Walking the Path

From Time’s China Blog:

“Perhaps the most profound insight into harmony I’ve heard recently came a few weeks ago during a party in the Beijing courtyard where I live. My neighbor Feng, a postal worker with a lazy eye and unerring sense of humor, had consumed an inharmonious amount of baijiu, the official firebrew of China. Late into the evening he stood up and announced: “The Beijing government is always talking about building a harmonious society, but we already have a harmonious society right here in this courtyard!” The assembled guests roared their approval. A few minutes later Feng puked in the corner, and our celebration of harmony was over for the night.”

It’s the end of my third day here and things have been going amazingly well so far.  Winnie and I have just be spending time with her family and doing lots of shopping. The one I’ve felt since I’ve been here is that I have gone back to square one when it comes to speaking the language.

First let me say that most people here speak Mandarin or English, so I’m not having a difficulty here, but I am finding it an interesting experience.  It’s triggering memories of my first days in China when I didn’t really know what was going on because I couldn’t really follow what everyone said and I was constantly wondering what people were saying and did I make the right choice to come to the country. This time, I’ve got all the wonder but none of the worries. Everything is going great with Winnie’s family and I am understanding more of the language as I spend more time in the stores and with Cantonese speakers. Most importantly, I am more patient about things now. I know the world is not going to end if I have to work a bit to understand what is going on. Plus people are really patient with me — they’re happy enough that I can speak pretty good Mandarin. So it’s not hard to stay patient.

I can’t say that is the same for most of the non-Cantonese speakers here. Tonight, Winnie and I were at Happy Lemon, a tea stand, near my hotel. There was a Mandarin speaker ahead of us in line. I’m not sure where she was from in China, from her accent, it sounded like maybe she was from Beijing. Anyway, the woman was acting really impatient — there was a lot of people around the stand waiting for their tea. Most of them were Cantonese so the Happy Lemon stay were just speaking the numbers in Cantonese and so the woman was sticking her receipt out every time a number was called hoping it was hers.

Since there was two or three people ahead of her, she had to wait for a while. After we were there for about five minutes she started to get really angry. Yelling at the staff for her tea. The staff were really good, they told her in Mandarin to calm down and be patient and then took her receipt and a minute later passed the woman her tea. I don’t think that we could see this happening Shanghai. The staff would just yell at the person and the person would probably just yell back.

That’s the other thing that impresses me about Guangzhou, the service in shops and the restaurants are excellent. The service people really understand the idea of a market economy and that they have to work to earn people’s business. Not so in Shanghai were a lot of people in little shops will just sit there and complain if you don’t think the goods are good or ask for a different color.

I’m really not looking forward to go back to Shanghai — after the last couple of days I’d rather just move to Guangzhou.

J.

I read an interesting article today in China Daily. The article entitled “Mooncakes acquire networking flavor” it tells how mooncakes have become a favourite way for businesses to keep in touch with business contacts and clients:

“We send presents to our clients during the Mid-Autumn Festival, rather than the Spring Festival,” said Elsa Wang, who works for a public relations firm in Beijing. The company started budgeting months earlier and has been delivering mooncakes as early as a month ago.

“It doesn’t matter how much a package costs…. Mooncakes are the best way to say: Let us keep in touch.”

Lin Jian, a guest writer on the Financial Times Chinese website, wrote that the consumption of mooncakes has one simple purpose – to maintain relationships.

I don’t know if mooncakes are the best way to keep in touch, but I know that I’ve received about RMB 1,000 worth (US$ 120) worth of mooncakes and mooncake certificates in the last two weeks (that I shared with my colleagues — our company followed tradition and gave employees mooncake certificates) so they certainly are popular.

J.

I found a story in the China Daily today that says China’s Ministry of Public Security is going to monitor the behaviour of police officers in the host cities for the 2008 Olympics in an effort to ensure good service for visitors during the Olympic Games.

“Spearheaded by the Ministry of Public Security, the campaign will assess the behavior of on-duty officers, particularly those working in public areas and policing large-scale events.”

I’m all for better public services so this sounded like a great idea to me until I read this part:

“”If a member of the public sees a police officer smoking, eating or chatting on duty – all of which are regarded as harmful to the image of the police – they can report them by dialing 110,” Jia Chunming, vice-director of the police affairs supervision division of the Beijing municipal public security bureau, told reporters at the launch of the compaign.”

110 for those readers not living in China is the country’s equivalent of 911. Now if people are calling 110 to report rude cops that is reducing the efficiency of the police dispatch system and therefore reducing public services. So how does that help the people. In a country where new public complaint hotlines open every month you think they could create one for rude cops. That would really ensure this project improves China’s level of public service.

J.

1) According to Simon Elegant at Times’ China Blog, activist Yuen Wenjing tried to escaped her village where she is under house arrest. The local police caught her and now she is confined to her home. Regular readers know that I’ve been following this case rather closely. In my opinion this is just another case of why the Olympics aren’t improving human rights in China they are just making things worse (of course this probably would have happened even without the Olympics.

2) ESWN has a post on what he called White-Collar Photo Gate. You can read the full story by clicking the link. But here is a short summary: a female administrative staff member at Swedish home appliance manufacturer Electrolux, Jessica Shi Jing, was revealed to be the woman in a number of nude and lingere-clad photos that were found in the password-protected online photo album of an American businessman named Robert Kulgar. This lead to a number of Chinese bloggers to invoke nationalist tendencies and claiming that the woman was a whore and the American should be hunted down and deported. The opinions grew to such a fever pitch that the Chinese media took interest and when they called Electrolux to see if Ms. Shi was available for an interview, they found out she’d gone on medical leave due to mental pressure.

Some of the comments posted by Chinese bloggers about this case include (from ESWN):

“The problem with Shi Jing is not that she posed nude, or she had intercourse with someone. There are so many Japanese adult video girls, but why should any normal person scold them? Shi Jing’s problem was that ‘she wants to look aloof in front of her compatriots, but she acts like a dog in front of foreigners’.”

“Let us unite all our powers and find out the true identity of this foreigner.”

My opinion is this is silly and a woman’s choice (whether you see it as a mistake or not) is being used as an excuse to invoke nationalistic rhetoric against foreigners living in China. The thing is the people in this story are both adults. Even if the woman regrets it now, she consented to the pictures — that includes the nude ones, so I don’t think the foreigner tricked her into it (I can’t comment on the fact that she acts like a dog in front of foreigners). And to be honest all those people posting nationalistic comments on this issue should settle down — there are enough mixed couples in China that this should not be a big deal anymore to most people (at least in the major cities). Trying to go and hunt down the woman or man involved in this issue just makes China and its people look really intolerant. That’s not an image you want to promote when you’re trying to invite the world to your capital for the Olympics in about 11 months time.

That’s my two cents.

J.

There’s an update on Time’s China blog about kidnapped detained dissident Yuan Weijing. According Simon Elegent, she was taken back to Shandong province by her local village police force who has again put her under house arrest. Score another point for the local corrupt officials.

J.

I just listened to a really good episode of BBC Radio 4′s In Our Time. It focused on China’s Opium Wars that lead to the British seizing Hong Kong and treaty ports in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and other coastal cities The theory of the three historians on the program was that the Chinese really didn’t view the treaty ports as a bad thing at first because it made trade with foreign countries easier and at the same time it helped to modernize China. Only in the 20th century when nationalism started to appear as part of the Republican movement did China really start to consider the British takeover of Hong Kong and the treaty ports as a “humiliation”. This view was used by the Communists as well and is really ingrained in Chinese culture at the moment. So much so that when foreign governments come to talk to the Chinese about human rights, the Chinese ask “What right do you have to tell me about human rights? You didn’t respect our human rights during the Opium Wars and the century of unequal treaties (the treaty ports).”

I tend to agree with the first view that there was some positive things to come out of the Opium Wars and the treaty ports. I know it’s controversial, but I can see the effects of the treaty ports all around me in Shanghai. The way people do business, the fact that they are open to new foreign goods and ideas (a trend that really took off during the Opium wars) not to mention the architecture. Shanghai is in fact a city that most foreigners who live here say is not a part of China, because it is so modern and different compared to the interior of China.

The biggest effect of the treaty ports though can be seen in their location. All the ports were in Eastern and Southern China. Today those areas are where China’s economic boom started and were it is currently booming the biggest.

J.

I hadn’t planned to update this space until tomorrow, but this piece at Time’s China blog got me writing early. Yuan Weijing, the wife of jailed blind activist Chen Guangcheng, who is jail for four years for protesting the application of China’s one-child policy in his village in Shangdong province was “detained” yesterday at the Beijing airport as she was trying to fly to the Phillipines to receive a human rights award on behalf of her husband. According to Simon Elegent of Time’s Beijing Bureau she had a valid passport and visa.

I’ve never really trusted the application of human rights laws by officials in China, but kidnapping detaining somebody at a customs checkpoint takes away whatever faith I have left.

Very disturbing thoughts for the weekend.

J.

I thought I’d created the China-focused version of Nerd World, but it looks like this guy beat me to it.

J.

I’ve spent this week watching CNN’s Count Down To Beijing Series everyday before I go to work. And I’ve been impressed by their coverage of the construction boom, the displacement of people and the pollution and environmental problems. What I think has been lacking though is the coverage of the fact that Beijing hasn’t really been living up to its promise of press freedom. In fact on Monday morning, Kristie Lu Stout was talking about how the press was able to work more openly here. But coverage from Imagethief and Richard Spencer plus a host of other media show that isn’t the case. Why oh Why is CNN not putting in its two cents?

J.