is so cheap. Well, maybe not his eat-out bills. And he was so mad at the Bank of China for balancing out his dollar credit prematurely. That is of cause due to the continuing slide of dollar against most major currencies including RMB. For Americans, the concern is mostly focused on $135 a barrel crude and $4 a gallon gasoline. These things are more related than you probably think, and U.S. and China are trying to sort it out. (You can also be sure that China will be firm on the Darfur issue. Subsidy and not paying for the market price keep the gas price in China at $2.5 a gallon.)

Aside from the often mentioned demand shock from emerging markets like China, at least part of the reason of the expensive oil is the depreciating dollar. It reflects the diminishing purchasing power of the currency. The exchange rate, as they like to say, is fundamentally a "money phenomenon". The fed has issued billions of new dollars just to cover the sub-ordinate market crisis. Over the last eight years, the American economic theme was about spending - tax cuts, financing the war, etc. Here, China is also complicit. In that economic arrangement, China's huge trade surplus against the U.S. partly made the spending and the housing market bubble possible. That may be the reason why the U.S. has never serious take any economic action against China - sanction or tax slap - despite the repeated threat. Under normal circumstances, a country is willing to run continuous surplus this lend money to the other country because it expects the future growth of the foreign country will be higher than its own. However, the expectation never comes to fruition, it turns out to be the housing bubble. Or, should be say it is pushed out to the more distant future? Under the current U.S.-China exchange rate system, the fed is the real central bank, both in the U.S. and China. China running continuous surplus is no different than farmers in Wyoming provide New Yorkers with beef and lend them the sales money for them to play in the stock market.

So, will China or should China continue to appreciate its currency? It's a complicated question to answer. Chinese dollar reserver is at the record high, but exports has already signs of slowing down. And China has huge appetite for growth due to its structural problems. Americans multinationals are not doing too bad amid China growth either. For an extreme example, Chinese banks are said to be among the worst managed banks in the world, so why can Banks of America reap billions of profits from its minority stakes in Chinese banks, big enough to cover its sub-prime loss? The answer can only be growth. If China allows RMB to further appreciate much, the growth will further slow down, and the American debt Chinese own will certainly worth less. (Chinese system is equivalent to letting the government manage all foreign exchanges for you.) The only decent choices for China would then be, like the Japanese used to do, to use the new purchasing power to purchase American assets and American technology, both of which American government is wary of. On the other hand, if China stick mostly to the current peg, it runs the risk of importing inflation, especially form hot money. The advantage of an authoritarian government is that China has the apparatus to control capital flow and limit credits, to a degree. The reverse ratio has been increase several times recently.

So, there's a lot to tango with. My brother will continue to ponder how much he'll lose when he has to convert dollar back to Yuan. And I tell him not to worry too much. At least, it's a better problem to deal with than the $4 gas price. Oh, and don't expect China will hike the gas price dramatically either.

范跑跑和性解放

2008-06-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

[Story of Runner Fan renewed public rumination about moral and morality in China. Moral principals are not to force somebody on, but acceptable public morality is fundamental to a healthy society, and ... changing over time. Sex revolution wouldn't truly be possible without the possibility of birth-control, which makes sexual liberalization comparatively innocuous to the social structure. Technology advancement is the ultimate force to set man truly free. ]

性解放是如何形成的？

近来范跑跑(story in Telegraph)的话题再次热门。对于范本人实在犯不着多废笔墨评价，我脑子里一闪而过的，是性解放如何成为可能的？

中国人对于道德特别敏感，因为历史上道德和私权利的分配的关系，一些私权利被道德的规范压抑而难以喘气。所以卫道士一词虽然由西方反天主教而出，在中国则更为流行。孔子的仁字（二个以上的人）说的比道德(moral)清楚, 仁义道德是社会性的。然而从相对关系来说，道德其实又可以分为公的道德和私的道德。反对卫道士真正反对的，是私的道德。比如尊老爱幼，属于公的道德，是社会健康的基础，即需要提倡的。再如沉迷酒色在家看A片，属于私的道德，现已没人把这台当回事。

现在我们就可以来看性解放如何成为可能的问题。性之人欲追求是本能的，但真正的性解放其实是在避孕成为可能以后，不管是东方西方都是如此。避孕之成为可能让性和生育有效分开，也就解开了因此而带来的家庭社会问题。性道德从相对公的领域退到相对私的领域。并不是说性解放之后就没有家庭社会问题了，而是避孕手段从统计上让它不会对社会机制造成大规模的破坏。再往绝了说，暴食(glutton)在以前基督教义属于七宗罪之一，现在没人提了，为什么？答案很显然，物产之丰富让个人暴食行为无法对社会产生大的影响。交通的进步也让“父母在，不远行”失去了意义。等等。是技术进步和发达为人类摆脱“道德”约束而走向"自由”提供了条件。如果有一天，小孩生出来就不脆弱，老人也于壮年退化不多，甚至"尊老爱幼"也会退到私的道德里。不过我很怀疑追求自由的范跑跑能不能想到这一层。

以前因为其他原因有写过几个字，是说道德不是用来约束别人的，是用来约束自己的。但那个说的是道德标准的可执行性，enforceability, 的问题。也就是反卫道者们整天叫嚷的不要用道德杀人的问题。这并不是说没有公认的道德，就要反道德。鄙视有利社会健康。而讲道德则必须讲宽恕，于西方宗教于儒教皆如事。

附：道德一致性和自我约束

关于道德，西方人喜欢说道德一致性，moral consistency。也不新鲜。孔老人家就说过，己所不欲，勿施于人。圣经里也有Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone。

说到底，道德不是用来约束别人的。道德是用来约束自己的。我觉得我比你有道德所以我要骂你教训你的用于别人的道德观，很快会碰到一个问题，谁来管管别人道德的人的道德，谁成为最终的仲裁者。所以西方人的解决办法是上帝，上帝会惩罚你的。中国人以前是皇帝裁决。但皇帝也可能是昏君，没有最终权，上面还有天。造反的大都打着替天行道的旗号。越过道德范畴有法。圣贤书里有很多道德，但都是用来规范自己的。用来规范讽刺嘲笑别人的。。。没有。道德不是用来规范自己而是用来规范别人必然带来混乱。

中国民间有种很有趣的约定俗成。一个人再不怎么样，但如果不相干的你没事跑他面前宣道加开骂，很可能受当面一拳，也没什么人同情。即使进了局子也没见得就能“正义得张”。条子会说，你骂人家在先。这和西方不同，西方动口和动手的界限更明确些。就是说，社会没有给个人道德仲裁的权力。我们民间对道德一致性的理解还是深刻的。

写几个字

2008-06-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

“你会不会突然觉得一个地方,或许一个人对你而言失去意义了”?
很久很久以前你对偶说
直到最近偶才明白这句话的意思
也发现这是一句放之四海而皆准的句子

从小到大不习惯太直白表达自己
只是想告诉你有个地方偶也从不曾忘记
那些夜半归来匆匆冲个凉后写就的记忆
那些白天夜晚留下的温暖
泡面电影偷来的新曲...

很多人都爬过山见过海
每个人的感受也都是不同
你感觉到偶体会出
留在心中不落痕迹也好
从开始到今后一直记得也好
曾经共鸣的那一刻山知道海知道
你和偶知道就好

世界可以很荒诞敏感善良却难得
《呼啸山庄》说你我就是同一块面料上撕下来的两块布
又或者偶们压根就是同路

Eats, Drawings, and Denominations

2008-06-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

I had General Tao's Chicken(左宗棠鸡) for lunch. And I got my hands on, finally, some Sticky Rice Bun(粽子)- which is said to be related with Qu Yuan - yesterday.

It reminds me how many Chinese dishes are said to be related - innovated by or made famous - with famous names. We have Dongpo Pork and West Lake Sweet and Sour Fish(西湖醋鱼), of which recipes are said to be invented by the Song poet Su Dongpo according to The Gay Genius. Of more recent genre, you can always point to Chairman Mao's Red-Braised Pork(毛式红烧肉). Infamous persons made their names to the food table too; Chinese cruller，also known as the more original name You Char Kway in Singapore, is originated from Infamy. Even Spinach and Toufu Soup has this legendary story of QianLong Emperor.

Is that because Chinese people like to practice romanticism on dishes, or they are naturally good in marketing? Whatever the reason, you better make your name onto the food table if you want to ensure yourself a place in the Chinese history!

Now I'm sitting here trying hard to figure out a similarly storied "western" dish from my daily manu - New York Steak, Alfredo Meatball, Fried Mahi-Mahi, etc. - I can't think of any, yet. They are blend, but straight forward. If you have any idea, please let me know.

[update: Chicken Without Sexual Life is now off the menu. Beijing suggests English translation of Chinese dishes for Olympics]

On the left is an interesting video produced by DanWei about graffiti art in China. I have to say, while I appreciate the diversity, I'm not impressed. Most of those works I see in the video, the style, the lettering, aren''t that different from the African American graffiti art. Why would I want to see emulations from hip-hopping Chinese kids when they are as if straight from New York City, just not as "street" and authentic? Now that if they have distinct Chinese flavor to put up as street mural, it would earn more respect, at least from me.

In other news, some Chinese "scholars", mostly media people really, are calling for putting ancient heroes on the money. Times, in its usual clueless-ness, is reporting it as if the change is imminent, and totally misses the political flavor in the proposal. Truthfully speaking, I have no definite stance on the issue. And I doubt anybody has real idea how some of those ancient figures really look like aside from imaginative depictions. My issue with those put forth the proposal is that they call themselves "scholars". Since when are media personalities qualified as scholars? I know the term intellectual is now cheap, but is it that cheap? Well, here are some fascinating photos of bank notes in Chinese history.

考觉悟

2008-06-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

想考高分吗？想考高分就必须明白这个道理。

记得某年的高考作文题，说一个年轻人背了7个背囊，里面分别是——美貌、金钱、荣誉、机敏、才学、健康和诚信。年轻人背着这7个背囊过河，到了河中央，风浪迭起，船工跟年轻人说必须丢掉一个才能顺利过去，这可怜的年轻人犹豫再三就把“诚信”丢掉了...考题是根据这个故事写一篇文章。后来偶看了很多刊登出来的高考满分作文，都是觉悟一流，大谈“诚信”如何重要，丢掉诚信就丢掉了人生，丢掉了做人的根本。

偶就没有看到一篇文章说世界上没有十全十美的事情，即使这个年轻人在过人生的第一条河流的时候，丢掉了诚信，他将来也有可能浪子回头金不换。偶尔丢一次诚信怎么了?谁一生中还没说过一次违心的话做过一件违心的事啊！再说你怎么知道这“违心”背后的目的不是正确的终点？没准儿有的同学边考试边想：现在偶就在做着一件失去诚信的违心事儿，明明不想这样写作文，可为了上大学这个正确的目的，只好牺牲掉诚信啦。不过偶知道一定没人敢去抬这个杠，考生们也许不知道怎么写出高分作文来，但一定知道以偶这种思路，就算笔下生花也得不到高分。因为偶滴觉悟太低。

一篇好文章，首先是脑子里有idea，然后用language表述出来就好了。高考作文的出题者偏偏不鼓励思考的活跃而去要求觉悟的高低。比如一位喜欢思考的同学会想：不如把美貌丢掉算了，反正现在还可以整容嘛！又或者利用自己的机敏才学一个也不丢滴过河，如果在途中船工要求自己一再放弃自己拥有的东西怎么办？自己人生中的取舍真的需要他人的评判？能这样写吗？不能，谁让你权衡利弊左右兼顾了？真正的高觉悟是“不加思索”。

最重要的觉悟问题没有异议之后，再加上课堂之上老师教会的写作“技能”，基本上一篇新八股就诞生了。排比句、名人名言、甭管真的假的感人肺腑的事例，结合自身谈点体会，说些言不由衷的话，稀里糊涂先把自己感动了。比如说，当作文主题是“助人为乐”的时候，就来个不禁要问“难道自私自利是应该提倡的吗？”而当作文主题是“与人为善”的时候，就可以把“不禁要问”稍加修改，改成“难道人与人之间不应该多一些温暖吗？”这种套路也算是屡试不爽啦。

有时就想，写文章的真正意义是什么？它应该是作者表达对事物理解的一种能力。是一个人通过文字和对周围世界的观察感悟力来表达自身的感受。而一个没有这种能力的人却完全可以通过“较高的觉悟”和“精湛的技术”来获取高分，这真真是一种悲哀。

Holiday, History, and What do we learn

2008-06-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

Its Dragon-Boat Festival day, and I'm reading up on history of Song dynasty.

The day, also called Duan Wu, is to commemorate the great romantic poet, Qu Yuan, who drowned himself when his State was conquered by the Qin the Emperor I. In an attempt of cultural revival, the Chinese government has made the day a national holiday. It's rather a curious choice for me, since I remember when I was little, not much celebration was on other than eating wrapped rice bun, comparing to other traditional holidays. I saw more dragon boat race in America than in China. So, maybe that's another export-reimport thing.

Talking about cultural revival, don't be surprise if you see two Chinese argue passionately over which dynasty was the best, the strongest. Was that Tang when the empire had reach as far as the central Asia? Was that Song when a rich civil society was at its peak? Or was that Ming when governing cabinet was nearly as modern as the current British installment? You won't find short of people who wish to be teleported back to ancient China as well. It can all get a bit silly sometime, but people are reading up history, often not content in relying on the official version taught in the school. It helps anchoring the value system and finding the roots in this ever globalized world.

Among those revivals, various ideas of political Confucianism are also proposed. But to my disappointment, most of them don't know what they are talking about, and they don't go beyond what was understood hundreds years ago.

Let's get this straight first, what best describe the current Chinese political system? IMO, it should be authoritarian meritocracy. At the core, it is not much different from the system that was practices in Confucius China hundreds years ago. As an interesting side-note, the concept of middle-class society (小康社会）was an ancient Confucius concept also: tend to their own parents, son their own son, work hard for selves (各亲其亲，各子其子，货力为己). It was in contrast to the Great Unity (大同） concept: tend to not only own parents, son not only own son(不独亲其亲，不独子其子).

However, Confucianism and democracy - if not American style - isn't mutually exclusive. A related interesting article from Guardian states that the Chinese authority survives by buying off the middle-class. It sees through the typical Western "communist" lens, rather than seeing the power structure as a morphing authoritarian meritocracy. It should also be noted that "buying off the middle-class" is exactly how Western style democracy works.

Some of the challenges that faced Song administrators also face todays Chinese power-that-be. For example, how to guarantee smooth power transition? How to govern efficiently locally and how best deal with the central government's relationship with the local's.

Of particular interest to me, is the role of information in structure design. In the recent earthquakes, we have seen how easily rumors arise, how difficult it is to verify and root it out. Correct information is also central to the governing of an authoritarian meritocracy. In Song dynasty, officials fortunes rose and fell along with difficult-to-verify reprimands (谏), especially for those in the remote areas. Modern communication makes the top-down management more efficient, but it still has severe limitations. So, local monitoring, or democracy if you want to put it, is most useful and urgent on the local level. And it should enhance the governing tremendously. Then there are rule of law, transparency, accountability, and balancing of power, and all that, if it ever comes to fruition.

[update: A diversified China with strong local content is also on full display with the new argument over the origin of Dragon-Boat Festival. Su Zhou, city of the ancient Wu decent, recently claims that the festival is originated from commemorating Wu Zixue, a famous general in the ancient state of Wu.]

As the man who is to be honored on this holiday said: The road is long and winding, We'll seek up and down(路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索).

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
ps: Some funny comment on the internet about Qu Quan's poem, LiSao(离骚）.

I bow to Qu Yuan. It's so long, I can never memorize this before I die.
我这辈子死之前肯定背不出来
- by a student
How many xi(兮）is it there in the poem? Inserting many xi(兮）must be a way to get more publishing fee by ancient people - by a random writer.
屈原多写几个兮多挣几个稿费

认识一个人

2008-06-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

认识一个人很久，他就要来

也许就在一艘飞驰的龙舟之上端坐，大声吟唱：
路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索

也许会选择黄昏，一路踏歌
踽踽而来
依旧忧愤幽思风逸缠绵

我在门上做了记号
你知道，那是艾草
雄黄酒早已备好，而怀念
刚刚包就，捆扎之前
多放了一粒红枣

遥远的秭归
遥远的汨罗江
遥远的绝望和悲愤
人群中，一个人以流放的方式
开始一首比《离骚》还长的诗

认识一个人很久，他就要来
这是一个不会更改的约定

我就坐在自己的内心等
也许不会久留
随性而来
随性而去

清静凛冽的女子

2008-06-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

找不到作者出处，里面有几句还蛮喜欢。
---------------------------
要作这样一个女子。
面若桃花。心深似海。冷暖自知。真诚善良。
触觉敏锐。情感丰富。坚韧独立。缱绻决绝。

坚持读书。写字。观影。听歌。旅行。上网。
有时唱歌。打扫。烹饪。打扮。约会。狂欢。

也许总是缺乏安全感不知所措。也许某时落拓不羁到有点放肆。
也许时常自虐不爱惜自己。也许一直有严重的恋物癖。
也许习惯了琐碎的小自恋。也许经常深陷疯狂的恋情。

爱的时候不顾一切全情投入致死纠缠不依不饶。甜美而乖戾。
不爱的时候决绝离开不拖不欠冷静清醒。残酷而寂静。

就要成为这样一个女子。
绮丽无以为继。性情真实自然。
灵气浑然天成。气质与众不同。
纯粹剔透而不索然无味。敏感丰富而不复杂世故。

Super Over

2008-06-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

It's bad enough your opponent secures and self-pronounces nomination on the day you win the contest in the last race, South Dakota; it's worse that candidate in the other part dismisses you even before you concede - is there a more boring politician than John Maccain? He doesn't even provide verbal mishaps like Bush; it must be worst feeling you have to deliver a speech as if you have won and are still possible to win.

It's not easy being Hillary. It's difficult to assess the actual policy content by stomp speeches. They are all promises and slogans, and Bush is pounded like a ragdoll left and right. But best speaker goes to Obama. Do you hear he even mentions "this is time...we begin to heal our planet"? Wow. Super over.

Do we need religion?

2008-06-02T17:48:00.000-07:00

He stopped me when I was walking past CVS, a bible sticking out in his hand. That was last Sunday.

With my usual defense to the religious patronizers - I believe everyone has had his share of encounter with those Later Day Saints, I offered that I was a Buddhist. It usually did the trick, with politeness. But he didn't budge. Drawing out a picture of Jesus Christ - does anyone actually know how Jesus actually look like by the way, other than the pictures conjured up by medieval painters? - he said to me:"this man will take care of your pains and send you to heaven if you repent your sins and switch faith to him." I was about to engage him with some discussion about merits and dogmata in Christian faith - I was in good and easy mood. Then he followed:"Where are you from?" Ah-ha, was that why I didn't tell him to get the fuck out of my face?

I walked away, without telling him I probably knew more about Bible then he did.

Do we need religion? It's a complicated question. I'll offer the experience of a late Chinese intellectual as an example. Lin Yu-Tang, one of the best known Chinese bilingual author, was brought up as a Catholic, as many of the kids from wealthy families were at that time. He was devoted, and he attended St Johns in Shanghai, a catholic university. At St Johns though, he rebelled against the religion as he furthered his education. He remained an atheist throughout his years in Germany and the U.S. When he got real old, he reverted back into Catholic. In his words, it was not that Christianity was the religion to be, rather, it gave him peace of mind.

My view would be similar to Dr Lin's. An intellectual man can certainly live without religion. He can still has faith, in truth and in the right thing to do; and there are plenty of spirituality around without converting to specific religion. But it would be harder for him to keep all the balance. Religion, in a way, is a cop-out.

It certainly doesn't help the faith when religion constantly try to reinvent itself, having Vatican telling you what new deadly sin you should feel guilty about. Greed may not be a sin after all in Catholics' struggle to stay relevant - if you listen to them.

找到一本睡前书

2008-06-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

有趣的制造

这应该是男人们喜欢的一本书。但是怎么办？一看到目录：“牛仔裤口红指甲油巧克力干酪酸辣酱”就喜欢的不得了。
毋庸置疑，怀疑的事偶常做，但最缺的就是科学探索精神。完全是好奇心使然，让偶翻开这本关于科学制造的书。这些对科学定义的简单描述和动手时刻的种种细节让偶这科盲从另一种角度了解周围熟悉的事物。。比如偶知道了指甲油从头到尾整个的制造过程都要防止严重的爆炸（原谅偶的无知，在此之前从未想象）。口红在制作过程中如果表面不够光滑就需要工人用抹刀二次加工（有点晕哦）。
也许对热爱科学的人来说书里描写的未必精准（其实偶觉得已经够准了），不过用来吸引偶这样的人已经足够了。
所以偶把它安排到睡前看，有点好玩，有点感兴趣，然后在无数科学术语和定义的描述中呼呼入睡:-)

也是一种表达方式

2008-06-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

据说这个是把一个英文单词用汉字的方式表达。偶已经琢磨了半天，可是谁能告诉偶这汉字念什么？

The edge of Heaven

2008-06-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

This is probably the best film I've seen in at least 3 months.

-"Do you do French?" he asked her.
-"French, Italian, Greek, I'll do it international for you," she replies.
And a few days after:
-"I'm looking for a woman to live with. I would pay as much as you earn here. In return, you only sleep with me. Agreed?"
- "Have you fallen for me, old man?"

With that, the story begins.

But I mislead you. The film isn't mostly about them, a brash German old man and a prostitute from Turkey. The story evolves around three single parent families. Ali the old man accidentally kills Yeter, which led his son, Nejat travels back to Istanbul to find her daughter in order to help her. Ayten, the daughter, is in Turkish resistance group. She befriends and beds Lotte (yes, it's girl-girl), with her predatory charm, when crossing the border to Germany in her failed attempt of seeking asylum. Lotte tries all she could, even defying her mom's admonishment, to help Ayten after she is send back to Turkey and prison, only to be killed by freakish violence. Susanne, Lotte's mom, after reading Lotte's dairy decides to take on her daughter's mission of freeing Ayten... It takes tremendous story-telling skill to weave all this convoluted lines together with controlled pace.

And if you think I am telling too much spoilers, worry not. The film is so compelling that it urges you to watch on even if you already know the plot. In fact, the writer and director is confident enough that he pronounces the outcomes of characters' fate with captions before each segment.

I didn't intentional mislead you though. One of the merit of the film is that it depicts life, not just sells cheap emotions and exhorts values with coincidences. Although it's about tragedy and how people deal with it, it has plenty of light-hearted moments. It doesn't try to weight you down. It doesn't make the film less power. The scene where Susanne cries for the loss of her daughter in a hotel room just shatters your heart. Each character is lively, having faults of their own, which makes the virtues in their action more convincing.

The generational relationship is at the center of the issues covered. It also touches on the political reality of Turkey and Germany in the dawn of Turkey's admittance into the European Union. But most importantly, this film is about forgiveness and the power of love comes with it: Susanne's forgiveness towards Ayten, Nejat's forgiveness towards his father. With Nejat's telling of Koran story of Abraham and Issac, you realize forgiveness is the passage to the edge of heaven.

- "Only God is entitled to solitude."
- "Bravo."

中文版

文字背后

2008-06-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

记得有一阵特别无聊。签名上写：包。
一会有人来问：你饿了？第二个说：对，偶也喜欢包容看待一切。
第三个上来就说：新败？发上来看看…

面对这简单的字，再熟悉的人也还要去猜测；
更何况那些不熟悉的人和那些不熟悉的字
往往对方用不熟悉的文法表达偶用不熟悉的逻辑猜测

甚至有些自己曾经写下的字，
事后再怎么回忆都想不太起当初的心情
唯有按照自己思考时惯用的逻辑
就好像是照着今天走过的路线
去猜想雨伞最有可能忘在哪个角落那样
找回自己当初最有可能的原因
于是那个谜一般的文字的生命得以延续

有时就想：幸亏有文字这样的东西存在，
让自己可以保存记忆。让偶们可以交流。甚至可以代表语言所不能触及的情感。
所以当文字也无法说清之时偶不知道除了困惑还有什么
这时对文字的理解有强烈的欲望
嗯就是用所谓的想像和洞悉吧
去更深的猜测背后的文字之手

只是网络之上你还能要求更多吗？
偶喜欢的PP
偶喜欢的文字
偶喜欢的人的文字和背后的心意

当一个人在意着一个字的程度和深度时
可有办法让偶们寻着来时的路
找到上一次砰然心动的路口吗？

Pictures from Namibia

2008-05-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

To June the 1st. 给六一儿童节

Top 10 things you want to do to uncontacted Indians

2008-05-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

AP reports that uncontacted Amazon Indian tribe, one of the last uncontacted, is discovered in Brazil. Picture left shows them try to fire at plane with, gasp, arrows and bows. (More detailed story and larger pictures in daily mail)

Not to let David Letterman monopolize the top 10 list, let's count your top 10 things want to do the tribesman. Here's some I come up with:

Show them a picture of a beard man, tell them this man, Jesus, saves them, or they would go to hell. If they don't know what hell is, in all likelihood, show them a picture of Manhattan or some other places.
Ask them to send an athlete to Olympics to be represented. Oh, wait, they are represented by Brazil.
Lecture them about democracy and human rights. They don't know that, do they?
Give them some popcorns in exchange for them to sign some papers - about their land rights. Finger prints will suffice.
Drop some GPS device on them to track their activities. Wait, I'm afraid someone will actually do this. Sad.
Parachute yourself into their habitat, so you can claim yourself as their God.
Open a Macdonald next to them. Free international trade and consumerism must prevail.

Ok, I realize that's not ten yet, but feel free to add your own.

Mirror world

2008-05-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Remember "don't be so CNN" was all the rage? That was not a long time ago.

CCTV, known as China Central TV in China, is under intense scrutiny recently in revelation with the earthquake coverage. Allegedly CCTV cut off camera in a news conference when questions are raised about corruption and punishment of shoddy buildings.

For British though, CCTV is commonly referring to the Close Circuit TV. maybe the British should lend China's CCTV that name, for free, to better reflect its operations.

But hold on, free press of the West shouldn't be too proud either. CNN's Yellin, in response to Scott McClellan's White House memoir, reveals that news executives actively pushed her not do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration.

The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings. - Yellin

So whether in China or in the freer U.S., the intentions to control message, from power-that-be, are the same. The U.S. being a more sophisticated society, makes it less obvious.

* The CCTV camera is in Trafalgar Square, London

Crazy English? Or Crazy education system?

2008-05-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

To follow up my post about Chinglish, I've notice an article about Crazy English, which is providing English training for the Olympics.

Crazy English? How come I've never heard of that? Even though I've got perfect score on TOEFL back then (that's wasn't difficult, I prepared for a week), and judging by the years of its operation I should have known of.

If we don't have patience to read through the whole article, you are not missing much. The teaching approach was mainly of motivating and making students shout out loud in English and pleasing crowd with stupid banters like “One-sixth of the world’s population speaks Chinese. Why are we studying English? Because we pity them for not being able to speak Chinese!” by its Oprah-going-crazy style leader.

I remember days when we tuned in to BBC news lying in our bed after lights-out in our college days. Back then, English films and books weren't widely available in China as today. We would jam into a hall watching a tiny overhead TV to watch God Father or a room with view. We would rely on English rare visits by visiting professors and self-formed informal groups to practice speaking. We learned English just fine.

Now, English material is as readily available as ever. Yet you see gimmickry program like Crazy English, from which I'm not even sure proper English can be learned, gets more popular. It probably just shows that education market is huge in China, you are destined to get rich even if you can only manage to get a very small slice out of the state-controlled system.

Maybe it's not Crazy English, it's China's crazy education system that has failed. As for the Olympics, doesn't it take some of the foreign mystiques away if everyone in Beijing speaks good English?

Ingenious Chinglish

2008-05-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

just when I think China nowadays are more imitative than creative, something always comes along to prove me wrong. It turns out, the young Chinese are not only reassembling their economy and culture, they've extended their innovative ambition to the English language.

A new English word is coined by young Chinese. Drunbility, which translates into 装逼 in Chinese (dirty and offensive, be aware) urban slang, means roughly insincere, pretentious and hypocritical rolled into one. The first part of the word rhymes phonetically with the Chinese slang, and -lity is used to complete the word as a descriptive noun.

The ironically impressive part is exactly the coinage in English. Since many in China see the overdose of the use of English in everyday conversations by new elite, mixing English words in between, as one form of pretentiousness, using English to coin the word achieves to highlight just that.

Thou the divine language conqueror, I bow to thy genius-ness.
(In casual conversations, I may not be able to string together a complete sentence in Chinese without mixing some English, it's because the English words come up quicker for me, Please spare me.)

男人不爱写作的女人

2008-05-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

不翻不知道，原来有这么多人喜欢把萧红跟张爱玲一起比较，无论文字艺术还是情感生活。文学成就方面偶就表添乱了，单就只作为两个女人来比：一个天真清淡的感性，一个聪明计算的理性，也是没的可比。就算才情类似，所处环境、遭遇的人也大有不同，却都是值得同情怜惜的人。

其中有一篇文字，有人即已承认萧红的爱是愚蠢的却仍赞她敢爱能爱，敢承受任何牺牲，并且还有一句：假定我是男人，我情愿跟萧红笑闹一夜，也不同张爱玲喝一年咖啡...可恨的...

那么尊严呢？在萧红短暂的一生中，在她与三个男人的爱情中，她的尊严从来都是被践踏的。

第一个男人曾与她订婚，但萧红莫名其妙地跟另外一个男人出走了，过了一段时间再回头找这位未婚夫，被对方家人逐出门外。这未婚夫也似是个有情有意的，把萧红安置到一个地方，两人同居数月，等到萧红的肚子渐渐大起来时，未婚夫突然无影无踪了，结合整个事件来看，简直像个有预谋的报复。但是，就算是一个报复，仍比萧红后来遇到的男人对她还要好一些，起码这个男人给她留下的是一个谜团，而不是确凿的侮辱与冷漠。

第二个男人是萧军，很多文章喜欢把他的形象描写得很正面，与反面的端木蕻良做对比。萧红曾一天天地在家里喝白开水充饥等萧军,而萧军哪天终于挣到钱,带回大列巴(俄式面包),倍儿高兴,坐在她对面津津有味地吃,吃到最后一口:哎哟,太对不起了,你吃吧。他把萧红给忘了。还有一次，萧红的脸上有一块青肿，朋友问她怎么了，她说是跌伤的，萧军冷笑道，别不要脸了，什么跌伤的，还不是我昨天喝醉了打的。一个文明的男人，怎么能说出这样的话？粗暴地撕下那女子最后一点遮掩，冷酷的语言比拳脚伤害更重。

至于端木，就更不用说了，他对于萧红的文字都轻视。他当着她的朋友的面，读她写的关于鲁迅先生的文章，鄙夷地笑个不停：这也值得写，这有什么好写？对于一个以文字为生命的女子，这伤害可想而知，要是别人这么说，还可以对他的有眼无珠一笑了之，偏偏这个人，是她无法忽略的丈夫。

这就是好多人眼中有血有肉，可歌可泣的萧红的爱情！这样失掉尊严的悲惨爱情不要也罢！红颜都薄命，才女们的情路没有太平坦的。但像萧红这样悲惨境地的却也实在不多。别用一个傻字抵消了全部，一个女人在感情上不够决绝，不够果断，到头来是一定会被吃定的。每一个男人都看出她不会跑掉。好，你不肯残忍地对待自己，别人就会残忍地对待你。她总是过高滴评价着这些男人对她的爱，真有这种无私吗？错，不是东风压倒西风就是西风压倒东风，只要有可能，总有人试图去占据上风。两度怀着前一个男子的孩子和另一个男子恋爱的萧红真的一点都看不明白吗？自然不可能。她太想依赖于别人，太贪恋那么一点点的爱，为了这一点的温暖甚至可以让敏感的心装作麻木，哪怕失掉尊严，也不肯独自站在天地之间。

到最后弥留之际，萧红才真的看个清楚，写道：平生遭尽白眼，身先死，不甘、不甘。真不知道怎么还有人会对这样的爱情遭遇大加褒扬。

有时偶也会想，也许是萧红碰到的男人都不好吧？那么张爱玲呢？说到底女人的幸福是跟其对待感情的态度有关？还是根本不用挣扎，坐等命运的安排更好呢？可悲的是，起码从这完全迥异的两个人身上，偶们看到一样的结局。还好，后者还有尊严。当然，这个就是另一个话题了。

只是朱颜改——白鹿上书院，图片转自闹闹

Proof that religion can potentially leave you brain damaged

2008-05-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

Move over Tom Cruise and your silly Scientology remarks.

In Cannes, Sharon Stone said of "karma" when asked about her thoughts of Si Chuan earthquake, in her heightened dramatic voice.

So Sharon, since your "good friend" Dalai Lama didn't teach you what exactly Karma means, let me try to get your head straight. Karma, is the consequence of actions in the interrelated world. So if you spill hate on some people and that comes back to you, that's Karma. Earthquake has nothing to do with human actions. If you really want to stretch it, 9/11, the hideous hate crime partly as a result of the U.S. foreign policy, or so they claimed, or hurricanes, many amplified by global warming caused by human society, scientists say, could be asked of "Is that karma?" But that wouldn't be right, since those who suffered had nothing to do with the causing actions. But, even Sharon Stone wouldn't be brain-damaged enough to pontificate such in public.

Now with those remarks, Chinese people would possibly detests films acted or produced by Ms Stone. That would be karma. Then again, when does Sharon Stone ever have any film worth watching?

Update: Stone apologized and Dior retracted her ads. Is that Karma? Wink, wink.

毛主席看了会不高兴

2008-05-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

呵呵偶忍不住英俊地笑了起来。

看了几篇关于萧红的评论，就想起前一阵在南方周末看到的葛浩文专访。找来细读，却发现有趣的一段。你想，一个新闻话题里能同时出现两个或两个以上的酷词趣词，实在是让人手痒，遂贴过来一笑——

葛浩文，美国汉学家，目前英文世界地位最高的中国文学翻译家。曾被美国作家约翰-厄普代克誉为中国文学首席且惟一接生婆。他的翻译清单包括萧红、陈若曦、白先勇、李昂、张洁、杨绛、冯骥才、古华、贾平凹、李锐、刘恒、苏童、老鬼、王朔、莫言、虹影、阿来、朱天文、朱天心等。葛浩文还曾主编中国大陆当代短篇小说译文集，书名有趣，叫《毛主席看了会不高兴》。

上面摘自南方周末的报道文字中加粗的部分，都属于让人忍不住要坏笑大笑的新语词。
好吧偶预备做两件事，一是用“首席接生婆”做几道造句练习，一是不管喜欢不喜欢，要对隔壁摔锅晓之以理动之以情：你如果老是睡的晚起太早的话，毛主席看了会不高兴的。

天涯观察：王石事件乱弹 {Unthreading a donation episode}

2008-05-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

[English summary]
{On Tianya, issues around an donation episode were hotly debated. Comments from Wang Shi, president and CEO of WanKe, a leading real estate company, irritated the online community. Wang's claim that the company's donation of RBM 2m to the Earchquake relief was adequate and his employees shouldn't be burdened with donations in excess of 10 Yuan was vehemently refuted. His remarks met not only contempt but also verbal abuses. At the core of the debate seemed also lie the differences of the starting points of the two sides. While Mr Wang mainly viewed quake donation as public relation and business lubricating strategy, like any other donation before, netizens demanded real philanthropy matching the real magnitude of the disaster.

It's easy to dismiss the episode as collectivism thinking vestige. Americans would be puzzled and appalled by the moral reprimand of not donating enough. However, like many things in China, it goes more complicate than that. One has to unthread the rapidly changing social structure puzzle to fully understand the underlying cause. The real estate giants in China, where not long ago all real estate property rights belongs to the state, are big beneficiaries of the changing system that short changes ordinary people in favor of development. No real estate developer, especially those established from early stage of economic reform, can confidently claim it never received favorism or bended the system. It is thus more understandable that the public who get the short end of the reform stick demand more social responsibility from those new riches. The social divide and sense of higher justice induce the easy venting verbal attack.

The recent Wang Shi episode reflects two major issues China faces: the rule of law and education failure.}

最近因为地震，多去了几次天涯。发现那里最红的，就是王石捐款事件。当然说讨论算好听了，更多的是公干。该如何评判这一事件的双方？像所有中国的事一样，一句话两句话说不清楚，必须剥开蚕丝的看。

王石者，万科房产的董事长。因为登山等活动也成了公众人物。万科捐200万，以及后来的追加措施都是以公司的名义，其实非个人行为，王的一番言论却使大众的矛头指向个人。美国人基本是看不懂的，连我也略感糊涂。不管是9/11还是Katrina, 美国人从来没有对任何公司或个人有道义上的要求。捐款本是自愿的事，就算王某发表了一些不合时宜的看法，为什么会引来恶语相向？美国人大概也就耸耸肩。是什么让这么多网民觉得骂人和施加语言暴力是天经地义的事，就算报纸评论也站在网民一边，认为“逼捐”有理？

双方看起来你来我回争论相当热闹，但我并不确定他们从一开始就知道双方的要义。王以企业家的精明睿智提出的负担论显然指的是捐款作为企业形象策略社会关系润滑的作用，不然何来负担二字？而网民所要求的则是发自内心震撼的慈善；虽然说的都是捐款。唾沫横飞于网民而言集体主义的潜意识，极强的民族归属感都是因素，但更深层的道德推断原因还是来自制度。中国房地产业从土地国有开始，其发展盈利无不拜制度所赐。万科作为早期进入市场的企业，更是享受了近乎垄断的制度利租得以资本积累。十有八九在它发展的某个时期'bend the system'过。在制度改革中拿面包棍短端的普通民众自然对类似企业的社会责任有更高的要求。当然这话题能得到持续关注也不排除有商业竞争因素，在现在中国的网络环境里这并不奇怪。

可是集体无意识语言暴力又怎么解释呢？从一个方面来说，这是民众对权力弱小的变相发泄。从另一方面，这也是一种教育失败。实事上这种语言暴力让他们在有些貌似正确的时候在外人看来很显幼稚。

震后种种道德争论到底反映了什么问题呢。作为爱因斯坦的葱白者，我们能不能找到一个中国目前最关键的问题？爱因斯坦的e=mc2一个重要的魅力就是简洁，在相对论之后老头子把生命的后大半辈子耗在了寻找说明宇宙规律的单一的理论上。也许我们同样找不到单一的答案。看起来教育失败和法制欠缺是两个不错的候选者。这两者却像双胞胎，很难fe分开。

以法治国在任何时代都很诱人。问题是rule of law需要巨大的运行成本（数数美国的律师人数），而且法可能被少数人或集团劫持。在秦就变成了苛政。孔子提出的补充办法是用道德用仁。道德仁治也需要成本。古代的皇帝可不那么容易当，他不仅要处处作道德的表范才能全民向德，还要时不时受太傅御史们的批评，从而影响精英政治团体到普通民众。而现在这个系统打破之后，法治需要填充的各个领域基础既不结实也没有支付巨大成本的准备。教育失败也体现在在执行法和运用法上，让法治更遇阻力。

比较美国和中国的网上政治辩论是件很有意思的事。美国人喜欢举例引证，左右猛拳但从不摘下手套。中国网民则更辩证，热烈之中带着深深的愤世嫉俗。两国人都对政府抱有健康的不信任，但美国人更主动check the facts, 中国网民相对比相互间更“信任”，人云亦云起哄跟风更多。这很大程度上也和我们的教育有关系。中国的学校里比较少注重列参考书目，校对注明出处。美国则从小更注重这方面的习惯训练。中国的网络上不需要芭蕉扇都能飞出五百里。

担至少在self-reference上大家是一样。在西方从九零年代开始有条格言叫Godwin's law: 随着网络争论时间的持续，用纳粹或希特勒来做比较的概率是百分之百。这句话在中文网络同样适用--只需要把纳粹改成红卫兵。这个词也被一些支持王石的人所使用。到最后人们总是回到自己最熟悉的环境和历史。

The media coverage and the compassion fatigue

2008-05-22T20:57:00.001-07:00

The media coverage of the Si Chuan earthquake has been, for the most part, excellent. It was said that was due in part to the increased transparent of the government. The most exposure though, was in press and on-line, rather than on TV - at least from what I've seen. NPR did some splendid cover also, I've heard.

I'm not sure how the difference in media affected the donation. For me, the printing press coverage had the distinctive advantage of not only covering the "news" but also paying more attention to the "stories", which was more detailed in description than average Chinese news coverage.

According to released numbers so far, donation from the U.S. is estimated to be in the above $30 millions range. It is a far cry from the Tsunami response, which had Mr Bush and many prominent celebrities go on TV pleading pledge and generate about $1.3B. At least, Aids to China far exceeded that to Burma, which adds up to $12.1m so far, partly due to large number of Chinese diaspora in the U.S. in addition to the transparency issue.

A.P. contributed the relatively small response to compassion fatigue. However, I think other explanations merit consideration also: #. American Economy is in a slump. #. Election primary takes away people's attention. #. Many Americans think Chinese government, if not people, is now rich and should be able to handle it on their own. After all, the U.S. owes more than a trillion to the Chinese government. #. Some people just don't like or care Chinese government or in extension people much.

Whichever is the reason, or a combination of some, is anybody's guess. You can draw it on your own.

Hooters and the cultural deficit

2008-05-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

A moment of silence for the perished.

Now something more light-hearted.

If you go to the Beijing Olympics this summer, you can not only taste a slice of China but also find comfort in...hooters, which opened last year. Where else can you find a lame place where waitresses dancing to 80s pop songs like YMCA? Not even in America.

The fact that Beijing has the Hooters and the Hooters hasn't met much objection is not surprising, given the extremely pro-business regulation there and not much else. To quote some Chinese hooters girl, "In China, there aren't many feminists". Besides, sexual content in restaurant and entertainment business isn't exactly new in China's homegrown industry. In fact, I recently find that China has legitimized soft-porn industry too, only under the disguise of fine art nude photography.

A somewhat more interesting question is why the homegrown businesses have to feel the need of keeping sexual undertone somewhat underground but the foreign incorporated firm can trumpet sexuality (We don't find any 奶子饭店，do we?). Well, that requires smart marketing, self regulation and corporate standard. Like many things in China, there's regulation swap in work - yielding profits to foreign firms in exchange for better regulation and business practice.

I'm a bit surprised that Hooters is able to marketing itself as "American Spirit". But maybe not. The so called cultural deficit has been huge for China. To get a grip on this, you only needs to walk into a Chinese book store and an American Barns&Nobles. The amount of translated American publications along with its original version is huge. The same can't be said about Chinese books. (Hong Huang mentioned about this also in her recent msnbc interview.)

So the real interesting question is: Are they really able to understand the U.S. through watching American TV soaps and going to Hooters? On the second thought, maybe not, seeing how many people think Sex and City represents typical America. Shanghaiist has a very interesting, though a bit old, interview of a Chinese college hooters girl who was encouraged to worked there by her parents, who though hooters represent American value of "passionate and friendly", like..."mayflowers". It confirms also the genius-ness of South Park. Just like in Raisin, customers who want to flirt are encouraged to "come back".

At least, unlike Hooters in America, Hooters Beijing doesn't have DVDs of hooter girls for sale. Then again, they are unlikely to find so many double-Ds in China too. In other words, not much "hooters"*.

*hooters is American slang for breasts.

去了趟江湖

2008-05-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

生活还是美好的。

风波庄——网络人气饭店，慕名去的。

一踏进门，就遭遇一声“英雄女侠里面请！”虽说事先备了功课，可还是忍不住笑将起来。直径往里走，随即被身着蓝布粗衣的店小二引至最里面的一张桌。抬头一望，壁上赫然几个浓黑大字：“江南七怪”。想想偶们顶多也就算三怪嘛。
刚刚坐定，小二上茶：“女侠，小二给您上碗功夫茶”，去洗个手听到吆喝一声“请您金盆洗手”...过来一位笑容满面的红色唐衫男子，一开口先是来了句“不好意思，让各位久等了”。偶们笑嘻嘻的等他介绍,此人自称二庄主，随即开始向我们说明点餐规矩——不点菜，店家全权代劳，不满意者可换可退。同伴说：这就是自虐来的，给啥吃啥。有一斯斯文文的眼镜小二哥过来一抱拳“三位，招呼不周，请多多包涵！”随后的等菜期间，又有两位小二哥前后过来打招呼，大意也是有招呼不周的地方请多包涵之类的，颇有意思。

大力丸。小二说：江湖规矩一人一个，大侠乘热吃，凉了就没功力了，果真很够力，一个象外面糯米，里面夹肉糜，中间藏咸蛋黄的大丸子，好实在啊，吃一个就半饱了，顿感“功力”大增...吃了还想再吃，却被告知不能破坏江湖规矩，要想再吃，只能下次来时再点。后面上的菜也都有一些好玩的名字。对了，白米饭叫“黯然销魂饭”，面条叫“一阳指”。期间叫了小二添茶，小二回头一扯嗓子：“江南七怪要加功夫茶！”汗死！

小二们的服务态度真是不错，每上一个菜都会扯着嗓子在那里吆喝，诸如“光明顶的秘制猪手！”，“丐帮的叫化鸭！”“少林派的口水鱼！”答声整齐而响亮“好嘞！”真的是相当相当滴敬业！同伴既然被当作了英雄，也就生出几分英雄气概，竟然高喊“店里可有蒙汗药？”，惹得旁边光明顶的几位侠士频频发笑，小二瞪眼就跑掉了。

同伴要的餐巾纸送来时被换作“无字天书”，调羹是“小李飞刀”，筷子是双节棍。一个小二对门口二庄主说去送外卖，二庄主居然说：“江湖险恶，快去快回... ”最后江南三怪收了二庄主发的“英雄贴”，怀踹找回的碎银子伴着所有的小二朗朗送客声——“青山不改，绿水常流，后会有期，恕不远送”,飘然而去...

这一趟江湖行就像进了《武林外传》中的同福客栈，满足了偶们的江湖情结。嗯，一次愉快的经历。

China Mourns

2008-05-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

People across China observed 3 minutes of blaring silence (very moving Youtube Video) at exactly one week mark of the earth quake, to be followed by 3 days of national mourning. I'm not sure it's inappropriate to talk about hooters at this time or not, but I decide to pull a earlier post for later.

Internet rules
A report emerges about how a college student who was originally from the hilly disaster zone helped military to find a copter landing area by posting on an online forum. She recalled a flat-top high ground behind her friend's house. The posted information finally caught authority's attention after being widely circulated by the online community. Internet rules.

CCTV Benefit Concert
It's not much of a concert. I caught a glimpse of it through pplive. It almost left me wonder if one had to donate in order to be invited, or the other way around, i.e. if you were invited you were required to contribute. It had an eerie feel of taxation. But hey, if it helped the donation drive I ain't complaining.

Another noticeable contrast was between the TV presenters and ordinary people from SiChuan - heroes and victims of the earthquake. I sometimes had difficulty in comprehending what did people mean when they said someone in the media of being "not real". I sort of saw it here. The TV presenters - I'm not doubting their heart-felt sorrow or patriotic urge, it just came off that way - appeared as corny as hell despite their empathetically emotional, poem-reciting style.

In contrast, those invited special guests - from army generals to school children - couldn't be more real. Some of them were stoic and resolute, some vulnerable, some feisty. Others were uncomfortable showing emotions on the TV, like the daughter of the teacher who gave up life in order to protect his students. However, all of them are very genuine and plain touching.

Notes to CCTV presenters: such disaster and natural outflow of emotions need little embellishment or fanfare. Keep it real.

The damning science of quake prediction
Probably taking the extra caution, and responding to the criticism of not able to warn about the risk of earthquake, the government issued an unusual aftershock warning(said of 6-7 Richet Scale) in SiChuan.

Before that, many people were critical towards the seismic department, arguing that it should be more aggressive toward warnings, even if the evidence was not strong enough.

This time, the warning was issued. Cities, including mega cities like Chendu and Chongqing, turned into sleepless chaos. But the actual quake never came, except a mild aftershock in remote WuPing.

It really highlights the dilemma in quake prediction. (read one of the novel prediction method here) I'm no expert in seismic science, far from it. But I suspect quake prediction is a bit like any statistical prediction. It subjects to two errors, type-I and type-II error. one comes from the error in rejecting the hypothesis that a quake is coming, another comes from the error in rejecting the hypothesis that a quake isn't coming. Under normal circumstances, the second assumption is the operating norm, otherwise a society couldn't function properly. That's one of the reason an earthquake is rarely predicted, along with the low predicting power of the science.

Now under the operating assumption that a (following) shock is coming, it takes more to reject the hypothesis. The resulting chance of warning, as oppose to under the no-quake pre-assumption, is bigger. This is what I suspect of the most recent warning. Unfortunately, the probability that warning doesn't materialize also increases. You run the risk of throwing people's lives into mayhem and stressing them out.

ultimately the best use of seismic research is probably in long-run prediction, much like in stock market research - even though you can't generally predict the short-run price movement, but you can have an idea of the long term direction. So appropriate building codes etc can be set up and enforced accordingly.

It's no easy business.

Death Won't Do Us Apart

2008-05-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

{Poem reading dedicated to victims of the earthquake}

生死不离，
你的梦落在哪里
想着生活继续天空失去美丽，你却等待明天站起
无论你在哪里，我都要找到你
血脉能创造奇迹你的呼喊就刻在我的血液里
生死不离，
我数秒等你消息
相信生命不息我看不到你，你却牵挂在我心里
无论你在哪里，我都要找到你
血脉能创造奇迹搭起双手筑城你回家的路基
生死不离，全世界都被沉寂痛苦也不哭泣
爱是你的传奇，彩虹在风雨后升起
无论你在哪里，我都要找到你
血脉能创造奇迹你一丝希望是我全部的动力

Pulse of a Nation

2008-05-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

[tracking the disaster and rescue]
"There was an earthquake" she said, "I'm feeling dizzy." We were talking on the MSN. She's in Northern China.

We joked about it.

Only to be shocked by the headline on New York Times when I woke up the next morning. CNN, BBC news, Washington post, I began to check on all kinds of English language news. The numbers of casualties were all over the place. But the information was sporadic. Before long, clutchfans, a bbs I visit regularly, has a thread running about the updates. Someone then pointed me to Shanghaiist. Shanghaiist? Is that even a correct word? I've always thought people from Shanghai were called Shanghainese. Or was that Shanghainite? But the folks there did a really good job of updating the situation in the confusing hours until..until they were too dead tired to do so.

Numbers continued to rise. Hundreds, thousands, 7000, close to 10,000, more than 20,000...Numbers were cold, it numbed you after a while. The early pictures and videos though, many of which were taken by ordinary people in the affected region, helped putting on a human face.

I could then understand why 24 hour cable news could have markets. Trying to find out the fate of people could be addictive. My appetite for coverage couldn't be satisfied by the English-language news no more. I began to search out Chinese sources.

[Finest moments]
Chinese websites responded very quickly. The culture of bbs came in handy also. Citizen reporters on sites delivered painful details or heartwarming stories to supplement the reporting from official media, which was very open and responsive this time.

I wandered to baidu postbar and tianya, the usually raucous places. People were mostly discussing the news and how to help. Some set up online vigils to pray for the victims. Still, some were arguing vehemently, but mostly because they were so stressed by the tragedy and were thinking out loud how to better. What happened in Sichuan grabbed everybody's mind.

BY this time, Shanghaiist had relayed the news that Red Cross China opened a call for donation. But the website was down when I tried to get on. It was overwhelmed by millions of people trying to get there. Thankfully it went back up later, for a while. (I later learned you can directly donate through Red Cross Hong Kong also. )

（On Tianya, the age-old Chinese attitude toward the riches were on display also, as many people hold donating in proportion to their ability as the moral responsibility of the new riches.)

The calamity was sickening. The outpouring of support was touching. The blood banks all over the country were filled in a day after the call for blood drive. There were these rescuers who walked 90 kms on foot overnight in order to reach the epicenter. There was that 13 year old boy who dig 4 hours by hand to save his classmates. There was these student who was trapped inside the collapsed structure, encouraging each other and singing under the debris to keep the hope of life. Every passing of ambulances brought loud cheers because that meant another life was saved.

My co-blogger helped packed her friend's truck with food and supplies. Her friends was to drive all the way down to the disaster area and volunteer there.

So I leave myself with this question: can we actually find encouragement and solace during such natural disaster? I believe we can. Cuddling together, Chinese people show they are strong and resilient in face of calamity. They show they care for one another, as a nation, more than ever. They show they are capable. The rescue and relief effort, like any human endeavor, is not going to be perfect, and grief will forever be etched in our heart. But this is also China's finest moment, and can potentially be the defining moment, as a modern nation.

some quotes:

All I want to say is: your livelihood are from people; so you decide (what to do). --PM Wenjiabao to rescuers and soldiers about to begin effort

Please, I'm begging you, let me go to save another, I can save one more.
-- A firefighter upon being ordered to temporary withdraw during the after-shock

Please spare my legs (from amputation), I will need them to take care of my parents when I grow up -- A rescued pupil before going to the surgery

I was very cold and hungry. I had to keep on reading to relieve my fear
-- A rescued school girl describing her 40 hours in debris with her book and flashlight

There is no Beichuan county any more
-- A member of Red Cross assessment team